Author’s experience with OA publishing and selfarchiving
Charles Mbohwa
Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment
cmbohwa@uj.ac.za
Phone 0115591202
Cell 0782071518
Experience and Challenges with OA publishing and self-archiving
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Historical Archiving in 2004 to 2006 at University of
Zimbabwe
Submitted List of Publications and Post Print Versions of
Papers
Tedious search for historical documents in different
archives- floppy disks; five and a quarter inches; three
and half inches; Flush disks; Portable hard disk; Old
computer
Lull 2007 to 2013
2013 Invitations to UJ IR and started to respond
Challenge to dig into the folders and recover documents
Easier this time due to Portable hard disks- One is now
more than 8 years old and luckily still working
Challenge of historical documents- over the last 7 years at
UJ
Might focus on 43 publications that are Scopus-indexed
OROSS- great step ensured 100% compliance for me in
2014
Benefits and Opportunities of OA publishing and self-archiving
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Benefits:
Internet Presence more than doubled- Search for
“Mbohwa” after UZ deposits- Have all now disappeared
Got requests for student supervision from all over the
world
Reduces direct request for publications and related
workload- offenses of no acknowledgements/ responses
Could be authenticated more easily by people that I tried
to contact through e-mails and through the Internet.
Citation of papers. Especially journal papers improved.
Citations increase with age of paper.
Students, researchers, governments and stakeholders can
access essential results and information openly
Opportunities:
Improve Institutional Presence and impact
Improve Department/Faculty/Institution Status and
Ranking due to more citations
Access of work by peers more easily.
Disadvantages OA publishing and self-archiving
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Disadvantages:
Good and bad invitations to conferences, Journals and
book publications
Excessive workload associated with historical
documents
Impact of predatory publishers that occupy the open
access space- for example excessive payment to
publish papers: Nothing to do with IR though!
Some of them listed on ISI and IBSS/ Indexed by
Scopus. Later removed at expense of author/
reputation
Violate ethics codes; Publisher is Editor; Suspect
Boards; Academic credentials lacking; Same Editorial
boards for many journals; Bogus Boards; Scholars
unaware of Board appointment
Commercialised based on publication fees; Fleet of
journals; Swiss journal based in India!; False impact
factor
Disadvantages OA publishing and self-archiving
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Disadvantages:
Confused journal name and mission; Spam review
requests; Indexed in non-indexing resources; False
indexing; Plagiarism and copyright disrespected
Self-review of paper not checked; Encourage
republications; no copy editing; non-academic papers; No
phone contacts or names of people
Copy verbatim or with minimal editing guides and
templates; Dodgy contacts- account in Dubai- phone in
Asia and location in Europe.
Extremely broad journal title; Combines incompatible field;
Copyright transfer on submission! Uses un-licenced
images; Spam call for papers; Use free e-mail suppliersgmail, yahoo etc.
No ISSN or DOI or used improperly; rapid publication and
peer review; No focus on readers; One man of few people
operation
Not listed in standard periodical directories; not catalogued
in library database; Copy titles; Editorial Board member do
not publish in the journal- Same fos conferences
Institutional Cyber Internet Decay
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ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
The following error was encountered while trying to
retrieve the URL: http://ir.uz.ac.zw/
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Read Error
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The system returned: (104) Connection reset by peer
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An error condition occurred while reading data from the
network. Please retry your request.
General Discussion
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Gold open access – making research papers freely
available via the journal where they are published- At
what cost? For free? Policing? Predators?
Green open access, where the paper (usually the
author’s final revision following peer review) is placed
in a freely accessible university repository. Institutional
benefits. Challenge- lack of cooperation by authors.
Which option is cheaper for whom? Can transparent
market competition occur with Golden access? Who
bears the high costs of transition?
Incentives for open access for authors? Higher
Education Funding Council for England (HECFE) – only
papers placed in institutional repositories considered
eligible for quality assessment of research outputs?
Assessments determine disbursement of research funds
– carrot and stick for researchers/ authors
General Discussion
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Challenge: immediate deposit of scholarly journal
articles into institutional repository soon peer review &
acceptance- reduced embargo periods benefits author
Access to research for all.
More overheads and demands on researchers/ authors
Administrative burdens of deposit on acceptance to
authors or employment of more staff?
Advantage- Faster than online and print versions
depending on embargo periods applicable
Hit the hammer while the iron is hot! Audit documents
still easily available.
OROSS better since it achieves the same leaving
specialists IR professionals to move to Digispace or
Repository- Avoids litigations if many authors make
mistakes on behalf of institution!
Ensures higher deposits rate when tied to subsidy or
funding- Same submission of depositing process
Positive to funding, citations, ranking and better stature
Concluding Remarks
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As an author I would support deposit-on-acceptance.
Adjust for South African case to avoid double submissions
or depositing- Need published paper for DHET subsidy.
Arguments that authors should deposit documents on IR.
Not supported as stated earlier. Develop proposals, never
read contracts for 10 journals or so submitted to;
conferences attended by authors and co-authorsDistracts attention to core research work. OROSS fine but
beyond that courting trouble from publishers!
Best to have independent confirmation to ensure
institutional compliance is better-
Concluding Remarks
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Change is the only constant and the publishing
landscape is changing too.
Self-archiving articles with professional assistance
seems to be the best path in South Africa- Adapted
Green Open Access
Gold open access may have more challenges and will
not attract funding- Killing the goose that lays the eggs
No one size will fit all! Models and initiatives in this
area must address unique realities on the ground in
each country
I think we are on the right path with OROSS and active
IR professionals- Increase capacity- quantitatively and
qualitatively!!
Thanks-