Dr. Diego Maranan was the resource speaker of Research Conversations 2022 that featured “UPLOAD: Launching of the UPOU Institutional Repository
The University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU), through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs (OVCAA), in collaboration with the UPOU Research Publications Committee and the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies (FICS), conducted the Research Conversation Series 2022 last 8 March 2022.
The virtual event featured “UPLOAD: Launching of the UPOU Institutional Repository” and was streamed live via UPOU Networks and YouTube platforms. Dr. Diego S. Maranan, FICS Associate Professor, and the current Dean of FICS was the resource speaker. Mr. Efraime Cruz, FICS Project Staff, served as the host of the event.
Dr. Maranan also spearheaded the development of the University of the Philippines Live Open Access Database, or UPLOAD. Dr. Maranan started the conversation by introducing the institutional repository. He shared that the repository will house digital copies of scholarly outputs of the UPOU community, including graduate theses and dissertations, conference papers, working reports, and other similar works. He stressed its importance in making UPOU research outputs more useful and accessible to the public, especially to the academic community.
Assoc. Prof. Maranan showed the features of UPLOAD and the steps in uploading research works into the repository. He mentioned that those who are allowed to deposit work are staff, current graduate students, and selected undergraduate students of the UPOU. He emphasized that soft copies of graduate theses and dissertations must be deposited in UPLOAD unless the outputs have confidential, commercializable, or copyrighted content. He clarified that undergraduate, non-degree, and other students should not deposit any work unless endorsed by their Program Chair.
Dr. Maranan also highlighted the advantages of using the DSpace software for UPLOAD. He mentioned that the software is endorsed by UP Diliman’s School of Library and Information Sciences, and it can accommodate any future changes to UP System’s research output repository and archival strategy, among others. He added that the software allows UPLOAD to comply with many self-archiving requirements in legal agreements with reputable journal publishers.
A quick Q&A session followed the presentation. Dr. Maranan was then awarded with a Certificate of Appreciation. He also gave special thanks to Cacai Esguerra, Efraime Cruz, Jenny Belen-Bunao, ICTDO, and OVCAA for their significant contribution in the development of UPLOAD.
Dr. Alexander G. Flor, former FICS Dean, gave a synthesis of the discussion and delivered the closing remarks. Dr. Flor shared that the performance of academicians nowadays is judged by the number of publications. He predicted that, in the near future, the work and impact in academics will be judged by the number of views and downloads of uploaded works. He added that uploading research and publication work would be the best precaution against plagiarism.
UPLOAD is maintained by the UPOU Library and can be accessed at repository.upou.edu.ph.
Research Conversation Series 2022 is available for viewing in UPOU Networks and UPOU YouTube platforms.
Written by Jaime O. Guimbao
Edited by Myra C. Almodiel and Anna Canas-Llamas
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