Introduction

There is a very active research community in Slovakia which takes place through the universities managed by Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and the network of the Slovak Academy of Sciences each with different approaches to publishing, disseminating and archiving scientific information. The most important scientific institution in the country is the Slovak Center of Scientific and Technical Information. (Source: OpenAIRE ). There are no OA repositories in Slovakia.

DOAJ indexes 4 OA journals for Slovakia. However, “most of them are only available from the web pages of the institutions, which do not have any long-term preservation strategies so they often disappear from institutional websites” (Source: OpenAIRE ).

There is currently only one OA policy registered in ROARMAP.

On February 11, 2015 , the government of Slovak Republic approved the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Action Plan 2015 . It includes OA, open data and open education policies in addition to traditional OGP open government and open justice initiatives. This approach is quite unique and worth being replicated in other countries. The Action Plan commits the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport to create an OA strategy and propose a mechanism for voluntary publication of data related to scientific publications as open data. Ján Gondoľ , Ministry of Interior of the Slovak republic, Office of the Plenipotentiary for the development of civil society and project COMSODE (Components Supporting the Open Data Exploitation), has been a driving force behind this Action Plan and his presentation “OA and Open Educational Resources in Slovakia’s Open Government Partnership Action Plan for year 2015” that provides an introduction to this action plan, its goals and individual commitments is available here (in Slovak language).

Since 2013, the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) serves as the National point of reference for the policy of "Open Access and preservation of scientific information", becoming NOAD for Slovakia in 2015. In 2016 a Contact Office for Open Access was established at SCSTI.

In 2017, the OGP Action Plan for years 2017-2019 was adopted.

Since 2018, SCSTI started providing Open Access courses.

In 2019, the new OGP Action Plan for years 2020-2021 was adopted.

Creative Commons (CC) offers appropriate and applicable legal instruments to support individuals, universities and research institutions in managing copyright in OA projects. The full advantage of CC licenses was hindered in the past because of Slovak legal regulation, today the situation is different. CC licences are compatible with Slovak copyright law.

Enabling Environment

There is a developing OA environment in Slovakia with University of Kniznica in partnership with OpenAIRE and the development of centralised systems that may link to OA initiatives.

Tackling the infrastructure requirements: the potential role of SK-CRIS and national CRIS systems in supporting OA implementation: The level of infrastructure maturity required to effectively enable open access policies implementation has traditionally been based on an OA repository network, where scholars deposit their research outputs as required by the OA policy. Pablo suggested that in the countries, where the repository network is weak or simply not available (like in Slovakia’s case), National Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) may also play a key role in supporting OA policies if appropriately enhanced to do so. SK-CRIS in the Slovak Republic together with pioneering CRIS/repository have also initiated interoperability activities currently taking place in other countries.

Potential Barriers

The Slovak research community is aware of Open Access benefits but is still reluctant to provide Open Access to their publications. The major constraints are that Open Access depositing takes their time and effort. (Source: OpenAIRE )

National and Institutional Level Policies/Mandates

There is no government funding mandate but EU funded research will be subject to OA mandating requirements.

Key Organizations

ETD SK (Electronic Theses and Dissertations Slovakia)

This collecting system operates on two levels. The university or college will provide its own local repository and on the second level will forward metadata by one-off step to the global repository. With the algorithm mentioned above, the set of information will be processed in the system which will thereafter evaluate the input. Presentation of dissertation works to the public depends on the parameters of the license agreement and may include metadata or full texts.

Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SC STI)

Has established a search portal to serve research and development. It is planned to connect this to the portal of the Central Registry of Theses and Dissertations in Slovakia – CRTD Registry and creation of the Slovak citation index, including author index.

University of Kniznica, Bratislava

Is in partnership with OpenAIRE to promote OA and act as a source of information on initiating OA strategies.

Events and Programs

• OPEN SCIENCE TRAINER BOOTCAMP, DEBRECEN, 14 Jan 2019, Debrecen, Hungary

• NATIONAL OPENAIRE WORKSHOP IN SLOVAKIA, 24 Oct 2018, Bratislava, Slovakia

• INFINT Information Interactions 2018, in Slovakia, 23 Oct 2018, Bratislava, Slovakia

• OPENAIRE WORKSHOP IN SLOVAKIA, 23 Oct 2017, Bratislava, Slovakia

• ICT PROPOSERS' DAY 2016, 26 Sep 2016 - 27 Sep 2016, Bratislava, Slovakia

• PASTEUR4OA PROJECT MID-TERM MEETING, 13 May 2015, Brussels, Belgium

• OA POLICY OF SLOVAKIA IN THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT 2015, 25 Mar 2015, Bratislava, Slovakia

• OPENAIRE2020 KICK-OFF MEETING, 28 Jan 2015 - 29 Jan 2015, Athens, Greece

• 31 March-3 April 2014: 2014 Digital Library Conference (OA is among the topics); Jasna, Slovakia.

• 25 March 2015: Over 150 participants from Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Germany and Slovakia attended a conference “ Open access policy of Slovakia in the European context 2015 – current state and perspectives ” hosted in Bratislava by the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) , a National Point of Reference for open access (OA), OpenAIRE National OA Desk, and a Key Node organization in PASTEUR4OA project.

Publications

• 26 November 2014: OpenCon 2014- Interview with Jan Gondol of the Slovakian Ministry of the Interior about Open Access in Slovakia; by host of www.okcast.org, Alex Fink.

• Adisa, F., P. Schubert, F. Sudzina, and B. Johansson. 2010. “Living Requirements Space an Open Access Tool for Enterprise Resource Plaiming Systems Requirements Gathering.” Online Information Review 34(4):540–64. doi: 10.1108/14684521011072972.

• Allebeck, P., D. Z. Paget, and I. Nagyova. 2021. “Time to Move to Open Access.” European Journal of Public Health 31(1):1. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/ckaa231.

• Celec, P. 2004. “Open Access and Those Lacking Funds [2].” Science 303(5663):1467.

• Formanek, M., and M. Zaborsky. 2017. “Web Interface Security Vulnerabilities of Selected European Open-Access Academic Repositories.” LIBER Quarterly 27(1):45–57. doi: 10.18352/lq.10178.

• Formanek, M., V. Filip, and E. Sustekova. 2019. “The Progress of Web Security Level Related to European Open Access LIS Repositories between 2016 and 2018.” JLIS.It 10(2):107–15. doi: 10.4403/jlis.it-12545.

• Gazda, J., P. Tóth, J. Zausinová, M. Vološin, and V. Gazda. 2018. “On the Interdependence of the Financial Market and Open Access Spectrum Market in the 5G Network.” Symmetry 10(1). doi: 10.3390/sym10010012.

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