News
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NIDA Team Opportunity
NIDA's Director Emeritus, Carol Priestley, has been involved with science information for over 40 years but is looking forward to retirement - this time hopefully for good! If you have, or know of anyone who has, any interest in carrying forward any aspect of the 'Connect with Science' programme, and in particular with Impact Assessment in e-Learning and/or with Citizens Empowerment, please send an email and brief bio to [email protected].
There may also be some modest funds available to continue NIDA's information-sharing role currently delivered via the "News" section of the website and through the Facebook and Twitter accounts.
NIDA might suit someone energetic seeking to 'keep a hand in', considering returning to work after a career break, keen to expand their involvement in science education, or someone retired or semi-retired who is looking to realize their calling. An average weekly input is presently in the order of 2 - 3 hours although if/when new projects or a next piece of research takes off there will be additional opportunities.
The time frame is flexible but handing over the reins in two or three months would be ideal.
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2022 STEM Discovery Campaign
Projects, organisations, libraries, schools, universities and youth clubs around the world are invited to organise events and activities that raise student awareness and make STEM accessible, showcasing key skills that students and our societies will need in the near future.
The campaign will run from early-February to the 30th of April, with a peak of activities during the week of 23rd to 30th April. Get involved and contribute to one of the biggest STEM campaigns worldwide. Scientix has listed some ideas of how you can be engaged:
- organise any (online) STEM activity with/for your students, such as webinars, chats, discussion boards, quizzes etc
- participate in a STEM competition
- use the Scientix Moodle platform to create your own online courses.
- use the Scientix Online Meeting Room to host your own webinars, live events, Q&A, etc.
- participate in an existing event or other online opportunity.
- write a story of implementation on the STEM Discovery Campaign Blog.
- for schools, projects and organisations: become an official partner of the 2022 STEM Discovery Campaign.
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Women in Science Film Festival: ISC-OWSD
Celebrating International Day for Women & Girls in Science, Friday 11 February 2022, the International Science Council (ISC) in partnership with the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD) will present a film festival celebrating stories about women in science.
This will be followed by a webinar panel Approaches to Storytelling in Science at 15:00, Rome.
Moderated by Tonya Blowers, Coordinator, OWSDSpeakers include:
- Megan Lloyd-Laney, Director, CommsConsult
- Nick Ishmael-Perkins, Senior consultant, Public Value of Science (ISC)
- Nicole Leghissa, Filmmaker, Coordinator OWSD Visions project
- Sudin Bajracharya, Filmmaker, Founder, Kathacharya Productions
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African Journals and Open Access
Joint webinar series run by AJOL, ASSAf, DOAJ, EIFL, LIBSENSE and UCT runs on Thursdays at 10:00 - 11.30 GMT from February 10th to March 24th in English and French languages:
Webinar 1: DOAJ introduction and overview - Tom Olijhoek and Judith Barnsby (DOAJ) will talk on why it is important to be indexed in DOAJ and how to get indexed, including open access compliance, the journal application process and submission form, DOAJ criteria for inclusion and common reasons for rejection. The first part of the webinar will be offered in English and we will switch to French language in the second part of the webinar.
You can register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_2ztjaqD3QkO8TR6uph2BgA
Webinar 2: Editorial Process and Business Models - register here
Webinar 3: Copyright and Licensing -register here
Webinar 4: Best Practices - register here
Webinar 5:Journal Indexing, and Other Publishing Platforms... - register here
Webinar 6: Predatory Publishing - register here
Webinar 7: New ways to assess the quality of science and scientists and the role of African open access journals - register here
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A Peer Review vs Preprint Study
A paper just published (1st February) on PLOS Biology with the title Tracking changes between preprint posting and journal publication during a pandemic and produced by researchers from Queen Mary University of London, notes that traditionally the process of peer-review in academic publishing can be a time-consuming process; the current need to put relevant information in the public domain quickly has increased the subject range of papers being published in a provisional form pending peer-review, via sources like bioRxiv and medRxiv.
