The MAGIC project just completed two years working to achieve its main objective of “establish a set of agreements for participating world regions to consolidate/complete middleware for a marketplace of services and real-time applications to benefit global science communities.”
During the last quarter of the implementation of the project, one of the works on this objective concentrated on sustainability of these Global Science Communities. This was done through both face to face interactions and virtual events with the communities. As part of sustainability of the communities, the project team felt regional as well as national research and education networks are critical players. Therefore, face to face interactions with some communities were held back to back with major regional events.
One great example of this effort was seen during UbuntuNet-Connect 2016 in Entebbe, Uganda. MAGIC Work Package 5 together with UbuntuNet Alliance organised a one day End User Engagement Workshop on 2nd November 2016 with the aim of bringing NRENs up to speed with the need for them to support end user communities. At the meeting, RedCLARA, GEANT and NORDUNet – which already have established end user engagement activities - shared their experience with NRENs in the UbuntuNet community.
At WACREN 2017 in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire on 28-29 March 2017, MAGIC Work Package 5 continued to conduct regional face to face meeting with communities. First, the project team contributed to the workshop with Librarians as Institutional Focal Points, who have been identified in the WACREN region as anchors for community engagement. Then, MAGIC in collaboration with TANDEM and Sci-GaIA held a joint workshop focusing on sustainability of communities being supported by the projects. The conclusion pointed to the critical role played by national and regional research and education networks.
MAGIC was also present at e-AGE 2016 in Beirut, Lebanon on 1 December 2016, and Caribbean MAGIC, 10-12 April 2017 where the WP5 also made contributions in order to enable the sustainability of these Communities.
Communications as main support actor
Great part of the said work couldn’t be done without the support of the WP6, that boosted the work of WP5 on training activities. In this context, the work of the WP6 consisted of administrative support when assistance was required for the organisation of face-to-face training activities (coordination of transportation, hotels, catering, etc.), dissemination and promotion of the courses, translation of training material, etc.
In order to serve the different dissemination needs, project brochures, flyers and invitations were printed in English and distributed within those international events where MAGIC had representation. In relation to the work of the WP5 at the eAGE 2016 Conference, the WACREN Conference and at the Caribbean MAGIC, for example, brochures were focused on raising awareness of the Global Science Communities that MAGIC was fostering.
The Project Website also had an important role in this process. Information was regularly updated and a new page was created in order to publish the numerous videos that were recorded by the project members and some academics, explaining the importance of the MAGIC project for them. These videos reflect the spirit of collaboration that MAGIC has lighten up and it is also a testimonial of the use of the application and services within the scope of action of every partner institution.
Beyond the website, MAGIC’s on-line presence consists in its Intranet, which is based in Colaboratorio, Facebook and Twitter social interphases. The Intranet is extensively used by the project partners for all its internal communications and for the different WP interaction. ON the other hand the social network presence is statistically measured by WP6 to identify the type of information which is of greater relevance for the different media users and to provide feedback on how to disseminate the project more effectively.