LIBSENSE Virtual Workshop, 3 June 2020

This LIBSENSE workshop co-organized by WACREN, EIFL and COAR will convene the African community of repository managers and other open access services and advocates and cover three topics:

1) Open Access, Open Science policies and repositories: what works and what doesn’t;

2) repository infrastructure and services: how to build cohesiveness across layers of local, national and regional services; and

3) communities of practice: how to strengthen open science communities in Africa.

African participants will share experiences, lessons learned and discuss how to best design effective Open Access and Research Data Management policies and how to progress their adoption and implementation. They will also co-design the guiding principles for institutional repositories to follow in order to build services on top of repositories and cohesiveness across local, national and regional repository services.

ICT Connectivity: The Oxygen of Today’s Agricultural Researcher, 18 June 2020

Information and communication technology (ICT) has become a mission-critical element for success in modern agricultural research around the globe. In that sense, ICT has become like the “oxygen” for ag research. Just as we cannot have life on this planet without oxygen, today’s agricultural researchers cannot carry out highly effective research programs if they don’t have access to robust ICT connectivity and toolsets. Unfortunately, ICT connectivity and utilization at agricultural research institutions and universities throughout Sub-Saharan Africa lags far behind those at counterpart institutions on other continents.

While fiber-based connectivity is pouring into Africa from every direction, not enough attention is being directed to improving ICT connectivity and bandwidth at Africa’s National Agricultural Research System (NARS) institutions. How do we address this problem and what is the best path forward?

Education Collaborative Virtual Conference 2020, 16 June 2020, 

Though the novel virus has ravaged different sectors of the economy across the world, one area undeniably affected is the educational system. 

Schools from the basic to the tertiary levels, have remained closed for the last two months, with its related challenges.

As African countries prepare to ease these restrictions on gatherings and school closures, there is the need to assess the higher educational system, the lessons we’ve learned, the gaps that have arisen, and the challenges we’ve overcome, and chart new pathways to maximize the almost-disguised-opportunities that this pandemic has opened up for education delivery.