Research and Open Scholarship Services (ROSS)
North-West University Open Access Policy Overview
Open access policies at North-West University are overseen by and are accountable to, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation.
The NWU Open Access Publications Policy and Research Data Management Policy outline a set of guidelines for researchers and students to make their scholarly publications freely accessible online, alongside a system for managing and sharing the underlying research data used to generate those publications, ensuring transparency and reproducibility in research findings by making both the research paper and supporting data readily available to the public.
NWU Open Access Publications Policy |
NWU Policy on the Management of Research Data |
| Regulates the provision of public access to NWU research outputs, including theses and dissertations by master's and doctoral students, journal articles, conference proceedings, books, book chapters, and other types of scholarly publications through the institutional repository (Boloka). | Provides a framework for managing any research data generated in any research study to be made available for use in the NWU-Research Data Repository (DaYta Ya Rona/Figshare) for Open Access use. |
The NWU Open Access (OA) and Research Data Management (RDM) policies play a vital role in enhancing the dissemination of research outputs and research data through institutional repositories. These policies ensure that research publications are freely accessible to a global audience, removing paywalls and increasing visibility, discoverability, and citations. They also align UNESCO and funder mandates (see also NRF) to enable faster dissemination of findings.
RDM policy supports researchers in managing their data by providing clear guidelines on organization, sharing, and preservation, thereby ensuring long-term accessibility and reuse. The policy encourages open data sharing, facilitates reproducibility, and ensures ethical and legal standards compliance.