Lauryn Lehman Open Access Initiatives in Africa – Situating Ongoing Barriers to the Dissemination of Information Paper at BOBCATSSS 2017

1. OPEN ACCESS IN AFRICA: SITUATING
BARRIERSTOTHE DISSEMINATION
OF INFORMATION
Lauryn Lehman
Master’s Candidate, School of Information Sciences
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
United States

2. Motivations for this Paper
■ General observation that institutional repositories and open access policies are on the
rise within institutions of the global North, but less so in the global South.
■ Preliminary investigation as to the causes of this divide.

3. 1488
601
282
662
147
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
Europe North America South America Asia Africa
# OF REPOSITORIES = 3,289
Number of Repositories by Continent- Directory of Open Access Repositories, 2016a; 2016b.

4. South Africa, 32
Kenya, 25
Nigeria, 19Algeria, 13
Tanzania, 11
Zimbabwe, 10
Sudan, 8
Egypt, 5
Ghana, 4
Botswana, 2
CapeVerde, 2
Ethiopia, 2
Morocco, 2
Namibia, 2
Senegal, 2Uganda, 2Cameroon, 1Lesotho, 1Mozambique, 1Rwanda, 1Tunisia, 1Zambia, 1
REPOSITORIES BY COUNTRY - AFRICA
Number of Repositories by
Continent- Directory of Open
Access Repositories, 2016a;
2016b.

5. WHAT ARETHE BARRIERSTHAT
AFRICAN INSTITUTIONS FACE IN
PRODUCING AND ACCESSING OA
INFORMATION?
AndWhy is it a Concern?

6. Open Access: ‘An Unprecedented Public
Good’
■ Increased access to information, which in turn may help to:
– Improve quality of education;
– Address global health concerns;
– Address environmental concerns;
– Stimulate scientific inquiry and lead to scientific breakthroughs;
– And, in general to help better quality of life in innumerable and immeasurable ways.
■ Sharing information may in turn allow opportunities for researchers to:
– Have an increased presence, impact, and voice on a global stage;
– And, to meet the demands of promotion and tenure systems.

7. Barriers to Open Access (Worldwide)
■ Technology and Infrastructure
■ Copyright Restrictions
■ Education andAwareness

8. Barriers to Open Access (Africa)
■ Technology and Infrastructure
■ Copyright Restrictions
■ Education andAwareness
■ Lack of Funding
■ Perceptions of Quantity and Quality

9. Funding
■ Scholars in Africa are not exempt from institutional pressures to publish, and a lack of means to
publish is not a reprieve from these demands.
■ Robust funding is a critical requirement for establishing strong research networks in Africa, whether
or not the authors decide to publish the findings of this research openly.
■ However, as a continent Africa spends only 6% of its GDP on the entire education sector, and
approximately 1% on higher education (Darley and Luethge, 2016; Kigotho, 2014).
– Nigeria – 7th in the world in terms of population - 0.22%
– Russia – 35 million fewer inhabitants - 1.1%
– Japan – 52 million fewer inhabitants – 3.47%
■ With funding deficits in mind, many institutions in these developing countries cannot afford to
maintain good libraries, let alone fund faculty research. As a result, as much as 70-90% of research
funding in Africa comes from foreign donors and organizations, which in turn often have influence
over the topics being researched (Darley and Luethge, 2016).

10. Perceptions of Quantity and Quality
■ Access to outside information is only half of the equation. In order for knowledge
produced in Africa to be useful, it must be shared with other researchers – both within
the continent and beyond- so that new knowledge may be produced. A reciprocal
sharing of information is necessary.
■ Yet African scholarship is severely underrepresented in international journals, both OA
and traditionally published resources. In a sense, African scholarship is invisible to the
rest of the world.
– Emerald Publishing Group Study – concluded that just 2.16% of its authors were
from Africa.
■ Often, this lack of inclusion is linked directly to misperceptions surrounding the quality
and quantity of scholarship being produced in the continent.
■ Global hierarchy of knowledge;
■ Western determination of ‘proper’ science;

11. Conclusions
■ A divide will continue to exist between the global North and South if these factors are not
addressed.
■ This requires an ideological shift on the part of many scholars of the global North, as well as
increased collaboration between institutions of the global North and the global South.
Collaboration will help reduce the funding burden for smaller universities, as will awareness of
the growing number of international organizations that provide funds for OA research.
■ As information professionals, we are uniquely situated to:
– Offer our expertise to institutions seeking to create OA programs;
– Advocate for increased collaboration with other institutions;
– Ensure that diverse voices are gaining a place in our collections, offering African researchers
a place at the table.