• Letter of support for #Uju_Anya after she was targeted by Jeff Bezos and her employer for her criticism of the Queen’s commitments to colonial violence

    Dear Supporters of Dr. Uju Anya,

    Dr. Uju Anya is a world-renowned Nigerian-Trinidadian-American Associate Professor of Second Language Acquisition at Carnegie Mellon University. Her groundbreaking research focuses on the experiences of African American students in world language education. She brings attention to systemic barriers that African American students face in accessing world language education and the marginalization they experience in world language classrooms. Yet, her research isn’t only focused on these challenges. Her work points to concrete ways of making world language education more equitable. The significance and quality of her scholarship can be seen in the fact that her widely-cited book, Racialized Identities in Second Language Language: Speaking Blackness in Brazil (https://www.routledge.com/Racialized-Identities-in-Second-Language-Learning-Speaking-Blackness-in/Anya/p/book/9780367197469), was awarded the prestigious 2019 American Association for Applied Linguistics First Book Award (https://www.aaal.org/first-book-award).

    Dr. Anya has also been at the forefront of leading efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the field of applied linguistics, a field that has struggled to diversify and that remains white dominated. She mentors Black students and other students of color, as well as assume leadership roles in a range of professional organizations, such as the American Association for Applied Linguistics where she amplifies the voices of emerging scholars of color. She has also been able to amass a broad social media presence on Twitter that showcases her love of Black people across the Diaspora, her passion for uplifting the voices LGBTQA+ persons, and a space for collective joy.

    The Issue

    On September 8, 2022, shortly before Queen Elizabeth II died at the age of 96, Dr. Anya tweeted her feelings about the queen’s death. As a Black woman who was born in Nigeria, whose family has been directly harmed by the insidious impacts of British imperialism, genocide, and white supremacy, Dr. Anya expressed her pain on her personal Twitter account. Not only did Queen Elizabeth II sit on a throne of Indigenous and Black blood, embedded in the overall legacy of the British monarchy, her actual government presided over and directly facilitated the genocide that Dr. Anya’s parents and siblings barely survived (https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-29-how-britains-labour-government-facilitated-the-massacre-). This genocide entailed the massacre of more than 3 million Igbo people, including other family members of Dr. Anya. While within public discourse, the term “colonizer” can appear to be an abstract term that people have only read about in history books, Dr. Anya experienced the reverberations of colonial white supremacy first hand. Thus, Queen Elizabeth II was not figuratively but literally her colonizer, and the colonizer of millions of people across the world—and particularly countries in Africa, the Caribbean, and Indian Ocean territories. As if these atrocities weren’t enough, during her tenure, Queen Elizabeth II oversaw ​​the brutal detainment camps in colonial Kenya (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/09/world/africa/queen-africa-british-empire.html), banned ‘’coloured or foreign’ staff in the palace (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-palace-banned-ethnic-minorities-from-office-roles-papers-rev), and committed her career to the “service of our great imperial family’’ in a 1947 speech in South Africa (https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-monarchy-has-benefited-from-colonialism-and-slavery-1). Over the course of more than 70 years, the imperial reign of Queen Elizabeth II was inextricably tied to the legacy of the British Empire’s commitment to white supremacy and colonialism.

    Dr. Uju Anya’s tweet, again sent from her personal Twitter account, quickly went viral—largely due to an outpouring of global support from others harmed by the British colonial regime. At the same time, there was also a torrent of criticism as well as targeted harassment directed against Dr. Anya. While “going viral” is not an uncommon occurrence for Dr. Anya or any public intellectual, having a tweet picked up by billionaire Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos was however extraordinary. Bezos did not condemn the words and sentiment of Dr. Anya’s tweet, which would’ve been his right to free speech. Instead, he vilified her by suggesting that her pedagogical, activist, and scholarly contributions are “supposedly” not “working to make the world better.” We beg to differ, as would the many students with improved experiences in world language education and the increasing number of African American students entering applied linguistics because they now see themselves within historically white spaces precisely because of the groundwork laid by Dr. Anya. Although this particular tweet would’ve been highly inappropriate from any person in power, it is particularly pernicious as an attack against a Black Nigerian-Trinidadian-American Professor, coming from a man that has amassed his wealth through global domination and exploitation without regard for the most vulnerable and precarious humans on our planet (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/26/amazon-workers-are-rising-up-around-the-world-to-say-enough). This is, frankly, not dissimilar to the British monarchy’s colonial project—Bezos simply remixed the colonial schema through neoliberal racial capitalism, exploitation, and greed.

    The strength of Bezos’ platform is no secret either. With over 5 million followers on Twitter, Bezos has the capacity to impress hundreds of millions of people with a single tweet. Bezos also utilizes his reputation and mass fortune to support university projects across the globe. In the last decade Bezos has made donations to countless universities, including Carnegie Mellon University—Dr. Anya’s home institution. This financial paper trail is highly relevant to Professor Anya’s treatment and the university’s subsequent statement. Now, Dr. Anya faces violent threats, harassment, and abuse.

    Reflections on CMU’s Statement on Dr. Anya’s Tweet

    As colleagues at other institutions, one thing that sticks out to us is that universities have nothing to gain by calling out individual employees on free speech—especially when they can be seen doing it selectively—as is the case for CMU. Professor Anya’s twitter clearly states: “Views are mine.” Yet, her institution took up the charge to admonish a Black woman professor, calling her response to her lived experiences of the real and tangible impacts of colonialism and white supremacy, "offensive and objectionable.” This is unacceptable and dehumanizing. Simultaneously, the institution arguing that Professor Anya’s critical reflections were "not representative of the level of discourse at CMU ’’ forces us to ask: Where is the space for this sort of discourse if not within the free speech that academia purports to uplift? Where else is it safe for students, scholars, and thinkers alike to openly express the horrors of white supremacy, colonial atrocities and genocide? “Who is the ‘we’ referenced here?” asks UPenn Professor, Dr. Nelson Flores (https://twitter.com/nelsonlflores/status/1568217467058544643). And, importantly, “What are the standards of discourse when somebody is speaking truth to their oppressors?”

    (https://twitter.com/ProfeRandolph/status/1568238263579693061?s=20&t=zDodej-DbG_rmHMhjurGtg).

    We also note the strikingly different institutional response to the social media activity of Richard Grenell, a CMU-affiliated senior fellow and Trump official who used his Twitter platform to spread hateful messages and conspiracy theories that have been characterized as sinophobic and antisemitic. When student groups and community members expressed outrage and alarm, CMU President Farnam Jahanian refused to condemn Grennell’s statements and instead expressed strong support for his first amendment rights (https://www.cmu.edu/leadership/president/campus-comms/2020/2020-11-18.html).

    As a counter example to CMU’s deplorable response, Syracuse University’s Chancellor and Dean issued a statement in support of their colleague and employee (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/09/14/syracuse-offers-unequivocal-support-targeted-professor), Dr. Jenn Jackson (another Black woman violently threatened and abused after a viral tweet). Her institution immediately denounced the violent threats against her, refused to sanction or discipline her, and honored her right to free speech. While we by no means think this process was or is perfect, we cite this to note that other peer-institutions have responded in more humane and supportive ways to their Black female faculty. CMU had a choice and their response was a deliberate betrayal against one of their own highly regarded and respected scholars. It has further exposed her to threats of violence.

    Forward and Onward

    The British Monarchy and “The Royal Family” are much more than the weddings, the kids, and the racialized intrafamily drama that American pop culture has seen over the past decade. The British Monarchy has caused and is directly responsible for widespread irreparable harm in the past, now in the present, and likely in the future because the impacts of white supremacy and settler colonialism are insidious. It is inappropriate, harmful, and ahistorical to admonish colonized people or “tell them how they should feel about their colonizer’s health and wellness” as University of Michigan tenured professor, Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas astutely tweeted.

    More than our thoughts and prayers, we request actionable support to be shown towards Professor Uju Anya. We ask university officials at CMU to consider what harms are both elided from critical discourse and reproduced in the classroom when they choose to stand on the side of the oppressor. Universities must be intentional about how they respond to public discourse and critically evaluate who they are targeting and/or harming by their response or lack of response. We call on universities to stop being reactive when issues of structural oppression are called to their attention and take seriously its impacts on staff, faculty, students, and families.

    In closing, we echo Dr. Nelson Flores’ tweet from September 9th (https://twitter.com/nelsonlflores/status/1568242131067625472), which asks, “Whose deaths are mourned versus ignored or celebrated,” and who gets to decide?

    Signed,

    Chelsey R. Carter, PhD, MPH (Assistant Professor, Yale University)

    Nelson Flores, PhD (Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania)

    Sirry Alang, PhD (Associate Professor, University of Pittsburgh)

    Crystal M. Fleming, PhD (Professor, Stony Brook University)

    Dick Powis, PhD (Postdoctoral Fellow, University of South Florida)

    https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/e/2PACX-1vRFMu3jSCsN44H13pWc_hkLBNwKLmXvWd63U7nXIu1JYPwygdDS6nWuWHeIcG5HUr8lyw_1W_YUJniJ/pub?urp=gmail_link

    #lettre_ouverte #violence_coloniale #critique #monarchie #Elizabeth_II #UK #Angleterre #colonialisme #colonisation #ne_critiquez_pas_la_monarchie

    ping @cede @karine4 @_kg_

    • Trigger Warnings | Centre for Teaching Excellence

      A trigger warning is a statement made prior to sharing potentially disturbing content. That content might include graphic references to topics such as #sexual_abuse, #self-harm, #violence, #eating_disorders, and so on, and can take the form of an #image, #video_clip, #audio_clip, or piece of #text. In an #academic_context, the #instructor delivers these messages in order to allow students to prepare emotionally for the content or to decide to forgo interacting with the content.

