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The purpose of this information page is to introduce you to the Forced Migration Online Project. Below is a brief FAQ with answers to some basic questions you might have.
- What is forced migration?
- The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) defines forced migration as “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 study of forced migration is multidisciplinary, international, and incorporates both an academic and field perspective. For more information read our introduction to forced migration.
- What is Forced Migration Online (FMO)?
- FMO is a comprehensive site that is designed to help you undertake research on the web in a more effective and efficient manner. Currently, it consists of the following components: (1) a series of guides that introduce you to key forced migration themes and country situations; (2) a “Digital Library” that houses full-text documents (3) key forced migration journals in full-text; (4) a searchable “Web Catalogue” with descriptions of relevant web-based resources and links to those resources; (5) a directory with contact information for relevant organizations; and (6) a news feed with regularly updated headlines.
- Tell me more about the Guides.
- Each guide has been written by a subject or country expert, edited by the Content Coordinator, and reviewed by members of FMO’s Academic Advisory Panel. The panel is made up of a group of academics and practitioners from around the world with extensive and wide-ranging experience and expertise on forced migration issues. Members will review proposed content for FMO to check for accuracy, relevance and academic rigour, where applicable. Although the guides do not follow a set format, they all include the following: an introduction to and overview of the issue/country being discussed, some general statistics, a brief history, maps, and photos. They also direct users to further information, both online via URLs and in printed form via bibliographic citations. In this way, they serve a twofold purpose: as introductions to important forced migration issues, and as navigation guides to relevant information resources both within and outside of FMO.
- What is a “Digital Library”?
- It's basically a specialized collection of full-text documents in electronic format. FMO’s Digital Library currently includes grey literature and research materials selected from the libraries of the Refugee Studies Centre, Tufts University's Feinstein International Famine Center, Columbia University's Program on Forced Migration (based in the Center for Population and Family Health), the Czech Helsinki Committee in Prague, and the American University in Cairo's Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program. Users can retrieve any or all of these documents through a special search engine, and either read them online or print them off for future consultation. In the future, we'll be adding photos and audiovisual materials to the collection.
- How can I contribute my publications to the Digital Library?
- You are welcome to submit papers using this online submission form. However, FMO cannot guarantee that your paper will be selected for inclusion in the Digital Library. All prospective documents are assessed for relevance according to our scope and selection policies.
- What's in the “Journals” section?
- You can retrieve full-text articles from back issues of key forced migration journals in this section. Disasters, Forced Migration Review (FMR), the International Journal of Refugee Law (IJRL), International Migration Review (IMR) and the Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) are available. We hope to make International Migration available.
- Tell me more about the “Web Catalogue”.
- The Webcat is similar to the traditional library catalogue in that it houses bibliographic records rather than full-text information. The difference is that the records in the Web Catalogue all describe resources that exist somewhere on the web. A resource might be a full-text conference paper, an important journal, a directory of organizations, a discussion list, a news service, a bibliography, statistical data - or some other information source that is useful in the research process.
- What do the “Web Catalogue” records look like?
- Here is an example of a complete record. The field names are based on Dublin Core, an initiative to promote the development of interoperable online metadata standards.
- How do you locate resources to include in the Web Catalogue?
- We rely on a variety of strategies. First, we keep track of new web resources by subscribing to current awareness services, discussion lists, and the "what's new" pages of important web sites. Second, we monitor the web sites of key organizations to learn about their new resources. Third, we encourage you - our users - to submit suggestions through this online form.
- Tell me more about the Organizations Directory.
- The directory provides contact information for relevant organizations in the field of forced migration. Information can be located by organization name and/or geographic area. Use this online form to suggest additional organizations that should be included.
- What is the discussion list?
- The forced migration discussion list is a forum for information exchange and discussion on the problem of refugees and other forcibly displaced or involuntarily resettled persons. It's moderated by the Refugee Studies Centre, and hosted by JISCMail. All interested parties are welcome to subscribe.
- Who will want to use FMO?
- The primary aim of FMO is to support and facilitate the research and information-seeking process. To that end, its main audience will be academic users (i.e., students, faculty, research institute staff, librarians, etc.), practitioners, policy makers, members of the media, information providers, and forced migrants themselves who may not have ready access to print collections and information centres.
- Will I ever need to visit a library again?
- FMO does not replace or supplant traditional libraries, but rather complements them. The fact is that there are prescribed ways for undertaking research in a library setting which have no parallel in the online environment because of the web's unprecedented growth and "anything goes" philosophy. There is a lot of valuable information on the web - and FMO will serve as one tool for helping you mine it - but it does not yet rival the wealth of information in printed format.
- What if I don't have access to the Internet?
- Information about FMO and its resources will be circulated via e-mail. In this way, researchers without access to the web will have an opportunity to learn about potentially useful resources, and will then be able to submit requests for specific documents to the nearest FMO team member, or "hub".
- Where does your funding come from?
- Since January 2005 FMO has been funded by the Department for International Development (DFID). DFID is the part of the UK Government that manages Britain’s aid to poor countries and works to get rid of extreme poverty. FMO and the Digital Library Project were funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the European Commission between 1997 and 2004.
- Who is involved in this project?
- Currently, the FMO team is made up of a coordination group based at the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University, an advisory group with representatives from the Refugee Studies Centre, American University in Cairo, Czech Helsinki Committee, Higher Education Digitisation Service (HEDS), Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK (ICAR), and Tufts University’s Feinstein International Famine Center and Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. (You can read more about these and other organizations that have contributed to FMO's development in the “Partners” section.) However, as the project unfolds, a distributed network of "editors," authors and subject specialists will be recruited from different regions around the world to help contribute records to the catalogue, select documents for the digital library, and draft thematic and country research guides. If you or your institution is interested in participating in this project, please e-mail us.
- How can I learn more about your policies and standards?
- Easy! Just click on “About Us”, and you will find a link to all the policy and guideline documents that provide the technical and intellectual framework around which FMO was built.
- What future plans are in store for FMO?
- We'd like to offer a My FMO feature, which would allow users to create personal views on FMO; we're interested in cross-searching capabilities; we are working on improving multilingual access to FMO; we're hoping to incorporate a thesaurus into the FMO search function; we want to include a "browse" feature for the site; and much more. Stay tuned!
Thanks for your interest in the Forced Migration Online Project!
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