Susan Murray [email protected] Abby Clobridge Clobridge Consulting [email protected] Current State of Scholarly Publishing in Africa Preliminary

Susan Murray

[email protected]

Abby ClobridgeClobridge [email protected]

CurrentState

of Scholarly Publishing in AfricaPreliminary Notes & Findings

SAOIM 2014

Background• Various projects on global publishing scene and

specific elements of scholarly publishing, but nothing specifically on Africa• important because: “Focus on African problems/challenges

could make research unpublishable in other countries”

• Hypothesis: Dynamic publishing scene in Africa, but issues, trends, challenges not always the same in African contexts as at global level – eg: OA, print vs. online, management of journals, predatory OA, today’s key issues

CurrentState

ofScholarly Publishing in Africawww.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa

http://www.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa

Background• Timeline: • Part 1: Survey (August-September 2013)• Part 2: Follow-up in-depth conversations (first half of

2014)• Full report: June/July 2014

• Funding in part from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)

CurrentState

of Scholarly Publishing in Africa

Survey Target Population• Direct: email invitations to journal editors

• 1200+ emails, 800+ reminder emails• English and French email & survey• Online and “offline” options

• Encouragement from publishing organizations• INASP, PKP, eIFL, Taylor & Francis, BioMed Central, Elsevier,

African Journal Partnership Project (AJPP), BioLine, etc.

• Indirect invitations & awareness raising:• Listservs: World Association of Medical Editors (WAME),

IFLA Africa Section, Sabinet, HIFA2015, KM4Dev, etc.• Social networks: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+

CurrentState



Survey Responses• Approx. 330 responses• ~30% of African-based actively publishing journals that

we identified• ~5-10% of responses were from journals we had not

identified

• Challenges in identifying target population• Ulrich’s, DOAJ, OJS, Scopus, Scimago, AJOL, South African Department of

Education Accredited Journals, Web of Science, ProQuest Int’l Bibliography of Social Sciences

• Duplicates with slightly different names, out-of-date information• Some difficulty defining African-published/-based

CurrentState


Demographics of RespondentsGeography: Responses from 32 countries 5 – 2 responses:

Sudan (5), Algeria (3), Cameroon (3), Madagascar (3), Rwanda (3), Botswana (2), Ivory Coast (2), Morocco (2), Mozambique (2), Senegal (2), Togo (2), Tunisia (2), Zambia (2), Zimbabwe (2)

1 response: Burkina Faso, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Libya, Malawi, Mauritius, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Angola, Benin, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Republic of the Congo, Sao Tome, Seychelles, Somaliland, South Sudan, Swaziland, Western Sahara

Country Responses

South Africa 105

Nigeria 99

Egypt 19

Ethiopia 18

Ghana 13

Kenya 13

Uganda 8

Tanzania 6

CurrentState


Demographics of Respondents

CurrentState


1950s

1960s

1970s

Gender: 74% Male 25% Female 5% No answer

Date Range of Birth Year

CurrentState

of

Programme officer at an NGO

Retired

Research officer/manager or scientist for an organization outside of academia

Full-time journal editor, publisher, or staff member in related field

University professor

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Printer

Publishing organization

Other

Member of Editorial Board

Journal manager/staff member at editorial office

Editor-in-Chief

0 50 100 150 200 250

Current Occupation & Current Role in Publishing

Scholarly Publishing in Africa

CurrentState

of

Top Subject Areas of Journals (DOAJ Categories)

Health Scie

nces

Other

Biology and Life Scie

nces

Agricultu

re and Food Science

s

Social S

cience

s (General)

Earth and Enviro

nmental Scie

nces

Science

s (General)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Subject Areas of Journals -- Top Responses

Other = mostly sciences that will be recoded into appropriate category


How Articles are Selected for Journal

CurrentState

of

Prelim re

view by EIC or manager t

hen peer-review

EIC reviews a

ll submiss

ions

Ed Board re

views all s

ubmissions

Peer-review fo

r all

We acce

pt all m

anuscripts

We acce

pt all m

anuscripts

within su

bject area

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

Yes No Uncertain


CurrentState

of

BacklinksBlog coverage

CitationsCommentsDownloads

Facebook LikesLinkedIn ReferencesOnline registrations

Page ranksPage views

Social networking references (other)Tweets (Twitter)

User ratingsWe don't track impact

Not sureOther

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Tracking Impact


CurrentState

of

Print Online0

50

100

150

200

250

To subscribers for a fee For free Not avail in this format

Print and Online Access


Inclusion in Indexes, Directories, Aggregators

AJOL

EBSCOhost

SABINET

DOAJ

African Index Medicus

Scopus

Index Copernicus

African Journal Archive

ProQuest

PubMed

CAS

CABI

Medline

Bioline International

JSTOR

SciELO South Africa

Embase

JournalSeek

Periodicals Index Online

Project Muse

BioOne

PsychInfo

CiteSeerx

EconLit

ScientificCommons

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

190

76

65

48

44

41

32

29

24

23

21

19

19

18

17

15

14

12

9

5

3

3

1

1

1

CurrentState


Don't know

No

After a delay

Immediately

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200

Final/typeset version Peer-reviewed version Author's version of manuscript

Permission to Deposit Articles or Manuscripts into Repositories

CurrentState

of

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Which type of organization publishes the journal?