      Proponents of trigger warnings contend that certain course content can impact the #wellbeing and #academic_performance of students who have experienced corresponding #traumas in their own lives. Such students might not yet be ready to confront a personal #trauma in an academic context. They choose to #avoid it now so that they can deal with it more effectively at a later date – perhaps after they have set up necessary #resources, #supports, or #counselling. Other students might indeed be ready to #confront a personal trauma in an academic context but will benefit from a #forewarning of certain topics so that they can brace themselves prior to (for example) participating in a #classroom discussion about it. Considered from this perspective, trigger warnings give students increased #autonomy over their learning, and are an affirmation that the instructor #cares about their wellbeing.

      However, not everyone agrees that trigger warnings are #necessary or #helpful. For example, some fear that trigger warnings unnecessarily #insulate students from the often harsh #realities of the world with which academics need to engage. Others are concerned that trigger warnings establish a precedent of making instructors or universities legally #responsible for protecting students from #emotional_trauma. Still others argue that it is impossible to anticipate all the topics that might be potentially triggering for students.

      Trigger warnings do not mean that students can exempt themselves from completing parts of the coursework. Ideally, a student who is genuinely concerned about being #re-traumatized by forthcoming course content would privately inform the instructor of this concern. The instructor would then accommodate the student by proposing #alternative_content or an alternative learning activity, as with an accommodation necessitated by a learning disability or physical disability.

      The decision to preface potentially disturbing content with a trigger warning is ultimately up to the instructor. An instructor who does so might want to include in the course syllabus a preliminary statement (also known as a “#content_note”), such as the following:

      Our classroom provides an open space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive and/or traumatizing. I’ll aim to #forewarn students about potentially disturbing content and I ask all students to help to create an #atmosphere of #mutual_respect and #sensitivity.

      Prior to introducing a potentially disturbing topic in class, an instructor might articulate a #verbal_trigger_warning such as the following:

      Next class our discussion will probably touch on the sexual assault that is depicted in the second last chapter of The White Hotel. This content is disturbing, so I encourage you to prepare yourself emotionally beforehand. If you believe that you will find the discussion to be traumatizing, you may choose to not participate in the discussion or to leave the classroom. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so if you leave the room for a significant time, please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

      A version of the foregoing trigger warning might also preface written materials:

      The following reading includes a discussion of the harsh treatment experienced by First Nations children in residential schools in the 1950s. This content is disturbing, so I encourage everyone to prepare themselves emotionally before proceeding. If you believe that the reading will be traumatizing for you, then you may choose to forgo it. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.

      Trigger warnings, of course, are not the only answer to disturbing content. Instructional #strategies such as the following can also help students approach challenging material:

      – Give your students as much #advance_notice as possible about potentially disturbing content. A day’s notice might not be enough for a student to prepare emotionally, but two weeks might be.

      – Try to “scaffold” a disturbing topic to students. For example, when beginning a history unit on the Holocaust, don’t start with graphic photographs from Auschwitz. Instead, begin by explaining the historical context, then verbally describe the conditions within the concentration camps, and then introduce the photographic record as needed. Whenever possible, allow students to progress through upsetting material at their own pace.

      – Allow students to interact with disturbing material outside of class. A student might feel more vulnerable watching a documentary about sexual assault while in a classroom than in the security of his or her #home.

      – Provide captions when using video materials: some content is easier to watch while reading captions than while listening to the audio.

      – When necessary, provide written descriptions of graphic images as a substitute for the actual visual content.

      – When disturbing content is under discussion, check in with your students from time to time: #ask them how they are doing, whether they need a #break, and so on. Let them know that you are aware that the material in question is emotionally challenging.

      – Advise students to be #sensitive to their classmates’ #vulnerabilities when they are preparing class presentations.

      – Help your students understand the difference between emotional trauma and #intellectual_discomfort: the former is harmful, as is triggering it in the wrong context (such as in a classroom rather than in therapy); the latter is fundamental to a university education – it means our ideas are being challenged as we struggle to resolve cognitive dissonance.

      https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/trigger

    • Why Trigger Warnings Don’t Work

      Because trauma #survivors’ #memories are so specific, increasingly used “trigger warnings” are largely #ineffective.

      Fair warning labels at the beginning of movie and book reviews alert the reader that continuing may reveal critical plot points that spoil the story. The acronym NSFW alerts those reading emails or social media posts that the material is not suitable for work. The Motion Picture Association of America provides film ratings to advise about content so that moviegoers can make informed entertainment choices for themselves and their children.

      Enter stage right: Trigger warning.

      A trigger warning, most often found on #social_media and internet sites, alerts the reader that potentially upsetting information may follow. The words trigger warning are often followed by a subtitle such as *Trigger warning: This may be triggering to those who have struggled with _________. Fill in the blank. #Domestic_abuse. #Rape. #Body_image. #Needles. #Pregnancy.

      Trigger warnings have become prevalent online since about 2012. Victim advocate Gayle Crabtree reports that they were in use as early as 1996 in chat rooms she moderated. “We used the words ‘trigger warning,’ ‘#tw,’ ‘#TW,’ and ‘trigger’ early on. …This meant the survivor could see the warning and then decide if she or he wanted to scroll down for the message or not.” Eventually, trigger warnings spread to social media sites including #Tumblr, #Twitter, and #Facebook.

      The term seems to have originated from the use of the word “trigger” to indicate something that cues a #physiological_response, the way pollen may trigger an allergy attack. A trigger in a firearm is a lever that activates the sequence of firing a gun, so it is not surprising that the word was commandeered by those working in the field of #psychology to indicate objects and sensations that cause neurological firing in the brain, which in turn cause #feelings and #thoughts to occur.

      Spoiler alerts allow us to enjoy the movie or book as it unfolds without being influenced by knowledge about what comes next. The NSFW label helps employees comply with workplace policies that prohibit viewing sexually explicit or profane material. Motion picture ratings enable viewers to select movies they are most likely to find entertaining. Trigger warnings, on the other hand, are “designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response… to certain subjects from encountering them unaware.”

      Say what?

      Say hogwash!

      Discussions about trigger warnings have made headlines in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and various other online and print publications. Erin Dean writes that a trigger “is not something that offends one, troubles one, or angers one; it is something that causes an extreme involuntary reaction in which the individual re-experiences past trauma.”

      For those individuals, it is probably true that coming across material that reminds them of a traumatic event is going to be disturbing. Dean’s definition refers to involuntary fear and stress responses common in individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder characterized by intrusive memories, thoughts, or dreams; intense distress at cues that remind the individual of the event; and reactivity to situations, people, or objects that symbolize the event. PTSD can result from personal victimization, accidents, incarceration, natural disasters, or any unexpected injury or threat of injury or death. Research suggests that it results from a combination of genetic predisposition, fear conditioning, and neural and physiological responses that incorporate the body systems and immunological responses. Current theories suggest that PTSD represents “the failure to recover from the normal effects of trauma.” In other words, anyone would be adversely affected by trauma, but natural mechanisms for healing take place in the majority of individuals. The prevalence of PTSD ranges from 1.9 percent in Europe to 3.5 percent in the United States.

      The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous.

      Some discussions have asserted that because between one in four and one in five women have been sexually abused, trigger warnings are necessary to protect vast numbers of victims from being re-traumatized. However, research shows that the majority of trauma-exposed persons do not develop PTSD. This does not mean they aren’t affected by trauma, but that they do not develop clinically significant symptoms, distress, or impairment in daily functioning. The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous. Now some students are pushing for trigger warnings on college class syllabi and reading lists.

      But what?

      Balderdash!

      But wait, before people get all riled up, I’d like to say that yes, I have experienced trauma in my life.

      I wore a skirt the first time George hit me. I know this because I remember scrunching my skirt around my waist and balancing in heels while I squatted over a hole in the concrete floor to take a piss. We were in Tijuana. The stench of excrement made my stomach queasy with too much tequila. I wanted to retch.

      We returned to our hotel room. I slid out of my blouse and skirt. He stripped to nothing and lay on the double bed. He was drinking Rompope from the bottle, a kind of Mexican eggnog: strong, sweet, and marketed for its excellent spunk. It’s a thick yellow rum concoction with eggs, sugar, and almond side notes. George wanted to have sex. We bickered and argued as drunks sometimes do. I said something — I know this because I always said something — and he hit me. He grabbed me by the hair and hit me again. “We’re going dancing,” he said.

      “I don’t feel like dancing — “

      “Fine. Stay.”

