Boosting Open Scholarship: Building a Cohort of Trainers in Uganda

To promote Open Scholarship and Open Science, a groundbreaking initiative is underway at Busitema University. Led by Dr. Fredrick Kiwuwa Lugya, this project aims to develop a cohort of open scholarship trainers to enhance the adoption of DataCite open infrastructure services among the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries (CUUL).

Funded by DataCite under the Global Access Fund (GAF) with a generous amount of Euros 10,425, this outreach project targets 35 participants, including librarians, ICT professionals, and research administrators from the CUUL membership. The overarching goal is to spark a countrywide dialogue on the benefits of Open Scholarship and increase awareness of integrating DataCite infrastructure services to make research discoverable. 

The project will deliver a five-day "Training of Trainers" workshop starting Monday 27th to Friday 31st May 2024 at the Engineering Library, Busitema Campus, Busitema University. The participants will be equipped with the skills to facilitate training on Open Scholarship, Open Science, and DataCite open infrastructure services. The workshop aims to empower participants to effectively communicate the importance of open access, utilize open infrastructure and services, and train others in implementing DataCite research discovery tools and services. 

The workshop's learning outcomes are comprehensive, covering a range of essential skills and knowledge areas. Participants will gain the expertise to advocate for open access, understand open access infrastructure, ensure interoperability and retrieval of information for open access resources, optimize resources and effectively utilize DataCite open infrastructure. 

The training objectives are ambitious yet achievable, focusing on creating a publicly available educational resource kit and delivering a comprehensive training program to the selected trainees. Additionally, the project will emphasize the importance of evaluation and impact assessment, ensuring that the training activities lead to tangible outcomes in the form of increased adoption of open infrastructure and services. 

To support the project's objectives, slides on the project, funders, objectives, and an outline of the topics to be covered in the workshop are available on the project website  

The main topics outline includes modules on the introduction to open access, open access infrastructure, interoperability and retrieval, resource optimization, DataCite open infrastructure, and training and train-the-trainer. This workshop's topics and detailed material are derived from UNESCO’s Open Access (OA) Curriculum

Building a Cohort of Open Scholarship Trainers project holds immense promise for advancing Open Scholarship and Open Science within the Consortium of Uganda University Libraries. By equipping participants with the necessary skills and knowledge, this initiative is poised to ignite a positive transformation in the research landscape, paving the way for increased discoverability and accessibility of scholarly outputs in Uganda.