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DIRNA Project: About DIRNA

Includes information about DIRNA Project

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WHY

DIRNA?

Why DIRNA ?

  • The visibility of research output in AZ HEIs is limited;
  • There is also an evident lack of understanding of OA-related general procedures and ethical principles among researchers and students;
  • Several institutions in Azerbaijan have OA institutional repositories, but OA publishing is less common;
  • The common trend among scholars is to publish their research findings in highly reputed journals; most of Azerbaijan's publications is either unpublished or delayed;
  • High costs of publications have contributed to the limited growth of Azerbaijan scholarship;
  • Some research outcomes addressing local and regional developmental issues may eventually get published in local journals with poor distribution and recognition;
  • Providing access to volumes of national research has become a priority in recent years.

Description

Developments in digital technologies have affected many aspects of the academic enterprise, especially the way scholarly communication is being carried out. DIRNA supports disseminating knowledge by curating locally produced digital materials and creating institutionally unique digital collections of Azerbaijani Universities to support teaching and learning for inclusive education.
This project, for the Azerbaijani Institutional Repository Network, offers the seven AZHEIs a means to enhance the DIRNA information environment and create a system to communicate and preserve the intellectual output of our scholars in ways not currently supported by more traditional library and publication models.

The main features of the DIRNA we propose:

  • A digital environment for creating new scholarly works.
  • A centralized resource that will allow DIRNA to represent the depth and breadth of its research and teaching to the local community and world.
  • A means of preserving scholarly work occurring at DIRNA that has never been captured in a comprehensive way.
  • All of these features align with the current mission of the Khazar University Library & Information Center, responsible for this project, and build on existing strengths in both traditional areas of collection development and leadership in digital library content and services.

DIRNA activities include reviewing the current status of research outputs management in the seven Azerbaijani partner universities, assessing the drivers and barriers influencing Azerbaijani staff and students with regards to sharing their research outputs, developing tailored training to increase capacity among AZHEIs, research support staff for designing, implementing, operating, populating, and sustaining OAIRs.
The proposed platform will include three main components that fill the gaps in the project: 1) a network of repositories that enables discovery, 2) a flexible central repository of knowledge supporting the Azerbaijani Universities’ teaching, research, and related activities, both in the present day and for the long-term future and 3) Virtual Reference Center as a hub of reference and research activities in institutional repository data management.
The Benefit of European Cooperation is the transfer of knowledge and experience established in European Universities to Azerbaijani Universities, ensuring the quality of services provided. This idea is new to Azerbaijani universities, and working with professionals in the field will contribute to the project's success. European added value might be the new relationships, new project ideas, new opportunities, and enlarged networks developed within this project.

Objectives

DIRNA general objectives are to improve the management, visibility, and accessibility of scientific research outputs – research results, reports, publications, datasets, software, etc. – in Azerbaijani HEIs by establishing new or enhancing existing Open Access Institutional Repositories (OAIRs), improving institutional capacity for the management and sharing of research outputs held within the repositories.
The project will serve identified needs by building the model of digitization university output to guide and methodologically support the education process within identified education institutions in Azerbaijan, which will further disseminate this idea and model to others.
The wider objective is to sustainably enhance the practice of research output management in the Azerbaijani HEIs through enabling OAIRs as well as advocacy in support of Open Access to research outputs.

Supporting research activities will address issues such as:

  • Identify needs within the Azerbaijani higher education institutions for digital asset management services and a deployment strategy to satisfy these needs.
  • Investigate the needs of academic Schools that a repository could meet and identify cultural issues that may act as a barrier to populating such a repository.

Specific Objectives of the project:

  • design and build capacity for 7 OAIRs developing in order to meet the technological needs of faculties and researchers at all stages of their career and improving and providing quality research materials through the usage of innovative technologies;
  • prepare training and teaching material meeting the local needs for building capacity in implementing OAIR;
  • scale up the Khazar University IR to serve as a flexible central repository of knowledge supporting the Azerbaijani Universities’ teaching, research, and related activities;
  • maximize the visibility, use, and impact of the scientific and academic output in the Azerbaijani research community and beyond;
  • provide access to teaching and learning materials on inclusive education for disabled persons;
  • produce or provide storage for the electronic publications of the Azerbaijani higher education institutions;
  • share widely the skills gained and assist non-partner AZ HEIs in setting up their OAIR.