      The world was tilting at an angle I didn’t recognize. The mathematician Matt Tweed writes that atoms are made up of almost completely empty space. To grasp the vast nothingness, he asks the reader to imagine a cat twirling a bumblebee on the end of a half-mile long string. That’s how much emptiness there is between the nucleus and the electron. There was more space than that between George and me. I remember thinking: I am in a foreign country. I don’t speak Spanish. I have no money. We went dancing.

      Labeling a topic or theme is useless because of the way our brains work. The labels that we give trauma (assault, sexual abuse, rape) are not the primary source of triggers. Memories are, and not just memories, but very specific, insidious, and personally individualized details lodged in our brain at the time of the trauma encoded as memory. Details can include faces, places, sounds, smells, tastes, voices, body positions, time of day, or any other sensate qualities that were present during a traumatic incident.

      If I see a particular shade of yellow or smell a sickly sweet rum drink, I’m reminded of my head being yanked by someone who held a handful of my hair in his fist. A forest green Plymouth Duster (the car we drove) will too. The word assault does not. The words domestic violence don’t either. The specificity of details seared in my mind invokes memory.

      Last year a driver slammed into the back of my car on the freeway. The word tailgate is not a trigger. Nor is the word accident. The flash of another car suddenly encroaching in my rearview mirror is. In my mid-20s, I drove my younger sister (sobbing, wrapped in a bed sheet) to the hospital where two male officers explained they were going to pluck her pubic hair for a rape kit. When I see tweezers in a hospital, I flash back to that awful moment. For my sister, other things may be triggers: the moonlight shining on the edge of a knife. The shadow of a person back lit in a doorway. An Hispanic man’s accent. If we were going to insist on trigger warnings that work, they would need to look something like this:

      Trigger warning: Rompope.

      Trigger warning: a woman wrapped in a bed sheet.

      Trigger warning: the blade of a knife.

      The variability of human #perception and traumatic recall makes it impossible to provide the necessary specificity for trigger warnings to be effective. The nature of specificity is, in part, one reason that treatment for traumatic memories involves safely re-engaging with the images that populate the survivor’s memory of the event. According to Dr. Mark Beuger, an addiction psychiatrist at Deerfield Behavioral Health of Warren (PA), the goal of PTSD treatment is “to allow for processing of the traumatic experience without becoming so emotional that processing is impossible.” By creating a coherent narrative of the past event through telling and retelling the story to a clinician, survivors confront their fears and gain mastery over their thoughts and feelings.

      If a survivor has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided.

      According to the National Center for Health, “#Avoidance is a maladaptive #control_strategy… resulting in maintenance of perceived current threat. In line with this, trauma-focused treatments stress the role of avoidance in the maintenance of PTSD. Prolonged exposure to safe but anxiety-provoking trauma-related stimuli is considered a treatment of choice for PTSD.” Avoidance involves distancing oneself from cues, reminders, or situations that remind one of the event that can result in increased #social_withdrawal. Trigger warnings increase social withdrawal, which contributes to feelings of #isolation. If a survivor who suffers from PTSD has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided. The individual is in charge of each word he or she reads. At any time, one may close a book or click a screen shut on the computer. What is safer than that? Conversely, trigger warnings perpetuate avoidance. Because the intrusive memories and thoughts are internal, trigger warnings suggest, “Wait! Don’t go here. I need to protect you from yourself.”

      The argument that trigger warnings help to protect those who have suffered trauma is false. Most people who have experienced trauma do not require preemptive protection. Some may argue that it would be kind to avoid causing others distress with upsetting language and images. But is it? Doesn’t it sometimes take facing the horrific images encountered in trauma to effect change in ourselves and in the world?

      A few weeks ago, I came across a video about Boko Haram’s treatment of a kidnapped schoolgirl. The girl was blindfolded. A man was digging a hole in dry soil. It quickly became evident, as he ushered the girl into the hole, that this would not end well. I felt anxious as several men began shoveling soil in around her while she spoke to them in a language I could not understand. I considered clicking away as my unease and horror grew. But I also felt compelled to know what happened to this girl. In the 11-minute video, she is buried up to her neck.

      All the while, she speaks to her captors, who eventually move out of the frame of the scene. Rocks begin pelting the girl’s head. One after the other strikes her as I stared, horrified, until finally, her head lay motionless at an angle that could only imply death. That video (now confirmed to be a stoning in Somalia rather than by Boko Haram) forever changed my level of concern about young girls kidnapped in other countries.

      We are changed by what we #witness. Had the video contained a trigger warning about gruesome death, I would not have watched it. Weeks later, I would have been spared the rush of feelings I felt when a friend posted a photo of her daughter playfully buried by her brothers in the sand. I would have been spared knowing such horrors occur. But would the world be a better place for my not knowing? Knowledge helps us prioritize our responsibilities in the world. Don’t we want engaged, knowledgeable citizens striving for a better world?

      Recently, the idea of trigger warnings has leapt the gulch between social media and academic settings. #Universities are dabbling with #policies that encourage professors to provide trigger warnings for their classes because of #complaints filed by students. Isn’t the syllabus warning enough? Can’t individual students be responsible for researching the class content and reading #materials before they enroll? One of the benefits of broad exposure to literature and art in education is Theory of Mind, the idea that human beings have the capacity to recognize and understand that other people have thoughts and desires that are different from one’s own. Do we want #higher_education to comprise solely literature and ideas that feel safe to everyone? Could we even agree on what that would be?

      Art occurs at the intersection of experience and danger. It can be risky, subversive, and offensive. Literature encompasses ideas both repugnant and redemptive. News about very difficult subjects is worth sharing. As writers, don’t we want our readers to have the space to respond authentically to the story? As human beings, don’t we want others to understand that we can empathize without sharing the same points of view?

      Trigger warnings fail to warn us of the very things that might cause us to remember our trauma. They insulate. They cause isolation. A trigger warning says, “Be careful. This might be too much for you.” It says, “I don’t trust you can handle it.” As a reader, that’s not a message I want to encounter. As a writer, that is not the message I want to convey.

      Trigger warnings?

      Poppycock.

      http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/trigger-what-why-trigger-warnings-dont-work

    • Essay on why a professor is adding a trigger warning to his #syllabus

      Trigger warnings in the classroom have been the subject of tremendous #debate in recent weeks, but it’s striking how little the discussion has contemplated what actual trigger warnings in actual classrooms might plausibly look like.

      The debate began with demands for trigger warnings by student governments with no power to compel them and suggestions by #administrators (made and retracted) that #faculty consider them. From there the ball was picked up mostly by observers outside higher ed who presented various #arguments for and against, and by professors who repudiated the whole idea.

      What we haven’t heard much of so far are the voices of professors who are sympathetic to the idea of such warnings talking about what they might look like and how they might operate.

      As it turns out, I’m one of those professors, and I think that discussion is long overdue. I teach history at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, and starting this summer I’m going to be including a trigger warning in my syllabus.

      I’d like to say a few things about why.

      An Alternative Point of View

      To start off, I think it’s important to be clear about what trigger warnings are, and what purpose they’re intended to serve. Such warnings are often framed — and not just by critics — as a “you may not want to read this” notice, one that’s directed specifically at survivors of trauma. But their actual #purpose is considerably broader.

      Part of the confusion arises from the word “trigger” itself. Originating in the psychological literature, the #term can be misleading in a #non-clinical context, and indeed many people who favor such warnings prefer to call them “#content_warnings” for that reason. It’s not just trauma survivors who may be distracted or derailed by shocking or troubling material, after all. It’s any of us, and a significant part of the distraction comes not from the material itself but from the context in which it’s presented.

      In the original cut of the 1933 version of the film “King Kong,” there was a scene (depicting an attack by a giant spider) that was so graphic that the director removed it before release. He took it out, it’s said, not because of concerns about excessive violence, but because the intensity of the scene ruined the movie — once you saw the sailors get eaten by the spider, the rest of the film passed by you in a haze.

      A similar concern provides a big part of the impetus for content warnings. These warnings prepare the reader for what’s coming, so their #attention isn’t hijacked when it arrives. Even a pleasant surprise can be #distracting, and if the surprise is unpleasant the distraction will be that much more severe.

      I write quite a bit online, and I hardly ever use content warnings myself. I respect the impulse to provide them, but in my experience a well-written title and lead paragraph can usually do the job more effectively and less obtrusively.

      A classroom environment is different, though, for a few reasons. First, it’s a shared space — for the 75 minutes of the class session and the 15 weeks of the semester, we’re pretty much all #stuck with one another, and that fact imposes #interpersonal_obligations on us that don’t exist between writer and reader. Second, it’s an interactive space — it’s a #conversation, not a monologue, and I have a #responsibility to encourage that conversation as best I can. Finally, it’s an unpredictable space — a lot of my students have never previously encountered some of the material we cover in my classes, or haven’t encountered it in the way it’s taught at the college level, and don’t have any clear sense of what to expect.

      For all these reasons, I’ve concluded that it would be sound #pedagogy for me to give my students notice about some of the #challenging_material we’ll be covering in class — material relating to racial and sexual oppression, for instance, and to ethnic and religious conflict — as well as some information about their rights and responsibilities in responding to it. Starting with the summer semester, as a result, I’ll be discussing these issues during the first class meeting and including a notice about them in the syllabus.

