Forced Migration Online: Blog

Issue 30 of Forced Migration Review with its feature theme on Burma is now in the digital library. FMR is one of five journals available.

With the ‘Saffron revolution’ of September 2007, Burma was catapulted into the centre of international attention. It was briefly headline news as people monitored the regime’s response and watched for hints of progress towards democracy and the restoration of rights. With little action on either front (and no visible resurgence of violence or protest), interest has since waned. This issue of FMR aims to help bring the crisis of forced displacement of Burmese people back into the international spotlight.

The feature section on Burma includes 29 articles exploring the extent of the displacement crisis, factors affecting displaced people and the search for solutions. The issue also includes 19 articles on other aspects of forced migration.

• FMR 30: Burma’s displaced people

In November 2007, the FMO team established a network of advisors for the OARS project, comprised of representatives of higher education (HE) institutions in the UK. Students, researchers and academics from universities and colleges form the backbone of FMO’s user community. It is therefore important to involve them in the FMO portal’s redevelopment and enhancement.

On behalf of the FMO team, the Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, Professor Roger Zetter, wrote to academic departments and centres in the UK requesting their input. They were asked to complete a brief questionnaire about their usage and opinions of FMO. This information will be used to inform the team in its work to make the enhancements to FMO through the OARS project.

We would strongly encourage all users of FMO - whether or not they be in the HE sector and/or in the UK – to contribute to the OARS project and assist the team in making the most appropriate changes to FMO to benefit all users. Further details can be found on the OARS project website, and the questionnaire can be completed and submitted online.

Issue 29 of Forced Migration Review with its feature section on ‘Humanitarian reform: fulfilling its promise?’ is now in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

As with any reform, says UN Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes in his article in this issue, “you have the believers, the sceptics and the opponents”. The perspectives of all three camps are reflected in the 25 articles that make up this issue’s feature section on humanitarian reform – which we hope will contribute to a constructive and fruitful debate around the world. FMR 29, which will be published in English, Arabic, Spanish and French, also includes 16 other articles on a wide range of subjects.

• FMR 29: Humanitarian reform: fulfilling its promise?

The FMO team has started work on a new project, the Open Access Repository System (OARS) which will enhance the existing digital library repository and migrate it to an open source platform. See the OARS project website and the Fedora Commons News article below for further information.

People on the move: A Fedora-based Open Access Repository To Provide a World of Information on Forced Migration

Ithaca, NY— September 10, 2007

Anyone who has put a web site together about an interesting topic has seen its content expand in proportion to interest and use. Good information tends to become more complex over time as web site displays, interactive features, new kinds of content, web services, and access to multiple data storage facilities are added. Management of even modest online information facilities can end up being perceived by users as a patchwork of access and preservation — elegant pieces cleverly stitched together without an plan for how the information will persist — a liability for those who may need it most.

The Open Access Repository System (OARS) Project has plans to migrate just such a collection of significant, well-used, and yet fragmented resources from the Forced Migration Online (FMO) Digital Library, a digital repository of scholarly resources based at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, to an open source platform based on Fedora in the next two years. With funding from JISC, the OARS repository will be the largest on its subject area in the world representing a unique and expanding collection of resources highly valued by the user community it serves. The OARS repository will improve management, and will also interoperate with other global open access systems, as well as with the University of Oxford’s institutional repository. The repository’s long-term preservation will be ensured by compliance with JISC Information Environment open source software and open standards. Ultimately, the new repository will help create an information environment about forced migration that is discoverable and accessible to a much wider community of users and contributors.

Force Migration Online (FMO) contains regional resources, multimedia, journals handbooks and guidelines and working papers that address what happens when people have to leave their homes or homelands to escape from political or natural disasters. FMO uses the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) definition for forced migration: “A general term that refers to the movements of refugees and internally displaced people (people displaced by conflicts) as well as people displaced by natural or environmental disasters, chemical or nuclear disasters, famine, or development projects.”

The Oxford Research Archive (ORA) team are also using the Fedora repository system for the construction of the University of Oxford’s institutional repository. The ORA team has developed an open source management and search interface for Fedora. The OARS Project will develop a browser–based management and search interface for their Fedora–based repository based on the ORA work and in compliance with ORA open standards.

For more information on the OARS Project contact Mike Cave, Co-Director or Sean Loughna, Co-Director.

• OARS project website
• Fedora Commons: News

A special issue of Forced Migration Review: Iraq’s displacement crisis: the search for solutions is now in the digital library (FMR is one of five journals available).

The countries of the Middle East are now host to the fastest growing refugee crisis in the world. Violence has displaced two million inside Iraq and over two million have crossed its borders. Most refugees are in Syria and Jordan – which host the largest number of refugees per capita of any country on earth. The vast majority are surviving with little or no assistance from the international community. Few, if any, enjoy their rights as refugees.

This special issue of FMR presents 26 articles from governments, UN agencies and civil society examining the extent of the displacement crisis and the search for solutions. The Editors have worked in close consultation with
UNHCR’s Iraq Unit and are grateful for funding support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, the International Organization for Migration, Islamic Relief Worldwide and the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement.

• Iraq’s displacement crisis: the search for solutions

When Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond came in to be interviewed for the first FMO podcast, she very kindly brought us some interesting documents from the Southern Refugees Legal Advocates Conference, which was held last January in Nairobi.

The conference’s tasks were to establish a code of ethics for refugee legal aid practitioners who work through NGOs and law clinics and to consider creating a ‘southern’ network to address common concerns and to advocate more effectively on behalf of refugees as a collective.

The resulting three documents, the Nairobi Code, the SRLAN Charter and the conference report are now in the digital library.

• The Nairobi code: model rules of ethics for legal advisors in refugee cases
• Charter Southern Refugee Legal Advocacy Network (SRLAN)
• Report: Southern Refugee Legal Advocates Conference