Archive for the ‘Partner Newsletter’ Category

Research4Life Newsletter May 2014

13th May 2014

Table of Contents


Note from the Editor

Welcome to the May 2014 edition of our Research4Life Partner Newsletter. Our goal is to keep you updated on Research4Life’s recent news, upcoming meetings, latest milestones, interviews, and partners. We also want to make it possible for you – as a Research4Life partner – to fully leverage and promote your participation in our impressive access initiative.Help us spread the word – and expand the Research4Life community – by following us on Twitter and ‘liking’ us on Facebook. Interested in getting more involved? We have teams focused on everything from communications to training, technology and impact. Contact us at info@research4life.org. – Ylann Schemm, Chair of the Research4Life Communications and Marketing Teams  and Elsevier Foundation Programme Director


“Unsung Heroes: Stories from the Library”

We are proud to present our latest publication, which shares a critical part of the Research4Life story: Unsung Heroes: Stories from the Library celebrates librarians as the ambassadors of a healthy research culture in the developing world. From our 2013 competition and the recommendations of our twelve international judges, we developed nine case studies. These feature librarians from Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Honduras, and the Maldives and their early identification of trends, challenges and opportunities from research communities in low and middle income countries. The book leads with stories from Onan Mulumba, Agricultural Librarian for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Makerere University in Uganda, and Cynthia Kimani, Librarian at the Kenya Medical Research Institute Library. We were honoured to have both of them join us at the September Research4Life General Partners Meeting in Rome to celebrate the 10th anniversary of AGORA. We hope you’ll find the book compelling and share both individual case studies and the entire book with your customers and employees. It provides an excellent opportunity to share your organization’s contribution to the partnership.

Interested in creating a tailored print version with your logo and quote for outreach? Contact info@research4life.org.


Research4Life Partner Meeting July 31st 2014 Washington DC

partner_meeting_16fcf907c080fWe will be holding our 2014 General Partners Meeting (GPM) for Research4Life (HINARI, AGORA, OAREand ARDI) on 31st July. As in many years past, it is being generously hosted by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in Washington DC.For those not familiar, the General Partners Meeting is the body which governs our Research4Life partnership and provides an opportunity for every partner to help review the progress, direction and development of the four programmes.

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Emily Gillingham, Chair of the Executive Council

We would like to invite you to join us and help us to continue shaping the programmes through 2015.We hope very much to have a member of the new Advisory Council join us at the meeting as well. At the end of the meeting Emily Gillingham’s role as Chair of the Executive Council will draw to a close and the Chair-elect, Richard Gedye, will take on the mantel. He will be joined by a new – yet to be announced – Chair-elect at that time. We’ll have a chance to thank Emily for her dedicated and excellent contributions to the Executive Council over the past two years. If you’re interested in getting more deeply involved in the partnership and joining us at the upcoming GPM, please contact info@research4life.org.

 


New AGORA Programme Manager

agora_managerWe are pleased to introduce Johannes Keizer as the new AGORA Programme Manager. Since 1998 Johannes Keizer has been working for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN. He heads the team working on Agricultural Information Management Standards and Services. Through the AIMS portal, his team is working on standards, tools and advice for FAOs stakeholders. Some of the main products are AGRIS,the international information system for Agricultural Science and Technology; AGROVOC,the multilingual agricultural concept scheme; the Linked Open Data recommendations for Bibliographic Data;AgriOcean Dspace and AgriDrupal. Now, AGORA and Research4Life are added to this rich portfolio, which is excellent news. Stephen Rudgard, the previous AGORA Programme Manager, has been appointed FAO Representative in Laos effective February 2014. Many thanks to Stephen for his engagement and support to R4L; we wish him all the best in his new endeavor. See Q&A with Stephen Rudgard as AGORA celebrates its 10th anniversary.


10th Anniversary of AGORA

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©FAO/Alessia Pierdomenico September 201, Rome, Italy – FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva, right awarding Onan Mulumba in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Research4Life Library Competition at the 10th Anniversary of AGORA Sheykh Zayed Media Center, FAO headquarters.

September 2013 marked the 10th anniversary of Research4Life’s AGORA agricultural program –coordinated by FAO, together with major publishers – which provides over 2,300 institutions in over 100 developing countries with free or low-cost access to leading journals in the fields of agriculture, fisheries, food, nutrition, veterinary science and related biological, environmental and social sciences. Last year, the Research4life Library Competition recognized the role of librarians in building research capacity and boosting output among scientists, doctors and policy makers. Onan Mulumba, a librarian at Makerere University in Uganda, won the 2013 competition. He was honoured during the AGORA anniversary celebrations at FAO Headquarters. An Honourable Mention for a second case study was also awarded to Cynthia Kimani, librarian at the Kenya Medical Research Institute Library.