      My current draft of that notice reads as follows:

      Course Content Note

      At times this semester we will be discussing historical events that may be disturbing, even traumatizing, to some students. If you ever feel the need to step outside during one of these discussions, either for a short time or for the rest of the class session, you may always do so without academic penalty. (You will, however, be responsible for any material you miss. If you do leave the room for a significant time, please make arrangements to get notes from another student or see me individually.)

      If you ever wish to discuss your personal reactions to this material, either with the class or with me afterwards, I welcome such discussion as an appropriate part of our coursework.

      That’s it. That’s my content warning. That’s all it is.

      I should say as well that nothing in these two paragraphs represents a change in my teaching practice. I have always assumed that if a student steps out of the classroom they’ve got a good reason, and I don’t keep tabs on them when they do. If a student is made uncomfortable by something that happens in class, I’m always glad when they come talk to me about it — I’ve found we usually both learn something from such exchanges. And of course students are still responsible for mastering all the course material, just as they’ve always been.

      So why the note, if everything in it reflects the rules of my classroom as they’ve always existed? Because, again, it’s my job as a professor to facilitate class discussion.

      A few years ago one of my students came to talk to me after class, distraught. She was a student teacher in a New York City junior high school, working with a social studies teacher. The teacher was white, and almost all of his students were, like my student, black. That week, she said, one of the classes had arrived at the point in the semester given over to the discussion of slavery, and at the start of the class the teacher had gotten up, buried his nose in his notes, and started into the lecture without any introduction. The students were visibly upset by what they were hearing, but the teacher just kept going until the end of the period, at which point he finished the lecture, put down his papers, and sent them on to math class.

      My student was appalled. She liked these kids, and she could see that they were hurting. They were angry, they were confused, and they had been given nothing to do with their #emotions. She asked me for advice, and I had very little to offer, but I left our meeting thinking that it would have been better for the teacher to have skipped that material entirely than to have taught it the way he did.

      History is often ugly. History is often troubling. History is often heartbreaking. As a professor, I have an #obligation to my students to raise those difficult subjects, but I also have an obligation to raise them in a way that provokes a productive reckoning with the material.

      And that reckoning can only take place if my students know that I understand that this material is not merely academic, that they are coming to it as whole people with a wide range of experiences, and that the journey we’re going on #together may at times be #painful.

      It’s not coddling them to acknowledge that. In fact, it’s just the opposite.

      https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/29/essay-why-professor-adding-trigger-warning-his-syllabus

  • La science à portée de tous !

    #Jean-Claude_Marcourt poursuit la mise en place du #décret « Open Access » en Fédération #Wallonie-Bruxelles.

    Sur proposition de Jean-Claude MARCOURT, Vice-Président du Gouvernement et Ministre de l’enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles adopte, en dernière lecture, le projet de décret « Open Access », un texte fondateur visant l’établissement d’une politique de libre accès aux #publications_scientifiques.

    Le projet de décret vise clairement à intégrer les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur de la Fédération dans le mouvement de la « #science_ouverte » , c’est-à-dire un ensemble de pratiques de la recherche scientifique basées sur l’utilisation des outils de l’Internet ; archivage numérique, copie déverouillée sur le web, etc. Le décret « Open Access » et, in fine, l’#accès_libre aux résultats de la recherche ayant bénéficié d’un #financement_public, en est le premier pilier.

    Le texte voté par le gouvernement de ce mercredi 28 février 2018 est le fruit d’un dialogue constructif instauré avec l’ensemble des acteurs, que ce soit le milieu scientifique et académique ou encore les éditeurs belges. Des balises ont été adoptées afin de répondre aux préoccupations principales exprimées par ces derniers comme, par exemple, la limitation du champ d’application du décret aux articles scientifiques paraissant dans les périodiques et non aux ouvrages édités.

    Le Ministre MARCOURT tient à préciser : « La Fédération adopte un texte fondateur qui place les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur dans le peloton de tête des institutions mondiales actives dans la « science ouverte ». Et d’ajouter : « La Wallonie et Bruxelles s’engagent ainsi aux côtés d’acteurs de renommée mondiale tels que l’Université d’Harvard ou encore les universités Suisse telles que Zurich, Lausanne ou encore Genève . En favorisant le partage des résultats de la recherche ayant fait l’objet d’un financement public, le décret « Open Access » permet la libre circulation du savoir, la promotion de la science et de l’innovation ».

    Concrètement, le décret prévoit que les chercheurs déposent dans une archive numérique institutionnelle leurs publications scientifiques issues de leurs recherches réalisées sur fonds publics et recommande que lors de l’évaluation des publications, de prendre exclusivement en considération, les listes générées à partir de ces archives numériques institutionnelles.

    Pour conclure, le Ministre tient à rappeler que le décret Open Access renforce la visibilité des chercheurs, de leurs travaux et des institutions d’enseignement supérieur. « Le fruit de la recherche émanant de la Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles devient accessible partout dans le monde et, plus spécifiquement, auprès des chercheurs dont les institutions ne pouvaient jusqu’ici se permettre d’acheter ces publications scientifiques. » se réjouit le Ministre. « C’est une avancée sociétale fondamentale ».

    https://marcourt.cfwb.be/la-science-a-portee-de-tous
    #open_access #savoir #université #recherche #Belgique #édition_scientifique #résistance

    –-

    ajouté à la métaliste sur l’éditions scientifique :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1036396

    • L’Open Access adopté par le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles

      Ce mercredi 28 février, le Gouvernement de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles a adopté en dernière lecture le projet de décret "Open Access" porté par le Ministre de l’Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche, Jean-Claude Marcourt.

      Le texte du décret stipule que tous les articles scientifiques subventionnés par des fonds publics devront être déposés dans un répertoire institutionnel (aussi appelé « archive ouverte »). Les insitutions devront également utiliser exclusivement les listes de publications provenant de ces répertoires pour l’évaluation des chercheurs.

      À l’Université de Liège, cette politique existe déjà depuis presque 10 ans et est mise en place via le répertoire ORBi.

      https://lib.uliege.be/en/news/l-open-access-adopte-par-le-gouvernement-de-la-federation-wallonie-bruxel

    • Attention :

      « La Wallonie et Bruxelles s’engagent ainsi aux côtés d’acteurs de renommée mondiale tels que l’Université d’Harvard ou encore les universités Suisse telles que Zurich, Lausanne ou encore Genève .

      En #Suisse, c’est le #golden_open_access qui est visé... ce qui n’est pas exactement dans la logique d’un accès gratuit aux résultats de recherche... mais c’est une manière de plus d’enrichir les éditeurs scientifiques prédateurs :
      https://seenthis.net/messages/651822
      #FNS

    • La #voie_verte

      La voie verte ou green open access est la voie de l’auto-archivage ou dépôt par l’auteur dans une #archive_ouverte.

      Une archive ouverte est un réservoir où sont déposées des publications issues de la recherche scientifique et de l’enseignement dont l’accès est libre et gratuit. Elle peut être institutionnelle (ex. OATAO de l’ Université de Toulouse), régionale (ex. OpenAIRE pour l’Europe), nationale (HAL pour la France) ou disciplinaire (ex. arXiv en Physique, RePEC en Economie).


      http://openaccess.couperin.org/la-voie-verte-2
      #green_open_access #archives_ouvertes #post-print #pre-print

    • ‘Big Deal’ Cancellations Gain Momentum

      An increasing number of universities are ending, or threatening to end, bundled journal subscriptions with major publishers.

      Florida State University recently announced plans to cancel its “big deal” with Elsevier, but it is far from the first university to do so.

      In recent years, there has been an uptick in the number of reports of libraries dropping their bundled journal deals with big publishers, which can cost upward of $1 million annually.

      Rather than subscribing to a large volume of journals in a publisher’s collection, often at a substantial discount off the individual list price, some institutions are choosing to pay only for the journals they determine they need the most.

      Rick Anderson, associate dean for collections and scholarly communications at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah, said that more cancellations are likely, but “how big the snowball is going to get” is an unanswered question.

      “Will big-deal cancellations continue to bubble along at a slow but steady pace? Will they peter out altogether as libraries and publishers work out new terms that allow the libraries to renew? Will more and more libraries cancel their big deals until publishers finally abandon them?” asked Anderson. “It’s impossible to say at this point; I think all three of those scenarios are possible, though I think the first two are more likely than the third.”

      Last year, Anderson published an article at The Scholarly Kitchen looking at big-deal cancellations by North American libraries. He identified 24 libraries that had canceled big deals, another four libraries that canceled but later resubscribed, and three libraries that announced cancellations but didn’t follow through.

      Also last year, #SPARC, an advocacy group for open access and open education, launched a resource tracking big-deal cancellations worldwide. Greg Tananbaum, a senior consultant at SPARC, said that there is a “growing momentum” toward cancellations.

      According to data from SPARC (which may not be comprehensive, said Tananbaum), in 2016 five U.S. and Canadian institutions announced cancellations with big publishers such as Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis and Elsevier. In 2017, seven more North American institutions said they planned to cancel their big deals, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Kansas State University, among others.