The paper concludes that most papers do not undergo significant change as a result of peer review, though 7% of non-covid-related papers did have significant revision in the peer-reviewed version and this figure increased to 17% in the case of covid-related articles.
These findings should greatly increase confidence in making use of these full-text freely available (if provisional) sources.
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European Media and Information Fund: New Calls
The European Media and Information Fund, established by the European University Institute and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has opened three new calls with a global allocation of €4 800 000:
- Interdisciplinary Investigations on Disinformation in Europe
- Supporting Research into Media, Disinformation and Information Literacy Across Europe
- Media and Information Literacy for Citizens Empowerment
All three calls are open until 29 April 2022. Consortia located in the EU, EFTA and UK are eligible to apply. Full information about the calls is available from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation
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“The online information environment: understanding how the internet shapes people’s engagement with scientific information”, Royal Society, January 2022
The UK Royal Society has published its latest report, a testimony to their engagement with a topic close to NIDA community interests. The central focus is aimed towards the UK but many of the recommendations have worldwide application, including:
- As part of its online ‘harms’ strategy, the UK Government must combat misinformation which risk societal harm as well as personalised harm, especially when it comes to a healthy environment for scientific communication.
- Governments and social media platforms should not rely on content removal as a solution to online scientific misinformation.
- To support the UK’s nascent fact-checking sector, programmes which foster independence and financial sustainability are necessary.
- Ofcom must consider interventions for countering misinformation beyond high-risk, high-reach social media platforms.
- Online platforms and scientific authorities should consider designing interventions for countering misinformation on private messaging platforms.
- Social media platforms should establish ways to allow independent researchers access to data in a privacy compliant and secure manner.
- Focusing solely on the needs of current online platforms risks a repetition of existing problems, as new, underprepared, platforms emerge and gain popularity.
- Governments and online platforms should implement policies that support healthy and sustainable media plurality.
- The UK Government should invest in lifelong, nationwide, information literacy initiatives.
The authors conclude that focus on building resilience against harmful misinformation across the population and the promotion of a “healthy” online information environment are required.
Complementary to the publication of the report, the Society has launched a blog series of weekly perspective pieces offering informed personal takes on specific aspects of the topic.
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Online Educa Berlin (OEB) 2021 Conference: report and videos
OEB is the annual global, cross-sector conference and exhibition on digital learning and training. Started in 1995, the event showcases developments in learning technology and provides pointers in ways forward in the future of learning.
The 2021 conference was able to bring together over 800 participants and 150 speakers from over 40 countries for both in-person and online participation.
A downloadable post conference report is now available.
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Namib Desert Environmental Education Trust (NaDEET): newsletter December 2021
As soon as COVID regulations allowed, activities from the second half of last year were able to proceed as planned. In particular:
- Teach for ESD training workshops: the NaDEET team were able to do what they love best – teach! All 12 of the ‘Teach for ESD centre-based trainings were able to go ahead. Approximately 20 participants attended each workshop and everyone had the ability to network with teachers from around Namibia. Out of almost 1000 applications 219 teachers were selected to participate in the 2021 programme.
- NaDEET Centre school and university groups: the first of a series of tertiary level engagement and skills development workshop took place. The group of 21 students arrived from Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST) Natural Resource Management Department. The week-long programme aimed to strengthen understanding of implementing sustainable practices. Visiting ‘experts’ joined the group to share experiences.
NaDEET: learning and living for a sustainable future. Read more, download and share
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World Braille Day
On the occasion of World Braille Day, READ Nepal organised an Interaction Programme on "Experience sharing and reflection: Accessible Reading Materials for visually impaired children"
ADRAD, NESCHIL and READ Nepal, along with technical support from READ Global under the UNESCO funded project “Creating Accessible Reading Materials in Nepal,” has developed 100 accessible reading books for visually impaired children.