Squaring the Circle: Towards an Integrated Print and Digital Journal Preservation Strategy :
This paper examines preservation strategies for both print and electronic scholarly journals focusing on strategic policy considerations relevant to these tasks. Developments in both areas of preservation are examined in their historical context. Recent promising developments for both print and digital preservation are discussed with an eye to integrating both activities. Four key pillars are outlined to sketch the framework for an integrated journal preservation strategy: legal agreements, archiving infrastructure, holdings registry and consortia leadership. Specific focus is given to the rationale for library consortia leadership in the North American context. The benefits of an integrated print and digital preservation strategy are then analyzed with some conclusions drawn and recommendations for future areas of research.
URL : http://eprints.rclis.org/18622/
MIT Libraries offer aid to MIT authors p…
MIT Libraries offer aid to MIT authors publishing in open-access journals :
The MIT Libraries have established a special fund, the MIT Open Access Article Publication Subvention Fund (OAAPSF), to support equity in open-access publication by providing funding to MIT authors who might not otherwise be able to cover publication fees. A subsidy of up to $1,000 per article is now available to faculty authors publishing in eligible journals.
The fund was created as a result of MIT’s commitment to the “Compact for Open-Access Publishing Equity,” launched with four other founding universities last September. The goal of the compact is to allow subscription-based journals and open-access journals to compete on a more level playing field by providing equitable support for the processing-fee business model for open-access journals.
URL : http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/libraries-open-access-aid.html
ICT for all – Technology supporting an i…
ICT for all – Technology supporting an inclusive world :
This report explores Europe’s vision for a society where every individual can make a valuable contribution. Investments in pioneering and commercially focused research will produce information and communication technologies (ICTs) that should help everyone – including the elderly, disabled and marginalised – to fulfil their potential.
URL : http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/pdf/policyreport/INF%207%200100%20IST-R%20policy%20report-eInclusion_final%20studio.pdf
Measuring the visibility of the universi…
Measuring the visibility of the universities’ scientific production using scientometric methods :
Paper presents scientometry as a science and a fundamental instrument for determining the
international value of an university as well as for the statistical evaluation of scientific research results.
The impact of the research measurable through scientometric indicators is analyzed. Promoting the
scientific production of universities through institutional digital repositories deals with the concept of
scientific production of the university and the development of scientific research in information
society. These concepts are approached through the prism of marketing methods and techniques. The
digital repository is analyzed as a PRODUCT, destined for promoting, archieving and preserving
scientific production.
URL : http://www.wseas.us/e-library/conferences/2010/Tunisia/EDUTE/EDUTE-22.pdf
Dazzling technologies’: Addressing the d…
Dazzling technologies’: Addressing the digital divide in the Southern African universities :
The ‘digital divide’ is both an infrastructural reality and a metaphor for Africa’s position in the global economy. We live in an era that defines itself by the extent to which it interacts, creates and shares knowledge globally, using the network of advanced telecommunications, the Internet. Southern African countries, their universities and research communities, are recognising that focusing purely on basic network infrastructure is inadequate to the needs of scholarly research and higher education in the 21st century. Southern African universities must acquire the means to participate effectively in global knowledge production. In particular, they must adopt and use advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the form of National Research and Education Networks or NRENs and a regional REN to connect students and researchers across national borders.
Yet the means to share knowledge is not sufficient to bring about a healthy knowledge economy. A paradigm shift has to be made from a purely technological view of the issues, to a full recognition of the interplay between technological infrastructure and the developmental and knowledge purposes to which it is put.
This article provides an overview of the emerging NREN landscape, noting developments under way that are intended to promote and facilitate excellence in scientific networking in the region. It discusses the constraints and enabling conditions for overcoming the digital divide in the Southern African higher education context. Finally, it proposes a rudimentary performance indicator framework for assessing progress.
URL : http://link.wits.ac.za/journal/AJIC10-Kotecha.pdf
Copyright and education in Africa: Lesso…
Copyright and education in Africa: Lessons on African copyright and access to knowledge
The African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) project is a pan-African research network of academics and researchers from law, economics and the information sciences, spanning Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa and Uganda. Research conducted by the project was designed to investigate the extent to which copyright is fulfilling its objective of facilitating access to knowledge, and learning materials in particular, in the study countries. The hypotheses tested
during the course of research were that: (a) the copyright environments in study countries are not maximising access to learning materials, and (b) the copyright environments in study countries can be changed to increase access to learning materials. The hypotheses were tested through both doctrinal legal analysis and qualitative interview-based analysis of practices and perceptions among relevant stakeholders. This paper is a comparative review of some of the key findings across the eight
countries.
URL : http://link.wits.ac.za/journal/AJIC10-Schonwetter.pdf
Access to Africa’s knowledge: Publishing…
Access to Africa’s knowledge: Publishing development research and measuring value :
This paper reviews, critically, the discourse of research publication policy and the directives of the regional and global organisations that advise African countries with respect to their relevance to African scholarly communication. What emerges is a readiness to use the concepts and language of the public good, making claims for the power of technology to resolve issues of African development. However, when it comes to implementing scholarly publication policies, this vision of technological
power and development-focused scientific output is undermined by a reversion to a conservative research culture that relies on competitive systems for valuing and accrediting scholarship, predicated upon the systems and values managed by powerful global commercial publishing consortia.
The result is that the policies put in place to advance African research effectively act as an impediment to ambitions for a revival of a form of scholarship that could drive continental growth. While open access publishing models offer solutions to the marginalisation of African research, the paper argues that what is also needed is a re-evaluation of the values that underpin the recognition of scholarly publishing, to better align with the continent’s articulated research goals.
URL : http://link.wits.ac.za/journal/AJIC10-Gray.pdf