      Motivation for Cancellation

      Both Tananbaum and Anderson agree that one factor driving cancellations of big deals is that library budgets are not growing at the same rate as the cost of subscriptions. Given budget restrictions, “there’s just a reality that tough choices have to be made,” said Tananbaum. He added that in each of the cases documented in the SPARC tracking resource, the institutions ran “meticulous assessments” to determine the value of their current arrangements, and found that “the value was not positive.” Typically a bundled deal would allow an institution to subscribe to a couple of thousand titles for the same list price as a few hundred individual subscriptions.

      “What makes the big deal unsustainable isn’t the structure of the model, but the fact that it absorbs so much of a library’s materials budget, and the price rises steadily from year to year,” said Anderson. “That dynamic leads to an inevitable breaking point, at which the library can no longer afford to pay for it — or is forced to cancel other, equally desirable (or more desirable) subscriptions in order to keep paying for it.”

      Another factor driving cancellations is a desire among some librarians to “stick it to the publishers,” said Anderson. “There is a truly remarkable level of anger that many librarians feel towards the publishers who sell subscriptions under the big-deal model,” he said. “This makes the prospect of canceling a big deal very attractive at a political level.”

      Librarians are able to consider canceling big deals because it doesn’t mean going “cold turkey” anymore, said Tananbaum. Interlibrary loan systems can return a journal article in less than 24 hours at relatively low cost to the library, and many articles are available in open-access format for free, with tools like Unpaywall making them easy to find. If a researcher needs a paywalled paper instantly, they can still access that content, without a subscription, for around $30.

      Though it is talked about less, the ease of accessing copyrighted papers though sites such as Sci-Hub and ResearchGate have also emboldened librarians, said Joseph Esposito, senior partner at publishing consultancy Clarke & Esposito.

      Hard-Core Negotiating

      In 2015, the Université de Montréal combined usage and citations data with the results of an extensive survey of faculty and students to determine that 5,893 titles were essential to research needs at the university — accounting for 12 percent of the institution’s total subscriptions, and around a third of all titles included in big deals.

      A similar analysis has since been performed by 28 university libraries in Canada, with some “truly considering unbundling or exiting consortium negotiations to get better deals,” said Stéphanie Gagnon, director of collections at Université de Montréal.

      Gagnon and her colleague Richard Dumont, university librarian at Montréal, said that unbundling big deals was a “last resort” strategy for the institution. The institution will first offer what it considers to be a “fair price” based on the needs of the community and the publishers’ pricing, said Dumont.

      This approach “seems reasonable,” said Dumont, since four major publishers have accepted the institution’s offers — Wiley, SAGE, Elsevier and Cambridge University Press. Currently, the institution has two big deals unbundled: Springer Nature (2,116 titles canceled) and Taylor & Francis (2,231 titles canceled).

      The Taylor & Francis big deal cost Montréal around half a million U.S. dollars per year for over 2,400 titles. Per title, the average cost was around $200. But Montréal calculated that only 253 titles were being used regularly, meaning the “real” cost was closer to $2,000 per title, said Gagnon. By unbundling this deal and the Springer Nature deal, and by renegotiating all big-deal subscriptions, the institution saves over $770,000 annually, said Gagnon.

      Gagnon said she did not think teaching or research has been hindered by the cancellations, since the big deals that were unbundled did not contribute greatly to the needs of the community. Researchers can still access paywalled content they don’t have immediate access to through the interlibrary loan system. “Content is still available, with some hours’ delay,” said Gagnon.

      Value for Money

      Unlike Montréal, some institutions that have canceled big deals have not ended up saving much money, or negotiating a better deal. Brock University in Ontario, for example, canceled its big deal with Wiley in 2015, only to return a year later for the same price.

      Ian Gibson, acting head of collections services at Brock, said the Wiley cancellation was prompted by a “perfect storm” of a weak Canadian dollar and a library budget that was not increasing in line with subscription costs. “The institution had no extra funds to buffer the FX crisis, and the hole in our budget was so big that only canceling Wiley or Elsevier would fill it,” said Gibson.

      The institution looked into purchasing back just the most essential titles from Wiley, and found “there was no way to do it for less than we were paying for the big deal.” Gibson said that the university upped the library budget soon after, “and we jumped back into the Wiley deal through our consortium, and the pricing was as if we had never left.”

      “Although the overall dollar cost for a big deal is typically enormous, the package usually includes so much content that the per-journal cost is quite low and would be dramatically higher on a per-journal basis if the titles were acquired as individual subscriptions,” said Anderson. Limiting titles, of course, also means that not everyone will get immediate access to the content they want. “This is probably the primary reason so many libraries (mine included) have held on to their big deals as long as they have.”

      Getting Faculty on Board

      At Montréal, the library worked hard to get faculty and student support before making any cancellations, said Gagnon. “We put in a lot of energy to explain, convince, answer and demonstrate to our staff and to the community what we were doing,” said Gagnon. The library built a website, published press releases and organized meetings. “It was a really global community project,” she said.

      Perhaps one of the most surprising aspects of Florida State University’s pending cancellation of its big deal with Elsevier is that the Faculty Senate approved it, despite concerns that they would not be able to access journals as freely as they do now.

      “The one question I keep getting asked is, ‘How did you get your faculty to agree to it?’” said Roy Ziegler, associate dean for collections and access at Florida State University. It hasn’t been an easy process, but outreach efforts have helped faculty to understand why this route is necessary. “Our faculty are willing to roll with it for now,” he said. “We don’t think our new model will do harm, but it will force faculty to change their behavior slightly — there’s a re-education piece.”

      FSU will offer unmediated, instant access to content that is not subscribed to for faculty and graduate students at a cost of around $30 to the library, but will encourage them to access materials through the slower interlibrary loan system as much as possible. Undergraduate students will only have the option to go the slower (cheaper) route. Avoiding duplicated instant-access purchases will be a key factor in keeping costs down, said Ziegler.

      By pulling out of its statewide agreement with Elsevier, FSU will lose access to Elsevier’s Freedom Collection — a system by which institutions have access to all nonsubscribed journal content at a significantly reduced rate. Ziegler said that FSU does “have an offer on the table right now” from Elsevier, but it’s not what they wanted. “If that offer gets better, we could stay in,” he said. FSU’s current deal with Elsevier costs around $1.8 million annually — 22 percent of the library’s total materials budget.

      In an emailed statement, Elsevier said that the Freedom Collection is “still preferred by the vast majority of our customers who want the best value we can provide, but some customers want more purchasing options, and for them we’re happy to provide such flexibility.” The statement continued, “We generally see more new Freedom Collection customers than those who move to title by title, but there’s no particular trend over time.”

      Taylor & Francis, Wiley, SAGE and Springer Nature declined to comment for this article.

      A Shortsighted Decision?

      Kent Anderson, CEO of publishing data analytics company RedLink, and former president of the Society for Scholarly Publishing, said that institutions that cancel big deals are making a “selfish” and shortsighted decision, an issue he also wrote about in a recent article for The Scholarly Kitchen. He compared canceling a big deal to canceling a newspaper subscription; journalists lose their jobs, local media collapses and soon no one knows what’s happening inside government.

      Canceling big deals means that down the road, publishers won’t be able to keep up with the volume of research that is being produced, he said. He warned that if libraries and publishers continued to be “at loggerheads against each other,” they would ultimately alienate the researchers they are both trying to serve.

      A loss of diversity in the publishing ecosystem concerns Kent Anderson. The survival of journals from smaller scholarly societies depends on their inclusion in big deals, he said. As the choice of publications to publish in gets “fewer and worse,” time to publication will get longer.

      While many libraries say they are forced to cancel big deals because of budget constraints, Kent Anderson points out that library budgets are often just a tiny fraction of an institution’s total budget, suggesting that the money could be better allocated to prioritize these resources.

      But Rick Anderson, of the University of Utah, said that suggesting the root of the issue is a funding problem, rather than a pricing problem, “feels a little bit like the bully on the playground taking our lunch money and then saying, ‘Hey, I’m not the problem, your mom needs to give you more lunch money.’”

      https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/08/more-institutions-consider-ending-their-big-deals-publishers

    • Le #business des publications scientifiques
      VRS n° 412 - Printemps 2018

      « Un pays qui exporte sa matière première à bas prix, et réimporte le produit fini au prix le plus fort, est dans une logique de sous-développement. C’est cette logique qui prévaut dans l’édition scientifique internationale. (…) Jusqu’à maintenant, l’édition scientifique électronique reproduit en grande partie les schémas archaïques de production, parce qu’elle émane des éditeurs scientifiques commerciaux… », écrivait Anne Dujol en 1996. « Il y a fort à parier que, dans un très proche avenir, de nombreux auteurs s’affranchiront des contraintes actuelles de la publication d’articles scientifiques et ‘publieront’ électroniquement les résultats de leurs travaux, » poursuivait-elle.

      Hélas, elle sous-estimait la puissance et l’« agilité » des éditeurs mondialisés qui tiennent ce qui est devenu un des business les plus lucratifs au monde. Et elle surestimait la compréhension des enjeux de la part des scientifiques et de leur bureaucratie, dans un monde où, comme à la chasse, la publication est devenue une performance où le/la scientifique exhibe ses trophées.

      L’inflation des publications est telle que les bibliographies, bien souvent stéréotypées, résultent davantage de la collecte de résumés que de discussions scientifiques. On écrit mais on ne lit pas ; et la critique des résultats, les vérifications, le dialogue s’en ressentent.

