Open Data Day 2017 Lagos (LASU)

Open Switch Africa launches an Open data community in the Lagos State University campus.

Open Data Day event in Lagos was about holding a workshop to teach participants about how to use open data tools and its advantages. 

Held at the Tetfund Hall, Lagos state University  on 25th April, 2017, the event included presentations on open data resources; workshop on how to use them (Kayode Yussuf, Creative commons Nigeria, Tech Lead) and a presentation on the importance of open access in scholarly publishing (Adisa Bolutife). It was attended by academic staff, and students drawn from different faculties of the University.

The event started with a workshop on  open data tools by Mr Kayode Yussuf, the Lead Tech at creative commons Nigeria. He covered the following topics: What is open data, who can open data? Why open data? How to create open data sheets, self-archiving, and Creative commons licensing for open data and their various levels.

Mr Adisa Bolutife then did a presentation on the importance of open access in scholarly publications. Where he covered pretty much the problems with conventional publishing and how open access shows the way foward. He stressed that “Open access to data is a necessary development which nations across the world have keyed into, it has become our responsibility to drive this development into the hearts of our institutions and government and make it a reality in Nigeria”. He also covered the Gold and Green open access methods and encouraged participants on how they can be readily involved in open movements.

presentations were made, there was a question and answer session, where explanations were made by the speakers as regards misconceptions on the Open data usage. Participants were asked to come up with ideas on what steps the University can take to contribute towards open access. They suggested the following:

  The student and faculty will work together to ensure that a DAOJ open access repository is built and linked to the school website.

Also that the open data movement should be done on a wider scale and coverage to encourage better participation in Nigeria.
   The event was really a success and the participants were eager to build a growing community platform where they would continually hold meetings and build projects and ideas on Open data within the university. Open Data Advocates LASU in the Lagos State University is the new community formed as a brain-child of this event, this included five core members of the Students representative council, including the president.