Transcript Slide 1
Under construction: Connecting-Africa
Community portal for experts on
Development and African Studies
June 2006
Ursula Oberst
African Studies Centre
Leiden, NL
IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
CONNECTING-AFRICA
Account facility
Experts
Moderator
Experts/Org. Connecting
Publications Africa
Analyzer (Filter)
Harvester
IR
IR
Publications
IR
IR
OAI-PMH Protocol
IR
IR
IR
Core community
•180 community members (total number of
Africanists in the Netherlands: 350)
•110 Dutch university units and research
schools
Content
•metadata records (approx. 3100)
•with links to full-text publications (approx.
1900)
•digitised publications of the ASC (approx.200)
44 Repositories harvested and filtered
Connecting-Africa is updated twice a month.
Funding: SURF Foundation
1st Tender 2003:
€ 46.800
2nd Tender 2004:
€ 140.000
Partners:
African Studies Centre
Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences
University of Amsterdam
University of Groningen
University of Leiden
University of Wageningen
Approach:
By developing jointly a service to the benefit of all
participants
•Based on existing building blocs
Database of Africanists in the Netherlands
•Embedded in national infrastructures
DARE (Digital Academic Repositories)
NOD (Dutch Research Database)
FUTURE of CONNECTING-AFRICA
Content
•harvest more OAI repositories containing African
Studies material (OAI = Open Archives Initiative)
•encourage colleagues in Europe to deposit
material in OAI compliant repositories
•encourage African colleague research institutions
to set up OAI compliant repositories (harvest
content from Africa)
FUTURE of CONNECTING-AFRICA
Community
•enlarge the community with specialists on Africa
from NGO’s, the media, governments, etc.
•enlarge the community with academia in Africa
and Europe
PROJECT GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
Funding:
DPRN (Development Policy Review Network)
Project period: july 2006 – december 2007
Partners:
African Studies Centre
Development Policy Review Network
Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences
Royal Tropical Institute
PROJECT GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
Activities:
•set up Global-Connections: web portal for
development expertise in the Netherlands and
Belgium.
•duplicate the Connecting-Africa model for other
area studies
IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
GLOBAL CONNECTIONS
Account facility
Account facility
Account facility
Moderator ASC
Moderator ???
Moderator ???
Connecting
Africa
Connecting
Asia
Connecting
LatinAmerica
GLOBAL-CONNECTIONS
http://www.global-connections.nl/
Development experts in NL and B
PROJECT PROPOSAL:
INTERNATIONALISING CONNECTINGAFRICA
Funding: NWO (Netherlands Organisation for
Scientific Research )
Subsidy period: september 2006 – sept. 2009
Subsidy requested: € 55.000
Partners:
African Studies Centre
CODESRIA (Council for the Development
of Social Science Research in Africa )
AEGIS (Africa-Europe Group for
Interdisciplinary Studies)
PROJECT PROPOSAL:
INTERNATIONALISING CONNECTINGAFRICA
Activities:
•to extend Connecting-Africa with research
information from Africa and Europe
•to enlarge Connecting-Africa with the Africanist
communities in Africa and Europe
EXTENDED IMPLEMENTATION MODEL
CONNECTING-AFRICA
Account facility
Account facility
Contact database
Mod. CODESRIA
Moderator ASC
Moderator NAI
Experts/Org. Connecting
Publications Africa
Analyzer (Filter)
Harvester
IR
IR
IR
IR
IR
IR
IR
Connecting
African Studies
Globally !
www.connecting-africa.net