      Peut-être plus grave encore, les scientifiques leur ayant délégué l’évaluation de leurs travaux en leur décernant le label « d’excellence » (« où publies-tu » plutôt que « que publies-tu »), les revues – et donc les éditeurs qui les possèdent – ont acquis un pouvoir exorbitant sur la politique scientifique des institutions, voire des Etats.

      Mais le vent tourne. Les institutions de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur et leurs bibliothèques croisent le fer avec les éditeurs commerciaux. Et les chercheur·e·s commencent à reprendre en main l’édition de leur travail.


      http://www.snesup.fr/article/le-business-des-publications-scientifiques-vrs-ndeg-412-printemps-2018

    • Offensive contre les géants de l’édition scientifique en Europe

      Les conseils de recherche de onze pays européens, dont la France et le Royaume-Uni, prennent les grands moyens pour endiguer la soif de profits des géants de l’édition scientifique, qui siphonnent les budgets des bibliothèques universitaires.

      Ces onze États viennent de dévoiler un plan qui obligera d’ici deux ans leurs chercheurs subventionnés à publier le fruit de leurs travaux sur des plateformes en libre accès. Le but : mettre fin à la domination commerciale des cinq plus grands éditeurs scientifiques, qui font des profits considérables en publiant des articles fournis par les universitaires.

      « Il ne faut pas enfermer la science derrière des murs payants », indique le manifeste du nom de « Plan S » dévoilé la semaine dernière par Science Europe, un regroupement d’organisations européennes vouées à la promotion et au financement de la recherche.

      « Aucune raison ne justifie un modèle d’affaires établi sur des abonnements à des publications scientifiques. À l’ère numérique, le libre accès augmente la portée et la visibilité de la recherche universitaire », précise le document signé par Marc Schiltz, président de Science Europe.

      Outre Paris et Londres, cette offensive est appuyée par les organismes subventionnaires des pays suivants : Suède, Norvège, Pays-Bas, Autriche, Irlande, Luxembourg, Italie, Pologne et Slovénie. Ces États, comme bien d’autres (dont le Québec et le Canada), en ont assez des coûts astronomiques des abonnements aux publications scientifiques comme Nature ou Science.

      Comme Le Devoir l’a rapporté au cours de l’été, les frais d’abonnement aux magazines scientifiques accaparent désormais 73 % des budgets d’acquisition des bibliothèques universitaires. Les cinq grands éditeurs publient à eux seuls plus de la moitié des articles savants dans le monde. Les abonnements à ces magazines coûtent tellement cher que certaines bibliothèques n’ont plus les moyens d’acheter des livres.

      L’offensive des pays européens contre ces tarifs jugés déraisonnables risque de faire mal aux géants de l’édition — notamment les groupes Elsevier, Springer Nature, John Wiley Sons, Taylor Francis et SAGE Publications — qui dominent le marché mondial.

      « Ce ne sera pas la mort demain de ces grands ensembles-là, mais cette campagne s’ajoute aux désabonnements [aux périodiques scientifiques] de beaucoup d’universités en réaction à la hausse des coûts d’abonnement », dit Vincent Larivière, professeur à l’École de bibliothéconomie et des sciences de l’information de l’Université de Montréal (UdeM). Il dirige la Chaire de recherche du Canada sur les transformations de la communication savante.

      Crise mondiale

      Les grandes revues comme Nature sont attrayantes pour les chercheurs. Ces magazines sont prestigieux. Ils sont lus, donc beaucoup cités. Et pour réussir en tant que professeur — être embauché, obtenir une promotion —, il faut être cité par ses pairs. C’est pour ça que les magazines scientifiques peuvent se permettre de facturer une fortune en abonnements aux bibliothèques universitaires.

      Les éditeurs scientifiques obtiennent pourtant leurs articles tout à fait gratuitement : les chercheurs ne sont pas payés par les magazines pour publier leurs travaux. Ça fait partie de leur tâche de professeur. Et les articles sont révisés bénévolement par des pairs. Plus troublant encore, un nombre croissant de revues scientifiques imposent des frais de 3000 $ ou 5000 $, par exemple, aux professeurs qui veulent que leurs articles soient en libre accès.

      Ce modèle d’affaires des revues savantes soulève un tollé partout dans le monde, rappelle Vincent Larivière. Le biologiste Randy Schekman, de l’Université de Californie, a même appelé au boycottage des magazines ayant publié ses travaux qui lui ont valu le prix Nobel. Il a fondé en 2012 son propre journal, eLife, qui publie ses articles en libre accès.

      Aux États-Unis, de puissants organismes comme la Fondation Bill Melinda Gates et les Instituts nationaux de santé (National Institutes of Health) exigent aussi que les recherches scientifiques qu’ils financent soient publiées en libre accès.

      https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/education/536595/offensive-europeenne-contre-les-geants-de-l-edition-scientifique

    • Négociations #SPRINGER : Arrêt de notre abonnement

      La bibliothèque vous avait informé au mois d’avril des négociations difficiles du #consortium_Couperin avec l’éditeur #SpringerNature au sujet des revues #Springer.

      Les #négociations se sont achevées la semaine dernière, et l’ENS de Lyon n’est pas satisfaite des dernières conditions proposées par l’éditeur. La #bibliothèque_Diderot de #Lyon ne renouvèlera donc pas son #abonnement aux revues Springer pour 2018-2020.

      Nous sommes conscients de la difficulté qu’occasionnerait la perte des abonnements aux revues Springer pour 2018.

      Néanmoins, nous conservons sur la plateforme Springer :

      • L’accès jusqu’en 2017 inclus aux 39 titres de notre abonnement historique, selon les termes du contrat précédent, pendant au moins deux ans et sans frais supplémentaires.
      • L’accès aux ressources acquises de manière définitive en Licences Nationales dans le cadre du projet istex : origine à 2014 pour les revues Springer.


      http://www.bibliotheque-diderot.fr/negociations-springer-arret-de-notre-abonnement-365193.kjsp?RH=
      #France

    • Que faut-il faire pour que la science soit plus ouverte ?

      « La France s’engage pour que les résultats de la recherche scientifique soient ouverts à tous, chercheurs, entreprises et citoyens, sans entrave, sans délai, sans payement. »

      La science ouverte est la diffusion sans entrave des publications et des données de la recherche. Elle s’appuie sur l’opportunité que représente la mutation numérique pour développer l’accès ouvert aux publications et -autant que possible- aux données de la recherche.

      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr

    • #Plan_national_pour_la_science_ouverte : #discours de #Frédérique_Vidal

      Frédérique Vidal est intervenue sur la politique nationale de science ouverte au congrès annuel de la LIgue des Bibliothèques Européennes de Recherche (LIBER), mercredi 4 juillet au LILLIAD Learning center Innovation - Université de Lille à Villeneuve d’Ascq.

      http://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid132531/plan-national-pour-la-science-ouverte-discours-de-fre

    • Des #identifiants_ouverts pour la science ouverte

      La quasi-totalité de la production scientifique mondiale est désormais signalée, ou même mieux, rendue disponible sur le web. Des millions d’artefacts (publications, jeux de données, etc.) produits par autant d’auteurs ou de contributeurs affiliés à des centaines de milliers d’organisations sont désormais disponibles en ligne. L’exploitation de cette masse de données nécessite de pouvoir identifier chaque entité, de manière univoque et pérenne, grâce à des systèmes d’identifiants adaptés. De tels systèmes ont été développés au cours des années récentes, mais une partie d’entre eux sont encore en phase de consolidation ou même de développement. De plus, pour répondre aux objectifs de la science ouverte, il est nécessaire de s’assurer que ces #identifiants s’appuient sur une architecture ouverte, documentée, libre et qu’ils sont portés par et pour les communautés scientifiques.
      La présente note d’orientation a pour but de proposer une #action concertée à l’échelon national destinée à améliorer la structuration des identifiants les plus utiles, à accélérer leur adoption par les communautés, et à les rendre plus libres et pérennes afin de rendre l’accès à l’information scientifique plus aisé pour tous les chercheurs et les citoyens.


      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/2019.06.07-Note-orientation-Identifiants_pour_la_science_ouverte.pdf

      –-------

      Quatre actions distinctes ont été définies et sont menées en parallèle :

      1. « Identifiants de structures et d’organisations »

      2. « Identifiants de personnes »

      3. « Identifiants de publications »

      4. « Identifiants de données et d’objets numériques »

    • L’ANR finance le réseau #CO-OPERAS_IN dans le cadre de son appel à projet Science Ouverte sur les données de la recherche

      Le réseau de collaboration CO-OPERAS IN (#Implementation_Network), coordonné conjointement par la TGIR Huma-Num et l’université de Turin, a déposé une proposition de projet dans le cadre de l’appel à projets ANR science ouverte sur les pratiques de recherche et les données ouvertes. Cette proposition a été retenue et sera pilotée par #OpenEdition, illustrant ainsi la collaboration entre les deux infrastructures françaises.

      CO-OPERAS IN a pour objectif d’organiser et de superviser l’implémentation des données de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales selon les principes de l’initiative #GO_FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) dans le cadre du développement de l’infrastructure européenne #OPERAS (Open access in the European research area through scholarly communication). Le projet est financé à hauteur de 100 000 € pour deux ans.

