Category Archives: UVicSpace

UVic’s 2022 “Pathways to Impact” Grant: Caetano Dorea

UVic’s “Pathways to Impact” fund aims to move original research that aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and move it into real-world applications for greatest impact. The fund is a partnership between UVic’s Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilization (RPKM) unit and UVic Libraries. Funded projects will make their research openly accessible, including via UVicSpace, contributing to the democratization of knowledge and knowledge equity. The inaugural UVic fund is one of a few institutionally led knowledge-mobilization funding initiatives across Canadian research universities and among the first to directly target the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

A prospective cohort study of access to safe drinking water in Malawi – Community dissemination and engagement

UN Sustainable Development Goals: 3, 6, and 17

Among the seven projects that were selected for the 2022 Pathways to Impact fund is
A prospective cohort study of access to safe drinking water in Malawi, the summary of the doctoral research of Dr. Alexandra Cassivi – supervised by Dr. Caetano Dorea.

Dr. Cassivi’s research potential was recognized in 2020 with a Green Talents award. She is now a Postdoctoral Fellow at Université Laval. Dr. Dorea is a professor at the Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Victoria, research group leader of the Public Health & Environmental Engineering (PH2E) Lab, and the director of the NSERC CREATE in Water & Sanitation for Low-Resource Contexts (#WASHCanada) project.

This research project is dedicated to exploring access to safe drinking water and sanitation for diverse populations in Malawi. It is hoped that the findings can be applied globally to make recommendations for assessing and monitoring access to water, particularly for low- and middle-income countries.

The following articles were published in connection with the project so far:

  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2020). Trends in access to water and sanitation in Malawi: Progress and inequalities (1992–2017). Journal of Water and Health, 18(5), 785–797. https://doi.org/10.2166/wh.2020.069
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2021a). Evaluating self-reported measures and alternatives to monitor access to drinking water: A case study in Malawi. Science of The Total Environment, 750, 141516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141516
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, E. O. D., & Dorea, C. (2021b). Household practices in accessing drinking water and post collection contamination: A seasonal cohort study in Malawi. Water Research, 189, 116607. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2020.116607
  • Cassivi, A., Tilley, E., Waygood, O., & Dorea, C. (2021c). Seasonal Preferences and Alternatives for Domestic Water Sources: A Prospective Cohort Study in Malawi. ACS ES&T Water, 1(6), 1464–1473. https://doi.org/10.1021/acsestwater.1c00045

Dr. Cassivi’s doctoral thesis, on which this project is based, is available in UVicSpace:

Find a full list of achievements and publications by Dr. Caetano Dorea here and those of Dr. Cassivi here.

UVic Libraries congratulates Professor Dorea, Dr. Cassivi, and the rest of their team on the successful application and their valuable research contribution to the fulfillment of the United Nations’ SDGs.

20 years of Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) inspire Open Access at UVic

In the 2022 edition of the influential CWTS Leiden Ranking, UVic was ranked as top Canadian university in open access publishing: It is ahead in making its research publicly accessible, with an overall share of 57.8% circulating in open access journals and repositories.

With other Canadian universities close behind, this is a remarkable success for open scholarship and the open access movement at the university.

An important cornerstone for this development is the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. The influential declaration was signed in February 2002. Although there are predecessor declarations advocating for public access to specific forms of information, the BOAI is considered the first international declaration on the general free availability of scientific publications and the first to adopt and define the term Open Access (OA). It gave momentum to the emerging OA movement by consolidating the ideas of several pioneering initiatives and laid the foundation for successive OA declarations that became equally influential, such as the Bethesda Declaration on Open Access Publishing and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (both 2003).

The focus in the original 2002 BOAI declaration was on the transformation of scholarly, peer-reviewed journal publications to OA, either by publishing in OA-only journals (the golden road) or by self-archiving articles that had not appeared in OA journals in subject and/or institutional repositories (the green road).

The declaration was renewed (BOAI10) in 2012 to mark its 10th anniversary. The first generation of OA declarations made an impact and the acceptance and implementation of OA has improved since. The result was a set of detailed proposals on a wide range of critical issues. For the first time, they encouraged research institutions and funders to adopt policies to promote (green) Open Access publishing. In addition, the statement urged building sustainable infrastructures through repositories and open metadata. It advocated the use of the most open licenses possible to disseminate knowledge and open metrics to assess its visibility. The statement ended with a plea for greater collaboration within the global Open Access community and a call to create a positive narrative for Open Access.

This year’s 20th anniversary of the BOAI declaration led to a new update of its recommendations. The BOAI20 declaration highlights the role of open access as a building block toward open scholarship as a whole. Its key recommendations for more OA are:

  1. The use and expansion of open, non-commercial infrastructures for the realization of open access and open scholarship
  2. A reform of the evaluation procedures for research achievements that includes rewarding open access publishing
  3. Economic independence for researchers in OA publishing by moving away from APCs and even more consistently towards repositories (green OA) and free open access journals (diamond OA)
  4. Returning to the original goals of the open access movement in the face of an impending monopolization of the OA publishing market by a few dominant, commercial players and a global imbalance for researchers in accessing their publishing platforms. It specifically suggests a critical reassessment of Read & Publish (also called transformative) agreements with those publishers under these circumstances

UVic’s measures regarding Open Access moved along BOAI’s recommendations early on and they continue to do so:

The recent recognition of this fact by the Leiden Ranking confirms UVic’s existing strategies around open scholarship, and especially open access. Nevertheless, the latest recommendations for BOAI’s 20th anniversary hold plenty of incentives and suggestions for continuous improvement. Thank you for the continuous inspiration and Happy Anniversary, BOAI20!

Pathways to Impact: Mobilizing Knowledge

The Pathways to Impact: Mobilizing Knowledge Fund aims to support researchers in mobilizing knowledge and creativity for greater impact. A joint initiative of the Office of the Vice-President Research and Innovation’s Research Partnerships and Knowledge Mobilization (RPKM) Unit, in partnership with UVic Libraries, the fund supports UVic’s commitment to meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Many exceptional applications were received in the Fall 2021 call for proposals, and seven outstanding projects were selected for funding: Learn more about the Pathways to Impact projects.

UVic Libraries provides many supports for mobilizing your research and creative projects ranging from workshops, equipment loans, and self-help resources to full suite of digital services for grant-funded research. Explore some of our offerings below or contact us for more!

UVicSpace: Readership Snapshot

December 17, 2021

Since January 1, 2021, the University of Victoria’s institutional repository (UVicSpace) has seen 1068 fulltext uploads. Of that total, 369 comprise theses and dissertations. The theses and dissertations collection had 13,668 visits from across the world (e.g., US, Russia, Germany, France, Netherlands, etc.)

The top 5 downloads in the theses and dissertation collection are:

10353 Project-based learning through the eyes of teachers and students: Investigating opinions of PBL in adult ESL   (stats)
5658 The drafting of Vietnam’s Consumer Protection Law: an analysis from legal transplantation theories.   (stats)
5301 Form, content, body parts: an analysis of gender relations in contemporary Japanese film.   (stats)
5293 Evaluation of EHR Training as a catalyst to achieve clinician satisfaction with technology in acute care setting   (stats)
5107 Tarot cards: an investigation of their benefit as a tool for self reflection   (stats)

The top 5 downloads in our open access monograph publishing series are:

85961 Global corruption : Law, theory & practice   (stats)
7481 Handbook of eHealth Evaluation: An Evidence-based Approach   (stats)
5762 From Family to Philosophy: Letter-Writers from the Pastons to Elizabeth Barrett Browning   (stats)
4581 Greek and Latin Roots, Part 1 (Latin) and Part 2 (Greek). Contribution of Greek and Latin to the English Language   (stats)
3762 Narratives of Memory, Migration, and Xenophobia in the European Union and Canada   (stats)

To get started with uploading your work contact the UVic Libraries Copyright and Scholarly Communications office at scholcom (at) uvic.ca. We can help you archive your final published or accepted manuscript versions of your articles in UVicSpace after checking publisher permissions. Placing your research publications in an open repository increases knowledge dissemination and helps satisfy the Tri-Agency’s open access to publications requirement.

The new normal

March 14, 2021|Times Colonist via UVic News

We’re now a year into the pandemic, however, with vaccinations becoming more frequent, there is hope for a return to normal living. But what might “normal” look like? Numerous experts warn it will not be the same as before, and some of the changes may remain in place long-term. Including hybrid workplace programs (from both home and office).

Whatever the post-pandemic world looks like, [Saul] Klein said it’s not likely to be starkly different from what is happening now.

“We won’t see a big-bang solution,” he said. “There is likely to be a gradual resumption, and even once the rules start to diminish, the behavioural patterns we have established over the last year will not disappear.”

Saul Klein, Dean of the Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria, is one of the many experts weighing in on what our post-pandemic world may look like and what will be needed for businesses to succeed and people to feel financially stable. The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to visit Dr. Klein’s publications through UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace, and browse his other works both in the repository and his ORCID profile.

Endangered or a language in hiding?

Feb. 16, 2021|Toronto Star via UVic News

After two decades of hiding his ancestral tongue, Levi Martin was reintroduced to Tla-o-qui-aht and is one of the estimated 10 percent to speak it fluently. And as one of the many children sent to Residential Schools, he isn’t the only one that struggled after losing a crucial part of his identity. Thankfully, a platform called FirstVoices (launched in 2003) has a growing database of Indigenous languages and can be used as a reference guide for those hoping to learn or relearn. Those involved in the website’s efforts are always encouraging others to contribute their knowledge of different dialects, pronunciation, and more to safeguard against language extinction.

“Many of the languages are spoken as first languages by a very small handful of elders and those elders are passing on,” [Sonya Bird] said. “If language revitalization efforts don’t happen now, within the next decade or two, we’ll have lost a lot of those elders and knowledge keepers.”

Sonya Bird, an associate linguistics professor at the University of Victoria, is one of the many members a part of the Indigenous languages revitalization projects. Her area of focus has been pronunciation, particularly with long sequences of consonants, and providing the tools to achieve oral proficiency. If you wish to explore more of her work, The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to visit Dr. Bird’s publications through UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace and browse her list of her publications.

Rapid testing in Canada lagging behind

January 14, 2021|CTV News via UVic News

Although there are a number of researchers that are concerned about the effectiveness of self-administered rapid tests, there is still a push to distribute them to ensure Canada is staying on top of frequent testing.

“Health Canada has authorized the sale and importation of COVID-19 tests only for use by health care professionals or trained operators,” Health Canada wrote on its website. “However, we are open to reviewing all testing solutions. This includes approaches that use self-testing kits, to enable individuals with or without symptoms to assess and monitor their own infection status.”

Alexandre Brolo, a chemistry professor at the University of Victoria and acting chair of the department, told CTV News that he’s currently working with a team on the development of two rapid testing products. He reports that one will be an “at-home” test and should be commercialized in April if all goes well. The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to explore more of Dr. Brolo’s important work by visiting UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace.

Trudeau’s plan for Indigenous rights

January 11, 2021|Toronto Star via UVic News

Those who have spoken within this article emphasize the need for collaborative work amongst the Canadian government and Indigenous peoples. They claim that no matter how difficult the restructuring of certain policies may be, it is an important step in moving forward.

John Borrows, the chair in Indigenous law at the University of Victoria, said the ultimate result will be “to make our country more democratic” by broadening decision-making so that Indigenous peoples are directly involved. This could make things like development projects more complicated, but not impossible or even necessarily more difficult, he said.

As seen above, one of the many interviewed for this article was John Borrows, he holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law at the University of Victoria Law School – where he is also a professor within the Faculty of Law. The Copyright and Scholarly Communications Office encourages you to explore more of his important work by visiting UVic’s institutional repository, UVicSpace.