The best initiative of 2008 was undoubtedly the creation of an electronic group called ARMACAD e-group; a simple initiative with a powerful impact!
Thanks to what can be now considered rather low-tech – Yahoo! group services – the ARMACAD e-group was launched in July 2007 and practically started to function in 2008.
Now, at the end of the year, the e-group has almost 1450 members who share academic interests in Humanities and Social Sciences. Members include university students, instructors, administrators, members of related NGOs and educational foundations, and researchers. Most are Armenian but there are many non-Armenian members too. Membership is for free, and having a Yahoo! email account not required.
Equal & Timely Access to Information
Thanks to the ARMACAD e-group, the members circulate and share hundreds of messages per month. These include an impressive number of announcements dealing with scholarship and financial aid opportunities abroad; mostly at postgraduate level.
Post-doctoral research opportunities and various academic jobs are another popular category. The members also regularly share news about upcoming conferences, presentations, round tables and other scientific gatherings in Armenia as well as abroad.
One of the members sent the following message few months ago:
The Hyper Active Moderator
A young scholar who completed his PhD in Iranian Studies at Yerevan State University in 2006 followed by a year of post-doctoral work at the University of Göttingen (Georg August Universität Göttingen), Germany, Mr. Khachik Gevorgian is one of the founders and the moderator of the ARMACAD e-group.
A hyper active person – this is not an exaggeration – Mr. Gevorgian manages the network and is its main supplier of various messages, on a regular and almost daily basis. He has undoubtedly been the main reason for the e-group's success.
The network, however, functions effectively thanks to the good will and active participation of a large number of members who generously share information with fellow participants. Interestingly, it seems, the majority doesn’t know each other in person. This has not prevented the ARMACAD e-group to earn the qualities of – as the moderator likes to call it – a community.
The e-group’s name, ARMACAD, is coming from an association with the same name (Armenian Association for Academic Partnership and Support) that Mr. Gevorgian co-founded and that currently presides over.
Initiatives in a Row
A “serial entrepreneur” in academic setting – something extremely rare in Armenia and in the post-Soviet region – Mr. Gevorgian seems constantly launching initiatives that respond to many unmet needs of the academic community and is able to mobilize like-minded people around them.
For instance, a forum carrying the same name was launched in 2008. It has provided many scholars and students with a place to have timely and transparent discussions and debates on various topics related to the Armenian academic life. Like the e-group, the participation in the forum is open and free, and English is the working language.
Mr. Gevorgian and his colleagues even ventured into exact sciences by starting a second e-group called ARMACADEX in May 2008. The second group has about 120 members and is, at least for the time being, less active than ARMACAD.
In his recent interview with A1+, Mr. Gevorgian complained about lack of resources at Armenian universities. Referring to the chronic lack of access to scientific journals and articles, he said; “Not only do universities not provide funds for making those journals accessible, we lack the knowledge of using them. …” I wonder if this signals his next initiative.
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Thanks to what can be now considered rather low-tech – Yahoo! group services – the ARMACAD e-group was launched in July 2007 and practically started to function in 2008.
Now, at the end of the year, the e-group has almost 1450 members who share academic interests in Humanities and Social Sciences. Members include university students, instructors, administrators, members of related NGOs and educational foundations, and researchers. Most are Armenian but there are many non-Armenian members too. Membership is for free, and having a Yahoo! email account not required.
Equal & Timely Access to Information
Thanks to the ARMACAD e-group, the members circulate and share hundreds of messages per month. These include an impressive number of announcements dealing with scholarship and financial aid opportunities abroad; mostly at postgraduate level.
Post-doctoral research opportunities and various academic jobs are another popular category. The members also regularly share news about upcoming conferences, presentations, round tables and other scientific gatherings in Armenia as well as abroad.
One of the members sent the following message few months ago:
About 80 similar cases have been recorded in 2008, according to the e-group’s moderator. In a recent interview with A+1, he claimed that in addition to generating and publicizing many new opportunities, the e-group has created the conditions for an equal access to information and “has managed to partially solve the problem concerning monopolist scientific announcements in Armenia....”Dear Colleagues.
It is my pleasure to thank you for your useful and beneficial work … I have to announce that as a result of being included in your mailing list, I have succeeded to have an opportunity of starting an MA at … in France and Italy! Therefore, once again, I am very proud … to be able to benefit from your splendid job. Thank you!!!!!!
The Hyper Active Moderator
A young scholar who completed his PhD in Iranian Studies at Yerevan State University in 2006 followed by a year of post-doctoral work at the University of Göttingen (Georg August Universität Göttingen), Germany, Mr. Khachik Gevorgian is one of the founders and the moderator of the ARMACAD e-group.
A hyper active person – this is not an exaggeration – Mr. Gevorgian manages the network and is its main supplier of various messages, on a regular and almost daily basis. He has undoubtedly been the main reason for the e-group's success.
The network, however, functions effectively thanks to the good will and active participation of a large number of members who generously share information with fellow participants. Interestingly, it seems, the majority doesn’t know each other in person. This has not prevented the ARMACAD e-group to earn the qualities of – as the moderator likes to call it – a community.
The e-group’s name, ARMACAD, is coming from an association with the same name (Armenian Association for Academic Partnership and Support) that Mr. Gevorgian co-founded and that currently presides over.
Initiatives in a Row
A “serial entrepreneur” in academic setting – something extremely rare in Armenia and in the post-Soviet region – Mr. Gevorgian seems constantly launching initiatives that respond to many unmet needs of the academic community and is able to mobilize like-minded people around them.
For instance, a forum carrying the same name was launched in 2008. It has provided many scholars and students with a place to have timely and transparent discussions and debates on various topics related to the Armenian academic life. Like the e-group, the participation in the forum is open and free, and English is the working language.
Mr. Gevorgian and his colleagues even ventured into exact sciences by starting a second e-group called ARMACADEX in May 2008. The second group has about 120 members and is, at least for the time being, less active than ARMACAD.
In his recent interview with A1+, Mr. Gevorgian complained about lack of resources at Armenian universities. Referring to the chronic lack of access to scientific journals and articles, he said; “Not only do universities not provide funds for making those journals accessible, we lack the knowledge of using them. …” I wonder if this signals his next initiative.
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