Scholarly Publishing in Africa - Namibia

Access to Africa’s Knowledge Scholarly Communication in Africa University of Namibia Some rights reserved by itineran t librarian

What do we, in African countries, seek to gain from our investment in research?

The aim is surely African knowledge, for Africa, from Africa, widely accessible...

...and available for economic and social development.

Globally, scholarly communications is at a crossroads...

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as the internet offers greater connectivity, lower cost

http://manypossibilities.net/african-undersea-cables/

We face two very different poles of opportunity...

Enhanced global competitiveness and prestige. ...

...or open communications and collaboration to address development challenges Some rights reserve d by m imaba

We constantly ask questions about the link between research and development...

‘ How could the application of knowledge end poverty and hunger in Africa? How could higher education empower women and promote gender equity? How can knowledge be considered in the African context to address child mortality and improve maternal health?’ Nahas Angula, Namibian Prime Minister, UNESCO 29th Conference on Higher Education, 2009 Photo: coda Dami en du Toit ht tp://www.flickr. com/photos/coda/ Creative Commons Share-Alike

Yet we are still caught up with old paradigms...

...stuck in a free rider mentality...

...in which African higher education does not see publication as its responsibility...

...instead measuring success on the basis of counts of journal articles in the ISI indexes..

Some rights reserved by AMagill ... a system run by a single commercial company...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence The result is tunnel vision...

...which ignores all but a small segment of the publishing ecosystem..

... namely journals, particularly foreign journals...

... marginalising African research

.. ignoring other communications activity...

.. and offering little support and recognition to the communications that emerge from development-focused research...

Science Research - 2001 http://www.worldmapper.org 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

World poverty http://www.worldmapper.org 2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

Leveraging technology in a networked world ....

... using open access publishing models...

...aligning communications with institutional and national strategies...

Research Councils UK and HEFCE have a shared commitment to maintaining and improving the capacity of the UK research base to undertake research activity of world leading quality, and to ensuring that significant outputs from this activity are made available as widely as possible both within and beyond the research community. Open access to published research supports this commitment and, if widely implemented, can benefit the research base, higher education, and the UK economy and society more broadly.

...raising quality through national initiatives...

...revaluing ‘grey publishing’

...by publishing in open access journals...

...using collaborative publishing platforms...

...rethinking business models...

...gaining wider impact and reach...

...using open repositories and portals...

How can the University of Namibia harness this potential to deliver its strategic goals?

Eve Gray Honorary Research Associate Centre for Educational Technology University of Cape Town http://www.gray-area.co.za http://www.http :// www.sca2kafrica.org / http://www.cet.uct.ac.za

Scholarly Publishing in Africa - Namibia

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