 

 

 


Mendeley joins Research4Life

mendeley_1f86658Mendeley, a global research collaboration platform and academic database, has pledged to collaborate with Research4Life to boost researcher skills in eligible countries. Mendeley’s free cloud-based apps will enable researchers to organize, share and discover new research with other scientists all over the world. Within Research4Life countries, Mendeley currently has thousands of active researcher users and hundreds of global Advisors to help train, educate and increase awareness about how make the most of these research productivity tools.

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Jessica Reeves, Head of User Engagement, Mendeley

Jessica L. Reeves, Mendeley’s Head of User Engagement, explains, “We are committed to making researchers aware of our free reference management and academic collaboration tools, educating users through our Resource Center, as well as growing the global Mendeley Advisor community, to support researchers in developing countries. Through this community, we hope to celebrate and promote Research4Life stories of success and collaboration. We really look forward to working with the partnership to further our mission of opening science through technology for all researchers, especially in developing countries.”

 

 

 

 


Global Online Access to Law (GOAL)

goalda50beResearch4Life is committed to extending its partnerships and outreach. This includes exploring new programmes that fit our objectives in Beyond the 2015 Horizon, Research4Life’s strategic plan. Global Online Access to Law (GOAL) proposes to provide free and low cost online access to academic legal content to institutions in developing countries. Key subject areas would include international law and human rights law to help strengthen legal frameworks and institutions in developing countries, while furthering the rule of law. The fulfilment of basic rights is essential for advancing peace and security, and often a prerequisite for economic development. They also enable people to enjoy their full rights as citizens in society. While still in an exploratory phase, GOAL is designed to help strengthen the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which relate to the rule of law (Access to Information and Access to Justice). The SDGs are currently being considered for inclusion by UN working groups as part of the post-2015 development agenda. In short, we are seeking support from publishers, academic institutions, international organizations and funding bodies to GOAL as a new Research4Life programme. If you would like to find out more about GOAL or pledge support as we develop GOAL, contact Liesbeth Kanis, Research4Life liaison for Brill Publishers at info@research4life.org.


Assessing the Impact of Research4Life

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Every five years, Research4Life commissions two external reviews of its programmes. One review looks at the programmes from the point of view of the contributing partners, assessing how well the infrastructure and operations are performing. The second review examines the user experience through online surveys and face to face interviews to determine how successfully we’re increasing access to world-leading science and encouraging use. We are currently developing our plans for commissioning our next set of reviews for presentation and discussion at the 2015 General Partners Meeting. By design, these reviews look critically at our infrastructure and performance, highlighting any issues or constraints and proposing ways in which these may be addressed.

This philosophy has proved invaluable over the last 13 years and has led to a succession of improvements in the way we deliver our programmes. To complement these formal reviews, however, we also regularly undertake activities designed to focus on the positive impacts of our programmes. Hence our development and documentation of specific case studies – of individual researchers and practitioners in our recent booklet, Making a Difference: Stories from the field, and of librarians in our new publication, Unsung Heroes: Stories from the Library. In addition, this year we also want to gain wider insight into the positive impacts which our programmes have within our end-user communities by launching a HINARI user impact survey. Our first 2014 survey, which was carried out for us by independent consultancy Information Power, asked HINARI users to tell us how they use the content and to identify whether it enhances the way they conduct research or carry out clinical practice. Information Power is currently analysing the results and we hope to be able to bring you a summary of these in our next newsletter.

Questions about impact analyses or our systematic reviews? Contact Richard Gedye at info@research4life.org.


Feedback from our Research4Life Advisory Council

In 2013, we formed a new Advisory Council which has met quarterly over the past year. The Advisory Council includes academic librarians from institutions across Africa. Our objectives include providing a forum for direct engagement between the user community and the R4L partnership, as well as supporting the early identification of trends, unmet needs, problems and opportunities from the research and library communities in developing countries. We also hope to nurture new Research4Life champions, increase international exposure and provide opportunities for professional development amongst key stakeholders. Please contact Emily Gillingham at info@research4life.org for more briefings. The Advisory group met most recently on March 27th, with some 10 members of the community. Feedback included: • Addressing the need for customizable posters, banners and materials to hand out in institutions. • Tackling the bandwidth issues on a strategic alliances level; you can’t significantly boost usage if a researcher has to download a PDF article over 5 hours at night in order to do basic research. • Most developing country researchers don’t know R4L, only HINARI or the specific programs. • Lots of great Research4Life marketing discussion with librarians in the Research4Life User Forum. • Many health librarians are not just marketing HINARI internally but also outside their own institutions to community health workers. • Training and outreach is not enough: librarians have to advocate for support directly from management through annual work plans.


