Webinar: ‘Open for Whom? Equity for Open Knowledge’

Overview

Africa needs open access to scholarly knowledge for sustainable development. Innovations are easily spawned where people have access to knowledge that they can build on to create more knowledge and value without restrictions. Africa needs open knowledge in order to partake and gain from the 4th Industrial Revolution. As the world celebrates 2019 Open Access Week, the question is about equity in Open Access publishing for authors, publishers and the communities who need knowledge to be open for transformation.

Join AfLIA as we explore the 2019 Open Access Week theme – ‘Open for Whom? Equity for Open Knowledge’ through a webinar with resource persons from Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition – SPARC Africa.

Learning outcomes

It is expected that the webinar will:

1. Create more awareness of inclusive Open Access practices in Africa
2. Build more understanding of the need for equity in opening up knowledge for sustainable development for all in Africa
3. Serve as a build-up to the SPARC Africa workshop in Cape Town, South Africa.

Date and Time – 12noon GMT Wednesday 23rd October 2019

Registration

This is a free webinar and open to members and non-members of AfLIA alike. 

Click here to register.

Please read the section on Technical Requirements to help you prepare adequately for this webinar.   

Target audience

• Academic librarians in all tertiary institutions within and outside Africa
• Librarians in all Research and Special Libraries within and outside Africa
• Faculty members of Library and Information Science schools/Departments all over Africa and beyond
• Librarians who wish to learn more about equity in opening up knowledge for development

Resource Persons

Lena Nyahodza, Scholarly Communication Librarian, University of Cape Town.

Lena Nyahodza, is a Scholarly Communication Librarian at the University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries, and an open access enthusiast who advocates for open sharing of scholarship. She perceives open scholarship as a democratic agent that supports social justice. She actively participates in the openness movement through interacting with content creators, training on the need for individual authors to retain copyright and use open licenses to end knowledge commodification. As a Scholarly Communication Librarian, some of her responsibilities include supporting and managing UCT Libraries’ open access platforms that are hosted on open source software such as Open Journal Systems (newly published open research), Open Monograph Press (open textbooks & monographs) and DSpace (open research & open educational resources) that are intended to support equal access to knowledge for all. Her advocacy work includes orienting the university community on how to participate in green, gold and diamond open access. Lena has been a member of the International Open Access Week Advisory Committee since 2018.

Jill Claassen Scholarly Communication and Research Section Manager, University of Cape Town

Jill Claassen has worked at University of Cape Town (UCT) Libraries as the section manager of scholarly communication and research since November 2014. One of sections she oversees is scholarly communication and publishing, which is responsible for implementing UCT’s Open Access Policy by making UCT’s scholarship discoverable through the institutional repository, OpenUCT, which already has over 25, 000 scholarly works openly available. This section also has an open access publishing service, which includes publishing open journals and open monographs and textbooks. The philosophy of this publishing service is to share African scholarship, by making it accessible to everyone on the continent and the world, thus ensuring that Africa’s scholarly output is visible and contributes to the global knowledge economy. Currently there are five emerging journals, ten monographs and two textbooks on the publishing platforms. Jill is the servicing officer of SPARC Africa’s executive committee since 2017, which aims to advance scholarly communication on the continent.

Technical Requirements

Upon registration, reminders will be sent to all registrants periodically. This webinar will be hosted on Zoom Conferencing Platform. Participants, who do not have Zoom on their mobile devices and or computers, need to download, install and create an account on Zoom ahead of time (CLICK TO DOWNLOAD). Webinar attendees are encouraged to join early, preferably 15 minutes before the start of the webinar, as one may need time launch the application. The speaker will use a webcam to connect with attendees. Audio and video for the session will be streamed over computer speakers. Attendees are therefore encouraged to connect with a headset or earpiece for maximum utility. Participants will be able to ask questions and interact with the presenters and other webinar participants via the Q&A and chat features in Zoom.

Webinar Materials

A list of resources and further information will made be available at the end of the webinar, to enable thorough engagement with the webinar content. All registrants will have access to the presentation slides. The webinar recording will be uploaded on AfLIA Youtube Channel soon after the webinar to facilitate continuous engagement with the webinar content by webinar attendees and non-attendees. Webinar attendees who will present for more than half the duration of the webinar may be eligible for a certificate of participation.

Queries

For further enquiries and assistance about the webinar contact us at afliacomm@aflia.net.

Do bring this to the attention of your colleague librarians as well as those in your professional circle. It is free!!!