UNESCO launches Open Access Curricula for Researchers and Librarians19.12.2014 - Communication & Information Sector
Within
the overall framework of UNESCO Strategy on Open Access to scientific
information and research and to take forward UNESCO’s leadership role in
diffusing knowledge amongst its Member States, UNESCO has developed a
set of manuals to facilitate capacity building of library and
information professionals and researchers.
The development of the
modules has been undertaken very carefully and the development process
covered diverse opinion in the subject area, and in consultation with
more than 50 experts to include diversity and expertise from the
developing south.
The OA curricula developed by UNESCO includes a set
of customized modules which can be easily be fitted with the
educational needs of different OA stakeholders and can be integrated
with any sensitization programmes of OA.
The curricula for Library
and Information Science Professionals entitled “Open Access for Library
Schools”, consists of four course modules. An Introductory Module aims
at sensitizing the library community about the history, evolution, forms
and impact of OA within the domain of scholarly communication
environment and covers issues related to rights management, IPR and
advocacy. The remaining three modules cover subject areas of OA
Infrastructure, Resource Optimization and Interoperability and
Retrieval. These sections give insights into the features, types,
maintenance and standardization of OA resources, information
retrieval/storage software and highlight the role of the new dimension
of web-enabled resources such as e-journals, e-repositories and ICTSs.
The
curricula for researchers entitled "Open Access for Researchers"
addresses OA issues within the community of research scholars. The
modules cover the subject areas of Scholarly Communications, Concepts of
Openness and Open Access, Intellectual Property Rights and Research
Evaluation Metrics. The first four modules have been developed to
nurture researchers with an elaborate understanding of the genesis,
objectives, processes, types and existing limitations of OA scholarly
communication, which include insights into the issues related to IPR,
the methods and limitations of the process of peer reviewing and the
concepts and roles of E-journals, databases, ICTs, OSS and other OERs.
The final and fifth Module entitled “Sharing your Work in Open Access”
provides a step-wise guideline for researchers about the process and
options available for publishing their research work.
These curricula
were developed after undertaking two detailed capacity building need
assessment studies of librarians and researchers on Open Access. A
multi-stakeholder expert meeting was organized in New Delhi, where 23
experts participated to finalize the curriculum. Two online
consultations were also held to substantiate the expert meeting, which
helped UNESCO to outline the content for each of the curriculum and
provided a framework to develop modules.
The curricula were developed
with the help of Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia
(CEMCA), New Delhi of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).
The curricula will soon be available for download. Currently, copies can be requested by writing to
UNESCO’s OA programme.
Source:
www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/resources/news-and-in-focus-articles/all-news/news/unesco_launches_open_access_curricula_for_researchers_and_librarians/