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This is a brief synopsis covering the main aspects of Research4Life, including information about the creators and stakeholders, criteria for access, its composition and training given. In 2001 Research4Life was initially started by WHO with HINARI (Health InterNetwork Access to Research Initiative) to enable developing countries to access free or greatly subsidized biomedical and health literature. From 2003-09 this type of access to the AGORA, OARE and ARDI databases of scientific journals and books became available to over 77 poorer developing countries by Cornell and Yale Universities, FAO, UNEP and WIPO with other publishers. Institutions are required to meet specific criteria and categories to be entitled to the right to use of Research4Life resources. A few case studies are described which clearly show the impact Research4Life has had so far. We are informed of the future plans for the project too. This article gives a clear insight into how first world organisations are giving researchers and the populace of less developed countries the opportunity to advance their own research and development by providing access to current information and data.

As a librarian, research4life boosts my morale. Truly, librarians can be the unsung heroes in scientific researches. Librarians happily serve researchers without expecting anything but ensuring that they get the information they need. Research4life values the role of the librarians in the field of research and I appreciate that. I wish to express my gratitude to resesarch4life organization for giving value to the contribution of librarians in research

I was lucky to be in Berlin with some colleagues earlier this month for the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival and associated fringe events. There's really too much to distill into a short post-from Neelie Kroes, the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, making the case for " Embracing the open opportunity," to Patrick Alley's breathtaking accounts of how Global Witness uses information, to expose crime and corruption in countries around the world.

A useful summary of some of the key take-aways from the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival, courtesy of Tariq Khokhar From the article: 1. There are some great open data initiatives around the world and two common themes are the need for a strong community of technologically literate data re-users, and the sustained effort needed within governments to change how they create, manage and publish data in the long term. 2. Spreadsheets are code and we can adopt some software engineering practices to make much better use of them. There are a number of powerful tools and approaches to data handing being pioneered by the scientific community and those working in other fields can adopt and emulate many of them. 3. Open data fundamentally needs open source software. App reuse often doesn't happen because contexts are too different. Reusable software components can reduce the development overhead for creating locally customized civic software applications and a pool of high quality civic software components is a valuable public good worth contributing to. Reading time: 15mins

I see that Google are the sponsors of the 2014 Open Knowledge Festival but despite having little knowledge about Google's role and interest in the Open Knowledge , I also feel they are the culprit when it comes to data manipulative for their own profit motives.

The BCN Open Data Portal makes public the data generated by the Barcelona City Council, excluding those subject to privacy, property or security restrictions. Data are available to everyone in standard, open, digital formats, that are clearly structured and comprehensible. In my opinion, this is a valuable example of how governments at different levels (in this case the municipality, which is the level of government closest to the citizen), can make efforts to facilitate access to the great amount of data they collect and to encourage citizens to reuse them.

"It is an irony of the digital age that at a time when we are used to having easy access to seemingly endless information and knowledge, so much of it is disappearing into a digital black hole. For 450 years the concept of legal deposit has helped to preserve the nation's intellectual record.| There is this aspect of disappearing data as well.

See my bookmark post 'Academic citation practices ...' for some geeky stuff on the reference / citation issues.

Jacynthe, you are welcome, and Phillip, many thanks!

Open Access also opens up a much wider ability to adopt other forms of information transmission than print. The embedding of the videos into this MOOC is a case in point. As librarians, we are then challenged to ensure that our intermediation, whether through Information Literacy training or direct reference assistance, takes into account the growing need of users to be able to make sense of all forms of communication. This fairly short article addresses this issue and states the challenge we face succintly and to the point!

Just a few short years ago, the world of digital scholarly texts was in its primordial stages, and it is still the case that most online editions are simply basic HTML or scanned images from more or less arbitrarily chosen print editions.

An article that discusses the importance of infrastructure in building the case for a open model for competency based education.

In this article, author talk about the importance of building infrastructure of open education. He gives the reasons, and the solutions. I think open education is progressing day by day, so we need to fix many fundamental problems.

I agree with this post. Establishing an open framework that results in an open infrastructure will help to create a solid foundation for educators and innovators to further improve their cause to their needs and goals, thus improving the system.

