IFLA ARL Section Webinar series

The IFLA Academic and Research Libraries (ARL) Section Standing Committee is hosting a series of webinars to engage in discourse on issues relating to academic and research libraries.

Please join us!!

Our next session topic is: Open science policies and best practices in academic and research libraries

Date: 11 October 2023

Time: 15:00-16:00 (CET)

Abstract

Open science is a new concept that has introduced new ways on how scholarly output has been created, managed, stored, and distributed to the global society. Research and academic institutions have implemented open science initiatives that aim at enhancing academic excellence and addressing societal challenges through knowledge creation and dissemination.

Academic and research libraries are being influenced by the open science movement to reposition and reengineer their functions and roles. They are developing open science initiatives that aim at transforming research, teaching, and learning as well as leveraging on digital technologies that enhance transparency and easy accessibility of data, information and knowledge that is shared, redistributed, and reproduced.

This webinar’s objective is to discuss academic and research libraries’ engagement in the open science movement. Additionally, to find out from these libraries if their countries each have a national open science framework that enforces institutions to adopt. Therefore, the presenters will give insights on how their individual libraries have developed and implemented open science policies and effective strategies on embracing open science agenda.

Speakers

Mrs Naniki Maphakwane

Director of Library and Information Services -Botswana Open University, Botswana, Chair of Botswana Libraries Consortium

Mr Afzal Mohammad

Phd Candidate- University of University of Texas, Austin, United States

Ms Tereza Kalová

Data Stewardship Coordinator-University of Vienna, Austria

Dr. Emily Kate

Data Stewards, -University of Vienna, Austria

The webinar will be recorded and shared; please look out for announcement when videos and presentations are uploaded.

Series organisers from the IFLA ARL Standing Commitee and partners:

Chair of IFLA ARL Section, Mimi Calter: mimi@wustl.edu

Speakers’  biographies

Naniki Seanneng Maphakwane

Naniki Maphakwane has more than thirty years’ experience working in various types of libraries including public, secondary school, higher education libraries where she undertook various responsibilities like customers services, technical services both metadata creation and information technology support. I’m currently employed as a Director of Library and Information Services at Botswana Open University (BOU) responsible for leading five regional library center’s services. My job is to provide professional leadership in the delivery of library and information services at the BOU.

Naniki is the Chairperson of the Library Consortium and responsible for provision of leadership for the consortium that comprise of 58 member institutions. She is responsible for overseeing the various focus areas of the consortium which are: Electronic databases subscriptions, Open Access & Open Science Advocacy, Public Library Innovation (promoting information technology in public libraries), Open-Source Software (promotion of uptake of information technologies in libraries) and Training and Capacity building.

She holds a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Studies obtained from the University of Botswana.

Afzal Mohammad

Mohammad Afzal Shadab (Afzal) is a final-year PhD Candidate in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds a master’s degree in Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics from UT Austin, as well as in Mechanical Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Prior to enrolling in the PhD program, he was a visiting graduate researcher at MIT. He has received several accolades, most notably the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Graduate Fellowship in 2019 and 2020. He is currently the Chair of the US Association of Polar Early Career Scientists. He has been actively advocating for Open Science through the Higher Education Leadership Initiative for Open Scholarship at UT and holds a special interest in the impact of Open Science on the Global South.

Tereza Kalová

With over ten years of experience in librarianship and education, Tereza currently coordinates the data stewardship program at the University of Vienna. Together with a team of embedded data stewards as well as a larger Research Data Management team, she develops needs-based services for researchers and students in the area of data management and Open Science. She leads the certificate course “Data Steward” – the first further education program for data stewards in Austria. Tereza serves as a member of the Management Board of the EOSC Support Office Austria and is involved in several international initiatives including the RDA, OpenAIRE and LIBER. She co-leads the “Career Paths” task within the EOSC TF “Data Stewardship and Career Paths”.

Tereza holds a Research Master’s degree in critical theory/children’s literature (University of Reading, UK) and an MA in Library and Information Science (Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany). Her research focuses on data stewardship as well as researchers’ needs concerning data management support.

Emily Kate

Emily holds a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from The College of Wooster (U.S.A.) and a MA and PhD in Anthropology and Demography from The Pennsylvania State University (U.S.A.). As a researcher, Emily worked with archaeological projects from across Latin American and Europe. Since March of 2023, she has served as the embedded Data Steward for the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Vienna, supporting approximately 95 research groups, 800 scientific staff, and 400 doctoral candidates.

In her role as a data steward, Emily acts as a first point of contact for all research data management questions within her faculty and fields requests ranging from data storage and archiving to research group-wide strategies for maintaining workflows. She is also heavily involved in research data management education and collaborates with other members of the University of Vienna data stewardship team to build engaging training solutions that meet the diverse needs of her faculty. Emily describes herself as “scientifically nosey” and is thrilled to work with such a diverse cohort of researchers. She is also especially fond of assisting students and is always available to answer their questions, no matter how large or small.