Promoting Open Science in Africa

Africa/Dakar
Salle Soweto (Le Ndiambour Hôtel)

Salle Soweto

Le Ndiambour Hôtel

121 rue Carnot - Dakar - Senegal
Description

The second joint Sci-GaIA-TANDEM-MAGIC workshop is organised with the support of the European Commission (EC, DG CONNECT) and in conjunction with the WACREN 2016 Conference.

There is a huge amount of scientific work conducted across Africa on a daily basis. The outputs of this research (publications, grey literature, data, software, analysis, etc.) can have a major impact across the world.

- Is it possible to improve the visibility of these outputs by adopting open scientific approaches?
- Can the quality of these outputs be improved across the research lifecycle by access to advanced Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)?
- What specific ICT services are needed by different African Scientific Communities of Practice for their work and how can these be provisioned?

This Workshop presents the opportunity to hear the opinions of leading African Scientists and to see recent advances in Open Science services that have been developed for African Scientific Communities of Practice.  The workshop also gives the opportunity to see how e-Infrastructures - such as computing, data and networking infrastructures - as well Science Gateways, Identity Federations, Open Access Data and Document Repositories can be integrated into easy-to-use platforms to support Open Science.

It will also bring out the roles that uniqueness and persistence services such as those provided by DataCite and ORCID play in improving research impact and visibility, as well as discuss the key roles that international cooperation projects such as THOR, MAGIC, TANDEM and Sci-GaIA are making to Open Science.

 

Sci-GaIA Fact Sheet
    • 09:00 09:15
      Welcome Address
    • 09:15 10:45
      Setting the Scene: African Biomedical and Health Research
      • 09:15
        Large Data and Biomedical Computational Pipelines for Complex Diseases 30m
        Speaker: Prof. Ezekiel Adebiyi (Covenant University Bioinformatics Research Group (CUBRe), Nigeria)
        Slides
      • 09:45
        Computational Complexity and Resource needs in Genomic Data Analysis 30m
        Speaker: Dr Chiekh Loucoubar (Group of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Modeling (G4 BBM) Institut Pasteur de Dakar, Senegal)
        Slides
      • 10:15
        The West Africa-Michigan CHARTER in GEOHealth: The Role of ICT 30m
        Speaker: Prof. Fobil Julius (School of Public Health, University of Ghana)
        Slides
    • 10:45 11:15
      Coffee break, Networking & Group Photo 30m
    • 11:15 12:45
      Setting the Scene: African Environmental and Chemical Research
      • 11:15
        Statistical Kinetic Data Analysis and Scientific Graphing 30m
        Speaker: Dr Chukwuemeka Isanbor (Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, University of Lagos)
        Slides
      • 11:45
        Numerical Simulations in Climate Modelling : Requirements and Challenges 30m
        Speaker: Dr Abdoulaye Deme (Laboratoire des Sciences de l'atmosphère et des Océans, Université Gaston Berger, Senegal)
        Slides
      • 12:15
        Advances in Environmental Monitoring - The WIMEA-ICT Experience 30m
        Speakers: Prof. Björn Pehrson (KTH, Sweden), Prof. Gbenga Jegede (Atmospheric Physics Research Group (APRG), OAU, Nigeria), Dr Joseph Matiko (Dar es Salaam Institute of Technology)
        Slides
    • 12:45 14:00
      Lunch & Networking 1h 15m
    • 14:00 15:30
      Supporting the Scene: Towards Open Science in Africa
      • 14:00
        The Open Science Vision 10m
        Speaker: Prof. Roberto Barbera (Technical Coordinator, Sci-GaIA Project, Univeristy of Catania, Italy)
        Slides
      • 14:10
        A Simple Basis for Digital Data Governance 20m
        Speaker: Mr Matthew Buys (Regional Director, ORCID)
        Slides
        Video
      • 14:30
        Developing Science Gateways and Data Repositories - The Sci-GaIA Training Workshops 20m
        Speaker: Prof. Roberto Barbera (Technical Coordinator, Sci-GaIA Project, Univeristy of Catania, Italy)
        Slides
      • 14:50
        A Case Study of Open Science: The REPAST Infection Model 20m
        Speaker: Dr Simon Taylor (Coordinator, Sci-GaIA Project, Brunel University London, UK)
        Slides
      • 15:10
        MAGIC - Colaboration tools and communities/group sharing for science applications 20m
        Speaker: Mr Gustavo Adolfo Garcia Plaza (Technical Manager, RedCLARA)
        Slides
    • 15:30 16:00
      Coffee Break 30m
    • 16:00 17:30
      Brainstorming: Leveraging Open Science in Africa with ICT
      • 16:00
        The Impact of National Research and Education Networks on Science in Africa 20m
        Speaker: Mr Omo Oaiya (Chief Technology Officer, WACREN)
        Slides
      • 16:20
        Sharing value-added services for Research and Education communities 20m
        Speaker: Dr Ognjen Prnjat (European and Regional e-Infrastructure manager, GRNET)
        Slides
      • 16:40
        Brainstorming session 30m
        What will be the impact of Open Science in Africa? What do we need to do to create African Open Science? What are the key challenges and how can we meet them?
      • 17:10
        Summarising the key points from the Brainstorming session 20m
    • 17:30 18:00
      Workshop conclusions and Vote of thanks
    • 18:00 19:00
      Networking Reception