Scholarly Publishing in Africa - Preliminary Findings
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Transcript of Scholarly Publishing in Africa - Preliminary Findings
Susan Murray
Abby Clobridge
Clobridge Consulting
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Preliminary Notes & Findings – Phase 1Publishers for Development
October 2013
Background• Various projects on global publishing scene and
specific elements of scholarly publishing, but nothing specifically on Africa
• important because: “Focus on African problems/challenges could make research unpublishable in other countries”
• Hypothesis: Dynamic publishing scene in Africa, but issues, trends, challenges not always the same in African context as at global level – ex: OA, print vs. online, management of journals, predatory OA, today’s key issues
CurrentState
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa
Background• Timeline:
• Part 1: Survey (August-September 2013)
• Part 2: Follow-up in-depth conversations (end of 2013)
• Full report: Early 2014
• Funding in part from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Survey Target Population• Direct: email invitations to journal editors
• 1200+ emails, 800+ reminder emails• English and French email & survey• Online and “offline” options
• Encouragement from publishing organizations• INASP, PKP, AJOL, EIFL, Taylor & Francis, BioMed Central,
Elsevier, African Journal Partnership Project (AJPP), BioLine, etc.
• Indirect invitations & awareness raising:• Listservs: World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), IFLA
Africa Section, Sabinet, HIFA2015, KM4Dev, etc.• Social networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+
CurrentState
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa
Survey Responses• Approx. 330 responses
• ~30% of African-based actively publishing journals that we identified
• ~5-10% of responses were from journals we had not identified
• Challenges in identifying target population• Ulrich’s, DOAJ, OJS, Scopus, Scimago, AJOL, South African Department of
Education Accredited Journals, Web of Science, ProQuest Int’l Bibliography of Social Sciences
• Duplicates with slightly different names, out-of-date information
• Some difficulty defining African-published/-based
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Demographics of RespondentsGeography: Responses from 32 countries 5 – 2 responses:
Sudan (5), Algeria (3), Cameroon (3), Madagascar (3), Rwanda (3), Botswana (2), Ivory Coast (2), Morocco (2), Mozambique (2), Senegal (2), Togo (2), Tunisia (2), Zambia (2), Zimbabwe (2)
1 response: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Angola, Benin, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome, Seychelles, Somaliland, South Sudan, Swaziland, Western Sahara
Country Responses
South Africa 105
Nigeria 99
Egypt 19
Ethiopia 18
Ghana 13
Kenya 13
Uganda 8
Tanzania 6
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Demographics of Respondents
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
1950s
1960s
1970s
Gender: 74% Male25% Female5% No answer
Date Range of Birth Year
CurrentState
of
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Programme officer at an NGO
University student
Retired
Other
Research officer/manager or scientist for an…
Research officer/manager within academia
Full-time journal editor, publisher, or staff member in…
University lecturer
University professor
0 50 100 150 200 250
Printer
Publishing organization
Other
Member of Editorial Board
Journal manager/staff member at editorial office
Editor-in-Chief
Current Occupation & Current Role in Publishing
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Top Subject Areas of Journal (DOAJ Categories)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Subject Areas of Journals -- Top Responses
Other = mostly sciences that will be recoded into appropriate category
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
How Articles are Selected for Journal
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of
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Prelim review byEIC or manager
then peer-review
EIC reviews allsubmissions
Ed Board reviewsall submissions
Peer-review forall
We accept allmanuscripts
We accept allmanuscripts
within subjectarea
Yes No Uncertain
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Backlinks
Blog coverage
Citations
Comments
Downloads
Facebook Likes
LinkedIn References
Online registrations
Page ranks
Page views
Social networking references (other)
Tweets (Twitter)
User ratings
We don't track impact
Not sure
Other
Tracking Impact
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
0
50
100
150
200
250
Print Online
To subscribers for a fee For free Not avail in this format
Print and Online Access
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
AJOL
SABINET
African Index Medicus
Index Copernicus
ProQuest
CAS
Medline
JSTOR
Embase
Periodicals Index Online
BioOne
CiteSeerx
ScientificCommons
Inclusion in Indexes, Directories, AggregatorsAnswers with >1 response
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Don't know
No
After a delay
Immediately
Final/typeset version Peer-reviewed version Author's version of manuscript
Permission to Deposit Articles or Manuscripts into Repositories
CurrentState
of
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Which type of organization publishes the journal?