      Des données faciles à trouver, accessibles, interopérables et réutilisables pour la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales (SHS) : c’est l’enjeu de CO-OPERAS IN, qui vise à fédérer les services et les plateformes de communication savante existants et, plus largement, à impliquer la communauté SHS au niveau international.

      Regroupant 45 membres issus de 27 institutions et organismes de recherche européens et internationaux, ce réseau travaillera en étroite collaboration avec les autres réseaux internationaux de GO FAIR impliqués dans la construction du European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Différents groupes de travail au sein de CO-OPERAS IN ont été définis dans le cadre de la feuille de route du réseau validée par GO FAIR.

      La réunion de lancement de CO-OPERAS IN le 1er juillet dernier a permis de structurer les activités et de débuter la réflexion sur la définition des données selon les disciplines SHS.

      Prochaine étape : le workshop “Defining FAIR in the SSH : issues, cultures and practical implementations” lors de l’Open Science Fair en septembre à Porto, qui permettra aux communautés SHS de définir leur propre feuille de route pour la « FAIRification » de leurs données.

      6 groupes de travail se structurent pour débuter leurs activités :

      - Stratégie
      - Définition des données FAIR en SHS
      - Enquêtes et cartographie
      - Cadre d’application
      - Perspectives de l’écosystème FAIR
      - Communication et formation.

      https://humanum.hypotheses.org/5461

    • Baromètre de la science ouverte : 41 % des publications scientifiques françaises sont en accès ouvert (Plan national pour la science ouverte)

      Le baromètre de la science ouverte est construit à partir de données ouvertes issues d’Unpaywall, base mondiale de métadonnées sur les publications scientifiques qui renseigne sur le statut d’ouverture des publications sur la base d’une méthodologie ouverte.

      Développé dans un premier temps uniquement sur les publications scientifiques, le baromètre propose d’analyser dans le temps, selon les disciplines et les éditeurs, parmi les publications dont au moins un auteur relève d’une affiliation française, la part des publications en accès ouvert, c’est-à-dire mises à disposition librement sur internet. La méthode, le code et les données sont également publiques.

      Dans sa première édition, le BSO montre que 41 % des 133 000 publications scientifiques françaises publiées en 2017 sont en accès ouvert, avec de fortes variations selon les disciplines. Ainsi, en mathématiques, le taux d’accès ouvert atteint 61 % alors qu’il n’est que de 43% en informatique ou encore de 31% en recherche médicale. Une note flash publiée par le ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur, de la Recherche et de l’innovation (MESRI) reprend en détail ces indicateurs ainsi que la méthodologie utilisée.

      https://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/cid146157/barometre-de-la-science-ouverte-41-des-publications-s
      #baromètre

    • Notes du Comité

      La mise en œuvre de la science ouverte nécessite la prise en compte de l’ensemble des processus et activités de recherche dans l’évaluation. Dans ce but, le document liste les types de documents et productions élaborés pendant le cycle de la recherche et leurs modes de diffusion ouverte ainsi que les types d’activités éligibles à une évaluation.

      Types de documents, productions et activités valorisées par la science ouverte et éligibles à une évaluation
      Comité pour la science ouverte, version 1, novembre 2019

      De nombreux acteurs s’accordent à dire que la mise en œuvre de la science ouverte nécessite la prise en compte de l’ensemble des processus et activités de recherche dans l’évaluation. Celle-ci concerne tout autant les publications que les projets de recherche, les personnes, les collectifs ou les institutions, et leurs interactions avec la société. Le Plan national pour la science ouverte souligne en particulier l’importance de prendre en compte une approche qualitative plutôt que quantitative et cite le manifeste de Leiden (Hicks & al., 2015) et la déclaration de San Francisco sur l’évaluation de la recherche (DORA, 2012). Même si des démarches similaires préexistaient au mouvement pour la science ouverte, ce dernier vise à les rendre visible, à les légitimer et à les pérenniser.

      Ces recommandations du Comité pour la science ouverte s’appuient sur celles de l’Open Science Platform Policy (OSPP) qui fédère les efforts et les stratégies de l’Union Européenne autour de 8 piliers prioritaires dont deux propres aux questions d’évaluation : l’incitation aux pratiques d’ouverture et à leur reconnaissance ; le déploiement d’une nouvelle génération d’indicateurs de la recherche. Dans ces recommandations, destinées à l’ensemble des institutions pilotant des systèmes d’évaluation, nous avons retenu deux dimensions essentielles qui sont au cœur de la science ouverte.

      1/ Le Comité pour la science ouverte encourage la valorisation des bonnes pratiques de science ouverte, en particulier celles qui incitent à la mise à disposition de l’ensemble des types de documents et plus largement de produits de la recherche, incluant mais ne se limitant pas aux données et aux publications. En effet, cette mise à disposition facilitera d’une part la pleine prise en compte de la diversité des contributions individuelles et collectives à la recherche, d’autre part incitera à la prise de connaissance du contenu de ces productions et à leur évaluation qualitative.

      2/ Le Comité pour la science ouverte soutient la reconnaissance de la gamme complète des activités de recherche, dans la pluralité des champs disciplinaires, par opposition à des dispositifs qui seraient uniquement centrés sur les publications scientifiques, voire sur une partie limitée d’entre elles ou sur des indicateurs qui en résultent (McKiernan & al., 2019). De même, il s’agit de renforcer la reconnaissance des nouvelles configurations des formes de savoirs, pluridisciplinaires, et notamment de science citoyenne.

      Pour ce faire, sont distinguées dans ce qui suit :

      17 types de produits et documents ; tableau 1 : « Types de documents et productions élaborés au sein de l’ensemble du cycle de la recherche et leurs modes de diffusion ouverte »,
      12 types d’activités ; tableau 2 : « Types d’activités valorisées par la science ouverte et éligibles à une évaluation ». Les activités du tableau 2 peuvent donner lieu à de la production documentaire, et dans ce cas, elle relève des recommandations du tableau 1.

      Dans le respect des principes légaux et réglementaires encadrant l’ouverture et la diffusion des résultats et données de recherche, nous recommandons de suivre le principe « aussi ouvert que possible, aussi fermé que nécessaire ».

      Les documents et productions visés au tableau 1 ne peuvent être considérés comme pleinement ouverts que s’ils sont rendus publics sous les conditions d’une licence dite libre ou ouverte. En effet, un objet diffusé sans licence est certes consultable par les tiers, ce qui constitue une forme minimale d’ouverture, mais ses modalités de réutilisation ne sont pas connues. Le choix final de la licence appartient à ceux qui rendent publics leur production, dans le respect du décret n° 2017-638 (Premier Ministre, 2017) [1].)).

      Au-delà d’une licence, les dispositifs de publication, d’hébergement et d’archivage des documents et productions ont vocation à se conformer aux critères d’exemplarité, définis par le Comité pour la Science ouverte (2019).

      Le Comité pour la science ouverte recommande à toutes les instances et institutions ayant des activités d’évaluation de discuter, diffuser et d’adapter ces bonnes pratiques à leur contexte. Cela inclut notamment les organismes de financement de la recherche, les instances de publication et d’évaluation. Les communautés et institutions demeurent souveraines dans leurs adaptations de ces recommandations, notamment dans l’agrégation, la qualification et la hiérarchisation des types de productions et documents. Le Comité pour la science ouverte attend une transparence de ces opérations, et notamment la justification des raisons pour lesquelles certaines productions ou activités ne seraient pas pris en compte dans leurs évaluations.
      Contact

      Ce document a vocation à être enrichi et mis à jour. Pour le commenter, écrivez à coso@recherche.gouv.fr
      Bibliographie citée et documents utilisés

      Comité pour la Science ouverte (2019). Critères d’exemplarité en vue de financements par le Fonds national pour la science ouverte via les plateformes, infrastructures et contenus éditoriaux. Disponible sur : https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/criteres-dexemplarite-financements-fonds-national-science-ouverte

      Commission européenne (2017). Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science Practices Rewards, incentives and/or recognition for researchers practicing Open Science, 2017. Disponible sur : https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/ospp_rewards_wg03112017.pdf

      DORA (2012). San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. Disponible sur : https://sfdora.org/read

      HCERES, Guides des produits de la recherche, 2019. Disponible sur : https://www.hceres.fr/fr/guides-des-produits-de-la-recherche-et-activites-de-recherche-0

      Hicks, D., Wouters, P., Waltman, L., de Rijcke, S., & Rafols, I. (2015). The Leiden Manifesto for research metrics. Nature, 520, pp. 429-431. Disponible sur : http://www.leidenmanifesto.org

      McKiernan EC, Schimanski LA, Muñoz Nieves C, Matthias L, Niles MT, Alperin JP. (2019). Use of the Journal Impact Factor in academic review, promotion, and tenure evaluations. PeerJ Preprints DOI : 10.7287/peerj.preprints.27638v2

      Premier Ministre (2017). Décret n° 2017-638 du 27 avril 2017 relatif aux licences de réutilisation à titre gratuit des informations publiques et aux modalités de leur homologation, JORF n°0100 du 28 avril 2017. Disponible sur : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do?cidTexte=JORFTEXT000034502557&categorieLien=id