ITOCA Training Workshops in 2014

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Under the new Research4Life training strategy, ITOCA (Information Training & Outreach Centre for Africa) has delivered two train-the-trainer workshops in Botswana and Nigeria to date and four more courses are planned for 2014 in Ethiopia (May), Uganda (July), Sierra Leone (August) and Tanzania (September). The new training strategy aims to integrate programme awareness, usage and sustainability by providing various mediums for the uptake of the resources beyond the training. The main focus is on getting the buy-in and support from decision makers in the user institutions before a training workshop, as well as inviting university management to the official opening or closing ceremonies, enabling the university leadership to participate in and understand Research4Life’s goals, including the necessity of investing in a solid ICT infrastructure to enable access.

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University of Ibadan workshop 3/2014

I appreciate the publishers and the management and staff of ITOCA for the initiative, and benefits they have brought to [the] developing world by enhancing teaching and research through provision of quality and up-to-date information.” — Participant, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. The University of Ibadan’s Kenneth Dike Library hosted the Research4Life Nigeria workshop from 24-26 March 2014. The training workshop was formally opened by Dr. Benedict Oladele, the University Librarian. Professor Dele Fawole, the ITOCA Representative for West Africa, emphasised the value of the Research4Life programmes and how they provided access to resources which are often not even available in many Western institutions. The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic), Professor. A.I. Olayinka also confirmed the University of Ibadan’s support and their willingness to ensure ongoing training for staff and students. ITOCA has found that support from the university management is critical to the continued uptake of the Research4Life and TEEAL programmes.

To learn more, contact Blessing Chataira through info@research4life.org


HINARI Trainers Group Nepal

hinari_1c38e276075e8In 2007, four health librarians from different institutions across Nepal formed the HINARI Trainers Group. From the beginning their goal has been to stimulate research in the biomedical and health fields and promote the use of HINARI resources through training, a user discussion forum, and developing models for other country user groups.

Since its launch, the Group has conducted 12 training sessions at institutions including the Nepal Health Research Council, Lordbudhha Nursing College, Institute of Medicine.

hinari_2b84dda999d4aNursing College, Manmohan Nursing College, STUPA College, ALKA Nursing College, Norvic Nursing College, Nobel College, ASIAN College, and Chakravarti Nursing College. In 2011, the Nepal Trainers Group was awarded a Research4Life Master Trainer Certificate from the Medical Library Association. This year’s activities include a marketing campaign to spread awareness of HINARI, enhancing internal communication in the group, and setting up distance learning courses to further disseminate HINARI. Interested in learning more? Follow the Nepal HINARI Trainers Group on Facebook.


Marketing Research4Life in Central and West Africa

marketing378024d8dcefHistorically, West and Central Africa have been low usage areas for Research4Life. Of the 3,000 African institutions registered in 2012, only 300 came from these regions. But in 2013-2014, ITOCA received a targeted marketing grant from the Elsevier Foundation to boost awareness and usage of Research4Life in these countries. In addition to training workshops in DR Congo and Sierra Leone, ITOCA launched an intensive marketing and outreach campaign aimed at the research and academic communities in ten West and Central African focus countries. Letters were sent to thousands of carefully compiled contact people targeting both users and non-users, and ITOCA visited key conferences in the region. For users with questions or problems, the ITOCA staff provided an email, phone and listserv, and dedicated helpdesk service. Due to end in June 2014, the targeted marketing campaign has already reaped significant results. There was a 16% increase in the number of R4L registrations, reaching 427 institutions in March 2014. The highest numbers of new institutions have been registered in DR Congo with 30 institutions (20%) and Niger with 10 institutions (24%). Angola, Chad, Guinea, Liberia and Mauritania have significant new registrations recorded to date and this positive trend is expected to continue upwards as the marketing efforts continue.

Questions? Contact Gracian Chimwaza through info@research4life.org.


Librarians Without Borders: Building the Training Infrastructure

MLA_1Over the course of 2013, MLA’s Librarians Without Borders® continued their extensive training and curriculum development to enable hundreds of doctors, nurses, librarians and researchers in low and middle income countries to develop the skills they need to use Research4Life resources. In 2013, 252 people from Albania, Macedonia, Samoa, Ethiopia, and Haiti (all low usage countries) were trained through workshops often in collaboration with the WHO, and in Africa, with the Information Training & Outreach Centre in Africa (ITOCA).

These users, many of whom are now trainers in their own right, will help to boost R4L usage over the coming years. MLA_2Workshops at the University of Florida and at the Medical Library Association meeting last May also helped to develop a new set of US trainers. Direct results include: the University of Southern California set up a HINARI and authorship skills training for all graduate students from eligible countries; Ohio State University established a Research4Life training partnership at the University of Gondor in Ethiopia; while Tulane and Johns Hopkins Universities have established a joint training programme to prepare graduate students returning to eligible countries. Finally, Lenny Rhine also spent a generous portion of 2013 developing and updating the online and onsite training infrastructure behind Research4Life. In 2014, Lenny will work with the ARDI team to create an initial training module, and will also undertake further updates for the three older programs to reflect new software developments and other training needs. The 2012 and January-August 2013 download statistics for HINARI training materials totaled more than 200,000 per year (ca 16,000 per month). This level of usage underscores the importance of these materials for trainers and users, and the necessity of keeping them up-to-date to advance the Research4Life mission. Interested in learning more about Librarians Without Borders? Contact Lenny Rhine through info@research4life.org.


