IDRC grant to improve OA journals from the Global South

Infrastructure Services for Open Access

We are very pleased to announce that IS4OA/DOAJ has been given a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to improve open access publishing practices in the developing world.

The overall objective of the grant is to enhance DOAJ and the open access infrastructure that supports researchers` ability to publish in reputable open access journals.

The specific objectives are:

• To improve the reputation and visibility of open access journals from developing countries
• To increase the knowledge and use of best practices among developing world publishers of open access journals
• To raise awareness among developing world researchers of the threat posed by questionable open access publishers
• To create a web resource that provides researchers with criteria for the identification of reputable open access journals
• To increase the knowledge  and use of DOAJ among developing world academics and publishers

DOAJ is now seeking 8-10 full time individuals as DOAJ Ambassadors (10…

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The 20 Days to Research Impact Challenge

The FEDUA Research Impact Blog

In an increasingly competitive research landscape, academics can no longer afford to just publish and hope for the best. To leave a mark, you have to take your communication and impact into your own hands.

However, the question is often raised: where do I start? There are so many ways to share, promote, and discuss your research, especially online. It’s tough to know where to begin.

As a result, we are offering you a challenge. This 20 day challenge will provide you with information each day for 20 days on a strategy for scholarly and public impact, why it’s important and how you can get started. Then we’ll share a homework assignment where you will apply the concepts we’ve covered that day.

We are currently looking for researchers across the Faculty of Education and Arts who would like to:

• Upgrade their professional visibility by conquering social media
• Boost their readership and citations by getting their work online

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Day 13: Submit your post-prints

The FEDUA Research Impact Blog

Today, we’ll expand on self-archiving your articles to cover how you can make your author final version manuscripts or ‘post-prints’ fully available online.

NOVA: accessible, searchable, and discoverable

We’ve been talking a lot about how Open Access leads to increased exposure of your research and benefits your impact. And rightly so, it’s a sure way of doing this. Now we’re going to look at how you can take advantage of NOVA, UON’s dedicated Open Access digital repository. NOVA is a research repository, so we’re looking at material of a scholarly nature. Have a look at a more detailed list of what material is appropriate for inclusion in NOVA.

We’ve been talking a lot about how Open Access leads to increased exposure of your research and benefits your impact. And rightly so, it’s a sure way of doing this. Now we’re going to look at how you can take advantage…

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Day 12: Publish Open Access for more citations

The FEDUA Research Impact Blog

Yesterday, we talked about ways you can “open up” your datasets. Now let’s do the same for your publications!

An open access approach to the dissemination of research and scholarly outputs facilitates the free exchange of information and worldwide communication of the University’s research and scholarship. Major national and international competitive research funding agencies have adopted mandatory open-access policies based on the expectation that publicly funded research outcomes will be made publicly available. The Open Access Guideline […] supports and promotes the dissemination of research findings in an international open-access environment through the lodgement of metadata describing research findings and/or post-print publications into the University’s institutional repository.  – UON’s Open Access Policy

Publishing in Open Access (OA) journals is a great way to make your work available for all to read, and it has the added advantage of getting you more citations, views, Mendeley readers and Twitter mentions. What’s…

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YAP Proposal #244: Smart Krishi mobile app (Anil Regmi, Nepal)

Who?

Anil Regmi, a Nepali national aged 24 with a B.S. in Electronics and Communication Engineering. I wanted to pursue a second degree that deals with people more directly, and I find the problems in agriculture more fascinating.

My interest lies in engineering, social media and computing and technology in emerging markets, particularly in agriculture, as well as crowd-based innovation. I have more than 2 years of experience in Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) field.

I am also interested in studying the impact of technology diffusion on individuals, families, and societies in economically challenged countries, and how the social and cultural dimensions of everyday life impact the adoption of technology.

What?

Smart Krishi is a mobile app that serves as a platform for farmers and any citizens interested in agriculture to get information with a single touch. Using a Wi-Fi/3G connection, the app automatically syncs with the latest…

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Flash: Announcing the “YAP” finalists

What was the “YAP” project all about, again?

In the run-up to the upcoming #GCARD3 global event, we announced “YAP”, the Youth Agripreneurs Project. “YAP” is a pilot project targeting young agricultural entrepreneurs or “agripreneurs” by GFAR (the Global Forum on Agricultural Research), CGIAR (the Global Agricultural Research Partnership) and YPARD (the Young Professionals for Agricultural Development).

Within “YAP” we want to encourage young agripreneurs from all over the world, to think about their projects and formulate their ideas in a concrete proposal. We also wanted to use our blog, as a platform where these entrepreneurs could showcase their projects, while encouraging feedback on their proposals through the comments on each proposal’s blogpost.

In addition, we wanted to show, to a wider audience, how many creative, inspiring and concrete ideas these young people had. Through the online voting process – determining the first selection -, we wanted…

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GCARD3 Global Event Program Out Now

The GCARD3 Global Event in South Africa in April is shaping up to be a unmissable opportunity for anyone interested in the future of agri-food research and innovation!

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Crowdsource project on Building Indian Journals Database of Access Policies

Crowdsource project on Building Indian Journals Database of  Access Policies   The aim of this project is to develop a database having all the ISSN Journals from India. The NISCAIR assigns ISSN number to all the journals in India and the list that is uploaded on their site at http://nsl.niscair.res.in/issn.jsp would be used for the database development. All the information related to the journals viz., year of start, language, place (city), publishers, print only, closed access, open access, license, urls, etc which are required to make it a robust database would be collected and collated and made available. It is also planned  to integrate the database with Sherpa/RoMEO which keeps the record of publishers copyright policies. The list of ISSN Journals can be accessed at the link https://goo.gl/CGck6B

Source: Crowdsource project on Building Indian Journals Database of Access Policies

YAP Proposal #197: EduMala Mentoring Program (Dinesh Panday, Nepal)

I am Dinesh Panday, a YPARD member as Nepal representative and Communication officer at YPARD Asia and Pacific Coordination Unit. I am 28 years old and currently pursuing PhD degree in Soil Science at University of Missouri- Columbia, United States.

The YPARD, where I am working, emphasizes the importance of youth to youth empowerment by networking and provides platform for information sharing and dissemination, as well as online and offline meetings and events. YPARD Nepal is a national chapter of YPARD, established in 2012 and currently 45 members are working as a national team including different agricultural development sectors.

We know that education is important, however, there are lots of things missing in education in terms of soft skills (like, interpersonal skills). If a young professional has lack of competency, we cannot think that s/he will be able to deliver right message to targeted audience or how others can be…

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YAP Proposal #84 “Rejuvenating Declining Citrus Orchard” (Madan Poudel, Nepal)

Dark days for Citrus Growers

As a boy, I used to run up and down the hill, through terraces of sun-kissed citrus trees. Ever since I remember, I worked in the orchard with my parents planting mandarins in summer, picking up the fruits and carrying it for market in homemade bamboo basket. As I joined my Bachelors in agriculture, I realized that the most part of the farm in which I lived was disappearing, production was declining. Not only my farm, now whole Nepal’s citrus farm lies in peril and citrus grower’s livelihood is in jeopardy. Some of the reason behind the decline are Phypthopthora disease, citrus greening disease, citrus Tristiza disease, poor orchard management and low quality planting materials. These reasons of decline are bringing dark days among citrus growers in Nepal.

Farm, My Love

I am Madan Poudel, 23 years old citriculture entrepreneur. My farm lies in…

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