A presentation by Mike Schramm of NISC at the biennial 2015 Taylor & Francis Editors Indaba in Cape Town on 24 March.

1. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
Mike Schramm
Managing Director, NISC (Pty) Ltd
African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015

2. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 Refinements and changes to existing policy aimed at
developing researchers, developing research and
creating an environment that will see the application of
this research into a wider world
 Publishers play a small role in shaping policy and like to
think our voices get heard
 Bigger role as facilitators of implementation of this policy

3. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
Two significant new policy developments:
 DHET has revised its publication subsidy arrangements
for published research output
 NRF has released its open access statement – adoption
of an international initiative from the Global Research
Council for better access to research output by other
researchers, practitioners and the general public
“publically funded research should be available to the public”

4. Objectives
 The policy endeavours ‘to sustain current research
strengths and to promote research/ knowledge
outputs required to meet national development
needs’.
 The intention is to support and encourage
scholarship
 The focus is on growing research and innovation;
encourage research productivity and improve the
quality of research

5. Policy on Journals
 Journals are peer-reviewed periodical publications
devoted to disseminating original research and new
developments.
 All research articles published in accredited journals
are subsidised.
 Only full length, peer reviewed research articles
qualify for subsidy.
 Book reviews, abstracts, news articles and similar
publications are not subsidized.

6. Approved lists of journals
There are currently 3 lists of approved journals.
• ISI list: the Thomson Reuters Institute of Scientific
Information (ISI) Web of Science Lists contain just over
12200 journals. The majority of these (almost 8300) are in
the sciences, but all subject fields are covered.
• IBSS list: the ProQuest IBSS list contains just over 2800
journals and focuses on the social sciences.
• DHET list: contains journals whose seat of publication is
South Africa-administered by the DHET. Currently contains
around 270 South African journals in various
subject fields.

7. Long term vision for DHET accredited list
The revised policy extends the accredited lists
of journals.
Addition of 3 journal indices: Scopus, SciELO
SA, Norwegian list – bringing the total to 6 (ISI,
IBSS, DHET list).
The DHET list is subject to revisions as and
when deemed necessary-for quality purposes.
The DHET list is aimed at being developmental
and encourages growth of Journals into
international lists-movement encouraged at
least after 5 years

8. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 Inclusion of new indexes will mean some more qualifying
titles (but many titles common across indices).
 Will the DHET list just be a temporary home for titles to
give them a chance to garner reputation and then move
into one of the more prestigious indices. Will failure to
progress mean elimination from the list?
 As publishers, we strategise with editors and societies to
raise the quality and when ready submit the title for
inclusion in an appropriate index

9. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 New titles are needed to cater for emerging fields of
research and to fill gaps in the market where established
titles may have closed.
 Articles contributed to new journals (not yet on the DHET
list) will not qualify for subsidy. The minimum period
between launch of a new title and qualification for
subsidy is 18 months.
 This will stifle the launch of new local journal titles - local
authors won’t sacrifice their best work without payment.
 A solution may be to allow retrospective qualification for
subsidy payment.

10. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 Derived from International Council for Science five goals for OA
– access to the scientific record should be free of financial barriers
for any researcher to contribute to
– free of financial barriers for any user to access immediately on
publication
– made available without restriction on reuse for any purpose, subject
to proper attribution
– quality‐assured and published in a timely manner
– archived and made available in perpetuity
 Global Research Council has been working with regional research
councils in formulating the framework of the Open Access Action Plan

11. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 NRF’s brief is to support research through public funding
to grow knowledge economy and promote innovation to
stimulate development.
 Research articles emanating from NRF funded research
should be available Open Access.
 Gold OA – entire VoR is open access (either in Open
Access journal or a hybrid journal)
NRF intention – APC built into original funding
 Green OA – a version of the article (not VoR) available
Open Access. No costs but an embargo period
NRF intention – posted into institutional repository

12. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
Transition to OA requires actions from other stakeholders:
 NRF Recognised Institutions
 Universities
 Research Libraries
 Scholarly Associations
 Publishing Houses

13. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
 Over the past 10 years, changing author needs wrt
online content and the emergence of Open Access have
seen publishers experiment with a variety of solutions
and options. We are well positioned to meet these OA
requirements.
 As editors, you will be able to assure authors that they
will be fully compliant with the new NRF policy should
they publish in one of our journals.

14. African Editorial Indaba – Taylor & Francis Group
Cape Town – 24 March 2015
Angie Magabane, University Policy and Development,
DHET
Daisy Selematsela, Knowledge Management Corporate,
NRF
for use of their presentations from
the Johannesburg leg of the Editorial Indaba