***Apologies for cross-posting***

African Digital Scholarship & Curation 2009    
12-14 May 2009 CSIR Conference Centre, Pretoria, South Africa
Sponsored by NeDICC 
http://www.library.up.ac.za/digitalscholarship.htm#admin 
   
Identification of opportunities, strategies and practical examples for new
forms of research and scholarship and for the management of the digital
content of these activities by academics, researchers, scientists,
information professionals and IT experts
     
Call for Speakers   
The organising committee invites proposals for presentations at African
Digital Scholarship & Curation 2009, to be held at the CSIR Conference
Centre, Pretoria, South Africa 12-14 May). We welcome dynamic speakers from
African and all other countries willing to share their knowledge and
experience about information content, tools, techniques, processes and
management. 

This conference is a follow-up of two conferences that were held
independently in 2007 / 2008, i.e. the University of Botswana Digital
Scholarship Conference in December 2007 and the 1st African Digital Curation
Conference (http://stardata.nrf.ac.za/nadicc/programme.html) in February
2008.

The widespread availability of digital content creates opportunities for new
forms of research and scholarship that are qualitatively different from
traditional ways of using academic publications and research data.. To
support these novel forms of research and scholarship, such content must be
captured, managed, and preserved in ways that are significantly different
from conventional methods. New forms of research and scholarship can be seen
in the following examples: 

The National Virtual Observatory describes itself as "a new way of doing
astronomy, moving from an era of observations of small, carefully selected
samples of objects in one or a few wavelength bands, to the use of
multi-wavelength data for millions, if not billions of objects. Such
datasets will allow researchers to discover subtle but significant patterns
in statistically rich and unbiased databases, and to understand complex
astrophysical systems through the comparison of data to numerical
simulations." (http://www.us-vo.org/) 

"For many years, we have worked to create systems that can automatically
read the current chemical literature, aggregate the data, add semantics and
metadata and allow scientific hypotheses to be tested. More ambitiously it
is possible for the system to extract patterns or unusual observations from
which new hypotheses might be constructed. This is reflected in our OSCAR
and CrystalEye systems.... Our thesis is that the current scientific
literature, was it to be presented in semantically accessible form, contains
huge amounts of undiscovered science. However the apathy of the academic,
scientific and information communities coupled with the indifference or even
active hostility and greed of many publishers renders literature-data-driven
science still inaccessible". (Peter Murray-Rust, University of Cambridge) 
According to Malcolm Hyman and Jurgen Renn of the Max Planck Institute for
the History of Science "The quest for open access is not a matter of content
communism. Without open access the Web is bound to replicate the insular
structure of information in the print world. Lack of open access constitutes
one of the main obstacles to the full exploitation of the innovative
potential of the Web for research and scholarship. In the sciences open
access refers to publications as well as their hinterland of data,
simulations, software etc. In the humanities open access should similarly
refer not only to publications but also to testimonies of cultural heritage,
to historical works of art, literature, and science, to image, film and
sound collections, to statistical data, etc."
(http://bechet.exp.sis.pitt.edu/lis2670/NSF-JISC-report.pdf). 

Building a virtual research environment for the Humanities (BVREH). An
initial survey carried out by the BVREH team between June 2005 and September
2006 defined the range of services that a Virtual Environment should offer -
from information about researchers and their interests and about
conferences, lectures and seminars, to integrated communication and
collaboration tools to support advanced research. The "Digital Pen and Paper
Technologies" project is showing a lot of promise
(http://bvreh.humanities.ox.ac.uk/). 
PrestoSpace digital curation project. Explicit strategies are needed to
manage 'mixed' audio visual (AV) archives that contain both analogue and
digital materials. The PrestoSpace Project brings together industry leaders,
research institutes, and other stakeholders at a European level, to provide
products and services for effective automated preservation and access
solutions for diverse AV collections. The Project's main objective is to
develop and promote flexible, integrated and affordable services for AV
preservation, restoration, and storage with a view to enabling migration to
digital formats in AV archives
(http://www.dcc.ac.uk/resource/case-studies/prestospace/). 

In the light of these examples and views the questions remain: " How do
academics, researchers, scientists, information professionals and IT experts
create opportunities for these new forms of research and scholarship?" and
also "How do researchers and research support staff manage and curate the
digital output from these activities?"   
  
   
Suggested topics for papers include (but are not limited to):   
e-Research & e-Science 
Digital data management and curation 
Digital preservation, including digitisation 
Virtual Research Environments (VREs) 
e-Resources 
Web 2 
Repositories 
Open scholarship / Open access / Open data 
Content management 
Intellectual property issues related to digital content 
Emerging technologies 
Distance learning 
e-Learning 
Quality Assurance 
Benchmarking 
Digital Scholarship Strategy 
Digital Scholarship Policy 
Digital divide 
IT Infrastructure for research e.g. National Research Networks 
Digital scholarship and curation as a research area 
   
 
Target audience:     
Scientists & Researchers 
Academics 
Information Scientists 
ICT Infrastructure Managers 
Librarians 
Records Managers 
Research Managers 
   

Call for papers, posters and workshops:   
We are looking for a mix of papers for conference sessions, workshops and
posters. Our emphasis is on both the practical and theoretical, but we do
not want product pitches. If you would like to be considered as a speaker,
please submit your abstract to Dr Heila Pienaar - maximum 250 words
(deadline: 31 July 2008). Successful candidates will be informed by end
September 2008. The organisers cannot be responsible for speakers'
registration, travel and accommodation costs.

To meet all deadlines full papers need to be submitted to the organising
committee before 15 December 2008. Conference papers will be peer reviewed
and a selection of top papers will be published in a recognised open access
peer review journal.

A preliminary conference programme and registration will be available by end
Septermber 2008 on this web site. The registration fee is R1 500. 

Thank you. We look forward to receiving your ideas and suggestions as we
plan this very important African and international conference.
  
Organising committee chairs    
Dr Heila Pienaar, University of Pretoria, South Africa
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Prof Tunde Oladiran, University of Botswana, Botswana
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Conference administrator   
Rina du Toit
Tel: +27 12 331 3404
Mobile: +27 82 785 3510
Email: [log in to unmask]

**************************************************************************
Joy Davidson
DCC Training Coordinator and ERPANET British Editor
Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII)
George Service House, 11 University Gardens,
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QJ
Scotland
Tel: +44(0)141 330 8592
Fax: +44(0)141 330 3788
http://www.dcc.ac.uk
http://www.digitalpreservationeurope.eu
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