New Content Management Partner Team

new_contentSince Research4Life was launched some 13 years ago, a hidden -but integral -part of the programmes has been the management and maintenance of all the details of the journals, databases and books that lie behind the user portals. This is as difficult as it sounds: different academic partners and programme offices have been involved at different points and with varying amounts of time to spend on tasks. Rarely has there been time to actually look at the hows and whys of our database structures, our formats and categories, and our processes and communications. So this year, we’ve formed a task force to step back, review, revise, and update, with an eye towards balancing efficiency with adjustments that could improve the user experience. Questions? Contact Kimberly Parker, Team leader and HINARI Programme Manager, through info@research4life.org.


Research4Life at SSP Annual Meeting

forthcoming_1Richard Gedye will be representing Research4Life on a panel session entitled “Publishers and the Developing World: Philanthropy, Partnerships, Markets” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Scholarly Publishing on Friday 30 May in Boston. The panel will share what they have discovered about the impact that their current activities are having in target communities and will then respond to a series of questions.


Collaborative Training Programme with INASP

inaspOur collaborative training project in Sierra Leone with INASP is progressing well, with the first workshops taking place next month. The programme will kick off with a series of workshops 1- 8 May in Freetown and Njala, addressed to three separate constituencies: relevant Vice Chancellors and academic leaders; Researchers and Librarians. INASP’s Anne Powell and Research4Life Trainer Lenny Rhine have been working together with local Sierra Leone trainer Miriam Conteh-Morgan to collate appropriate content from our respective training materials into a seamless teaching programme for the workshops.

Research4Life Latest Stats & Facts

• 7700 registered institutions
• 14,500 journals
• 30,000 books
• 185 publisher partners

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Latest Research4Life News

• 2014, 7 March Health News NG: Research4Life Programmes Training-of-Trainer Workshop
• 2014, 27 January: Research4Life’s HINARI featured at World Health Organization
• 2014, 9 January: New Authentication Live
• 2013, 23 December: Africa doubles research output over past decade, moves towards a knowledge-based economy – Research Trends
• 2013, 13 November: Watch the FAO webcast on the 10th Anniversary of AGORA from Rome, Italy – FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva
• 2013, 1 November: Wiley blog A new Research4Life Training Strategy in Africa
• 2013, 18 September: FAO United Nations – Food and Agriculture Organization Radio: 10th anniversary of Research4Life’s AGORA agricultural program
• 2013, September: Elsevier Connect, Q&A with Stephen Rudgard as AGORA celebrates its 10th anniversary
• 2013 September: Elsevier Connect Case study: Research4Life and its impact on an agronomist in Burkina Faso
• 2013, 21 August: Research4Life featured in the WHO World Health Report 2013


Promoting Your Research4Life Partnership

promoting.18aca6afc1676Don’t forget, if you are a Research4Life partner, you can access Research4Life promotional materials including logos, web banners, flyers, brochures, boiler plate and presentations, and other information at a special partner-only link. As a partner, you can also choose to customize your Research4Life brochure or the Making a Difference and Unsung Heroes booklets with a quote and logo. For more information, please contact Charlotte Masiello-Riome, Research4Life Communications Coordinator at communications@research4life.org.

 


Looking for a Fundraiser? Donate to Research4Life!

We are always asked by partners to suggest different ways that individuals and society members can contribute to Research4life. Don’t forget that Research4Life is also an excellent charity for an office fundraiser. If you or any of your society members would like to contribute funds to Research4Life training or outreach, you can support Research4Life through www.who.int/hinari/donation/en

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Research4Life Newsletter July 2013

6th August 2013

Table of Contents


Note from the Editor

Welcome to this latest edition of our Research4Life Partner Newsletter. We want to make it possible for you to fully leverage and promote your participation as partners of this impressive access initiative.  Read on and find out about the recent milestones, competitions, interviews, outreach and upcoming meetings.
Over the last months we participated in TEDMED in Washington DC, celebrated our 35,000 information resource milestone and congratulated the winner of our librarian case study competition, Onan Mulumba of Makerere University Library in Uganda. Read on to learn more about the winners, the meeting and catch up with Kimberly Parker in her recent interview as HINARI programme manager.
Finally don’t forget to follow us at www.twitter.com/R4LPartnership and ‘like’ us at www.facebook.com/R4Lpartnership!  Share the news with colleagues and customers—and help expand our Research4Life community. Interested in getting more involved? We have teams focused on everything from communications to training, technology and impact.  Contact us at communications@research4life.org to find out how you can get more involved.

