Role of Open in African Higher Education - University of Botswana
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Transcript of Role of Open in African Higher Education - University of Botswana
Access to Africa’s
knowledge
University of Botswana
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Scholarly Communication in Africa
What do we, in African countries, seek to gain from our investment in
research?
The aim is surely African knowledge,
for Africa, from Africa, widely accessible...
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Globally, scholarly communication is at a crossroads
... as the internet offers higher
access, higher quality, lower
cost
We face two very different poles of
opportunity...
Enhanced global competitiveness and
prestige....
And ways of addressing
our development challenges
We constantly ask questions about
research and development...
‘How could the application of knowledge end poverty and hunger in Africa? How could higher education empower women and promote gender equity? How can knowledge be considered in the African context to address child mortality and improve maternal health?’
Nahas Angula, Namibian Prime Minister, UNESCO 29th Conference on Higher Education, 2009
Photo: coda Damien du Toit http://www.flickr.com/photos/coda/Creative Commons Share-Alike
Yet we are still caught up with old
paradigms...
...measuring success on the
basis of counts of journal articles
in the ISI indexes.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence
The result is tunnel vision...
...which ignores all but a small
segment of the publishing
ecosystem..
.. and offers little support and
recognition to the publications that
emerge from development-focused
research.
National policies tend to favour what Sir John Daniel at the UNESCO conference called ‘poles of superior quality’ rather than ‘the public good’
There is a penalty...
Science Research
http://www.worldmapper.org 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).
How can we address this?
... higher access, higher quality,
lower cost
Open access repositories profile the whole range of scholarship
Raising quality...
Publishing open access journals
Revaluing ‘grey publishing’
Rethinking business models and leveraging
open access
How can the University of
Botswana harness this potential to
deliver its strategic goals?
Eve GrayHonorary Research Associate
Centre for Educational Technology
University of Cape Townhttp://www.gray-area.co.za
http://www.http://www.sca2kafrica.org/
http://www.cet.uct.ac.za