      Bibliographie indicative pour aller plus loin

      European Commission. (2016). Evaluation of Research Careers fully acknowledging Open Science practices. Disponible sur : https://ec.europa.eu/research/openscience/pdf/os_rewards_wgreport_final.pdf

      Krzton, A. (2019). Support Scholars Who Share : Combating the Mismatch between Openness Policies and Professional Rewards. In ACRL 2019 (pp. 578–586). ACRL. Disponible sur : http://aurora.auburn.edu/handle/11200/49374

      Nichols, D. M., Twidale, M. B., (2017). Metrics for Openness. JASIST 68 (4), 1048–1060.
      Disponible sur : https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/10842/nichols-metrics-openness-jasist.pdf

      Turckheim, E. de, Legouy, É. L., & Leclerc, L.-A. (2016). EREFIN Groupe de travail inter-établissements sur l’évaluation de la recherche finalisée. Rapport. Disponible sur : https://prodinra.inra.fr/?locale=fr#!ConsultNotice:352302

      Wynne, R. (2019). Using ORCID to Re-imagine Research Attribution. Disponible sur : https://orcid.org/blog/2019/07/25/using-orcid-re-imagine-research-attribution

      https://www.ouvrirlascience.fr/types-de-documents-productions-et-activites-valorisees-par-la-scienc

    • swissuniversities et Elsevier concluent un accord pilote #Read&Publish

      swissuniversities a conclu un nouvel accord pilote de transformation avec Elsevier pour l’accès à la recherche et la publication en Open Acess en Suisse.

      L’#accord est le résultat de négociations organisées par le #Consortium_des_bibliothèques_universitaires_suisses (#CSAL) et Elsevier, une entreprise d’analyse d’informations spécialisée dans les domaines de la science et de la santé. Yves Flückiger, Président de swissuniversities et chef de l’équipe de négociation, a déclaré : « Nous nous sommes engagés à réaliser l’Open Access complet au plus tard en 2024, et cet accord est une étape importante en vue d’atteindre cet objectif. »

      Par conséquent, toutes les institutions membres de swissuniversities et les autres institutions membres du Consortium CSAL, de même que leurs chercheurs affiliés en Suisse auront un accès continu à Freedom Collection et ScienceDirect, la plate-forme leader d’Elsevier consacrée à la littérature scientifique revue par les pairs. Par le biais de ScienceDirect, les chercheurs affiliés aux institutions membres du Consortium CSAL peuvent accéder à 16 millions de publications provenant de plus de 2500 revues publiées par Elsevier et ses sociétés partenaires. Par ailleurs, ils seront en mesure de publier en Open Access de la majorité des revues gold et hybrid pour atteindre 100% en 2023.

      Il s’agit là d’une étape décisive dans la stratégie Open Access de swissuniversities, qui a pour objectif d’atteindre 100% d’Open Access au plus tard en 2024. Cet accord sur quatre ans conclu par le CSAL est le premier signé avec un éditeur majeur sur le plan national et il va soutenir toutes les institutions académiques et de recherche en Suisse dans leur transition vers l’Open Access.

      Cet accord a été publié et est disponible sur la page d’accueil du Consortium des bibliothèques universitaires suisses : https://consortium.ch/wp_live/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Elsevier_agreement_2020-2023.pdf

      Vous trouverez plus d’informations au sujet de la portée de l’accord pilote sur www.elsevier.com.

      https://www.swissuniversities.ch/fr/actualite/communiques-de-presse/swissuniversities-et-elsevier-concluent-un-accord-pilote-readpubli

    • « L’argent public doit aller à la recherche, pas aux éditeurs »

      La signature fin mai d’un accord pilote entre swissuniversities et l’éditeur Elsevier marque une nouvelle étape dans la stratégie nationale suisse sur l’open access. Son objectif : que la totalité des publications scientifiques financées par des fonds publics soient en accès libre en 2024

      Le 26 mai, swissuniversities annonçait la signature d’un accord Read & Publish avec l’éditeur Elsevier, valable dès janvier et pour une durée de quatre ans (2020-2023). L’accès aux publications scientifiques est ainsi garanti et les chercheurs et chercheuses de la communauté académique suisse ne paieront plus de frais de publication chez cet éditeur (à l’exception de certains titres). Cet accord est le premier résultat de longues négociations initiées en 2018 avec les principaux éditeurs scientifiques – Elsevier, Springer Nature et Wiley –, dans le cadre de la stratégie nationale suisse sur l’open access.

      Président de swissuniversities, le recteur de l’UNIGE, Yves Flückiger, a mené ces discussions pour la Suisse. Il explique : « Chaque année, les dépenses annuelles pour les abonnements aux revues scientifiques augmentaient de 3% à 5%, sans véritable hausse des prestations. Ce coût n’était plus supportable pour les universités, en Suisse comme ailleurs. Pour mettre fin à cette croissance et pour développer la publication en open access, l’Allemagne s’est très rapidement profilée sur le chemin des négociations, suivie par les pays du nord de l’Europe, puis par la Suisse. »

      Une position dominante à combattre

      La signature de cet accord, longuement négocié avec Elsevier, réjouit le président de swissuniversities : « L’argent public devient rare et il doit être utilisé le plus efficacement possible, pour favoriser la recherche et non pas pour soutenir les éditeurs. Maintenant qu’une impulsion a été donnée avec un premier grand éditeur, les autres vont suivre, ce qui devrait nous mener vers l’open access intégral en 2024. » Un accord avec Springer Nature est d’ailleurs à bout touchant – des points de détail restent encore à régler – et celui avec Wiley devrait être signé cette année encore, promet le négociateur. « Dans ce bras de fer avec les éditeurs, nous étions prêts à ce que les chercheurs et chercheuses suisses soient coupées de l’accès à ces revues pourtant essentielles. C’était un pari risqué, mais il n’y a pas eu de levée de boucliers de la communauté académique. Ma plus grande crainte était qu’une institution décide de négocier individuellement pour garantir ce service à ses membres, mais personne n’a fait cavalier seul. Notre position unanime et soudée a été décisive. L’accord, d’un montant global de 13,8 millions d’euros, couvre la publication, en 2020, de 2850 articles en open access, un nombre qui ne cessera de croître par la suite pour atteindre 100% en 2024 pour toute la communauté académique suisse. Il s’agit maintenant d’encourager les chercheurs et chercheuses qui publient chez Elsevier à le faire en Open Access. »

      Si de nombreux observateurs ont longtemps déploré la position de force détenue par certains grands éditeurs grâce à quelques revues clés dans lesquelles tout le monde souhaite être publié, Yves Flückiger souligne également la responsabilité des universités dans la constitution de ce quasi-monopole. « La manière d’évaluer les dossiers des jeunes chercheurs et chercheuses doit aujourd’hui être revue, explique le recteur. Il faut sortir du côté métrique des facteurs d’impact des revues, en utilisant d’autres dimensions pour évaluer la qualité de la recherche. »

      Négocier à l’échelle européenne

      Par ailleurs, les universités ont beaucoup insisté pour rendre ces accords transparents, un élément qui reste toutefois délicat pour des éditeurs habitués à imposer une clause de confidentialité. Mais le recteur observe de plus en plus d’échanges d’informations entre les consortiums de négociation en Europe. « Si l’on pouvait négocier à l’échelle européenne, la Suisse serait probablement l’un des grands gagnants de l’opération, car les coûts de publication (Article Processing Charges (APC)) ne sont actuellement pas identiques pour chaque pays », précise Yves Flückiger.

      https://www.unige.ch/lejournal/ejournal/ejournal-08/negociations-editeurs

  • Brazil : ’Take your ideologies to hell’ - #Judith_Butler haters burn effigy outside Sao Paulo seminar

    US philosopher and gender theorist Judith Butler attracted scores of protesters to the Social Service of Commerce (SESC) Pompeia in Sao Paulo when she gave a seminar on democracy on Tuesday. Conservative protesters burnt an effigy of Butler before stamping on the charred remains. Angry demonstrators waved Bibles and Crosses denouncing the work of Butler as “ideology.” A small counter protest was present. Judith Butler is a renown philosopher whose work has influenced third-wave Queer theory and feminist thought.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhlDqBM9vYU&app=desktop

    Avec ce commentaire, publié sur FB par @isskein :

    Dans une université à São Paulo, un colloque parle démocratie avec entre autres Judith Butler. Dehors, les manifestants #anti-genre brûlent cette philosophe en effigie. Genre menaçant ? Genre menacé ! Haine de la démocratie sexuelle, haine de la #démocratie. 9/11/17

    #genrophobie (ça existe, ça ?) #Brésil #manifestation #it_has_begun #obscurantisme #féminisme #genre #études_genre
    cc @reka @fil

  • Argentina grants 1,000 scholarships to Syria refugees, urges others to follow

    BUENOS AIRES (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Argentina unveiled plans on Friday to grant 1,000 university scholarships to Syrian refugees over the next five years after facing criticism from human rights groups for stalling on a commitment last year to take in 3,000 refugees.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-argentina-refugees-scholarships-idUSKBN1792PU
    #Argentine #asile #migrations #réfugiés #bourses_d'études #université #solidarité