– Ylann Schemm, Chair of the Research4Life Communications and Marketing Team;
Senior Corporate Responsibility Manager, Elsevier


Competition Update and Winner: Librarians Share Impact Experiences from Research4Life
Onan Mulumba, Agricultural Librarian for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at Makerere University in Uganda was chosen from among 45 highly competitive applicants by a panel of 12 distinguished judges and international experts in the field of research capacity building. As part of the first prize, Onan Mulumba has been invited to serve as the first user to join the Research4Life Executive Council. The prize includes an all-expenses paid trip to attend the Partners’ General Meeting in Rome, Italy in September 2013.
An Honourable Mention for a second case study was awarded to Cynthia Kimani, Librarian at the Kenya Medical Research Institute Library.  Cynthia has been invited to attend the annual Research4Life partner meeting and serve on Research4Life’s newly founded library advisory council which provides a forum for direct engagement between the Research4Life partnership and its user community.
“The Research4Life programmes began because we heard and responded to our users’ needs,” said Barbara Aronson, competition judge and founder of HINARI. It’s very gratifying that these two librarians, who have made such an important impact in their institutions, will be continuing our tradition of user voices helping guide our work.”


Research4Life Reaches Milestone of 35,000 Scholarly Resources

Research4Life announced in June that the total number of its offering of information resources has now surpassed 35,000. The total number of journals now tops 13,000, with e-books totaling over 22,000. The Research4Life partnership currently provides over 6,000 institutions in more than 100 developing countries with free or low cost access to peer-reviewed online content from the world’s leading scientific, technical and medical publishers. Read the press release

 


Celebrating AGORA’s 10th Anniversary in Rome at our Partner Meeting

On Monday 16th September, 2013, FAO and its partners will celebrate the tenth anniversary of AGORA – during the Research4Life General Partners Meeting in Rome. The Director-General of FAO is scheduled to speak and there will be a viewing of the most recent video on how AGORA has made a difference in the life of a particular researcher in Burkina Faso.  Also on the Agenda, the prize for the Research4Life Library Competition will be awarded, and the winner will share with the audience his testimonial of how AGORA and Research4Life have made a real difference in his university. We anticipate the anniversary celebration to be a vivid commemoration of the enduring partnership between the public and private sectors to respond to the fight against hunger.

 


Announcing the new Research4Life Advisory Council

One of our core strategic objectives outlined in ‘Beyond the 2015 Horizon’ is to ‘Mobilize user communities (ie. librarians, academics, researchers, practitioners, policy makers within eligible countries’ (it’s Goal D.1, to be precise).  We have made a further step towards achieving this by forming a new Advisory Council which is meeting for the first time in South Africa on July 5th, alongside the African Library Summit.  This new Council includes members from these different constituencies but is mostly made up of academic librarians from institutions across Africa in the pilot phase.  The objectives of the Council are to:

  1. Provide a forum for direct engagement between the user community and R4L partnership.  To give a more prominent voice to developing country customers with publishing partners in particular.
  2. Support early identification of trends, unmet needs, problems and opportunities from the research and library communities in developing countries.
  3. Increase international exposure and provide opportunities for professional development amongst key stakeholders.
  4. Nurture champions for Research4Life and the research culture within eligible countries.

We have two virtual meetings planned.  A press release announcing the membership will be available soon. For more information, contact info@research4life.org.

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Q & A with Kimberly Parker, HINARI Programme Manager at the World Health Organization

In May, Kimberly took some time to talk to us about her pivotal role in developing Research4Life:
Officially I am the Programme Manager for the HINARI programme, which has its “home base” in the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. HINARI is one of four Research4Life programmes, and there are also UN leads for each of the other three programmes.
Unofficially, I am something of an institutional memory for Research4Life, as I became involved in the programmes in 2002 when I worked for Yale University Library, the first partner of HINARI outside of the publisher community. So I suppose I have a certain form of seniority within the group. Having said that, Research4Life is a very organic partnership, and we work almost entirely by consensus and drawing on the skills and knowledge sets of those who enthusiastically volunteer their time or ideas. So, I may be a “centre of gravity” for the partnership, but there are many others who can be described that way as well, and we all work together towards a common goal.

–Read the full article in the May 29th issue of ElsevierConnect.

 


What’s up with Training?

Lenny Rhine, Coordinator of the ‘E-library Training Initiative’; a Librarians Without Borders®/Medical Library Association project funded by the Elsevier Foundation, recently returned from the MLA/International Congress of Medical Librarianship where he held numerous workshops including the HINARI users group and a 5 hour Train the Trainer course which he co- taught with Michael Chimalizeni from ITOCA. The course was oversubscribed with over 35 colleagues receiving a crash course in training. The training equips librarians in Western institutions teaching visiting scholars or librarians’ doing outreach through their institution’s developing world partnerships. Interested in learning more about training? Contact info@research4life.org.


