International Multi-stakeholder experts’ meeting on Development of Curriculum and Self-Directed Learning Materials for Open Access, New Delhi, September 04-06,2013
International Multi-stakeholder experts’ meeting on Development of Curriculum and Self-Directed Learning Materials for Open Access, New Delhi, September 04-06, 2013
New Delhi, 07/09/13: International Multi-stakeholder Experts’ meeting on Development of curriculum and Self-Directed Learning (SDL) tool for Open Access (OA) was organized by Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia (CEMCA), New Delhi on September 4-6, 2013, with the support of UNESCO, Paris. The meeting was held at the Muse Sarovar Portico, Nehru Place, New Delhi. Twenty experts who are philosophers, practitioners and scientists working on promoting Open Access participated in the workshop/meeting from Argentina, Croatia, India, Lithuania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, including officials of UNESCO Paris and New Delhi. The meeting was held to develop the Curriculum blueprint for the SDL on Open Access for three different groups of stakeholders i.e., Librarians, Researchers of Universities and UNESCO Staff.
Dr. Sanjaya Mishra, Director, Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, New Delhi welcomed all participants and highlighted the importance of OA as an emerging global phenomenon of high importance. He outlined the meeting’s objectives and encouraged the participants to frame a dynamic, flexible and object-oriented curriculum for three main stakeholders i.e., Librarians, Researchers and UNESCO staff. Dr. Bhanu Neupane, OA specialist at UNESCO, Paris highlighted the UNESCO’s role in promoting Open Access, and emphasized its commitment to provide a platform for increasing access to information and knowledge around the world.
Dr. Leslie Chan shared an online presentation from Canada on the literature survey on capacity building needs of librarians. Dr. Anup Das briefly presented situation analysis of Researchers awareness and understanding of OA in a research university, i.e. Jawaharlal Nehru University. After that Dr. Sanjaya Mishra presented the outcomes of a Delphi Study to carry forward the main objective of the meeting. During the workshop/meeting all participants worked in three groups: curriculum for Librarians, curriculum for Researchers and curriculum for UNESCO staff.
All the three groups developed a detailed curriculum and presented to the plenary for further clarification. At the end of the meeting Dr. Sanjaya Mishra expressed gratitude to all the participants for sharing their valuable time and contributions. He specially thanked Dr. Bhanu Neupane and Ms. Iskra Penveska from UNESCO for their supports to this project. Dr. Mishra also thanked Dr. Ramesh C Gaur and Prof. Uma Kanjilal, who are advisors of this project for their kind continuous support. CEMCA, with the support for the experts present in the meeting, will now develop the SDL on the basis of the curriculum developed.
