Africa
Open Access Africa, Cape Town 4-5 November
Updates and reflections from Open Access Africa and Berlin 10 - 4-8 November 2012, Cape Town & Stellenbosch, South Africa - Jonathan Harle, Programmes Manager at the Association of Commonwealth Universities (@jonharle)
- The background: Between Sunday 4th and Thursday 8th November there are a series of conferences and workshops taking place at the universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Although the Berlin conference is international, the implications of open access for African research and education are high on the agenda, and are the main focus of BioMed Central's Open Access Africa.
BioMed Central | Open Access and the developing world | Open Access Africa 2010Hosted by BioMed Central, in partnership with Computer Aid International Aim of conference Open Access Africa brings together researchers...- Hosted by the University of Cape Town. I'll be presenting in the 'research capacity' strand - provisionally titled 'Growing research by going open: The possibilities and problems for strengthening capacity'.
BMC #OAAFRICA2012 today kicking off historic week of open access activity in Africa with @Berlin10SA and @PLOS events.- Sunday 4th November: Deborah Kahn introduces open access and BioMed Central. Notes that
open access is about different business models but the same quality & standards. The business model doesn’t effect the peer review process. Growth has been fast since 2000. Although biomedicine leads, growing in all areas – including in the social sciences.
OA has a number of distinct advantages Deborah says - OA journals are not limited by size like a paper journal is and thus publish inclusively. If the science is good a paper gets in, rather than an editor asking ‘is this going to be a headline paper?’. Papers also get read widely much more quickly - within a few weeks of publishing several titles got 12,000 accesses.
The second presentation is from Eve Gray at UCT. 
. @graysouth notes that before oa journals arrived, there was more research published on acne than on malaria #OAAfrica2012- Researchers' careers - their promotion prospects - are driven by their publishing profile, and impact factors are a huge factor in this: is the journal highly rated?. But Eve Gray argues that the impact factor is a 'car crash' for African researchers & cites Stephen Curry who says anyone using the impact factor is 'statistically illiterate'.
- "The Impact Factor is past its sell-by date." @graysouth on need for evolved policy environment for OA in Africa. #OAAfrica2012
@graysouth - don't measure impact factor measure impact on people #openaccessafrica2012
#OAAfrica2012 emergence of #altmetrics as more reliable picture of research turnout in Africa?- National policy environments are critical. At present South Africa has commitments in pockets says Eve Gray, but at the same time pursues and innovation agenda which is built on IP and commercialisation.
UNESCO doing more work on #openaccess in #Africa says @graysouth. Expect change in national policies given impact of OER work #oaafrica2012- Open access offers some great advantages to Southern researchers - but there are real worries that African universities could still lose out.
- @graysouth cost of APCs could favour ivy league over african unis. Need government/funders to include in grants #openaccessafrica2012
Will the policy changes in open access increase the north south divide ? A real danger #openaccessafrica2012
RT @PierreAosis: #oaafrica2012 Waivering APCs for Africans may hurt the local OA publishers who may be dependent on APCs. Author support for APCs better- @graysouth - investment by government in research communicarion and its infrastructure is essential #openaccessafrica2012
- Much of the debate assumes a national model - but Eve Gray suggests we need to think regionally.
Is collaborative regional publishing the answer for local research? @graysouth #openaccessafrica2012- @Czernie At #OAAFRICA2012 first question about cost, reply that APCs are only scalable solution. Is it really? > Assumes capacity
- We're talking too much about journals says @graysouth. Need to think much more broadly about ways of communicating research #oaafrica2012
- Next comes a presentation by Laura Czerniewicz, UCT, presenting on OpenUCT initiative.
- Now up @czernie discussing the practical aspects. What do you need to do? How have unis been coping with change #OAAfrica2012
- Universities are all very different, with different policy contexts. There is no one-size fits all model for moving towards open access. Laura's slide here on different types of institutions and their policy environments looked interesting but flashed past. Will look for it later.