Making a Difference Series: Share Research4Life Impact in Burkina Faso

Dr Sami Hyacinthe Kambire, a researcher from Burkina Faso, shares how Research4Life has helped  him to develop better and more informed scientific writing skills, produce focused research that he can discuss with top researchers worldwide, compete more effectively for research funding, and deliver better teaching programmes. Watch the video.

TEDMED/Research4Life Collaboration

TEDMED Live is an extraordinary offering that TEDMED had agreed to give away for free to all the Research4Life institutions so that all participants in R4L had the chance to join the event remotely in real-time or on-demand. As a thank you to all the partners of Research4Life, TEDMED made TEDMEDLive available during the event free of charge 16-21 April. TEDMED also referenced to Research4Life as part of its achievement to simulcast conference globally to 50 countries and 2,500 Organizations. See more.


Donate to Research4Life

We are always asked by partners to suggest different ways that individuals and society members can contribute to Research4life. We are grateful for your current participation, and pleased to offer an additional way to further enhance your support for the developing world. If you or any of your society members would like to contribute funds to training or outreach, you can support Research4Life through http://www.who.int/hinari/donation/en/


Banners, Brochures, Video & More for Research4Life Partners

Don’t forget, if you are a Research4Life partner, you can access Research4Life promotional materials including logos, web banners, flyers, brochures, boiler plate and presentations, and other information at a special partner-only link. As a partner, you can also choose to customize your Research4Life brochure or the“Making a Difference” booklet with a quote and logo. For more information, please contact Charlotte Masiello-Riome, Research4Life Communications Coordinator at communications@research4life.org

 

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Research4Life Newsletter November 2012

1st January 2013

Table of Contents

 

 


Note from the Editor

Welcome to this latest edition of our Research4Life Partner Newsletter. Our goal is to ensure that you can stay up to speed on the latest developments in Research4Life and to enable you as partners to fully leverage and promote your participation.  In this issue you’ll find updates on some of the issues which were discussed in our July General Partners Meeting as well as a trainer’s spotlight on Lenny Rhine of the MLA/Librarians Without Borders.

We are delighted to welcome the new Chair of the Executive Council, Emily Gillingham, Director of Library Relations at Wiley and founding Research4Life partner. In this month’s newsletter, Emily shares her first ‘Chairman’s Report.’ We also heartily thank our outgoing Chair, Kimberly Parker, HINARI programme manager, for her past two years of (additional) tireless service to the partnership.

In November, Research4Life launched a revamped website at www.research4life.org.  A giant thanks to Charlotte Masiello Riome, our Research4Life Communications Coordinator for singlehandedly managing this process-and to WIPO for their material and moral support for our vastly improved outreach channel.  Our new online home will host news, testimonials, case studies and programme information and will give us the flexibility to add further resources, such as training materials, in the future.  The website will also host our new social media channels on Facebook and Twitter. Please follow us at www.twitter.com/R4LPartnership and ‘like’ us at www.facebook.com/R4Lpartnership!  We would really appreciate it if you could share these sites with your social media marketing colleagues to help us extend our networks and share news.

Ylann Schemm, Chair of the Research4Life Communications and Marketing Team; Senior Corporate Responsibility Manager, Elsevier

Note from the New Chair of Executive Council

After 10 years working on Research4Life I’m delighted to have recently taken on the Chairmanship of the Executive Council.  Kimberly Parker of WHO set an extremely high bar in this role and has propelled Research4Life to now encompass four distinct programmes with books and other resources now also available in more than 6000 institutions worldwide.  She has pushed through critical technological improvements to the service and will continue to play an important part in the evolution of the programmes.  On behalf of the Executive Council and all the partners I would like to extend our great thanks to Kim for all that she has done for Research4Life.

There are also some clear areas of focus for us over the coming period.  For example, a new CRM system is being implemented which has the potential to radically improve the way in which access is delivered.  It will also be a tool which we can leverage to improve our communications with librarians and information officers in the recipient institutions in order to support greater dialogue and usage of the resources.  This fits with our strategic goal to build engagement with librarians and researchers in the developing countries and examples of plans in this area include developing a Librarian Advisory Board for Research4Life and bringing users onto the Executive Council.  The recent case study booklet and videos, all available on the newly revamped www.research4life.org  site, amply show how the programmes have made an impact on clinical practice, public policy and higher education.  We will continue to work with the user community and our partners to improve outreach, training, access and outcomes.

Many of you will have seen our press release this week announcing the extended commitment that our Partners have made to support Research4Life through 2020.  This long term sustainability is a critical element of the initiative, giving eligible institutions the justification and confidence to make related investments in necessary networked systems, teaching staff, labs and research projects.  It is this long term commitment that is making the difference to Research4Life’s effectiveness.  As one of the beneficiaries, Gamal Khalafalla Mohamed Ali, Director General of Sudan’s Central Medical Supplies Public Corporation, says; “As a policymaker, I use research published in HINARI for formulating research-based policies. I have written many proposals and most of these find their way to implementation. A major reason for this, I think is the evidence that underpins the proposals. To me HINARI is like water and oxygen: it is vital for me.”

