Opening remarks: Open access and the developing world

Open Access in Africa Deborah Kahn Publishing Director, BioMed Central Ltd

Open Access Africa 2011
Bringing together researchers, librarians, funding bodies and technology companies to discuss how open access publishing can support science in Africa

The old world of access to knowledge

The new world of access to knowledge

African internet connectivity is improving dramatically

Growth of mobile phones in Africa Source: African Mobile Factbook 2008 International Telecommunications Union report (2009) “ The increase in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions over the last five years has defied all predictions and Africa remains the region with the highest mobile growth rate” Although number of Internet users has also grown faster than in other regions: “ Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries reach ICT levels comparable to global averages”

Mobile phone networks are already aiding scientific data gathering

As connectivity improves, other access barriers become significant
Access to computers
Computer skills
Access to research funding
Access to the scientific literature
Skills to write scientific papers
Available outlets to publish

Access to computers and computer skills

Access to Research Funding
Many initiatives to improve funding of science in Africa
Governmental sources
NGOs
Research funders
Private initiatives

New Plant Bioinformatics Academy in Accra
Article published in Science on 30 th September about a new academy being set up in Accra to develop bioinformatics skills in plant breeders

Access to the Scientific Literature
Traditional journals
take ownership of the research
provide access to subscribers only
Open access journals
have no subscription barriers
take advantage of the economics of the internet to allow universal access
research is openly licensed to allow reuse

Characteristics of Open Access
The publisher charges directly for the service of publication/ dissemination
Research permanently available via the Internet
No barriers to access such as subscription costs
Licensed so as to allow redistribution and reuse (Creative Commons)
Archived in an internationally recognized repository (e.g. PubMed Central)

Open Access Waiver Fund
All African countries receive automatic waiver, except:
Algeria
Botswana
Equatorial Guinea
Gabon
Libya
Namibia
South Africa

What does the APC cover
Open access journals need to cover the costs of
managing peer review,
Development, maintenance and operation of online journal systems
Formatting and mark up of articles, inclusion in indexing services
Making sure readers and authors know about the journal
Responding to authors/readers
Publication fee is a very small fraction of the cost of doing research
Most open access publishers give waivers to authors from developing countries
In many cases, open access journals have central support, so no charges for authors or readers

Open Access publishing is growing fast

Improving skills to write scientific papers

Free Editing for African scientists submitting to BMC Journals
To mark Open Access Africa 2011, Edanz will provide free editing for 20 African authors submitting to 5 BioMed Central Journals that are particularly relevant to African authors
AIDS Research and Therapy
BMC Public Health
International Journal for Equity in Health
Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Virology Journal
Where the journal editor feels the science of the paper is good but that the language needs polishing before submission and the author’s funding conditions could make it difficult to obtain the high level editing needed. The journal editor will refer the author to Edanz for free language editing

About BioMed Central
Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals
Launched first open access journal in 2000
Became part of Springer in 2008
Now publishes over 220 open access journals
>100,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published
All research articles published under Creative Commons license
Costs covered by article processing charge (APC)

Some BioMed Central journals

BioMed Central submissions

BioMed Central and Africa

ComputerAid

Growth in manuscript submissions from Africa to BioMed Central

Submissions from Africa compared to total

BMC Foundation Membership
A new type of membership created for developing nations
Designed to support Open Access advocacy
No cost

Criteria for Foundation Membership
Institution should have a Open Access policy in place
Institution should have published at least 5 articles in BioMed Central journals in the last year

Benefits of Foundation Membership
A BMC Webpage
A Member welcome pack
Membership usage reports
Member logo/badge for use on institution website
PR of Membership

Malaria Journal - an open access journal case study

Malaria Journal homepage

Annual growth in submissions to Malaria Journal

Top 20 African countries publishing in Malaria Journal (no. of articles) Kenya 68 Tanzania 59 Nigeria 33 South Africa 30 Uganda 29 Ghana 21 Benin 16 Madagascar 14 Sudan 12 Ethiopia 11 Zambia 10 Cameroon 9 Senegal 9 Malawi 9 Mali 9 Burkina Faso 8 Cote d'Ivoire 7 Gabon 6 Gambia 6 Mozambique 3

Impact Factor trend

A highly accessed Malaria Journal article 17,000+ downloads 41 citations

Parasite to Prevention - Malaria Journal ’s scientific conference
Inaugural conference October 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland
Full bursaries for participants from low-income countries, supported by Gates Foundation
Next conference 2012

Other high profile open access journals relevant to tropical diseases

The latest open access research on global health issues

Open Access repositories
Allow archiving of articles published both in traditional journals and open access journals
Traditional publishers typically only allow author version to be archived
Many require a 6 or 12 month embargo period
Open access articles can be deposited and made immediately available

Open Repository
Hosted digital repository service, operated by BioMed Central
Built on the DSpace open-source platform
Dramatically reduces time and costs involved in setting up, maintaining and developing a repository
Hosting in UK ensures maximum international exposure

Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the conference!

Opening remarks: Open access and the developing world

by BioMedCentral on Nov 02, 2011

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Opening remarks: Open access and the developing world Presentation Transcript