[GOAL] Promoting Open Access amongst young researchers

[Barnali Chakrabarti]

{Apologies for Cross Posting}

I am currently assisting the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia
(CEMCA) in developing Curriculum and Self-Directed Learning (SDL) Tool for
Open Access for researchers and library and information professionals as a
project of UNESCO. The UNESCO adopted Open Access strategy in 2011, and
with effect from 1 July 2013 it has become fully Open Access. Capacity
building to promote Open Access is one of the important strands of the
UNESCO strategy.  The UNESCO Open Access Forum 2011 also recommended
training of young researchers and library professionals on Open Access.

In the last week, I requested for help on articulating the training needs
of library professionals, and this week I would like to request the
stakeholders to think about what new researchers should know about Open
Access. We believe that the OA awareness of the researchers that can make
the Open Access movement more successful. In subject disciplines, where the
researchers are more aware and have common goals, the amount of information
available in OA is much higher than other disciplines. So, it is always
better to follow the principle of “catch them young”, and include a short
training curriculum on OA for every researcher working for their doctoral
degree. This can be a pre-doctoral work as well. If such a program is to be
organized, what are the knowledge, skills, and attitude that should be
covered in the training?

In a survey conducted amongst researchers in a prestigious national
university revealed that most of the respondents indicated limited
participation in open access mode of communications either as users or as
contributors. The study also revealed that their participation can be
increased through appropriate training, and awareness creation. So, what
you think as the areas that should be covered in OA training for
researchers?

Your response will help us to articulate more precisely the topics related
to knowledge, skills and attitudes for Open Access. If you want to share
more on the topic privately, kindly do so in the emails:
smishra.col at gmail.com and barna.chakrabarti at gmail.com



With Regards,
Barnali Roy Choudhury
Project Associate (Open Access)
Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia
13/14 Sarv Priya Bihar
New Delhi 110016
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/pipermail/goal/attachments/20130805/0a95313e/attachment.html