It’s a pleasure to work with so many others on a project which delivers something like water and oxygen.  Thank you for your continued support.

Emily Gillingham is the Chair of the Executive Council for Research4Life and has been involved in the initiative, particularly the marketing and communications side, since soon after its launch.  She is also Director of Library Relations at Wiley, working to support engagement with this key audience and to deliver services which meet the needs of librarians and information professionals.  In this role she runs Wiley’s international network of Customer Advisory Boards.  Emily is also a member of the COUNTER marketing committee and has been a member of the STM communications committee.

Core offer revised eligibility criteria

This July, the General Partners Meeting revised the eligibility criteria for countries, areas, and territories in our Core offer with one additional criterion – Total GNI (World Bank figures).  The main purpose of the revision is to use clear third-party indicators to provide the basis on which some countries have been classified as ineligible for our Core offer.

At the same time, the inclusion of the total GNI factor enabled us to include very tiny economies, or smaller economies with slightly higher GNI per capita numbers.  The newly eligible or reinstated countries for 2013 are:  Botswana; Dominica; Gabon; Grenada; Mauritius; Montenegro; Palau; Saint Kitts and Nevis; Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; and Seychelles.  The new eligibility criteria can be found at

 


Partners commit to 2020

During the July 2012 Research4Life General Partners Meeting in Washington DC, the partners reaffirmed and extended their commitment to Research4life beyond 2012 for an additional 8 years. A press release announcing the partners’ renewed commitment through 2020 and showcasing achievements was released on November 15th. “As the world community looks beyond the Millennium Development Goal milestone dates, the Research4Life partnership is setting an example by ensuring sustainability of these important information access initiatives through 2020.”

 


Transitional Path Offer – A new opt-in for publisher partners

The General Partners Meeting this summer also approved a new “Transitional Path Option” from January 2013. The goal of the Transitional Path Offer is to ensure a gradual transition for the types of institution likely to be rarely involved in countrywide consortia deals as countries graduate from eligibility for the Research4Life Core Offer but remain in less developed states. In order to ensure all the components are properly in place, we will roll out this new option initially for the HINARI programme only.

In the Transitional Path countries, institutional eligibility will be limited to national (local) non-governmental organizations (NGOs) or agriculture extension centres that are not also research institutes, educational organizations, or major government offices.

As the Transitional Path Offer is just beginning, many publishers are carefully examining their current arrangements and positions in the involved countries.  Publishers will be assumed not to be participating in this Transitional Path Offer unless they ask to opt in.  We anticipate that the numbers of information resources on offer and the number of institutions who will register for the access will both remain small for at least the coming year.  The following countries fit the criteria initially established for eligibility for the Transitional Path –  Belarus; Bulgaria; Costa Rica; Cuba; Egypt;  Indonesia; Iran; Lebanon; Pakistan; Panama; Philippines; Serbia; South Africa; and Thailand.

http://www.who.int/hinari/eligibility/transitional_path_offer_of_hinari/en/index.html

More Research4Life case studies come to the small screen

Interactive Africa will be bringing us a number of new videos in the coming months, including interviews with Research4Life users Dr Sami Hyacinthe Kambire, an agronomist in Burkina Faso’s Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research and Dr. Tim Meade (Tiny Tim & Friends) who is working to improve the lives of HIV-infected children in Zambia. The videos will bring audiences to the field and into the lives of those benefiting from the Research4Life programmes. This series of three videos has been sponsored by the BMJ Group, Microsoft, Wiley and Elsevier. If you are interested in sponsoring the creation of a video, please contact info@research4life.org<mailto:info@research4life.org

For up to date Research4life videos and case studies, visit http://www.research4life.org/case-studies/

Interview with Research4Life’s Lenny Rhine – A leading example in Training the Trainers

Since June 2006, Lenny has been holding training workshops all over the world for the Research4Life programmes with financial support from various organizations, including WHO, ITOCA and in collaboration with the Librarians Without Borders(r)/Medical Library Association (LWB/MLA). Lenny has held training workshops all over the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and South Pacific, as well as English speaking countries in the Americas and Eastern Europe.

What have been some of the benefits you have seen directly from your training?

Some of the visible or tangible benefits are just observing the participants gain the skills to utilize the Research4Life resources.  I’ve seen researchers and physicians find a valuable article and proceed to read it completely instead of completing their training course assignments.  Hospital residents have spent hours using the evidence-based medicine resources as they are obtaining invaluable information for use upon returning to the hospital’s wards.  Health information professionals realize the value of the programmes and understand their role as teachers.  After a national workshop, there is increased usage of Research4Life programmes by the institutions represented.  We also see an increase in registrations.