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Very Important Somewhat Important Of Little Importance N/A
Sources of Funding and Income
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
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of
0 50 100 150 200 250
Other
Free publishing software
Free journal hosting
Free or open source software
Gov't policy and legislative environment
Free use of univ/org's computers
Free use of univ/org's internet
Free office space
Univ/org policy support & encouragement
Volunteer time of EIC
Volunteer time of editors
Volunteer time of peer reviewers
What sources of non-financial support or resources does the journal receive that allow the journal to operate?
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Main Expenses
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Website hosting
Website design, dev't
Staff salaries
Sponsorship of meetings
Printing costs
Honorarium for Reviewers
Honorarium for EIC
Honorarium for Ed Board
Graphic design and typesetting
Copyediting or translating
Advertising
Significant Somewhat Significant Minor Expense N/A
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Economic Status
Current Status
Generating a surplus (13%)
Breaking even (58%)
Operating at a loss (29%)
Anticipating Status 3-5 Years from Now
Generating a surplus (39%)
Breaking even (53%)
Operating at a loss (7%)
No longer in operation at that time (1%)
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Open Access
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Don't know
Subscription only
Hybrid OA
Embargoed OA
Immediate OA
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Subscription to OA
Always OA6 of these were OA at one point but transitioned to subscription
Of the OA Journals:
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Motivations for Becoming Open Access
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Very important Somewhat important Not important
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Factors in Becoming OA
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Readers' internet access thru mobile devices
Ongoing external funding
One-time external funding
ICT skills Ed board/staff
External web hosting services avail
Broadband access for readers
Broadband access of Ed board/staff
Avail of free or low-cost journal sys
Not important Somewhat important Very important
Perceived/Experienced OA Benefits
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Scholarly Publishing in AfricaCurrent
State of
CurrentState
of
Preliminary impressions of key themes
• Widespread emphasis on importance of Open Access, but complexities are marked
• Cost recovery in all publishing models is difficult• low (or no specific) funding from African governments
• diminishing research funding
• too little institutional support (financial and other)
• few subscribers
• authors can’t afford fees
• Quantity issues• Too many journals
• Too few reviewers
• Too many or too few article submissions
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
• Quality issues / perceptions of problems• Measurement of journal quality “impact factor
fundamentalism” and “bias”.
• Stem from a lack of incentives:
1. to authors “top quality papers will be submitted to European and American and Australian journals first”
2. to peer-reviewers “(peer-review) takes up too much time in our context. I wish there would be some way to speed this process, apart from monetary incentives.”
3. to editors “producing a journal is a lot of work and it is not particularly well rewarded or supported”
“The problem of extremely low output in Africa of quality journal articles does not lie with the journals per se, but with social and cultural systems and people living and working in conditions that are not conducive for high quality work”.
Preliminary impressions of key themes
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
• Huge preponderance of “scholar journals” (which
cannot afford dedicated staff members) published by career academics “after hours”
• Concerns around skills in three areas:• Novice authors’ writing skills
• IT skills
• Handover of journals from founding Editor/Board
Preliminary impressions of key themes
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
• OA journal numbers are higher than toll-based –tentative
• Internet connectivity and ICT not often mentioned
• Low awareness of concept of “predatory OA”, but little influence, except for sharing current policies & practices more explicitly
• Frequent mention of the need for more collaboration between countries, and greater co-operation throughout the continent• Notably with respect to amalgamation of journals
CurrentState
of
Surprises
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
• From reviewers of the survey:• It is too long, but add the following NB questions (!)
• From correspondence ABOUT the survey:• A hypothesis that African journals use a subscription-
based publishing model to keep low quality content from being widely assessed
• From respondents:• strong overall optimism about publishing in Africa
(despite the challenges mentioned) “huge potential for new insights and original research…”
Surprises
Scholarly Publishing in AfricaCurrent
State of
• Phase two of the research: Case studies
AND THEN…
• AJOL’s drafting of an OA in Africa Advocacy approach?
• An Africa-wide conference on OA in Africa??
• An African statement on Open Access?
• An African statement on dedicated public support for research communication?
• Comparison & collaboration with other developing country regions?
CurrentState
of
Looking forward…
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
“The place of local and regional journals needs more recognition and these titles are under more pressure than ever in the increasingly globalised and increasingly OA worlds.”
Hypothesis on OA in Africa tentatively confirmed…
Scholarly Publishing in AfricaCurrent
State of
CurrentState
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa
More Information Forthcoming: Report Available Early 2014
(Details TBA)
Contact:
Susan [email protected]
Abby [email protected]