Introduction

Syrian researchers publish in international OA periodicals. For instance, in 2013, there have been 22 research articles published with BioMed Central – an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine), pioneer in the OA publishing model, and among them most viewed articles published by researchers from International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, Damascus University, Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies, and ICARDA.

As of March 2021,No Open Access journals indexed at the moment in DOAJ. There are currently Open Access newsletter: Syrian Studies Association Newsletter and Open Access journals: Syria Archéologie, Art et histoire and Open Access Syrian Archaeology, Also the website of Studia Orontica provides open access to Studia Orontica with six volumes available.

On 30 January 2014, the Center for Syrian Studies (CSS) at University of St Andrews launched a new open access journal named Syria Studies. Syria Studies is a peer reviewed journal that has previously been published in print under the series name St Andrews Papers on Contemporary Syria.

The aim of Syria Studies is to provide a space for scholars and students to publish work focused on the study of modern and contemporary Syria (history, politics, economy, & society).

This OA journal was launched with the vision that Knowledge and research about Syria which is made freely and widely available to those interested in the country’s development is more important than ever if the international community is to help Syria find a peaceful and democratic future. The journal has been indexed in the Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD).

Syria has a very low percentage of its publications available on-line and in Open Access. In the Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR), Syria has only one repository Test Repository includes learning and teaching objects and is using EPrints.

As of March 2021,there are currently no OA mandates registered in ROARMAP.

Enabling Environment

Good Information Communication Technology (ICT) structure and the capital of humans in research. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (2011) the Internet usage in Syria has grown from 30,000 users in the year 2000 to about 4,469,000 million users in 2011. This implies that the current percentage of Syrian population that now have access to the Internet either from public internet cafes, workplace or their homes is 19.8 %.

A recent survey: "Syrian Researchers' Views on Open Access to Information" carried out at Damascus University showed that:

• 40% faculty were worried about intellectual theft/ copyright infringement resulting from OA publishing
• 25% faculty believed that OA published articles were not recognized by their institutes academic committees
• 20% faculty still did not know how to publish in OA
• 10% faculty considered OA publishing to lower the impact of their research
• 5% faculty didn't know how to archive their work

This is evident of the need for OA awareness programmes and workshops to be organized at the local level and should go hand in hand with the improvements in broadband connectivity and other IT infrastructural developments.

Key Organizations

The National Team of the Arabic Digital Content comprised from the Committee of Developing the Arabic Language towards a Knowledge Society, launched initiatives in the fields of knowledge learning, evaluation, and content on the fringe lines of a workshop held in the University of Damascus. These initiatives seek to lay the foundations of an Arabic digital content, and contribute to investing in the field, in the context of a knowledge based economy, the imitative called "Al-Nohoud".

Syria. Archéologie, Art et histoire journal is an open access journal that has been published since 1920 without interruption by the French Institute in the Middle East. It is made available online for all issues starting from 1920 - 2005. The journal is dedicated to the history and archeology of the Semitic Near East (including Cyprus) from prehistory to the Islamic conquest. It publishes articles in all disciplines of this field of research, archeology, epigraphy, history, and art history. The languages used are French, English, German, Italian and Spanish. All items are preceded by a summary in English, French and Arabic.

Publications

• Maha Bali (25 March 2014), "Take Advantage of Open-Access Publishing" posted on blog, www.al-fanarmedia.org . This opinion article discusses views of researchers from the Arab world towards open access publishing.
• Diab MM, Taftaf RMO, Arabi M. Research productivity in Syria: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of current status. Avicenna Journal of Medicine. 2011;1(1):4-7. doi:10.4103/2231-0770.83716.