CurrentState

of

Advertisin

g

APCs & author f

ees

Donations fro

m individuals

Donations fro

m orgs

Funds fro

m non-univ org which

manages jo

urn

Funds fro

m univ which

manages jo

urnal

Gov't funding

Institutional su

bscriptions (

online)

Institutional su

bscriptions (

print)

Licensin

g charges

Pay-per-view arti

cle acce

ss

Personal su

bscriptions (

online)

Personal su

bscriptions (

printed)

Reprint fe

es0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

200

Very Important Somewhat Important Of Little Importance N/A

Sources of Funding and Income


CurrentState

of

Other

Free publishing software

Free journal hosting

Free or open source software

Gov't policy and legislative environment

Free use of univ/org's computers

Free use of univ/org's internet

Free office space

Univ/org policy support & encouragement

Volunteer time of EIC

Volunteer time of editors

Volunteer time of peer reviewers

0 50 100 150 200 250

What sources of non-financial support or resources does the journal receive that allow the journal to operate?


CurrentState

of

Main Expenses

Website hosting

Website design, dev't

Staff salaries

Sponsorship of meetings

Printing costs

Honorarium for Reviewers

Honorarium for EIC

Honorarium for Ed Board

Graphic design and typesetting

Copyediting or translating

Advertising

0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Significant Somewhat SignificantMinor Expense N/A


CurrentState

of

Economic Status

Current Status

Generating a surplus (13%)Breaking even (58%)Operating at a loss (29%)

Anticipating Status 3-5 Years from Now

Generating a surplus (39%)Breaking even (53%)Operating at a loss (7%)No longer in operation at that time (1%)


CurrentState

of

Open Access

Don't know

Subscription only

Hybrid OA

Embargoed OA

Immediate OA

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Subscription to OA

Always OA

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

6 of these were OA at one point but transitioned to subscription

Of the OA Journals:


CurrentState

of

Motivations for Becoming Open Access

Incr. O

A awareness global le

vel

Incr. O

A awareness national le

vel

Low # of s

ubscriptions

Personal b

elief o

f EIC/Ed Board

Pressure or m

andates by fu

nders

Requests by authors

Requests by re

aders

Requests by sc

hol soc/o

rg affil with

journ

al

Request by univ affil w

ith jo

urnal

Subscription m

odel too co

stly

Target readersh

ip can't a

fford su

bsriptions

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140Very important Somewhat important Not important


CurrentState

of

Factors in Becoming OA


Readers' internet access thru mobile devices

Ongoing external funding

One-time external funding

ICT skills Ed board/staff

External web hosting services avail

Broadband access for readers

Broadband access of Ed board/staff

Avail of free or low-cost journal sys

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80

Not important Somewhat important Very important

Perceived/Experienced OA Benefits

Discourag

emen

t of p

lagiar

ism

Increase

d citati

ons to ar

ticles

Incr. ex

posure/

visibilit

y at n

ational

level

Incr. ex

posure/

visibilit

y with

in Africa

Incr. ex

posure/

visibilit

y at g

lobal lev

el

Increase

d number of a

rticle

submiss

ions

Publishing m

ore iss

ues per

year

Reduce

d cost

for publish

ing

Time s

aving,

e.g. le

ss time r

equire

d for jo

urnal producti

on

Too so

on to te

ll

Other 0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Scholarly Publishing in AfricaCurrent

State of

CurrentState

of

Key emerging themes

• Widespread emphasis on importance of Open Access, but complexities are marked• Cost recovery in all publishing models is difficult• low (or no specific) funding from African governments• diminishing research funding• too little institutional support (financial and other)• readers can’t afford to subscribe• authors can’t afford publishing fees

• Quantity issues• Too many or too few journals• Too few reviewers• Too many or too few article submissions


• Quality issues / perceptions of problems• Measurement of journal quality “impact factor

fundamentalism” and “bias”.

• Stem from a lack of incentives:1. to authors “top quality papers will be submitted to European and

American and Australian journals first”

2. to peer-reviewers “(peer-review) takes up too much time in our context. I wish there would be some way to speed this process, apart from monetary incentives.”

3. to editors “producing a journal is a lot of work and it is not particularly well rewarded or supported”

“The problem of extremely low output in Africa of quality journal articles does not lie with the journals per se, but with social and cultural systems and people living and working in conditions that are not conducive for high quality work”.

Preliminary impressions of key themes

CurrentState


• Huge preponderance of “scholar journals” (which cannot afford dedicated staff members) published by career academics “after hours”• Direct support from institutions and governments to

these journals is infrequent and low

• Three country outliers… South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt

• Concerns around skills in three areas:• Novice authors’ writing skills• IT skills• Handover of journals from founding Editor/Board

Preliminary impressions of key themes

• OA journal numbers are higher than toll-based – tentative

• Internet connectivity and ICT not often mentioned• Low awareness of concept of “predatory OA”, but

little influence, except for sharing current policies & practices more explicitly• Frequent mention of the need for more

collaboration between countries, and greater co-operation throughout the continent• Notably with respect to amalgamation of journals

CurrentState

of

Surprises


• From reviewers of the survey:• It is too long, but add the following NB questions (!)

• From correspondence ABOUT the survey:• A hypothesis that African journals use a subscription-

based publishing model to keep low quality content from being widely assessed

• From respondents:• strong overall optimism about publishing in Africa

(despite the challenges mentioned) “huge potential for new insights and original research…”

Surprises


State of

• Phase two of the research: Case studies

AND THEN…

• AJOL’s drafting of an OA in Africa Advocacy approach• Comparison & collaboration with other developing

country regions

CurrentState

of

Looking forward…


“The place of local and regional journals in Africa needs more recognition and these titles are under more pressure than ever in the increasingly globalised and increasingly OA worlds.”

Hypothesis on OA in Africa tentatively confirmed…


State of

CurrentState


More Information Forthcoming: Report Available 2nd half 2014

(Details TBA)

Contact: Susan [email protected]

Abby [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Susan Murray [email protected] Abby Clobridge Clobridge Consulting [email protected] Current State of Scholarly Publishing in Africa Preliminary