LIBSENSE International Open Access Week 2026 Webinar

Wednesday 21 Oct 2026, 10:00 → 11:30 Africa/Accra

Zoom

Chinwe Anunobi (National Library of Nigeria (NLN)), John Kunze (ARK Alliance), Omo Oaiya (WACREN), Owen Iyoha (Eko-Konnect)

International Open Access Week 2026 asks what knowledge costs. For African research, part of the answer is invisibility: work that cannot be found, cited, credited or preserved, and identifier infrastructure governed elsewhere.

This 90-minute webinar shows that PIDsLink, WACREN's persistent identifier service, is already running; that Nigeria is putting a national PID model into practice; and that institutions, journals and researchers across West and Central Africa can join now.

Participants will:

• see an ARK minted and resolved live, and understand how ARKs, Crossref DOIs, ORCID iDs and ROR work together
• learn how Nigeria's national model works and how other countries can adapt it
• hear early-career researchers explain why persistent identifiers matter
• leave with one clear next step for their role, taken through a single registration form

 

Target audience - Decision-makers (university librarians, research directors, national libraries, NRENs, funders); practitioners (repository managers, journal editors, research administrators); and researchers, especially early-career researchers and LIBSENSE Campus Champions.

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

1 Welcome and framing

• Describing the purpose of the webinar and its connection to the International OA Week theme.
• Housekeeping
• Opening poll

Speaker: Moderator

2 Keynote and live demonstration of PIDsLink

Speakers: Mr Donald Seanedzu (WACREN), Omo Oaiya (WACREN)

3 Nigeria as Pathfinder, with funder signal

• The Nigeria PIDs model
• The stakeholders
• Steps so far and next steps

Speaker: Chinwe Anunobi (National Library of Nigeria (NLN))

4 ARKs: open, low-cost identifiers for knowledge sovereignty

• How ARKs work
• Owning your NAAN
• Use cases beyond articles
• ARKs alongside DOIs.ntative

Speaker: John Kunze (ARK Alliance)

5 Crossref DOIs through WACREN

• Crossref Membership benefits
• Sponsorship steps
• Metadata quality
• ROR for every institution

6 ORCID in the African PID ecosystem

• ORCID linked to DOIs, ARKs and ROR.
• Nigerian consortium.
• ORCID-WACA Community of Practice.

Speaker: Owen Iyoha (Eko-Konnect)

7 Panel: From invisible to discoverable

ECR Campus Champions give the human cost of invisibility: work that went uncited, the difference an ORCID iD or DOI made, and what they are doing as Campus Champions to build PID literacy (for example, the Ghana team’s CARLIGH 2026 pre-conference workshop at KNUST).

Speakers: Abigail Essel, Dr Amy Asimah (Regional Maritime University), Dr Baylor Odelami (FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES ILA ORANGUN)

8 Open Q&A

9 Call to action and close

Speaker: Omo Oaiya (WACREN)