The attendees of the Scholarly Communicationa and A2K Africa workshop, pic by Gray_Area on flickr.com, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

A number of discussions were developed in group sessions, from the themes which were outlined in the formal presentations.

Group sessions took the form of an interactive exchange of ideas, debate and the sharing of personal and institutional stories from within the local academic environment, the regional and international jurisdictions.

The goal of the sessions was to explore how the key themes could be advanced from an action research perspective, in other words, to frame the research questions that should form the basis for the Scholarly Communication and Access to Knowledge Project.

The following key areas were highlighted:

1. The need to quantify stakeholder (partner) metrics and diversity
2. Understanding policy creation and implementation at both the national and institutional level
3. Exploring the concept of value and the value chain
4. Looking at dissemination platforms

The need to quantify stakeholder (partner) metrics and diversity

To understand the academic publishing environment, there is a need to map the stakeholders involved, which includes researchers, administrators and the institutions that finance the research.  But stakeholders also includes librarians and publishing groups.  This is a variety of role players who have divergent discourses within the scholarly academic publishing process.

A proposed example of capturing the diversity within the publishing eco system would be to establish a list of stakeholders and diagramatically indicate how they relate to one another.   Added to this is the notion that certain stakeholders will often adopt more than one role within the publishing process. for example, a researcher could perform the tasks of author or editor, either of which will influence the interaction between the publisher.

Within the first step of stakeholder mapping, it would be important to explore what the benefits are for each stakeholder;  how would they like to recognise value within their work; and how would they like to be recognised within the eco system.  However, this raises further questions:  should recognition be acknowledged as part of the eco system?  Should recognition within the eco system be linked to funding?

Action points:

• Map the stakeholders involved in the scholarly open access eco system; and
• Explore benefits to stakeholders and value.

Understanding policy creation and implementation at both the national and institutional level

When investigating the academic publishing eco system it becomes obvious that policy -  both at the institutional and national levels – govern and constrain.  Furthermore, there is a disjuncture between governmental policies themselves which in turn affects institutional policy.

It was agreed that when communicating with government, it is imperative to find the correct language – or terminology – and discourse in order for the message to resonate.  Find the hook that will appeal to, and make sense for government.

Examples from other countries indicate that to create meaningful conversation at the national level it was also important to construct messages for constituents who were going to become advocates.

Locally, government has latched onto the idea of the commercialisation of research and this perception needs to be challenged.  A way to approach this would be to look at what law makers have a vested interest in and to find alternatives to obtaining a similar result.

South-south collaboration could be leveraged to create international capacity in order for the international connection to help strengthen our own constituency.

There is a strong need to promulgate the stories of successful open access research.  A cogent example would be how the outbreak and control of swine flu (H1N1 influenza) was dealt with, where it was obvious that this was not controlled through patents but rather through instant international collaboration, which involved having access to large amounts of data which could be pulled into a global database in order for scientists to share and collaborate.

Following on from this, it is compelling when the World Health Organisation states the imperative for the sharing of clinical data, databases and research.

Action points:

• Understand government needs and create the right kinds of discourse which will positively influence government’s willingness to engage;
• Assist constituents – potential advocates – in crafting the right messages; and
• Promulgate the stories of successful open access research.

Exploring the concept of value and the value chain

In order to ascertain the value of open access publishing the following questions need to be asked:  why is measurement necessary, and what should be measured? What needs to be done to persuade the various stakeholders that they are getting value for their investment, whether this is a financial or time resource.

A possibility would be to either run trial projects or identifying current projects and creating case studies.  This would reveal best practice statistics and information, which would illustrate value.  In other words, this would be a recording and presenting of evidence.

Attached to value is the idea of cost.  If open access is adopted, what is the cost of this?  What are the overhead costs?  If a journal management systems is used, what does it add to efficiences and equality?  These would be ideal measurements.

Value can also be found in the following scenarios:  if policy research is undertaken but not published, what has been lost?  If the research has been published but not distributed, what has been lost?  Conversely, if public and social benefit research is effectively published and distributed, what has been gained?  The Australian open scholarly publishing movement has undertaken research in order to obtain government grants for publications, which involves collecting all publications and then motivating to government on those that are subsidisable.

Whilst in South Africa, the cost of publishing is relatively low, in the greater region this is not necessarily the case.  An issue to be investigated would be different economic models for journals.  The issue of cost benefit links to one of sustainability, which also relates to grey literature.  As this literature is not peer reviewed, it deserves to be published and effectively disseminated.  What is the value of disseminating effectively? And what is the cost of effective dissemination?

Action points:

• Record and present evidence/ case studies to show value;
• Investigate the cost benefit with the case studies;
• Develop and record sustainable models for journals, particularly in countries that have no resources;
• Develop and record sustainable models beyond journals in order to produce no necessarily financial data but effectiveness of investment in terms of less replication and reptition of information; and
• Plan on a country-by-country basis or sub-regional basis.

Looking at dissemination platforms

The goal of dissemination should be for impact and development impact as opposed to dissemination within the scholarly community.  When thinking about dissemination, it becomes necessary to consider the platforms on which to disseminate research.

Within the open knowledge idea, it is no longer simply about publications or data, but digital tools such as the inclusion of multimedia results of what is historically known as grey literature, and publishing information on blogs and wikis.  The question is how to encompass these new digital opportunities in the modular, existing methodolgy?  There is debate at present about how social media platforms could be used for peer review and evaluation.

