Spotlight on INASP - shortlisted for the 2017 ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing

In the third of our series of interviews with ALPSP Awards 2017 Finalists we talk to Andy Nobes, Programme Officer in the Research Development and Support team at INASP the people behind Author AID.

Tell us a bit about the work of INASP

INASP is an international development organization with the vision of research and knowledge at the heart of development. We work with partners in Africa, Latin America and Asia to support individuals and institutions to produce, share and use research and knowledge, which can transform lives.

Most research is published in the global North but many of the world’s most urgent problems are found in the global South. Early-career researchers in low- and middle-income countries face many challenges in communicating their work. These include: lack of familiarity with the global scholarly publishing landscape; lack of experienced colleagues who can advise them about publishing their work; inexperience of scientific writing; and often inexperience of writing in English. Other common challenges for researchers are: understanding plagiarism; choosing a suitable journal; and knowing the basic structure of a paper. They face all these challenges in addition to inherent biases in the global scholarly system, as well as particular challenges for female researchers and those from minority backgrounds or in fragile or conflict states.

Our AuthorAID project was started a decade ago to address these challenges. We work with partner institutions in Africa and Asia to embed research writing and proposal writing training into their curricula. The AuthorAID website also provides a free service for all researchers -  a database of free resources, an online discussion list, and a mentoring and collaboration platform. Over the last decade, our training has evolved from face-to-face training to online and blended courses, and most recently into our recent Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs).

What is the project that you submitted for the Awards?

In 2015 AuthorAID launched a series of free research-writing MOOCs. These have been run twice-yearly on the Moodle open-source platform and have so far attracted nearly 7,500 researchers from over 100 developing countries. We have also run the course in Spanish in partnership with Latindex, training 3,000 researchers in Latin America. These courses are particularly good at supporting harder-to-reach groups, including female academics and those in fragile and conflict states. Such support is essential for ensuring equity in global research.

The course is six weeks long and covers four topics: literature review, research ethics, writing a paper and publishing in a journal.  Participants learn via text-based lessons, weekly quizzes, a facilitated discussion forum and peer-assessed writing activities, as well as optional short video content.

 

 

Tell us more about how it works and the team behind it

Course participant Caroline Koech from Kenya

The AuthorAID team is small, and the MOOCs are run by just two core staff – I administrate and moderate the course from our Oxford office and my colleague Ravi Murugesan is the lead facilitator and Moodle expert, who is based in India. In order to manage groups of 1000+ course participants we rely on our team of volunteer ‘guest facilitators’. These are drawn from our global network of mentors and partner institutions, and we also promote ‘star’ participants to be facilitators on subsequent courses.

This facilitation model not only makes it possible to cater for large numbers of participants, across different time zones, but it also helps to pass on the skills to reduce the reliance on INASP. This is a key part of our sustainable development model.

Why do you think it demonstrates publishing innovation?

The innovation in our project is not so much in the technology – after all, MOOCs are becoming increasingly common in global education. Rather, it is the context, community and impact of the AuthorAID MOOCs that are uniquely innovative. Our courses are built on 10 years’ experience of training early-career researchers in developing countries, and our content is aimed at overcoming many of the practical problems that they face in publishing their research, such as writing skills and understanding the publishing process. The lessons are pitched at a basic, introductory level, presented in simple English.

The material is also designed to be used in low-bandwidth environments, as many of our audience have problems with access to reliable internet. The lessons are interactive text-based lessons rather than high-bandwidth video lectures which many participants find difficult to watch.  The strength of the course is in the interactive content and social interaction - the discussion forums, which are energised by our team of guest facilitators, are particularly active and we hear that many researchers make friends and research collaborators on the course.

The completion rate for the courses is around 50%, which is significantly higher than average MOOCs. Our courses include a high percentage (45%) of women researchers and we also reach participants in fragile and conflict-affected states, for example Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and Yemen.

Follow-up surveys have found that at least 34% of course participants have published papers after the course. Feedback has also shown increased confidence to publish, and increased awareness of important ethical issues like plagiarism and ‘predatory’ journals. We hear again and again from researchers about the difference that participating in an AuthorAID research-writi

ng MOOC has made to them, their academic careers, their colleagues, and their ability to share their research findings clearly with a wider audience.

Global map showing the geographical spread of the course and the concentration in developing countries.

What are your plans for the future?

We want to improve both the scope and delivery of our MOOCs – for example, we are translating the course into French, and developing a social science version. We are also creating additional content that is important to researchers – for example training in communicating research to the public, practitioners and policymakers. It’s becoming increasingly important to make online courses mobile-friendly, particularly in developing countries, and we are further developing content to be fully mobile optimised, including downloadable lessons and exercises that can be completed offline.

In the long term, INASP is currently looking at opportunities for further funding for this work to ensure that more early-career researchers in the developing world can continue to receive the training and support that they need so that they – and their research – can contribute to global research conversations.

Our ultimate goal is to make this training truly sustainable – not only by growing our network of online facilitators, but also working with some of our partner institutions around the world to run online courses in their own institutions. This training has already started with partners in Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Vietnam. We have also helped grant winners to trial their own mini-MOOC version of the course.

