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 WillmersCC-BY-SA

- 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)

Towards a definition of Scholarly Communication that suits the African context

> 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.

Values ImpactMission

What is the relationship between scholarly communication and impact in a developmental context?

“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)

- 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)

What kinds of impact should we expect from research? (Davies et al. 2005)

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

Which research components/formats/genres are we going to put to work?

(All of them)

Statistics tell us that African research is invisible

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

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

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

Journal Articles

Conference Papers

Technical Reports

Working Papers

Policy Briefs

Blog Posts

Tweets

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

But we treat the mountain like an iceberg

Journal ArticlesPrestige

Privileging the sharing of outputs that address prestige

Journal Articles

How does this serve the development agenda and address the need for

relevance?

Values ImpactMission

Rewards &Incentives

RelevancePrestige

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)

The open science model becomes more compelling in trying to address development

“Publishing systems that run as application servers.” (DeWaard & Martone 2012)

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)

• Workshops and training

• Seminars (and participation in seminars)

• Webinars• Public Events

(debates and presentations)

• Public Event Series

• Private meetings with key stakeholders

• Op-eds• Press release• Media ‘Q&A’s• Media Awards• Media training• Media

partnerships/• subcontracts

for features and analysis

• Media face-to-face briefings

• 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

Publications Online/Digital Media Events

There is new global focus on research uptake

New focus on how to think about impact

Slide by Cameron Neylon CC-BY-SA

New focus on correlation between openness and economic development / innovation

New modes of delivery

New modes of interface between research and teaching

And new challenges1. Addressing transformation of reward and incentive

systems > building a new policy environment2. Addressing content management and curation systems for

alternative forms of content (most systems and processes set up for journal curation/exchange)

3. Exploring new forms of quality assurance and peer review4. Making publishers of institutions, research units and think

tanks > cohesive strategic approach

ReferencesBollen 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

Michelle WillmersProgramme Manager, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programmemichelle.willmers@uct.ac.zahttp://www.scaprogramme.org.za/@SCAprogramme

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