Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Friday, May 21, 2004

Call for increased access to electronic scholarship from Arab universities

Wendy Sawahel, Arab science 'needs more electronic databases', SciDev.Net, May 21, 2004. Excerpt: "Arab universities are being urged to make their research more accessible by placing information about it --including summaries of research projects and any results to emerge from them-- on easily searchable electronic databases. The calls were made at a meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, last month, which brought together scientists, technologists, policy makers and economists from across the region. The meeting also heard proposals that a regional database could be built up from a purely national database already established in Saudi Arabia....The increased availability of easily searchable electronic resources would not only give researchers access to a wide range of up-to-date information about the activities of their colleagues in the region, but would increase research productivity, added [Reima Ljarf, professor of English language translation and online learning at King Saud University in Riyadh]."