Measures of Central Tendency: Mean, Median and Mode
How open access can re-energise African research and scholarly publishing
1. How Open Access canHow Open Access can
re-energise research andre-energise research and
scholarly publishing in Africascholarly publishing in Africa
Daisy Ouya, MS, ELS
Trustee, Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT)
daisyouya@yahoo.com
Open Access Africa Workshop 10-11 November 2010
BioMed Central/ComputerAID
Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya
2. 1996 2001 2004 2007 2010
Science Editor
ISA Journal, ICIPE
Science Editor
WIOJMS (journal)
Science
Editor,
IJTIS
(journal)
Science
Writer/Ed
itor,
CIMMYT
Prog. Mngr-
IEC, IAVI
UNESCO OA
Consultant
ELS
certification
Trustee, EPT
4. As a result of:
Closed, costly access to journals
Academic isolation of African (and other DC)
researchers
The S-N, N-S and S-S information gaps
[=Incomplete global knowledge base]
5. Also…
Poorly resourced local research [funding, labs, brain drain…]
Weak local scholarly publishing [funding, capacity…]
Low expansion of OA in DCs
The S-N, N-S and S-S information gaps
7. Open access journals (Gold route)
Open access institutional repositories holding
copies of already published peer-reviewed articles
(Green route)
Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
8. Region # Journals from Region in Web of Science
Europe 5,573 49%
North America 4,251 38%
Asia-Pacific 965 9%
Latin America 272 2%
Middle East/Africa 200 1%
Language # Journals in Web of Science
English 9114 81%
Other 2147 19%
GLOBAL RESEARCH REPRESENTATION
WEB OF SCIENCE COVERAGE
15. Fosters collaboration & stimulates research
Collaborative research is better resourced, broader
based, and often inter-disciplinary => more
citations
Promotes mentorship
Reduces duplication
17. Remove researchers’ isolation
Fosters collaboration
Stimulates research
Encourages authorship
Reduces duplication
Improves quality of research
Increases citations and impact
18. Research is the lifeblood of scholarly publishing,
and the quality/productivity in research directly
impacts scholarly journal publishing.
• Without many, good quality manuscripts, African
journals will continue to struggle
• It’s harder and more time-consuming to publish
poor papers
• With researchers supported, African journals will
have an easier time.
23. More papers
Wider geographical base
More institutional interest
24. Author fees
Advertising – print, web
Web income [e.g. Google Ads]
Sponsorship – society, institutional,
gov’t, donor
Special issues
Print subscriptions
Reprints
25. 0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
Indian Journal
of Cancer
Journal of
Critical Care
Medicine
Indian Journal
of
Dermatology,
Venereology
and Leprology
Indian Journal
of Medical
Sciences
Indian Journal
of Plastic
Surgery
Indian Journal
of Surgery
Neurology
India
Indian Journal
of
Pharmacology
Journal of
Postgraduate
Medicine
Journal
Numberofsubscribers
2003
2004
2005
2006
27. Visibility
More manuscript submissions
More international papers
Better quality papers
More citations and impact
Could help with sustainability
Improved editorial quality
Makes the ‘local’ international
30. 1. Raise awareness at all levels
2. Develop policies requiring OA for all publicly
funded output
3. Provide ‘how to’ information, including business
models, linkages
4. Fundraise
5. Nairobi Declaration on OA
6. Gov’t support very important [clear regulations about
research information dissemination needed]
31. The ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Programme is a
concerted intervention into the country’s national
system of Innovation (NSI), which focuses on the
enhancement of the quality, quantity and worldwide
visibility of original, peer-reviewed publications
produced by researchers in the public sector, and
the fostering of a new generation of highly competent
and productive scientists and scholars
32. Bioline International >70 journals from 16 DCs)
www.bioline.org.br
AJOL www.ajol.info [both OA and non-OA]
SciELO (Brazil, now has >600 journals) www.scielo.org
SCIELO- South Africa
MedKnow Publications (India), 99 journals – some OA
www.medknow.org
Public Knowledge Project (PKP/OJS) - http://pkp.sfu.ca/?
q=ojs
33. Open Access Scholarly Information Resource (OASIS)
http://www.openoasis.org
Registry of Institutional Repositories roar.eprints.org
Directory of OA Journals www.doaj.org
34. Barbara Kirsop
Leslie Chan
Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun)
K. Sahu, Medknow
Thank you for the opportunity to present on Behalf of EPT, a UK-registered charity whose aims are to support and facilitate access to global research by researchers in the developing world, and also to make research published in these regions part of the international science base.
This presentation will argue that Open Access, if allowed to take root and flourish, can change the landscape of African research and scholarly publishing.
I will present examples that show how OA can break the vicious circle of low circulation/visibility, few and low quality submissions, poor editorial standards, and the Volume 1 Issue 1 syndrome that has too long characterised scholarly publishing in sub-Saharan Africa.
