Making Educational Resources Freely Available: Zimbabwe

The notion of open access is widely understood to entail making research freely usable by all, without cost or legal barriers. Ideally, open access is meant to enable anyone, anywhere in the world to access and read the fruits of academic research absolutely free of charge. This means that “scientists and scholars…publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment and without expectation of payment. In addition, scholars typically participate in peer review as referees and editors without expectation of payment."In this highly dynamic modern environment, the imperative to make knowledge available to everyone who can make use of it, apply it, or build on it is more pressing than ever.
It is important to engage and invest in research as it accelerates the pace of scientific discovery and encourages innovation. It also enriches education and stimulates the economy to improve the public good. Communication of the results of research is therefore, an essential component of the research process. Research can only advance through the sharing its results and the value of an investment in research can only be maximised through the wide use of its results. However, because of cost barriers or use restrictions, research results are not available to the full community of potential users.
The Internet provides an excellent opportunity or platform to bring crucial research information to a worldwide audience at virtually no marginal cost, and allow the use of this information in new, innovative ways. This has resulted in a call for new framework to allow research results to be more easily accessed and used. That framework features open access models or initiatives and digital libraries form an integral part of those initiatives. Digital libraries are part of the mechanisms that provide a suitable platform for the implementation open access initiatives.
Besides open access publishing, digital repositories are also part of the mechanisms that can be

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