Open Access And Open Data Sharing Among Health Sciences Researchers In Nigeria

Objectives: The aim of this study is to access the extent to which open-access publishing and open data sharing are being adopted by health sciences researchers in Nigeria. Specifically, the study focuses on determining: the rate of publication in open-access journals among health sciences researchers; the availability of openly-accessible research data from the health sciences researchers; the proportion of the journals with data availability policy, and the extent of compliance by the researchers; the open data-sharing platforms commonly used by the researchers; and the library services that would be suitable to support the researchers towards adopting Open Science.

Methods: We conducted a literature search for publications in the last five years (2018 - 2023) from Nigerian authors on PubMed. Thereafter, we reviewed the latest 500 publications from Nigerian health sciences researchers as of the date of conducting the literature search. Article types labeled as "reviews" and "systematic reviews" were excluded from the search.

Results:

Conclusions: Data collected from this study are presently being analyzed to draw inferences and conclusions before the MLA annual meeting. Findings from the study are expected to provide a hint about the understanding of African researchers on research data management and open science. This is expected to aid targeted support services from libraries in order to promote research data management and open science in Africa.