The document outlines the concept of open science and the rationale for establishing an African Open Science Platform (AOSP), which aims to enhance collaboration, accessibility, and reuse of research data across the continent. It highlights coordination of existing open science activities, the need for better intellectual property protections, and the establishment of frameworks for data management and sharing. The AOSP will focus on research infrastructure, policies, and training to increase visibility and collaboration in African scientific endeavors.

1. African Open Science Platform
Presented by Joseph Mwelwa
4 August 2017

2. Agenda
• What is Open Science?
• Rationale for an African Open Science Platform
• About the Platform
• Focus Areas
• Next steps

4. Open Science Defined
“Open Science is the practice of science in such a
way that others can collaborate and contribute,
where research data, lab notes and other
research processes are freely available, under
terms that enable reuse, redistribution and
reproduction of the research and its
underlying data and methods.” - FOSTER Project,
funded by the European Commission

5. “Open Science moves beyond open access
research articles, towards encompassing other
research objects such as data, software codes,
protocols and workflows. The intention is for
people to use, re-use and distribute content
without legal, technological or social
restrictions. In some cases, Open Science also
entails the opening up of the entire research
process from agenda-setting to the
dissemination of findings.” - Open and Collaborative
Science in Development Network project, funded by IDRC

6. Open Data, Open Science &
Research Lifecycle (Foster)

7. “Several open science activities are underway
across Africa, but a great deal will be gained if, in
the context of developing inter-regional links,
these activities were to be coordinated and
developed through such a coordinating
initiative.” - CODATA

8. Open Data Repositories (re3data - 16)

9. Intellectual Property
“In many African countries, intellectual property
protection is undeveloped, ineffective,
expensive and unenforced and in some African
countries there exists uncertainty on protection
of IP and the threat of innovation being stolen
away from inventors.”
https://ipstrategy.com/2016/12/05/a-new-look-at-intellectual-property-and-
innovation-in-africa/

10. Accord on Open Data in a
Big Data World
• Open Science is fundamental
to 21st Century discovery and
needs to be supported
• Values of open data in
emerging scientific culture of
big data
• Need for an international
framework
• Proposes comprehensive set
of principles
• Provides framework & plan for
African data science capacity
mobilization initiative
• Proposes African Platform
Call to Endorse

11. Value of an African Platform
• Collective view of Open Science activities
• Create awareness & showcase African research
• Contribute to global knowledgebase
• Increase return on investment (re-use)
• Identify lack of data/opportunities/gaps

12. • Identify needs e.g. skills development,
infrastructure, policy formulation, etc.
• Act as conduit for links with international open
data and open science programmes and
standards
• Cross-use data across disciplines/studies
• Establish relationships between data
• Manage Intellectual Property (IP)

13. • Make data more discoverable/visible
(metadata)
• Encourage collaboration between scientific &
private sectors, citizens
• Participate in collective problem-solving
• Allow verification of existing data, predict
trends
• Accelerate discovery – speed is everything (e.g.
outbreaks)
• Attract funders

14. About AOSP
• Funded by the National Research Foundation
(NRF) (SA Dept. of Science and Technology)
• Directed by CODATA (ICSU)
• Managed by Academy of Science of South
Africa (ASSAf)
• Through ASSAf hosting ICSU Regional Office for
Africa (ICSU ROA)

15. About ICSU & CODATA
• ICSU: International Council for Science –
consists of 17 interdisciplinary bodies e.g.
CODATA
http://www.icsu.org/
• CODATA: Committee on Data for Science and
Technology
http://www.codata.org/
• Mission: Strengthen international science for
the benefit of society by promoting improved
scientific and technical data management and
use

16. About ASSAf
• Recognise scholarly achievement & excellence
• Mobilise members in the service of society
• Conduct systematic & evidence-based studies
on issues of national importance (ASSAf OA
Repository)
• Promote the development of an indigenous
system of South African research
• Publish science-focused journals (SciELO SA)
• Training in Open Journal Systems (OJS)
• Criteria for high quality OA journals
• Ambassador for Directory of Open Access Journals
(DOAJ)

17. • Develop productive partnerships with national,
regional and international organisations to
building capacity within the National System of
Innovation (NSI)
• Create diversified sources of funding for
sustainable functioning and growth of a national
academy
• Communicate with relevant stakeholders
• Association of African Universities (AAU) DATAD-R
harvester of OA repositories
• Evaluation instrument – harvesting IRs adhering to
criteria for best practice (ISO 16363, Data Seal of
Approval etc.)