Andy Nobes

Andy Nobes is Programme Officer in the Research Development and Support Team at INASP. This involves the management of the AuthorAID website, and the development of its online mentoring scheme and community forums. 
Before joining INASP, he worked for an academic publisher in journal e-marketing and library marketing.

Web: www.inasp.info and  www.authorAID.info

Twitter:  @INASPinfo and  @authoraid

Blog: blog.inasp.info    
Facebook: inasp.info   
YouTube: INASP   

See the ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing Finalists lightning sessions at our Annual Conference on 13-15 September, where the winners will be announced. 

The ALPSP Awards for Innovation in Publishing 2017 are sponsored by MPS Ltd. 

What is involved in providing learning solutions?

Fiona Done, Pearson Education

The publisher panel at the Personalised Learning and Publishing Partnerships seminar included three companies with three different stories to tell on providing learning solutions for HE.

Fiona Done, Learning Solutions Manager at Pearson Education, reflected on students entering tertiary education with much higher expectations of value and institution who are focusing on effective learner engagement to improve National Student Survey scores, recruitment and retention.

Pearson as a publisher is focusing more on how to work with institutions, libraries and learners so they are more effective learners. They are delivering learning to over 43,000 students using content that has been commissioned to be more digital and flexible. Their focus is now on working with the institution and the learner to come up with a personalised model with course materials whose effectiveness can be measured.

The student in 2015 is a different type of person to previous years. They are a consumer with a level of expectation of what education should deliver for them. They expect digital content that is mobile and accessible any time. Personalised learning materials are matched exactly to course content and the efficacy is measured on the individual's learning. Challenges for HE institutions include getting engaging and valuable content into the hands of students, understand where and how to source content they need, move from print to blended learning, and support required.

Kiren Shoman, Executive Director for Editorial at SAGE, outlined how they have recently developed and launched a new track in their programme: SAGE Video. She explained how three subject collections were developed with original and licensed video content.

Kiren Shoman, SAGE

Why video? It's responding to developments in higher education. The market demands it with changing student expectations. There's a strategic fit with the area they call 'publishing as you don't know it' and adding value on their existing expertise.

Video can provide a different perspective. It can help reclaim lapsed attention, illustrate a point, change the dynamic in a lecture. It can be used to illustrate a point, instruct on practical skills and inspire curiosity. It can also encourage more reading and instruct on practical skills. They built up a series of student use cases which showed they needed to engage in a multitude of different levels.

Every year on Facebook, in just one day, there are 500 years worth of YouTube videos being watched. 

They found 79% of students voluntarily watch videos to enhance their understanding of a topic. Their preferred video length range from 5 to twenty minutes. Students are hesitant to use library video resources for fear they could be outdated.

They focused on quality, content and discoverability (they use DOIs on all their video content). Their product proposition is quality over quantity. Less is more. They support reference, research and pedagogical needs. Developed with author, editor and society networks. Resulted in launch of Counselling & Psychotherapy, Education and Media & Communication collections. Plan to launch 2016 Collections in six other core areas in 2016. Their content value is around expertise of SAGE, curricula matching, pedagogical focus, stability and a global view.

Their content strategy was two pronged. Part 1: work with authors and academic societies. Part 2: partner with the right content providers such as TV sector. They have branded original production including shorts, expert interviews, lectures, cases, tutor and in practice.

The platform has focused on user needs. They have social sharing tools, embedding and favourites that can all help you build up your own profile. They have speed tools to adapt to different viewer pace. So far, the feedback has been good. Any learning will be fed into the next few collections. You can view the short promotional video here.

Tom Spicer, Springer

Finally, Tom Spicer, Senior Editor at Springer, discussed how they have worked to support Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) instructors, book authors registered students, institutions and societies by offering a tailored approach.

MOOCs offer a mass and unlimited participation online learning and teaching environment. They can include traditional course material, videos, problem sets, readings, assessment and interactive user forums. the core principle is that it is freely available. Typically you pay at the end if you want to get a certificate.

Why do a MOOC? For a university, it is primarily about promotion as a home of exceptional teaching in order to increase the number of international on-campus students. It also helps develop new forms of teaching and learning. It can also generate data for research in education and assist with international networking.

The challenges are financial: costs are significant and there isn't really any business model. There's an accreditation problem, course completion rates are very low (typically less than 10%) as well as student authentication and logistics. MOOCs have a checkered history. They have a sometimes justifiable credibility issue. However, that is changing. There are now several hundred serious UG/PG MOOCs being offered.

Springer has been testing the water in several ways, one of which is by providing MOOC organisers with an access controlled URL that leads to the selected ebook. They have seen an increase in sales as a result spread across the period of the MOOC. They set up a reciprocal agreement with the institution and see MOOCs as potential new markets for existing products, but also as a source of new textbook content and new learning and teaching models.

Springer in Germany has piloted enhanced ebooks for MOOCs and Springer Spektrum has piloted distance learning courses. Springer Healthcare are delivering 'corporate' MOOCs which include smaller sets of content for communities in the field.