Presentation for Publishers for Development Conference (2013) by Susan Murray (AJOL) and Abby Clobridge (Clobridge Consulting)

1. Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Preliminary Notes & Findings – Phase 1
Publishers for Development
October 2013
Susan Murray
susan@ajol.info
Abby Clobridge
Clobridge Consulting
aclobridge@clobridgeconsulting.com

2. 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 context as at global level – ex: OA, print vs.
online, management of journals, predatory OA,
today’s key issues
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
www.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa

3. Background
• Timeline:
• Part 1: Survey (August-September 2013)
• Part 2: Follow-up in-depth conversations (end of 2013)
• Full report: Early 2014
• Funding in part from Carnegie Corporation of New
York and Swedish International Development
Agency (Sida)
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

4. 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, AJOL, 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+
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
www.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa

5. 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• Duplicates with slightly different names, out-of-date information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
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

6. Demographics of Respondents
Geography: Responses from 32 countries
Country
Responses
South Africa
105
Nigeria
99
Egypt
19
Ethiopia
18
Ghana
13
Kenya
13
Uganda
8
Tanzania
Current
State
of
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)
6
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
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

7. Demographics of Respondents
Date Range of Birth Year
1960s
1950s
1970s
Gender:
74% Male
25% Female
5% No answer
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

8. Current Occupation & Current Role in Publishing
University professor
University lecturer
Full-time journal editor, publisher, or staff member in…
Research officer/manager within academia
Research officer/manager or scientist for an…
Other
Retired
University student
Programme officer at an NGO
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Editor-in-Chief
Journal manager/staff member at editorial office
Member of Editorial Board
Other
Publishing organization
Printer
0
Current
State
of
50
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
100
150
200
250

9. Top Subject Areas of Journal (DOAJ Categories)
Subject Areas of Journals -- Top Responses
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Other = mostly sciences that will be recoded into appropriate category
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

10. How Articles are Selected for Journal
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Prelim review by EIC reviews all Ed Board reviews Peer-review for
EIC or manager
submissions
all submissions
all
then peer-review
Yes
Current
State
of
No
Uncertain
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
We accept all
manuscripts
We accept all
manuscripts
within subject
area

11. Tracking Impact
Other
Not sure
We don't track impact
User ratings
Tweets (Twitter)
Social networking references (other)
Page views
Page ranks
Online registrations
LinkedIn References
Facebook Likes
Downloads
Comments
Citations
Blog coverage
Backlinks
0
Current
State
of
20
40
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
60
80
100
120
140

12. Print and Online Access
250
200
150
100
50
0
Print
To subscribers for a fee
Current
State
of
Online
For free
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Not avail in this format

13. Inclusion in Indexes, Directories, Aggregators
Answers with >1 response
ScientificCommons
CiteSeerx
BioOne
Periodicals Index Online
Embase
JSTOR
Medline
CAS
ProQuest
Index Copernicus
African Index Medicus
SABINET
AJOL
0
Current
State
of
20
40
60
80
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
100
120
140
160
180
200

14. Permission to Deposit Articles or Manuscripts into Repositories
Immediately
After a delay
No
Don't know
0
20
Final/typeset version
Current
State
of
40
60
80
100
Peer-reviewed version
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
120
140
160
180
200
Author's version of manuscript

15. Which type of organization publishes the journal?
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

16. 200
Sources of Funding and Income
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Very Important
Current
State
of
Somewhat Important
Of Little Importance
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
N/A

17. What sources of non-financial support or resources does the journal
receive that allow the journal to operate?
Volunteer time of peer reviewers
Volunteer time of editors
Volunteer time of EIC
Univ/org policy support & encouragement
Free office space
Free use of univ/org's internet
Free use of univ/org's computers
Gov't policy and legislative environment
Free or open source software
Free journal hosting
Free publishing software
Other
0
Current
State
of
50
100
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
150
200
250

18. Main Expenses
Advertising
Copyediting or translating
Graphic design and typesetting
Honorarium for Ed Board
Honorarium for EIC
Honorarium for Reviewers
Printing costs
Sponsorship of meetings
Staff salaries
Website design, dev't
Website hosting
0
Significant
Current
State
of
50
100
Somewhat Significant
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
150
200
Minor Expense
250
N/A
300

19. 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%)
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

20. Open Access
Immediate OA
Embargoed OA
Hybrid OA
Subscription only
Don't know
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
Of the OA Journals:
Always OA
6 of these
were OA at
one point but
transitioned to
subscription
Subscription to OA
0
Current
State
of
20
40
60
80
100
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
120
160

21. Motivations for Becoming Open Access
140
Very important
Somewhat important
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
Not important

22. Factors in Becoming OA
Avail of free or low-cost journal sys
Broadband access of Ed board/staff
Broadband access for readers
External web hosting services avail
ICT skills Ed board/staff
One-time external funding
Ongoing external funding
Readers' internet access thru mobile devices
0
Not important
Current
State
of
10
20
Somewhat important
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
30
40
50
Very important
60
70
80

23. Perceived/Experienced OA Benefits
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

24. Preliminary impressions of key 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)
few subscribers
authors can’t afford fees
• Quantity issues
• Too many journals
• Too few reviewers
• Too many or too few article submissions
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

25. Preliminary impressions of key themes
• 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”.
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

26. Preliminary impressions of key themes
• Huge preponderance of “scholar journals” (which
cannot afford dedicated staff members) published by career
academics “after hours”
• Concerns around skills in three areas:
• Novice authors’ writing skills
• IT skills
• Handover of journals from founding Editor/Board
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

27. Surprises
• 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 cooperation throughout the continent
• Notably with respect to amalgamation of journals
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

28. 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 subscriptionbased 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…”
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

29. Looking forward…
• Phase two of the research: Case studies
AND THEN…
•
•
•
•
AJOL’s drafting of an OA in Africa Advocacy approach?
An Africa-wide conference on OA in Africa??
An African statement on Open Access?
An African statement on dedicated public support for
research communication?
• Comparison & collaboration with other developing
country regions?
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

30. Hypothesis on OA in Africa tentatively confirmed…
“The place of local and regional
journals needs more recognition
and these titles are under more
pressure than ever in the
increasingly globalised and
increasingly OA worlds.”
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa

31. More Information Forthcoming:
Report Available Early 2014
(Details TBA)
Contact:
Susan Murray
susan@ajol.info
Abby Clobridge
aclobridge@clobridgeconsulting.com
Current
State
of
Scholarly Publishing in Africa
www.clobridgeconsulting.com/scholarly-publishing-in-africa