Needs Assessment Workshop Report

Planning for Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIRs) requires identifying key stakeholders who would support us in realizing the objectives of the project. There are so many layers of work to manage institutional repositories. Universities libraries, research offices, information technology departments, academic departments, university administration work together side by side to make sure that the OAIR process proceeds smoothly and sustainably over time. They share the responsibility of capturing the research output, organizing it and ensuring that long term availability and preservation is maintained, educating the scholars and the researchers about their privileges and rights as the authors of those works, and helping them understand the larger information policy and the copyright issues that touch their works. 

The participants of the workshop were the key stakeholders of the project. We invited them at an early stage of the project, before the actual planning of OAIR models and before implementing or refining them, as we believe their opinion will shape the whole process. Our stakeholders will be incorporated into all aspects of the project, as the work progresses. They would be involved also with us in training sessions and future workshops.

In the first four months of the project, the Palestinian partners conducted two surveys. The first aimed to assess researchers’ current practices, and the second explored institutional support staff capacity.  The four participating institutions include:

• The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG)
• Al-Quds Open University (QOU)
• Birzeit University (BZU)
• Palestine Technical University-Kadoori (KAD)

The EU partners have conducted a survey based on a survey carried out by DCC in 2015, to assess the current practice of Open Access and Research Data Management (RDM) in the UK, Europe, Australia and USA. The four participating institutions include:

• Vienna University of Technology (TUWIEN)
• The University of Parma (PARMA)
• The University of Brighton (BU)
• The University of Glasgow (GLA)

The main objectives of this workshop were as follows:

• To present the findings of a needs assessment survey study that was carried out with researchers and support staff in four Palestinian Higher Education Institutions (PS HEIs) between December 2016 and February 2017.
• To present good practice in establishing RDM and OA services in the European partners universities
• To engage the stakeholders in discussions to identify their requirements, interests or concerns regarding the OAIRs.
• To setup requirements for doing the gab analysis and the road map for Research Data Management in PS partners through OAIRs.