Resource of the Week #206: UNESCO’s Open Access Curriculum

Hello again. This week’s resource is a recently released curriculum focusing on open access. It consists of two sets of modules. One set is for researchers, and the other is for library and information professionals.

This resource is from UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). Late last year the curriculum became available in printed form. The middle of this month, UNESCO announced that this resource is now available online.

The curriculum for researchers consists of modules with the following titles:

• Scholarly Communications
• Concepts of Openness and Open Access
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Research Evaluation Metrics
• Sharing Your Work in Open Access

The modules for the library and information community have the following titles:

• Introduction to Open Access
• Open Access Infrastructure
• Resource Optimization
• Interoperability and Retrieval

The online version of each module currently consists of a PDF document. The modules range in length from about 30 pages to about 160 pages.

UNESCO states, however, that it soon will convert the modules "into self-directed e-learning tools, which will enable users to self-assess their knowledge on open access and take a learning pace that is initiated and directed by the learners themselves”. UNESCO also plans to translate the modules into several languages.

I hope you will consider looking at these modules.

Until the next post—

Barbara