Scholarly Publishing in Africa - Preliminary Findings

Susan Murray

[email protected]

Abby Clobridge

Clobridge Consulting

[email protected]

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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

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Scholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa

http://www.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)

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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+

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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• Duplicates with slightly different names, out-of-date information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

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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

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Demographics of Respondents

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1950s

1960s

1970s

Gender: 74% Male25% Female5% No answer

Date Range of Birth Year

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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

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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


How Articles are Selected for Journal

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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


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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


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0

50

100

150

200

250

Print Online

To subscribers for a fee For free Not avail in this format

Print and Online Access


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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


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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

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0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Which type of organization publishes the journal?


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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


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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?


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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


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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%)


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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:


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Motivations for Becoming Open Access

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Very important Somewhat important Not important


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Factors in Becoming OA


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

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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


• 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”.


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• 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



• 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

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Surprises


• 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


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?

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Looking forward…


“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…


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More Information Forthcoming: Report Available Early 2014

(Details TBA)

Contact:

Susan [email protected]

Abby [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]