INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORY ‘COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE’ MEETING HELD AT ASSAf November 24, 2011
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From left: Louise van Heerden (ASSAf), Adèle van der Merwe (CSIR), Hettie Groenewald (UP), Ria Groenewald (UP), Zweli Ndayi (ASSAf) and Susan Veldsman (ASSAf)
On Wednesday, 23 November 2011, the Scholarly Publishing Unit of ASSAf hosted a ‘Community of Practice’ meeting focussing on Digitisation. The meeting was arranged by Louise van Heerden, SciELO SA Database Coordinator and Zweli Ndayi, Project Officer and Institutional Repository Coordinator.
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities signed November 17, 2011
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During Open Access Week (24-30 October 2011) the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was signed at three South African universities. This Declaration is an international statement on open access to knowledge. (more…)
SciELO SA UPDATE November 17, 2011
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The Scholarly Publishing Unit of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) is in the process of adding the following prestigious scholarly journal titles to the SciELO SA Open Access platform:
- Historia; and
- The Journal of the Southern African Journal of Mining and Metallurgy.
This will bring the total number of titles on the platform to 22. Approximately 1 additional title and 100 articles are added to the platform per month. During the last month the platform has, on average, been visited 1 020 times per day. At this stage the countries that visit the platform the most are South Africa, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. Visit the SciELO SA database : www.scielo.org.za
THE WEEK OF 24-30 OCTOBER 2011 IS GLOBAL OPEN ACCESS WEEK October 26, 2011
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The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) aims to apply scientific thinking in the service of society. One of these “Service to Society” projects is the creation of an open access database of prestigious academic South African journals. So far there are 20 titles on the database including close to 3 000 articles. The SciELO SA (Scientific Electronic Library Online) offers increased visibility, accessibility and indexability to the articles in these journals. (more…)
PROGRAMME OFFICER’S TRAINING IN ETHIOPIA October 19, 2011
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The participants outside the conference venue
Zarina Moola (Policy Advisory Programme) and Louise van Heerden (Scholarly Publishing Programme) from the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) were invited to participate in the Programme Officer’s Training Course organised by the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC), in collaboration with the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences. The training was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from 3 to 6 October 2011. There were representatives from the academies of Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Senegal, Morocco, Ethiopia and South Africa. The course was made up of four days of lectures and practical exercises designed to provide participants with practical skills and knowledge useful for the designing, planning and managing of academy activities and the dissemination of results. Participants were also familiarised with the functions, organisation and operations of other African academies and fostered an exchange of ideas on how science academies in Africa support policymaking in their countries.
The training facilitators were Lauren Alexander Augustine (The National Academy of Science, U.S.A), Jackie Olang (NASAC), Doyin Odubanjo (Nigerian Academy of Science) and Nthabiseng Taole (ASSAf). The training was made possible thanks to generous support from the Royal Society (U.K.) and the National Academies of Science (U.S.A.) through the ASADI programme.
Louise and Zarina at ‘Lucy’s Restaurant’ (named after Lucy, the famous partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis found in Ethiopia)
Open-access journal publishing August 31, 2011
Posted by Louise in : Open Access Scholarly Publishing , add a commentThe Academy of Science of South Africa and UNESCO hosted a two-day workshop on open-access journal publishing at the Academy of Science of South Africa in Pretoria on 18 and 19 August 2011.
NATIONAL SCHOLARY EDITORS’ FORUM MEETS AGAIN August 24, 2011
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The National Scholarly Editors’ Forum (NSEF) held its fifth annual meeting in Kempton Park’s Emperors Palace Convention Centre on Thursday, July 28 2011. This was the second NSEF meeting to be hosted at the venue near the OR Tambo International Airport.
The theme this year was: “Changing landscapes of academic research and publishing”. (more…)
National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum meets June 20, 2011
Posted by Louise in : Events , add a commentThe National Scholarly Book Publisher’s Forum met on the 27th May 2011 at the Human Sciences Research Council’s offices in Cape Town. The meeting was attended by representatives of nine publishing institutions.
The vision and mission of the National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum is to make the Forum a significant new stakeholder in the South African national innovation system (NSI), with a voice that helps shape policy and promotes excellence and high visibility of the country’s research activities through the promotion and proper resourcing of scholarly book publishing in and from the country.
The objectives of the National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum will be generally to support and promote high-quality scholarly book publishing in South Africa, and especially to assist in the efforts of the Academy bringing about the following: (more…)
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE OF SAJS Vol 107, No 5/6 (2011) June 14, 2011
Posted by Louise in : Publications, SAJS , add a commentSOUTH AFRICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE Vol 107, No 5/6 (2011)
Brazilian mammal-like fossil find suggests link to South Africa
The discovery of a 260-million-year-old Tiarajudens eccentricus in Brazil that was announced to the world in March this year may for the first time suggest that anomodonts roamed both continents in the Permian period. (more…)
ASSAf welcomes contributions June 14, 2011
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Litnet: Discussion on the paper by Braam Roux and Fanie de Beer
Reply from Prof Wieland Gevers (University of Cape Town) and Susan Veldsman (Academy of Science of South Africa)
The extended article by Roux and de Beer entitled“Towards quality science 2: The role of strategy, vision and quality” is one of the most thoughtful recent contributions to key issues in science policy in South Africa, and is to be welcomed. They rightly plead for a deeper and wider debate on the ways in which scholarship and science should be fostered in the country, and linked to national development in the widest sense. (more…)
