Open access in Vietnam

Open Access in Vietnam; Vietnam has shown efforts to facilitate open access resources with initiatives in S&T, education, and R&D sectors. Vietnam Book Initiative is a project started by Vietnam Education Foundation Fellows Association (VEFFA) to build a network of open-access science and engineering libraries in Vietnam in collaboration with local universities. The higher education system in Vietnam consists of 322 universities and colleges of which 47 were private in the 2006-2007 academic year. Vietnam Journal Online is an initiative that allows readers to access scientific knowledge published in Vietnam with 57 journals of open access and is maintained by Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam. National Centre for Scientific and Technological Information, Vietnam (NACESTI) has been working towards a national network of S&T information service organizations. NACESTI has the mandate to carry out S&T information activities, disseminate and promote S&T and R&D projects. On January 20, 2010, the Vietnam Foundation and the Online Management Training Company signed an Agreement for Cooperation to promote the use and development of Open Educational Resources (OER) at the enterprise level and national level. National Agency for Science and Technology Information (NASATI) has VINAREN (Vietnam Research & Education Network) connecting to the regional and international research and education networks in order to improve the effectiveness and promote the international cooperation and integration in the field of research and education.
As of May 2015, there is one OA repository from Vietnam which is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR) - National University of Ho Chi Minh.
Enabling Environment
Since Internet penetration and technology diffusion are slow in Vietnam, the environment is not yet conducive to develop and exchange open data in the public domain. There is at present no national OA policy in place and no funders' mandates for OA publishing.The policies and programmes of the government need to work to promote the open content to support open scholarship.
The Vietnamese government policies in recent years claim to support the decentralization of government accountability, and the participation of the poor in policy making; the government supports the decentralization of knowledge. Over the past decade, individual institutions have promoted access to the Official and Authenticated Legal Information to the public. This has brought a new approach of free and open access to legal information via the internet. To promote and disseminate science and technology and research and development projects, the Vietnamese ministries and associations have developed OA projects and encouraged OA activities. For instance, Vietnam Education Foundation Fellow Association has implemented the Vietnam Book Initiative to build a network of OA science and engineering libraries in Vietnam in collaboration with local universities.
Potential Barriers
Internet connectivity especially for rural areas is poor. Developing local content in Vietnamese language is major concern to promote open content. Use of different software for databases and adherence to no general standard leads to problems of interoperability. Lack of English language proficiency hinders content creation or accessing and utilizing openly available content. The government has passed laws to try to control what information can be published and read on the internet, and certain sites that are critical of the Vietnamese government are censored. Although OA journal sites would not be restricted, it could be changed anytime because of inconsistent enforcement of law.
Areas of focus
* IT infrastructure; increased internet broadband width and speed
* Skilled ICT professionals who can maintain OA repositories and online OA journals
* OA repositories where the interface is the local language
* Training/ workshops for researchers to encourage self-archiving practices
* National and institutional OA policies and funders' mandates.
Past and Future OA related Activities
Feb/March 2013 - The Springer Author Academy organized an author workshop in Vietnam National University and the Vietnam Academy for Science and Technology's Institute of Tropical Biology. These workshops brought Springer's writing and publishing expertise to a vast Vietnamese audience and encouraged academicians to share high-quality research which is being produced locally.
List of Publications
Hung, T.B. (2002). Digital Library Development in Vietnam.

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