Research Portal News

Something that is fast becoming very obvious in the eResearch space is that provision of some sort of facility for storing digital "stuff" related to research is becoming more and more urgent.

Stuff like:

• Data files - which could be text- or numbers-only or mixed, pictures, sound files, video....
• PDF versions of papers or last-version-before-acceptance drafts 
• PhD theses and MSc dissertations (yes, there is a difference!) and even Honours write-ups
• Formal reports 
• Lab notebooks that have been scanned 
• Presentations related to research

 You will notice that the types of things needing storage overlap significantly with what the UCT Libraries are storing - specifically, theses and dissertations, and also Collections which may be very relevant to research.

It may not be so obvious, but there is also another very wide overlap - with the Open UCT initiative, and its Open Educational Resources and Open Scholarship material, given that we ARE supposed to be "research led" in our teaching, and teaching materials may be derived directly from research material.

What this means is that we have a burning need at UCT to store a LOT of things digitally, from a wide spectrum of constituencies - and that these needs have to be addressed at a high level, not only so that policy can be set for exactly what / how / where, but also because this storage requires quite considerable funding as well as people to manage it.

Accordingly, eResearch is talking to Libraries is talking to Open UCT is talking to Enterprise Content Management, so as to harmonise requirements and the plan(s) of attack - so that we have a good solid tree growing out of this, rather than a hundred different flowers which will wither and die.

Or so we hope! 

Anyone who has taken a walk down our leafy avenues recently cannot fail to have noticed just how many of our students are clutching / using iPads tablet PCs lately.

With a fruit-themed device pretty much dominating.

The following article in The Chronicle of Higher Education describes how twenty-five percent of US college students surveyed said they owned a tablet - and how they preferred to read course materials on it. 

It is also evident that the teaching staff of this august institution have not been such eager adopters - which has knock-on effects when it comes to translating course materials for iPads the devices.  I note, incidentally, that the University of Adelaide in 2011 was supplying ALL first-time entering Science students with an (actual) iPad - and allowing them to keep it if they passed.

While we will almost certainly not be doing this, I am sure, it would be a good idea for the Centre for Educational Technology and the tech-savvy among us to start moving lecture / study / informational materials onto these platforms.  And to take note of the previous post here when they do that.... 

I thank AJ Cann for pointing me to this via Twitter. The picture is just to drool over.

I am indebted to Alan J Cann, University of Leicester, for the following slideshow.  And the reminder that doing the same with the new media as you did in print is not that good an idea.

Open Access publishing is a relatively straightforward proposition to get your head around: you write something, it gets refereed and accepted, you pay for it to be published, and it is made freely available on a web site.  It is then accessed by the eager multitudes interested few, who will benefit thereby, and who will hopefully cite it.  It is an increasingly popular way to publish, and appears to be beneficial to developing country science and scientists

Open Content is another story: Wikipedia defines it as "creative workthat others can copy or modify", but it is a lot more complicated than that - largely to do with the many degrees of freedom that one can specify.

Open Educational Resources are something of a hybrid of the other two categories: OER are basically teaching / learning materials made available via web and other means, for free - but which can be subject to certain limitations concerning reuse and/or alteration if the author so wishes.

What is becoming clearer as the dust of innovation subsides, is that the three categories in fact blur into each other in a continuum of information: Open Access publications are used for Open Content materials; OER are derived from both and may be or become Open Content, and so on.

It is also clear that the eResearch space at UCT joins seamlessly with the Open Content space, and that the overlap will have to be amicably managed so that there is no duplication, or dropping of things between two stools.

Our community will be pleased to hear this is well in hand, and that the Open UCT folk are well acquainted with the eResearch Portal crew, and both know and tolerate the OER crowd. And this is exciting, because the possibilities for synergy are becoming apparent: that is, understanding the ways in which eResearch requirements and resources impinge upon Open Content and OER and vice-versa, could open up very valuable new ways of doing things at UCT, that will advance research, scholarship and learning activities.

A concrete example right now would be the use of Open Access published material on UCT web sites for teaching purposes. Another is the "research-led" development of OER that can and will be used by outside individuals and institutions, and add to UCT's visibility and reputation. A future application will be the linking of "Scholarly Publications" accessible via the researcher Profiles into OER and OC, for an effective UCT Electronic Press.

You could have been excused for missing it in the Monday Paper, but we went live today:

 "eResearch site launched at UCT

UCT's Information and Communication Technology Services has launched an eResearch website that offers staff and postgraduate students a central point from which to access research support, management tools and information that is currently spread across various web pages at UCT.

The site has a host of valuable information that has been sorted into easy-to-navigate sections. Each section has links to a number of portals, external databases and services available for researchers. These links make it easier for researchers to find the information that they need. One such link provides access to the Research Professional Africa website, where numerous research funding opportunities can be found and applied for through UCT's Research Office. The Research Africa news and UCT research news, Research Portal News blog and news archives have also been added to the site, so researchers can read the latest research news from one central place.

One of the highlights of the site includes access to various self-help tools. For example, the four Reference Management Tools listed on the site can help researchers to collect and manage references from various online databases, or help them to construct and manage bibliographies and publication citations in their reports and manuscripts. Then there is the searchable Research Facilities Database, which lists equipment and research facilities that are already available on campus. The database includes contact information to make it easier to access these expensive resources.

The site also lists various support services available to researchers, such as the data capture service for multiple choice questionnaire papers or survey responses. The video conferencing consultation support service is available to help researchers set up a video conference at UCT. The High Performance Computing service and systems provide multiple processors to enable the solving of advanced computation problems. Researchers are invited to give their input on the eResearch Discussion Board topics; to suggest more links; and to use the Feedback tool to submit suggestions and comments.

UCT staff members and postgraduate students (master's level and above) can access the site using their UCT username@wf and network password. The site can also be accessed off-campus through the Virtual Private Network.

The eResearch site is a step closer to the Research Portal that has been on the cards for many years. Putting together the Research Portal is a complex task that requires extensive planning, integration and consultation. The initial version of this portal will go live later this year.

In the interim, the eResearch site provides a solid foundation from which researchers can find researcher-specific information and resources. For progress updates on the development of the Research Portal, see the Research Portal News blog."

I still think the fonts are too small, and us over-50s will suffer - but we welcome your comments.  Via the feedback page, obviously!

I attended a regrettably minor part of the recent "Open Education Week" at UCT recently, where I heard some very interesting news from Stellenbosch University: their Director of Library IT and Communication, Reggie Raju, dropped the bombshell that SU supports Open Access publishing by their researchers to the tune of R 2 million per annum.

Two.  Million.  Rand.

That's about TWO HUNDRED OA articles, given an average cost of R10K each.

UCT supports us with...with...well, actually, they do not formally support such activity at all - although the Research Office IS working on a deal with BioMed Central that will give PARTIAL support to UCT authors, for this family of publications only.

I have been making the case for over two years now that supporting publications in Open Access journals is the right thing to do: the articles bring in FAR more subsidy than they cost to publish (by a factor of 10 or more); they put UCT in a global shop window; they allow access to our scholarship by anybody, for free - which is why developing country scientists are using OA journals preferentially both for access to information, and for publishing - where the author costs are reduced or waived, which increasingly is not the case for SA scientists.

Lead, follow - or get left behind, UCT! 

Most useful link for Humanities folk:

http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/celias/2012/02/13/how-do-researchers-in-the-humanities-use-information-resources

This is a slideshow that will have been given at the panel discussion of Open Education Week on Tuesday 6th March.  The theme was: What does Open Education mean for Higher Education in Africa?