Hawassa university has conducted a validation workshop on the quality assessment report of its ten research journals conducted by a project entitled 'Advancing the Sustainability, Excellence and Capacity of HU OA Journals' which is supported by eifl, Knowledge Without Bounaries, the Netherlands.
Dr. Tafesse Matewos, Vice President for Research and Collaboration, mentioned different strategic points undertaken by his office to realize Hawassa university's ambitious vision of being among the top ten research universities in East Africa.
"In an attempt to ensure research relevance, quality and participation," he stated, "we conducted needs assessment and identified nine major themes for prioritization". Moreover, Dr. Tafesse mentioned the provision of several staff capacity building trainings, application of strict proposal review system, establishment of review board to ensure research quality, and encouragement of female staff and graduate students' participation in research among new developments. He also mentioned the positive decision of the university's governing board to device incentive mechanism for staff publication every year.
Hence, he stated that the ten OA research journals under Hawassa university, of which five are nationally accredited, needed critical quality audit against international standards to elevate them towards higher reputability and international accreditation.
Dr. Rahmeto Abebe presented the report of the assessment in the presence of all college deans, associate deans for research and collaboration, and journal editors and managers.
Participants raised a number of concerns with regard to the attention and support from HU and the way forward where Dr. Tafesse encouraged them to do more with the available resources while looking for better strategies to empower HU journals. He underscored that colleges need to own the respective journals under their jurisdiction while his office continues its efforts to ensure quality and sustainability through designing and implementing intervention on the depicted gaps/ limitations.