How has the training translated to capacity building for your institutions?

As Gracian mentioned in the June2012 Partner newsletter, the goal of the train-the-trainer mode is to give the participants the skills so that they can use the Research4Life materials and also instruct others when they return to their institutions.   Besides the specific usage skills, we also teach marketing /promotion strategies and ask the participants to apply them at their institutions. In future workshops, we plan to discuss specific outcomes that will be surveyed at six and twelve months.

Since 2008, we also have conducted training for individuals from developed countries whose institutions have linkages in Research4Life eligible institutions.  Besides approximately 10 workshops, participants have developed 2 training modules and a series of HINARI training videos.

 

How has the training continued? (i.e. Train the trainer)

In the past 5+ years, LWB has conducted 50+ workshops in 23 countries with an average attendance of 25 people.  As previously mentioned, many of these are in conjunction with ITOCA or sponsored by WHO regional offices.  To reach individuals who are unable to attend formal workshops, we have developed online Short Courses for HINARI, AGORA and OARE.  These courses are available on the ITOCA and MLA Moodle servers. Via group email messages, I also continue to communicate with participants from workshops for the past three years.  These messages keep them informed about new Research4Life developments and new/updated training material.

 

How many institutes do you normally train in a year timespan, and what counties/cities have you done in the last six months?

LWB has conducted 6 workshops in the last 6 months in Namibia, Nepal and Viet Nam.  The ones in Viet Nam were collaborations with the World Intellectual Property Organization.  The normal rate is 4 or 5 training sites per year with 8 to 10 workshops. In June, LWB and ITOCA taught a HINARI distance learning course in English, French and Portuguese.  71 individuals completed the online course.

Donate to HINARI and support Research4Life

We are always asked by partners to suggest different ways that individuals and society members can contribute to Research4life. We are grateful for your current participation, and are pleased to announce an additional way in which you can further enhance your support for the developing world. If you, your organization, or any of your society members would like to contribute funds towards programme activities, you can donate to this account and support Research4Life: http://www.who.int/hinari/donation/en/

Lancet – Access to content online

The Lancet now also separately available on Research4life

As a founding partner Elsevier continues to extend its content contribution to Research4Life and is delighted to announce that The Lancet is now also separately available to all countries in the Research4life programmes.  The Lancet believes that everyone has the right to the highest attainable standard of health and that care should be equitable and just. This initiative will ensure that The Lancet’s extensive portfolio of high quality global health related content is available to those who really need it.   It allows users of Research4Life to view all Lancet journals’ content on The Lancet website, and be free to browse its specialty Collections, and Global Health and Clinical Series on www.thelancet.com.

New and improved Research4Life website launches

Research4Life is proud to announce a newly enhanced website has been launched at www.Research4Life.org. Thank you to the World Intellectual Property Organization for their support in making this a reality.

The website continues to grow, and in the near future will provide extensive information on training activities, increased multimedia featuring our users, and enhanced communication tools for partners to promote the Research4Life initiative to their organizations, their partners, and the rest of the world.

Interesting latest facts

  • ARDI: training remains a key theme for WIPO and ARDI, with 20 workshops having been conducted and an additional 30 planned for this year.
  • 2013 will mark AGORA’s 10 year anniversary.
  • Research4Life currently brings the contents of over 10,000 peer-reviewed scientific journals and some 7,000 books to researchers in the developing countries.
  • For 78 of the world’s poorest countries subscription charges are waived, while for a further 28 countries they are discounted by over 99%.
  • Over 6,000 institutions are currently registered for access to content available through Research4Life.

 

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Research4Life Partner Newsletter June 2012

1st June 2012

Note from the Editor

This May, we’ve hit an impressive milestone with 17,000 peer reviewed resources available through Research4Life. Since our January newsletter, we’ve reached out to librarians, authors, editors, policymakers, journalists and fundraisers to share our 10th anniversary case study book, “Making a Difference”. The book has made our achievements tangible, with doctors, midwives and researchers sharing how they’ve been able to improve patient outcomes, transform local newsletters into peer reviewed journals and literally, join the global research community.

Download the June 2012 Newsletter as a PDF

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Research4Life Partner Newsletter December 2011

1st December 2011

Editor’s Welcome

At the 10th Anniversary Research4Life partners’ meeting held in July at the British Medical Association, we added our 4th official programme, ARDI. More than ever, we have a great deal of news to share with our partners. Below you’ll find a selection of some of the key projects underway across the many programmes and partner teams. Our newsletter aims to keep you up to date on new developments–and enable you to jump in where you see opportunities for sharing networks and expertise. Drop us a line with any questions or news you’d like to see included in our next issue. Finally, many thanks are due to my co-editors Ylann Schemm, Elsevier and Charlotte Masiello-Riome.

Download the December 2011 Newsletter as a PDF

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