Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
How some of the issues differ from the rest of the world
COASP, 2014
Susan Murray
susan@ajol.info
Abby Clobridge
Clobridge Consulting
aclobridge@clobridgeconsulting.com
Background
• Various projects on global publishing scene and
specific elements of scholarly publishing, but little
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 context as at global level –
eg: OA, print vs. online, management of
journals, predatory OA, today’s key issues
330 responses from 32 African countries
Country
Responses
South Africa
105
Nigeria
99
Egypt
19
Ethiopia
18
Ghana
13
Kenya
13
Uganda
8
Tanzania
6
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, GuineaBissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali,
Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Republic
of the Congo, Sao Tome, Seychelles,
Somaliland, South Sudan, Swaziland,
Western Sahara
This presentation
• The African continent is characterized by diversity
and complexity. South Africa, particularly, is not
always representative of the “typical” Africanpublished journal and its context.
• It is possible to make some useful generalizations…
patterns and items of interest that have emerged
• firstly related to African journal publishing in
general, and then regarding African Open Access
journal publishing.
A “typical” African journal
• Huge preponderance of “scholar journals”
(which cannot afford dedicated staff members)
published by career academics “after hours”
• One third university-published (needs more
exploration), one third society published,
and only 19% by a professional publisher.
• It is not just peer-reviewing that’s
voluntary… the norm in African journals is
that almost everything is reliant on
volunteerism.
• Unlike Northern journals, most Africanpublished journals still have to have a
print version, despite it being the biggest
expense item for majority of African
journals.
• Required (or preferred) by university libraries, readers,
promotion committees at universities, society, indexing
services, funder
• Considered necessary by the journal for accessibility by
target readership, due to lack of reliable internet and/or
electricity, particularly in rural areas, and in poorer
African countries
• ICT skills shortages on the part of readers, authors, and
journal staff and editorial board
• Hard copy considered by some to be more prestigious
and authoritative than the online version
• Editor in Chief largely conducts day-to-day
operations of the journal, and is also
responsible for the continuation and future
of the journal.
• Compared with journals run out of the global
North, a tremendous amount of
responsibility – and burden – rests on a
single individual or a small group of highlyinvolved editors.
• Journals of all publishing and business
models are characterized by resource and
financial scarcity.
• 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)
few subscribers, most readers can’t afford to pay
most authors (or author’s institutions) can’t afford
APCs… not just a matter of “resistance to APCs”.
• Nearly a third of respondents of all publishing
models operate their journal on a completely cashfree basis, with no income or revenue at all, relying
on volunteers and (seemingly often unwittingly
provided) in kind support from their institution
• When income is generated, this sometimes goes to
small honorariums for the Editor-in-chief, Editorial
Board, or to peer-reviewers.
• Paying peer-reviewers??... Expert reviewers are
extremely difficult to source in Africa, and
frequently mentioned as a major constraint.
• African journals operate in a context where their
target authors are encouraged to publish
overseas…
• journals face a disconnect between African
universities’ promotion policies (that reward African
authors for publishing in an overseas IF journals); and the
simultaneous pressure to publish quality,
contextually relevant, development-oriented
content.
• the Impact Factor was mentioned frequently by
respondents… either as an over-riding but
exceedingly difficult to attain goal for the journal,
or in recognition of how inappropriate a measure
of journal quality it is for African titles
• latter was nicely termed by one respondent as
“impact factor fundamentalism”.
Open Access
Immediate OA
Embargoed OA
Hybrid OA
Subscription only
Don't know
Of the OA Journals:
0
20
40
60
80
Always OA
100
120
140
6 of these
were OA at
one point but
transitioned to
subscription
Subscription to OA
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
160
• Definitions of OA… full text online for free is OA…
Licensing isn’t on the radar of most OA journals
from Africa
• However (and this was a surprise that needs to be
explored further), journals are fairly likely to allow
authors to add the final version of record article to
an institutional or subject repository.
• Another surprise was how very positive many
journals are about their future
• and about how many expect OA to be more
significant in African journal publishing in future.
Despite the optimism; serious concerns…
“Open Access is of course a
major issue and very
complex for those living
and operating in Africa...
Discussion needs to be
grounded in the
operational aspects of
running journals and the
very real costs involved
and also the importance
of knowledge production
from local contexts.”
“With majority of research in Africa now
collaborative; work will ultimately be
published in more established "Northern
Hemisphere" journals that have high impact
factors and greater prestige.”
“The place of local and regional journals
needs more recognition and these titles are
under more pressure than ever in the
increasingly globalized and increasingly OA
worlds.”
• Answers about “article-processing charges” (APCs)
– a concept that is widely used in North America,
Europe, and Australia to recoup publishing costs
specifically for Open Access – showed that in Africa,
author-side fees are not specific to Open Access
publishing.
• Given that resource scarcity is the norm, and page
charges and other author side fees are often
already actively utilized by all publishing models, it
is difficult to see how the “polish” of Northern
publishing quality can be attained, despite the
optimism of many respondents
Beyond the research… If African journals are to
become unstuck from their position between a
rock and a hard place
• In Latin America, public funding has allowed
the emergence of gold OA journals that do not
charge readers AND do not charge authors.
• Perhaps this is a model other developing
regions, like Africa, need to adopt.
• Can the vicious cycle of IF prestige be broken?
More Information Forthcoming:
Report Available October 2014
(Details TBA)
For the full research report,
and then AJOL’s OA advocacy strategy… watch this space!
Susan Murray
susan@ajol.info
Abby Clobridge
aclobridge@clobridgeconsulting.com
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
www.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa