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17 février 2013

North African, Arab nations in open access initiative

http://enews.ksu.edu.sa/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/UWN.jpgBy Wagdy Sawahel. Ten North African and 12 Arab countries are to benefit from an initiative called the Open Book Project, which will provide universities with open access to high quality educational materials in Arabic, with a focus on science and technology. The countries in North Africa are Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Somalia and Tunisia.
Despite rapid improvements in digital readiness in Arab states, which include 22 countries with a population of about 350 million – of which 70 million people are between the ages of 15 to 24, representing 19% of the population – adoption of e-books is still at an early stage in universities, as indicated in the 2012 Global Information Technology Report. This is due to several challenging factors facing Arab states including limited internet penetration, challenges of piracy, issues related to the rule of law and censorship, and vast disparities in purchasing power, according to the March 2012 survey, What is the Biggest Obstacle to Arab Digital Publishing?
Internet World Stats has shown that only about 24% of the Arab population – which represents about 5% of the world population – use the internet. Another challenge facing the take-up of e-books in the Arab world is technical issues related to the Arab language, according to a 2012 report Digital Publishing Growth in the Arab World: Slow, but steady. To contribute towards solving problems facing the promotion of e-books in Arab education systems, the Open Book Project was launched by outgoing US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 28 January, just days before she left office. Read more...
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