Susan Murray [email protected] Abby Clobridge Clobridge Consulting [email protected]
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Transcript of Susan Murray [email protected] Abby Clobridge Clobridge Consulting [email protected]
Susan Murray
Abby ClobridgeClobridge [email protected]
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in AfricaPreliminary Notes & Findings
SAOIM 2014
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 contexts as at global level – eg: OA, print vs. online, management of journals, predatory OA, today’s key issues
CurrentState
ofScholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa
Background• Timeline: • Part 1: Survey (August-September 2013)• Part 2: Follow-up in-depth conversations (first half of
2014)• Full report: June/July 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, 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
ofScholarly 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• Duplicates with slightly different names, out-of-date information• Some difficulty defining African-published/-based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% Male 25% Female 5% No answer
Date Range of Birth Year
CurrentState
of
Programme officer at an NGO
Retired
Research officer/manager or scientist for an organization outside of academia
Full-time journal editor, publisher, or staff member in related field
University professor
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
Printer
Publishing organization
Other
Member of Editorial Board
Journal manager/staff member at editorial office
Editor-in-Chief
0 50 100 150 200 250
Current Occupation & Current Role in Publishing
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Top Subject Areas of Journals (DOAJ Categories)
Health Scie
nces
Other
Biology and Lif
e Sciences
Agricultu
re and Food Scie
nces
Socia
l Scie
nces (
General)
Earth
and Enviro
nmental S
cience
s
Science
s (General)
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
CurrentState
of
Prelim re
view by EIC or m
anage
r then peer-r
eview
EIC re
views all s
ubmissions
Ed Board re
views all s
ubmissions
Peer-rev
iew for a
ll
We acce
pt all m
anuscr
ipts
We acce
pt all m
anuscr
ipts with
in subjec
t area
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Yes No Uncertain
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
BacklinksBlog coverage
CitationsCommentsDownloads
Facebook LikesLinkedIn ReferencesOnline registrations
Page ranksPage views
Social networking references (other)Tweets (Twitter)
User ratingsWe don't track impact
Not sureOther
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
Tracking Impact
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Print Online0
50
100
150
200
250
To subscribers for a fee For free Not avail in this format
Print and Online Access
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Inclusion in Indexes, Directories, Aggregators
AJOL
EBSCOhost
SABINET
DOAJ
African Index Medicus
Scopus
Index Copernicus
African Journal Archive
ProQuest
PubMed
CAS
CABI
Medline
Bioline International
JSTOR
SciELO South Africa
Embase
JournalSeek
Periodicals Index Online
Project Muse
BioOne
PsychInfo
CiteSeerx
EconLit
ScientificCommons
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
190
76
65
48
44
41
32
29
24
23
21
19
19
18
17
15
14
12
9
5
3
3
1
1
1
CurrentState
of Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Don't know
No
After a delay
Immediately
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200
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
Advertisin
g
APCs & author f
ees
Donations fr
om individuals
Donations fr
om orgs
Funds f
rom non-univ
org which
man
ages jo
urn
Funds f
rom univ w
hich m
anages jo
urnal
Gov't funding
Institutional
subscr
iptions (onlin
e)
Institutional
subscriptions (
print)
Licen
sing ch
arges
Pay-per-v
iew article
access
Personal su
bscriptions (o
nline)
Personal su
bscriptions (p
rinted
)
Reprin
t fees
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
CurrentState
of
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
0 50 100 150 200 250
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
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
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
Significant Somewhat SignificantMinor 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
Don't know
Subscription only
Hybrid OA
Embargoed OA
Immediate OA
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
Subscription to OA
Always OA
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
6 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
Incr. O
A aware
ness global
level
Incr. O
A awareness
national lev
el
Low #
of subscr
iptions
Personal b
elief o
f EIC/Ed Board
Pressure or m
andates b
y funders
Requests
by authors
Requests
by readers
Requests
by schol so
c/org affi
l with
journ
al
Request b
y univ affil with
journ
al
Subscr
iption model to
o costl
y
Target r
eadership ca
n't afford
subsri
ptions0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140Very important Somewhat important Not important
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
CurrentState
of
Factors in Becoming OA
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
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
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Not important Somewhat important Very important
Perceived/Experienced OA Benefits
Discourag
emen
t of p
lagiar
ism
Increase
d citati
ons to ar
ticles
Incr. ex
posure/vis
ibility a
t nati
onal lev
el
Incr. ex
posure/vis
ibility w
ithin Afric
a
Incr. ex
posure/vis
ibility a
t global
level
Increase
d number of a
rticle su
bmissions
Publishing m
ore iss
ues per
year
Reduced
cost
for publish
ing
Time s
aving,
e.g. le
ss time r
equire
d for jo
urnal producti
on
Too so
on to te
ll
Other 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Scholarly Publishing in AfricaCurrent
State of
CurrentState
of
Key emerging 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)• readers can’t afford to subscribe• authors can’t afford publishing fees
• Quantity issues• Too many or too few 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”• Direct support from institutions and governments to
these journals is infrequent and low
• Three country outliers… South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt
• Concerns around skills in three areas:• Novice authors’ writing skills• IT skills• Handover of journals from founding Editor/Board
Preliminary impressions of key themes
• 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• Comparison & collaboration with other developing
country regions
CurrentState
of
Looking forward…
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
“The place of local and regional journals in Africa 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
ofScholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa
More Information Forthcoming: Report Available 2nd half 2014
(Details TBA)
Contact: Susan [email protected]
Abby [email protected]