Content Divide: Africa and the Global Knowledge Footprint Sponsored by: SIG/III Page: 2

                                
The data in Table 1 shows how Africa fares in comparison
to other regions. The key question for this panel is to
explore what variables on the input side contribute to
innovation and scientific research activities. What are the
key resources/inputs that help improve national research
and innovation systems? How do we define key scientific
and innovation capabilities in the context of Africa?
Panelists address these questions by focusing on the
following key variables/indicators that we argue help bridge
the content divide thereby increasing the knowledge
production of the continent.
*   Access to the global knowledge base,
*   The role of higher education systems,
*   National, regional, and global research  and
education networks (RENs), and
*   Gross expenditure on R&D.
ISSUES TO BE DISCUSSED
In view of well-established facts, i..e, higher education
systems as engines for knowledge production and economic
development (Altbach, 2004; Arocena & Sutz, 2001;
Marginson, 2010), and research outputs in scientific and
technical fields together with patent applications as key
indicators for innovation-related activities (Acs, Anselin, &
Varga, 2002; Archibugi & Coco, 2004), panel members
will explore the above four key variables to find plausible
explanations to the following questions:
*   What is the state of scientific and technical research
outputs of African higher education systems?
*   What key variables enhance the scientific and technical
research performance of African higher education
systems?
*   What is the role of national, regional and global
research and education networks (NRENs) in fostering
an environment for Africa to increase its knowledge
production?
*   To what extent gross expenditure on R&D (GERD)
improve research performance in Africa?
PANELISTS
Dr. Kendra Albright is associate professor at the School
of Library and Information Science, University of South
Carolina. Dr. Albright has a wide ranging international
experience and her research focuses on users and their
social and cultural contexts. Her work explores the
individual and social contexts that generate problems to be
solved and the way information and communication are
used to solve those problems. Drawing from information
science, communications, psychology, public health and
education. Dr. Albright will discuss the nature of
relationship between universities, government, and private
sector in enhancing the scientific and technical research
activities of Africa.

Dr. Daniel Gelaw Alemneh is a digital curator and project
manager in the Digital Library Division of the University of
North Texas Libraries. Academic libraries provide services
to support the creation, organization, management, use and
reuse of digital scholarship Dr. Daniel will examine the
critical factors that can be considered on the input side of
building a research capacity. He will provide a comparative
analysis of R&D investment and the corresponding research
productivity by individual countries and universities in
Africa together with other regions of the world.
Dr. Shimelis Assefa is Assistant Professor in the Library
and Information Science program at the University of
Denver.  His   research  interests  include  scholarly
communication and measurement of knowledge production;
value creation and organization-wide information systems,
learning technologies, and health informatics. He will
discuss the landscape of scientific and technical research
outputs by African higher education systems vis-a-vis the
contribution and access to the global knowledge footprint.
Dr. Abebe Rorissa is Associate Professor in the
Department of Information Studies at the University at
Albany, State University of New York (SUNY). Dr.
Abebe's research focuses on multimedia information
organization and retrieval, measurement and scaling of
users' information  needs  and  their perceptions  of
multimedia information  sources  and  services, and
use/acceptance/adoption and impact of information and
communication technologies (ICTs).He will discuss the role
of national research and education networks in the context
of Africa as a means to foster more collaboration in
accessing  data, protocols, hardware, software, and
laboratory instrument from other partnering organizations.
He will take the UbuntuNet Alliance as case to discuss how
national, regional, and global research and education
networks (RENs) can tap into the global REN as well as
share resources and expertise among themselves.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This template was adapted for use at the ASIS&T 2011
Annual Meeting from several sources, including the
existing ASIS&T Annual Meeting template, and the
template used for the 2009 ACM  SIGCHI Conference
proceedings. We would like to thank all of the people who
worked hard to design these templates.
REFERENCES
Acs, Z.J., Anselin, L., & Varga, A. (2002). Patents and
innovation counts as measures of regional production of
new knowledge. Research Policy, 31(7), 1069-1085.
Archibugi, D., & Coco, A. (2004). A new indicator of
technological capabilities for developed and developing
countries (ArCo). World Development, 32(4), 629-654.