Latindex and AuthorAID report on successful partnership for research-writing course
Julie Walker, AuthorAID Director at INASP, will speak about a recent research writing course as part of the Latindex 21st Annual Technical Meeting in Madrid, Spain from 29 September to 2 October 2015.
The meeting aims to bring together members and partners of the bibliographical information system, Latindex, providing a unique opportunity to discuss advances and challenges for the organization and its associated institutions. Julie, along with Saray Córdoba from Latindex, will give a presentation about the recent Latindex/AuthorAID online research writing course.
Latindex and INASP have a long-standing partnership and the latest Latindex/INASP venture was a five-week long AuthorAID-Latindex course in research writing. It was held in June-July 2015, and had 110 participants, of which more than half were female, from 17 countries.
“The course was successful with a 77% completion rate. Participant feedback on the course, particularly regarding the discussion forums and peer assessment activities, indicates that the social constructionist approach, in which the learning environment encourages people to learn from each other, is working in our courses. Further, 100% of the course completers would recommend this course to others, and 99% are of the opinion that the course should be offered regularly,” says Ravi Murugesan, INASP Associate and course administrator.
“We are hoping that the upcoming meeting in Madrid will bring new avenues for cooperation between Latindex and INASP. We look forward to jointly exploring new possibilities and more courses in the near future,” adds Julie.
Latindex course facilitators Alex Arreola and Saray Córdoba also look forward to conducting more courses in the future. “Courses like the one we offered are in great demand in Latin America and Spain. The online format adds flexibility that makes this course attractive to researchers, who are often busy. I look forward to facilitating this course again, with more enthusiastic participants," says Alex.
Similarly, Saray adds: “Many people asked for another course that Latindex-INASP could provide in the future. We had 3047 requests, of which only 150 were accepted, thus it commits us to think of other courses in the future”.
Latindex (Regional Cooperative Online Information System for Scholarly Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal), established as a network in 1997, is a free bibliographical information system. Latindex aims to disseminate, foster and develop information to support science in the best manner possible.
The AuthorAID programme based at INASP helps researchers in developing countries to publish and otherwise communicate their work. It also serves as a wider global forum to discuss and disseminate research. AuthorAID is supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).