The paper will also show how OA can support researchers and journal publishers alike, and by doing so, provide a mechanism to strengthen the science base of countries here.
Africa has a wealth of knowledge in all these areas. Unfortunately, most of it is hidden from the world’s eyes, due to the isolation of the continent from the global knowledge base.
A great deal of medical and agricultural research is taking place on the continent today, mostly in collaborative projects, but the results are published in high-impact journals in the West. People in Africa thus often don’t have access to the findings of research that’s happened in their backyard, aimed at solving their problems.
More and more journals are allowing or becoming OA, but too many still aren’t, including journals published in Africa.
We have heard in this workshop about the challenges researchers and people in Africa undergo in accessing information, and sharing their own results.
This results in an incomplete global knowledge base (because it’s lacking info. from Africa (reasons for this range from bias by established publishers against DC research (The Matthew Effect), and low capacity for research, writing, and publishing in Africa.
The result is that important research from the South remains invisible to the world.
In our globalised world, and with the Internet connecting all of us, this is not an acceptable, or healthy situation. [e.g. a stem rust resurgence in Njoro has implications for wheat farmers in Italy and USA, e.g.]. i.e. Local information about health, environment, etc, increasingly, has regional, and global implications.
S-S knowledge sharing is important, as DCs have common problems.
This situation is exercabated by poorly resourced research in Africa [gov’ts have other pressing priorities and emergencies]
And local publishing is weak and getting weaker…
This graphic illustrates the vicious circle that is African Scholarly publishing, which is intrinsically related to research on the continent.
At its center is the visibility issue. This paper will argue that OA has the potential to resolve the visibility issue and change res. and schol. Pub. In Africa.
Until the circle broken, African journals will remain invisible, and dismissed as ‘local’.
Both provide free-of-cost online access to published scholarly literature, but both are struggling in Africa.
IRs can hold much more than publications.
This slide shows that OA repositories are mostly in the developed world.
By Stuart Lewis, Repositories 66.org
I’d like to give some examples of how OA breaks the vicious cycle caused by low visibility.
This will demonstrate how OA could help African researchers and journals.
Research is the lifeblood of scholarly publishing, and low quality/productivity in African research directly impacts scholarly journal publishing here.
FIRSTLY, OA removes researchers’ isolation
When you’re online, you will get picked up, and hopefully cited!
Bioline International has made available the adjusted statistics of usage of its partner Journals from 2002 to the end of 2008. Over the last four years alone, the requests for full text papers has increased four-fold, from 1.1 million to 4.2 million, while total hits grew from 4.2 million to 12.15 million, showing an impressive rate of usage of material from journals published in developing countries.
www.bioline.org
Example of OA resulting in large increase in citations.
The Queensland University of Technology’s most prolific author, Ray Frost, a chemist, found that citations to his work increased from ~300 to 1200/year once he had deposited his papers in the QUT open access repository in 2004
Once isolation is removed, collaboration follow. Collaborative research is better resourced, broader based, and inter-disciplinary => more citations
By fostering collaborations among African researchers ( S-S) and between African researchers and the global research community (S-N), OA can foster better quality, better resourced and more relevant research projects. For the new generation of researchers, virtually all contacts/collaborations will start from online searches. Living examples…
Promotes mentorship
Reduces duplication
Collaborative work, better resourced, diversity of authors, mentors
Research is the lifeblood of scholarly publishing, and low quality/productivity in African research directly impacts scholarly journal publishing here.
MedKnow statistics
136 Total journals
122 Total associations / societies
55,768 Total articles
11,676 Full text articles
24,615 Manuscripts submitted in '10
2,001,467 Articles downloaded in Oct '10
MedKnow statistics
MedKnow charges for other publishing services, such as editing/formatting etc and although all MedKnow journals are OA and don’t charge authors, MedKnow makes a profit.
This cartoon shows that when we are visible and recognized, we do a better job, since our work is important!
Explain benefits of OA (to policy makers, authors, institutes, general public)
STATS are a great boost for policy makers and authors alike as they can see that their work ‘becomes international’ through visibity
Incentives to support OA at inst. policy level.
Conflicting institutional mandates and government regulations where those who produce scientific information
Green route is low cost and can be incorporated into existing programmes – remember software and help all free
Support to science publishing from gov’t [review Conflicting institutional mandates and
government regulations]
Make the necessary linkages
– incentives and then get Gvt support to implement.
Bioline countries: Bangladesh, Brasil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Turkey, Tanzania, Venezuela, Uganda.Scielo – Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Portugal, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico – and S. AfricaMedKnow – increasing number of non-India authors now visibility has increased
Bioline countries: Bangladesh, Brasil, Chile, China, Colombia, Ghana, India, Egypt, Iran, Kenya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Turkey, Tanzania, Venezuela, Uganda.Scielo – Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Portugal, Venezuela, Spain, Mexico – soon Sth AfricaMedKnow – increasing number of non-India authors now visibility has increased