The present and future growth of scholarly publishing in Africa (original) (raw)
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Scholarly Publishing in Africa
The African Book Publishing Record, vol. 36, no. 2 (2010): 123-124.
Review essay of Solani Ngobeni, ed. Scholarly Publishing in Africa. Opportunities and Impediments. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2010.
The Era of Electronic Scholarly Publishing: Do We Stand to Benefit in Africa
The introduction of electronic scholarly journals has affected the marketing, distribution and use of journal articles across the globe particularly in developing countries, most of which are in Africa. This has brought about a drastic shift in the way research findings are disseminated with particular emphasis on time and relevance.
2004
Declaration I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma of the university or other institute of higher learning, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. Dedication To my wife Dora, a blessed friend and confidant, for encouragement, advise and support. Acknowledgements Many people deserve my special appreciation: Mr. M. Osei-Bonsu, a colleague at the University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, where I worked for 12 and half years, for urging me on to do a doctoral research; Dr. Tiamiyu my former lecturer at the University of Ibadan for writing several references for me, including my application for admission to Stirling; and Mr.Walter Bgoya, a giant in African publishing, who gave me the initial leads to the study when w...
This work was conceived as a sequel to the African Writers Handbook (African Books Collective, 1999). It is built on the debates emanating from a seminar on scholarly publishing in Africa held in Arusha, Tanzania in 2002, organised by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, the African Books Collective and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP). The seminar brought together scholars and publishers against a background of evidence of a revival of interest in higher education and scholarship in Africa after a long period of decline, and the new departures in scholarly publishing afforded by technology. This resulting collection of essays takes stock of the status of scholarly and academic publishing on the continent in the early years of the twenty-first century. No Yes
The African Book Publishing Record, 2025
Abstract: (Preliminary version) Publishing of scholarly journals has changed quite dramatically in recent years, transformed by digitisation, consolidation and, above all, by the dominance of the leading citation indexes such as Elsevier’s Scopus and the Web of Science, among others. A large number of African scholarly journals are still excluded from these indexes, on the grounds that they are not fully meeting their criteria for inclusion. With scholarly reputation nowadays increasingly measured by these journal rankings, and their ‘impact factors’, this has inevitably created an uneven playing field. It is now widely recognized that academic journals in the developing world face many challenges in becoming known and respected in the international research landscape. Many journals in Africa struggle to achieve visibility amid the now highly professionalized journals environment elsewhere in the world. At the same time, most are poorly funded/supported by their parent organizations, and this has led to a hugely fragile environment for indigenous research publishing. While researchers in Africa face equal pressure to publish as their colleagues elsewhere, they often lack, do not have access to, or are not aware of appropriate resources or support networks that could assist them to improve their skills and publishing know-how. This paper sets out some of the background to the current (2023) picture: the sources, directories and platforms for African journals, the frameworks for assessing publishing practices and standards, the leading citation indexes, and the resources for academic journal editors and publishers in Africa that might assist them to enhance their publishing operations. With a select literature review.
Strengthening scholarly publishing in Africa: assessing the potential of online systems
Retrieved October, 2009
Background Some 40 years ago, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) set out guidelines for the development of higher education in Africa that included the "elucidation of and appreciation for African culture and heritage and to dispel misconceptions of Africa, through research and teaching of African studies," as well as developing "a truly African pattern of higher learning dedicated to Africa and its people yet promoting a bond of kinship to the larger human society" (UNESCO, 1963, 3). Yet no sooner had research libraries in Africa and other parts of the developing world begun to build modest journal collections in the hundreds, and even thousands, of titles during the 1960s and 1970s, then those collections were decimated by subscription-price increases, currency fluctuations, and local economic troubles. Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, for example, lost 70 percent of its 1,200 subscriptions in the late 1980s (Rosenberg 1997). The introduction of the Internet in Africa has proven a source of hope for higher education's access to research and scholarship. Internet access across the continent has been made possible in the twenty-first century, with some 93% of university campuses operating networks, the majority on leased lines, with satellite downlinks (VSAT) a close second (Steiner, Tirivayi, Jensen, & Gakio, 2005). With the support of various organizations, including the World Health Organization and the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), African research libraries have been able to obtain free access to a wide range of online scholarly publications. 1 It is now time to shift attention to scholarly publishing, as a means of developing research capacities, as the universities in the North and Africa work together "by sharing their resources within framework of formative projects" as Bonaventure Mvé-Ondo advocates "with shared responsibilities and benefits, by taking advantage of digital tools to so, by gaining and producing knowledge together" (2005, p. 62) It is true that the African economics of access are currently such that higher education institutions are paying 100 times what a comparable college would pay in North America or Europe, even as the bandwidth of a typical institution may be little more than that of private home in the West (INASP, 2003). Still, efforts are underway to improve the situation by introducing competition into the market, improving bandwidth management within the universities, utilizing open source systems and software, and it seems only prudent to continue with research and development projects aimed at utilizing increased access to the Internet by faculty and students to further develop local research capacity and research culture through such ventures as improved scholarly publishing systems. Recently, the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa (a consortia of six major U.S. foundations) announced plans to commit $350 million to African universities, with the intent of creating, among other things, "an eightfold increase in Internet bandwidth to a coalition of 11 African universities and two higher-education organizations" (Six Foundations Commit, 2005). Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation has said that "knowledge, innovation and talent are critical currencies needed to thrive in today's interconnected world, and Africa's
Digital media, with their capacity to reduce the cost of information dissemination and to effortlessly cross borders, offer new possibilities for overcoming the marginalization of African research publication in the global community. In turn, Open Access publishing models show signs of generating substantially greater research impact and increasing citation levels, particularly for publications from the developing world. This paper will tackle a relatively neglected area of study - the policy context in which research publication happens in African universities. In particular, it will map the contradictions and distortions that occur when national research policy initiatives targeting development goals meet up with policies for publication reward systems that effectively drive publication - even of African Studies - out of Africa into the USA and Europe. The context of the paper is a research programme that I am carrying out as an International Policy Fellow in the field of Open Inf...
The crisis of scholarly publishing in Africa A case study of selected countries in Africa
Scholarly publishing such as books, journal articles, conference proceedings, and monographs dates back to the late 15th century. 1 This is the primary tool of knowledge dissemination to consumers such as academia, industry, policymakers and the public at large. The state of scholarly publishing in Africa, when compared to other parts of the world, is unfortunately bleak. The World Bank has lamented that Africa lags behind the rest of the world in the fi eld of scientifi c research which in most cases leads to scholarly publishing. The principal aim of this chapter is to investigate, evaluate and understand the factors militating against sustainable publication in tertiary institutions in Africa. Specifi cally, the chapter uses primary and secondary data to analyse the state of scholarly publishing in selected African countries such as Botswana, Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa. The chapter has identifi ed certain key internal and external factors as affecting sustainable scholarly publishing in Africa. Certain specifi c palliatives are prescribed, the most crucial of these being the need for tertiary institutions to establish It is widely accepted that scholarly publishing plays a vital role in academic and concomitant economic development. It is the primary means by which knowledge is disseminated to consumers such as academia, industry and the public at large. It also plays a role in infl uencing economic, social, political and technological policy formulation. Why then has scholarly publishing in Africa been on the decline since the mid-1980s? An analysis of this phenomenon is therefore necessary and imperative.