AuthorAID: An Overview

Greetings again. I hope you’re doing well.

Earlier this month I gave a webinar about AuthorAID. As you may know, a webinar is a talk given by Internet, so people in different places can “attend”. The term webinar comes from the words Web and seminar.

The webinar about AuthorAID was for members of the Association of American Publishers who are involved in journal publishing. It consisted mainly of a PowerPoint presentation titled “AuthorAID: An Overview”. After the presentation, I answered questions.

Later we realized that other people also might be interested in this presentation. Therefore it now appears in the AuthorAID Resource Library. Here are some highlights of this presentation:

• AuthorAID is a project mainly to help researchers in developing countries to write about and publish their work. AuthorAID is based at INASP, an international development charity. The concept for AuthorAID came from Phyllis Freeman and Anthony Robbins, editors of the Journal of Public Health Policy.

• AuthorAID began in 2007. Its components now include workshops, online courses, mentoring, a blog, a resource library, an email discussion list, and small grants. These components often are interrelated.

• Main members of the AuthorAID project team include Julie Walker (AuthorAID director), Barbara Gastel, Ravi Murugesan, Alex Arreola, and Bernard Appiah.

• Increasingly, AuthorAID is embedding its activities in developing countries. In other words, it is working to have people in developing countries provide AuthorAID-type activities locally.

• Volunteers are crucial to AuthorAID. We always are seeking more volunteers, especially to serve as mentors.

For more information, please see the presentation, which also includes many photos.

Until the next post—

Barbara