Open Access Scholarly Communication Practices at the University of Zambia

Open access plays a significant role in expanding access by enabling scholars more equitable participation in research and development activities globally. However, little is known about researchers’ awareness and adoption of open access at the University of Zambia. To address this gap, this study investigated open access scholarly communication practices at Zambia’s premier University. Using a survey research design, data were collected from a sample of 67 participants via an online questionnaire. Findings showed that though all (67) of the respondents were aware of open access and were upbeat towards this new form of scholarly communication, 79.1% had used OA platforms more to access scholarly content than to disseminate their own research output while 21.9% used open access publishing models to disseminate their research output. The misapprehension about open access and lack of digital skills were the major barriers to open access adoption. The paper recommends that the open access committee at the University should proactively sensitise the University community on the benefits of open access. This study contributes to the growing literature on scholarly communication practices in Zambia by offering evidence from the University of Zambia