18. AOSP Governance
• Advisory Council (Chair: Prof Khotso Mokhele)
• Terms of Reference
• Technical Advisory Board
• Terms of Reference
• Platform Office (ASSAf) & ICSU/CODATA Office
• CODATA Executive Director (Dr Simon Hodson)
• 2x Senior Project Managers (Ina Smith & Susan
Veldsman)
• Project plan
• Capacitate on network
• Reports to funder
• Workshops, meetings, presentations
• 1x Junior Project Officer (ASSAf)

19. Key Stakeholders
• Global Network of Science Academies (IAP)
• International Council for Science (ICSU)
• Regional Office for Africa (ROA)
• Committee on Data for Science and Technology
(CODATA)
• World Data System (WDS)
• The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS)
• Research Data Alliance (RDA)
• Association of African Universities (AAU)

20. • Network of African Science Academies (NASAC)
• African Research Councils (incl. DIRISA, funders)
• African Universities
• African Governments
• NRENs (Internet Service Providers for
Education)
• Other

21. 4 Focus Areas
Establish African Open Data Forum / Platform
Funded Research Data Infrastructure
Initiatives
Funded, co-designed transdisciplinary
research projects
Co-design African Open Data
Policies
Develop Incentives Frameworks
Develop Research Data Science Training
African Research Data Infrastructure
Roadmap
Activities require
low funding for
coordination,
secondment,
contributions in
kind and
evaluation.
Activities require higher
investment for
coordination, co-design
implemenatation and
evaluation.

22. Policy Framework
• Uganda Draft Open Data Policy
• White Paper on Open Research in South Africa
• National Research Foundation (NRF)
• White Paper on Open Research Data Strategy
in Botswana
• Kenya Open Science Policy
• OECD Principles & Guidelines for Access to
Research Data from Public Funding

23. Infrastructure Framework
• RDM, Repositories (cloud), Internet
Connectivity
• NRENs
• Centres for High Performance Computing
• SKA telescope: Explore five untold secrets of
the cosmos. These include how the very first
stars and galaxies formed just after the Big
Bang.

24. “Construction of the SKA is due to begin in 2018 and finish
sometime in the middle of the next decade. Data acquisition
will begin in 2020, requiring a level of processing power
data management know-how that outstretches current
capabilities.
Astronomers estimate that the project will generate 35,000-
DVDs-worth of data every second. This is equivalent to “the
whole world wide web every day,” said Fanaroff.
The project is investing in machine learning and artificial
intelligence software tools to enable the data analysis. In
advance of construction of the vast telescope - which will
consist of some 250,000 radio antennas split between sites in
Australia and South Africa - SKA already employs more than
400 engineers and technicians in infrastructure, fibre optics
and data collection.”
http://sciencebusiness.net/news/79927/Square-Kilometre-Array-
prepares-for-the-ultimate-big-data-challenge

25. Challenges re Infrastructure

28. Capacity Building Framework
• Research Data Management Planning: DMPRoadmap
• Repositories: Figshare, re3data, Zenodo, DSpace,
Dataverse
• Command Line Interpretation: UNIX Shell
• Software Development: GitHub, Mercurial
• Data Organisation: Spreadsheets
• Data Cleaning: OpenRefine
• Data Management & Databases: SQL, Hadoop
• Data Analysis & Visualisation (incl. programming): R,
Python, ggplot2, MATLAB, R Markdown

30. Incentives Framework
• Mechanisms that acknowledge publication of
datasets and to promote data sharing

31. Actions & Deliverables Year 1
• AOSP Side Event to the SFSA 2016 - Launch
• AOSP Workshop AAU 2017 - Policy
• Madagascar Meeting & Workshop 2017 –
Policy & Capacity Building
• Botswana National Open Data Open Science
Forum 2017 - Policy
• UbuntunetConnect Ethiopian Workshops 2017
– Policy & Infrastructure
• Database & Networks – Surveys etc

32. Closing Remarks
• Collaborate & learn – strength in diversity
• Data the new “gold” – predict trends (Prof
Joseph Wafula)
• Trusted data managed in trusted way
• Exploit data for the benefit of society (Min
Naledi Pandor)
• Tell the African story, in an African way

33. Stay in Touch!
• ina@assaf.org.za
• Web: http://africanopenscience.org.za/
• Mailing list
• Facebook
• Twitter: #aosp_official