Young, K. (2004). Internet Addiction: A new Clinical Phenomenon and Its Consequences. American Behavioral Scientist. 48:402

a. Although this is a psychology article, it poses an important concern over the rise of internet addiction in connected populations. This article is relevant to this course, as it relates to the notion of critical consumption; some users are unable to filter information effectively, which should be recognized as a concern. Young states many statistics from educators and researchers discounting internet use in the classroom as it is far too distracting and the loss of productivity (in both students and the workforce) is immense.

Some might argue that this article shows the downside of connected learning and e-resources, however this is not the case. Certain web activities mentioned in the paper such as chat rooms, social media, and video games are not the focus of this course. Open Knowledge deals with the light side of the internet, which is the interconnectivity, the accelerated learning, and the ability to publish ones own content. The internet can definitely be misused, but not every web activity is "junk food". If someone obsessively became a mathematician and ultimately ended up being the best mathematician in the world due to "addiction" people would call him or her a genius. The trick is to filter which content and activities one engages in.

An interesting opinion/confessional piece on one academic's experience of publishing in the developing world. The author points out cultural pressures and differences that could possible contribute to the expanding knowledge gap.

It is very fascinating articles, thank you for posting this. I myself, most of the times, focus on the publisher issues rather than the author himself. However, after read this I realise how important it is to pay attention to the authors because their contribution can really affect the quality of researches that they involved in. Regardless how successful the authors are, they are still human beings who are also affected by the national cultures.

This is an interesting piece but raises the question - why is the institution placing the pressure? It says, tacitly, a lot about the culture of the academic institutions in the country as a whole - and this culture is often shaped by funding patterns from central government, or major funders. The institution then responds to these funding patterns by pressuring staff to produce what is funded. In South Africa this is very much the pattern, with central government funding articles published in selected journals (see the readings for the module 11). However, there has been a rethink and there is proposed changes in now supporting book publication to a much greater degree. So whereas the pressure was on to produce articles, now the universities are looking at book production to a greater extent. As has been said as a truism; "Follow the money" - and in this case we see how this affects what should be, in effect, academic freedom.

Thank you very much for your link. In the specific case of my university (University of Málaga, in Spain) we have the Jabega platform, (http://jabega.uma.es) where all the members of the university community (students and professor) have free access to the different journals whose license was paid by our university. It is a very similar project, offering not only the name of the journals and resources but also a summary describing their topic.

OASIS aims to provide an authoritative 'sourcebook' on Open Access, covering the concept, principles, advantages, approaches and means to achieving it. The site highlights developments and initiatives from around the world, with links to diverse additional resources and case studies. As such, it is a community-building as much as a resource-building exercise. Users are encouraged to share and download the resources provided, and to modify and customize them for local use. Open Access is evolving, and OASIS invites the growing world-wide community to take part in this exciting global movement.

A very good article on library role in encouraging and supporting the student publishing. It deals mainly with student scientific writing and not so much with student journals, but certainly writing scientific articles is a part of it. The article includes a real-life case study, which to my mind is added value of it. Including scholarly communication skills as part of library training program is a very good idea.

Open education is the purpose of MOOC. Obviously, open education is a correct trend of education system. MOOC always is a debatable issue, a new area where no rule to control it. In that case, there are some chaos in Open knowledge including intellectual property, and business model of MOOC and so on. But now, the US government decide to promote it, may will bring a bloom to open education and benefit people around the world

Libraries are under threat from large commercial aggregators who provide services which are in many cases challenging the role of libraries. Information technology is also, however, an enabler for valuable collaboration between libraries to provide their own information-rich resources. Libraries can also collaborate in providing services, software and communities. Software communities supporting libraries (including open source) Technology projects for libraries featuring multi-institution collaboration The role of the library in increasing service reach through institutional collaboration (eg multi-institution MOOCS) Use of aggregation with distributed services to form rich data services

An example of how one person establish his "filter" for accepting/rejecting invitations in this networked world.

Do we need a network for possible contacts or is Linkedin a source for active contacts? How many true contacts are realistic to handle and whatfor?

I totally agree! One genuine connection is better than a thousand random "contacts".

This article shows the negative sides of citizen journalism. Honestly I agree in some cases that opinion pieces/unresearched work can be an issue.