[GOAL] World Bank Open Knowledge Repository Introduces Mobile-Friendly Design

[Richard Poynder]

Forwarding from the World Bank's Jose de Buerba:

>>> 

The World Bank is announcing today the relaunch of its open access
repository "Open Knowledge Repository - OKR" with a new, cutting-edge mobile
friendly interface and a few additional enhancements. Please find below a
copy of the announcement also available here:
<http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/01/23/open-knowledge-reposito
ry-introduces-mobile-friendly-design>
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2014/01/23/open-knowledge-repositor
y-introduces-mobile-friendly-design

The most significant aspect of the announcement is that The World Bank, in
collaboration with @Mire that supported the development of the OKR, will
release elements of the new responsive design under an open-source license.
We hope this contribution to the community will benefit any institution
running a repository on DSpace that wishes to provide a better user
experience on mobile devices. 



World Bank Open Knowledge Repository Introduces 
Mobile-Friendly Design


WASHINGTON, January 23, 2013-In keeping up with the rapid growth in mobile
usage worldwide, the World Bank just relaunched the Open Knowledge
Repository (OKR)-its open access portal to its publications and research-on
an upgraded platform specifically optimized for mobile use. The relaunched
OKR website, at  <http://openknowledge.worldbank.org>
http://openknowledge.worldbank.org, features a "responsive web design" that
automatically adapts to the screen size of any device-whether desktop,
laptop, tablet, or smartphone.  

"Knowing that nearly half of OKR users are in developing countries where
mobile devices are increasingly being used to access the internet,
relaunching the OKR with responsive design was a no-brainer," said Carlos
Rossel, World Bank Publisher. "Now, when users access the OKR from their
smartphones or tablets, they will have a greatly improved user experience."

The benefits of this change will ultimately extend well beyond users of the
OKR. The World Bank and @mire-the DSpace service provider supporting the
development of the OKR-are applying the same responsive design principles in
the development of
<https://atmire.com/website/?q=contributions/dspace-mirage-2> Mirage 2, a
theme for DSpace that will be freely available.
<http://www.duraspace.org/about_dspace> DSpace is the open source platform
on which the OKR is built, and it is used by more than 1,500 organizations
worldwide for their institutional repositories.

The OKR upgrade brings other user enhancements such as improved search,
related title recommendations, enhanced author profiles, and the adoption of
a new Creative Commons license specifically adapted for use by International
Governmental Organizations ( <http://wiki.creativecommons.org/IGO> CC BY
IGO). Currently, more than 13,000 publications are available in the OKR in
PDF and text formats. In the future, more file formats will be added, making
the mobile experience even more convenient for users. 

Since the OKR's launch in April 2012, there have been more than 2.6 million
downloads of World Bank Group publications from 231* countries and
territories around the world. The OKR was recently described by Creative
Commons as  <http://teamopen.cc/carlos/> ".one of the most important hubs
for economic scholarship in the world." It was also selected by the American
Library Association as one of the
<http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestfreewebsites/marsbes
tref2013> "Best Free Reference Web Sites of 2013."

In coming weeks, the World Bank will also be launching a mobile version of
the  <http://elibrary.worldbank.org/> World Bank eLibrary-a
subscription-based website with special features designed to meet the
specific needs of researchers and libraries. Like the standard eLibrary
website, the mobile version will supply search results at the chapter-level
for its most recent titles, along with several user tools and features, such
as individual accounts for saving searches and favorites, and customized
content alerts. 

*According to Google Analytics




 

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