Communication for science, a route to visibility at the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga (UNAB)

Abstract

Knowing how to get to someone, who a text is written for without losing the level of complexity, taking the text out of the scientific metalanguage and making it comprehensible, it is a difficult task that technological platforms and different communication strategies to achieve access to the knowledge can take advantage of. In this way and to be consistent with the social responsibility of higher Education Institutions to bring education everywhere, and in congruence with its substantive role and its missionary axes (teaching, research and extension) towards reaching the objective, institutions must manage editorial processes in order to consolidate and promote a proposal of institutional visibility, rather than profitability.

A generalized view for most university publishers who have focused their efforts on supporting intellectual production have unfortunately led to "bookshelves full of books that are stacked on them... books that were used in small quantities for some press activity and as a meager retribution to the author or authors” (1), a situation that highlights the need to take the path of communication for science, in which the editorial process works as a mediator between the university and civil society, the ideal, so that it is really useful and fulfills a social role, towards achieving the democratization of knowledge and therefore the social appropriation of it.

From the premise that communication is transversal to the Institutional management, it is a constant dialogical exercise between those who participate and energize the different processes and daily activities of a University. That is why the commitment of the Autonomous University of Bucaramanga (UNAB) from this year onwards, aims to strengthen the institutional visibility through a strategic project called "Communication for Science", which is integrated and aligned with other projects and university guidelines.

The main idea of this proposal is based on the increase of the visibility factor of the UNAB in various instances of National and International order, from a portfolio of publications that includes serial journals, research books, diffusion books, primers, information bulletins and thesis, among others, in order to be consistent with quality, relevance, value added and knowledge transfer guidelines, based on the four pillars of communication for science: dissemination, dissemination, legalization and distribution.