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Supporting the development agenda: research information for policy-makers and a non-academic audience

Supporting the development agenda: research information for policy-makers and a non-academic audience BioMed Central Open Access Africa 2012 Conference, Cape Town, 4 November Michelle Willmers CC-BY-SA. Towards a definition of Scholarly Communication that suits the African context.

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Supporting the development agenda: research information for policy-makers and a non-academic audience

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  1. Supporting the development agenda: research information for policy-makers and a non-academic audience BioMed Central Open Access Africa 2012 Conference, Cape Town, 4 November Michelle Willmers CC-BY-SA

  2. Towards a definition of Scholarly Communication that suits the African context - Conducting research, developing ideas and informal communications. • Preparing, shaping and communicating what will become formal research outputs. • Disseminating formal outputs. • Managing personal careers, and research teams and programmes. • Communicating scholarly ideas to broader communities. (Thorin, 2003) > We like this definition because it speaks to ideas and processes, a broad range of outputs (formal and informal) and addresses both relevance and prestige.

  3. What is the relationship between scholarly communication and impact in a developmental context? Impact Values Mission “Our results indicate that the notion of scientific impact is a multi-dimensional construct that cannot be adequately measured by any single indicator, although some measures are more suitable than others.” (Bollen et al. 2009)

  4. What kinds of impact should we expect from research? (Davies et al. 2005) • Knowledge production (e.g. peer-reviewed papers) • Research capacity building (postgraduate training and career development) • Policy or product development (incl. input into official guidelines or protocols) • Sector benefits (impacts on scientific client groups) • Societal benefits (economic > health > productivity > innovation)

  5. So, basically, we need research to work harder in our context.

  6. Which research components/formats/genres are we going to put to work? (All of them)

  7. Statistics tell us that African research is invisible

  8. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a large amount of very important research going on

  9. It depends where you’re looking (and what you’re looking at)

  10. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  11. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  12. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  13. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  14. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  15. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  16. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  17. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  18. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

  19. We see a mountain of research content/output being produced in African universities Journal Articles Conference Papers Technical Reports Working Papers Policy Briefs Blog Posts Tweets

  20. But we treat the mountain like an iceberg Journal Articles Conference Papers Technical Reports Working Papers Policy Briefs Blog Posts Tweets

  21. Privileging the sharing of outputs that address prestige Journal Articles Prestige

  22. Howdoesthis serve the development agenda and address the need for relevance? Journal Articles

  23. Rewards & Incentives Values Mission Impact Prestige Relevance

  24. In the drive for research to address development we are exchanging new and interesting forms of scholarship with new and interesting consituencies (who are often not interested in journal articles)

  25. The open science model becomes more compelling in trying to address development “Publishing systems that run as application servers.” (DeWaard & Martone 2012)

  26. Think tanks and research units responding to issues on the ground through a range of approaches using a wide range of new tools and platforms > Communication is at the centre of this endeavor “A think tank does not produce knowledge for the pleasure of it, but to modify reality and impact on it. With this objective, not investing in communication is a contradiction.” Laura Zommer (Cippec, Argentina)

  27. Publications Online/Digital Media Events • Emailed newsletter • Website • Blog • Twitter • Facebook • LinkedIn • Youtube channel for videos and MOOCs • Ustream for ‘webstreaming’ • Flickr or Picassa • ITunes for podcasts • Scribd for documents • Google Drive or Dropbox for intranet and sharing documents • SurveyMonkey • Eventbrite • Wikipedia • Data visualisation • Academic journal • Academic paper • Semi-academic magazine • Working Paper (series) • Research Report • Background Note (on a policy issue or methodology) • Project Briefing • Policy Brief • Draft legislation • Opinion • Workshop or Event Report • Reading list, Annotated Bibliography or Literature Review • Op-eds • Press release • Media ‘Q&A’s • Media Awards • Media training • Media partnerships/ • subcontracts for features and analysis • Media face-to-face briefings • Workshops and training • Seminars (and participation in seminars) • Webinars • Public Events (debates and presentations) • Public Event Series • Private meetings with key stakeholders

  28. There is new global focus on research uptake

  29. New focus on how to think about impact

  30. Slide by Cameron Neylon CC-BY-SA

  31. New focus on correlation between openness and economic development / innovation

  32. New modes of delivery

  33. New modes of interface between research and teaching

  34. And new challenges • Addressing transformation of reward and incentive systems > building a new policy environment • Addressing content management and curation systems for alternative forms of content (most systems and processes set up for journal curation/exchange) • Exploring new forms of quality assurance and peer review • Making publishers of institutions, research units and think tanks > cohesive strategic approach

  35. References Bollen J, Van De Sompel H, Hagberg A & Chute R (2009) A principle component analysis of 39 scientific impact measures. PLOSone 4(6): e6022. DOI: 10.371/journal.pone.0006022. Available at http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006022 Davies H, Nutley S & Walter I (2005) Approaches to assessing the non-academic impact of social science research. Report of the ESRC Symposium on assessing the non-academic impact of research, 12-13 May 2005 DeWaard A & Martone ME (2012) Force II: The Future of Research Communications and eScholarship. NCBO webinar. Available at http://www.slideshare.net/anitawaard/ncbo-webinar-force11 Herb U (2010) Alternative Impact Measures for Open Access Documents? An examination of how to generate interoperable usage information from distributed open access services. Proceedings from World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 10-15 August 2010, Gothenburg, Sweden Thorin SE (2003) Global changes in scholarly communication. In SC Hsianghoo, PWT Poon and C McNaught (eds) eLearning and Digital Publishing. Dordrecht: Springer. Available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/w873x131171x2421

  36. Michelle Willmers Programme Manager, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme michelle.willmers@uct.ac.za http://www.scaprogramme.org.za/ @SCAprogramme This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License.

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