Academic Publication

Online Libraries

Introduction

Academic publishing goes two ways: There is the need to easily access papers and information for doing research, but on the other hand, local research has to be published also, for remote and for local use.

The Online library project makes papers available on the net, especially from UNI researchers but it also tries to catalogize, publish and link documents from other nicaraguan institutions and authors, as far as seems apropiate to give students, researchers and the public in general access to the national outcomings and research.

The virtual library created hereby shall meet international standards and also provide international researchers access to data and special knowledge referring to Nicaragua's environment.

Researchers at the UNI and on a national level will be habilitated by providing proper write access to the bibliografic database and by training them to create compatible electronic documents.

A corresponding promotion is undertaken on the Internet, to make UNI's Online Libraries known to search machines and interested institutions.

Two protect and underline ownership of the published papers, virtual libraries can be created by Faculty or by department. The software allows distributed submission, search and administration of documents.

Reader access to the online library is (at least) bi-lingual spanish/english, selected papers will be translated into the english language or spanish, whatever is apropiate.

Goals

• All electronically available papers from UNI authors are made available online
• All new papers from UNI authors are created/stored in standard electronic formats, which allow easy cataloguing, lookup, keyword search, etc. and can be integrated directly into the online library.
• Selected papers which are available only in printed form are transcribed or scanned and put online.
• Proper organization, admission and publication politics for the online libraries operation are defined.
• Increased awareness about national research projects and use of its result among students and researchers is reached.

Project components

• Library server with sufficient Dataspace.
• Web-Site Software for publishing, keyword search, Author lookup, proper copying/downloading (respecting copyrights).
• Two specialized Terminals/Workstations with Scanners, OCR-Software, different Word-processors, document converters, etc. for creation, acquisition and adaptation of submited papers.
• Initial collection fase: Aided by externally contracted persons, a mayor part of already available documents are put into the online library - two years.
• Promotion fase: Institutions and search machines are contact at international level, to make the UNI-online library available

Project organisation

The initial project fase will be governed by a commitee, composed of members of all faculties and a representive of the library staff. In this fase politics are defined and material to publish is selected.

External personal will be contracted to a) create the Computing/Web-Site/Database infrastructure necesarry, and b) to scan, convert and publish the material identified in the first fase.

The library staff takes over the coordination and responsability of the whole online library after this fase, while the faculty secretaries asume local library administration.

Technological requirements

• Server for publishing
• Distributed online library Server Software.
• Two Terminals/Workstation with scanners, OCR Software, Different Wordprocessors, Conversion Software, etc.
• Training courses for library staff and faculty secretaries in the use and administration of the online library.
• Preparation of a continuos course for libary contributors about academic publication and writing standards, as well as about available tools to easy creation of high-quality academic papers ready for online publishing.

Project Costs

External contracts: Software US$ 7000

External contracts: Paper collection: US$ 15000 (two persons)

Server: US$ 2500

Terminals, Scanner, Printers: US$ 3500

Online Review Publishing

Introduction

UNI issues some scientific periodic reviews, which are also part of the scientific publication process as well as promotion of the institution. The Online Review Publishing sub-project will install facilities which allow electronic edition and online publication of these reviews.

In effect, the online reviews form part of the online library with respect to publishing in Internet, and experiment the same kind of promotion.

Goals

• Within one year all periodic publications of the UNI are immediatly available in electronic form at the date of publication.
• Integration of the publication in the online library is acomplished and search by issue number, author, date, thema and keyword can be done.

Project components

• Upgrade/Substitution of Workstations used to edit the publications, to use Hardware/Software capable of electronic publishing and to integrate in the library/online publishing toolchain.
• Training of authors and editors of the reviews in the use of the tools.
• Coordination with the print shop to adapt to the new publishing technique
• Integration fase with the library/online library department

Project organisation

Public relations of the UNI is getting involved together with the library staff into the online publishing training and infrastructure upgrade.

Publishing of the reviews in Internet is handled as a sub-division of the online library.

Technological requirements

• Two workstations with online publishing toolchains as in the online library project.
• Training of responsibles, authors and editors.
• Eventually compatibility soft/hardware for the printshop

Project Costs

Workstations, Scanners, Printers: US$ 3500

Training costs: US$ 2500

Tesis Database

Introduction

Students which do not assess the graduation courses habilitate themselves by the elaboration of a thesis, which is a requirement for the title "Ingeniero". Until now, the produced papers are just put into archive with one copy, which makes re-use and accumulative work difficult. As a related project to the online library, the thesis' will be available online via the thesis database.

This sub-project is virtually identical to the online library, with the difference, that a) academic registry comes into game via the qualification of the thesis b) Students care comes into game, by providing access means to the needed tools.

Goals

• Students are familiar with electronic publishing and use standard tools for their thesis, whose primary format is electronic.
• All new students thesis are available online as a sub-division of the online library.
• The elaboration of the thesis document and acompanying notes can be realized gradually, using computer and network resources of the UNI (thesis-accounts).
• Old thesis which are available in electronic form, as well as selected thesis in printed form are made available online.
• On each campus sufficient computer facilities are available with Software and Hardware needed to create and publish the students thesis.

Project components

• Upgrade/Equipment of faculties with graduation student accessible computer facilities for creation and submission of their thesis papers.
• Creation of a course for graduate students for electronic publishing, academic writing and utilization of the toolchains.
• Creation of access politics and an organisational scheme for thesis publishing facilities.
• Integration of the academic registry (notes) and the thesis submission/revision.
• Collection and online publication of selected thesis.

Project organisation

Each faculty organizes their staff for resource scheduling of the installed facilities, as well as for scheduling of the thesis students to the corresponding courses.

The application software department of OTIC asumes responsibility for integration with the academic registry sub-project. External programmers are contracted for the creation of the necesary Software.

The online library department asumes the interface and general administration of the corresponding online library sub-division.

Technological requirements

• One to three Workstations/Printer/Scanners for elaboration of thesis for each faculty, according to student capacity.
• Software to acomplish integration of the online library and the academic registry. A two step publication scheme in the online-library system has to take place:
  1. continuos editing/publishing during the creatino fase, with supervising/revision facility on behalf of tutors, other students etc. until termination and qualification of the thesis. The thesis is only accesible on intranet.
  2. final publication on Internet within the tesis sub-division of the online library.

Project Costs

12 Workstations/Scanners/Printers: US$ 15000

External Contracts: US$ 12000

Training Course development: US$ 2500