There needs to be a change in the metrics for assessing the performance of academics, and the way scholarship is valued.  This will be a systemic shift; a policy shift at a number of levels from administrators at universities to government policy.  There will be a need for change management at an organisational level.

Watch a video of Gary’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• International Development Research Centre (IDRC)
• Human Science Research Council (HSRC)
• HSRC Press
• World Social Science Forum

He was involved with the Internet Society as a member or co-chair of the program committee for the worldwide Inet meetings between 1995 and 2002 (co-chair in 1996, 1998, and 2000). In 1996, he also published a minor best-seller on the Internet in France (La planète cyber (Gallimard, 1996); 2nd edition under the title: Internet. Le monde en réseau in 2000.)

He acted as chair of the Advisory Board of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN) until 2001, and also worked with NDLTD, an organization promoting the publication of theses and dissertations on-line

He has been involved in the growing debates surrounding the issue of open access to the world’s scientific literature. One of the drafters and initial signatories of the Budapest Initiative, he was a member of the Information Program Sub-Board of the Open Society Institute from 2002 until 2006. This membership also led him to be a member of the Board of eIFL, an organization committed to supporting libraries in developing and transition countries.

In 2006 until 2008, he was vice-president of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences.

He was also one of the founding members of AFUL, an organization for users of free software in French-speaking countries.

Beside teaching and publishing, he is regularly invited to lecture all over the world. He was guest professor at the University of Sao Paulo in 2008 and scholar in residence at the Institute for Information Law (University of Amsterdam in 2010.)

Watch a video of Jean-Claude’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• Internet Society
• Canadian Research Knowledge Network
• Budapest Initiative
• Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL)
• Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences
• AFUL

He is the Convenor of the National Scholarly Communications Forum and in  September 2009 was the  Convenor of the National Academies Forum on Excellence in Research Evaluation, Impacts on Scholarship, Research Funding and Publications. He is the author/editor of  7 books, as well as over three hundred articles and reviews. He is a regular reviewer for several journals as well as the Canberra Times. He is on the board of several international journals, including The Journal of Librarianship and Information Science. He has been an invited keynote speaker in 7 countries, most recently in South Africa in June 2009.

In 1984 he was awarded the Knight Cross of Queen Isabella La Catolica of Spain for services to Hispanic culture. In 1998 he was awarded a Fellowship by both the British and Australian Library Associations, only the sixth double Fellowship in history. In 2001 he was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and in 2002 received the Australian Centenary Medal for Scholarly Communication services.

Watch a video of Colin’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• Australian National University (ANU)
• National Scholarly Communications Forum
• National Academies Forum on Excellence in Research Evaluation
• The Journal of Librarianship and Information Science

During her term of office she led a research study to design an Information and Communications Strategy for the National Assembly, NCOP and provincial legislatures under the EU Parliamentary Support Programme.

She was instrumental in the establishment of the precursor of the LINK Centre in September 1996, including early stage curriculum design and training delivery. She was also Chairperson of the National Information Technology Forum from 1996 to 1998.

She initiated a major e-government project at the Department of Social Development in October 1998, publishing a Request for Information for a service that could address the major obstacles to providing effective access and delivery of grant payments to citizens with the support of ICTs.

While pursuing a variety of interests over the past three years, she has done significant preparatory research in the field of ICTs and development and e-government for developing and presenting the LINK courses: Certificate in Information and Knowledge Management for the Public Sector and the Certificate in E-Government.

She serves as a member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI), the advisory body to the Minister of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology on innovation matters. She recently participated in a South African delegation to Finland to study the Finnish National System of Innovation.

She was appointed to the Board of Directors of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) in June 2002.

Watch a video of Luci’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• LINK Centre
• National Information Technology Forum
• National Advisory Council on Innovation (NACI)
• State Information Technology Agency (SITA)

He has taught sociology, anthropology and communication studies at universities in Cameroon and Botswana, and has researched and written extensively on Cameroon and Botswana, where he was awarded the “Senior Arts Researcher of the Year” prize for 2003.

His most recent books include Negotiating an Anglophone Identity (Brill, 2003), Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa (Zed Books, 2004), Africa’s Media, Democracy and the Politics of Belonging (Zed Books, 2005), Insiders and Outsiders: Citizenship and Xenophobia in Contemporary Southern Africa (CODESRIA/ZED Books, 2006), Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa (Langaa/African Studies Centre Leiden, 2009).

Dr Nyamnjoh has published widely on globalisation, citizenship, media and the politics of identity in Africa. He has also published seven ethnographic novels, Mind Searching (1991), The Disillusioned African (1995), A Nose for Money (2006), Souls Forgotten (2008), The Travail of Dieudonné (2008), Married but Available (2009), and Intimate Strangers (2010), a play, The Convert (2003), and a collection of short stories, Stories from Abakwa (2007).

Watch a video of Francis’ presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• Francis’ website: www.nyamnjoh.com
• Francis’ books on Amazon
• University of Cape Town
• Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)

Heather Joseph serves as the Executive Director of the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC), a library-based organization that support open access to the results of scholarly and scientific research through enabling open access publishing and archiving channels, programs, and advocacy for local, national and international open access policies.

Ms. Joseph is also the convener of the Alliance for Taxpayer Access, a coalition of libraries, universities, patients advocacy groups, consumer groups, and student organizations who work to ensure that results of publicly funded research are openly accessible to the public. The group has been a leading voice on U.S. public access legislation, including landmark policy issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Ms. Joseph spent 15 years as a scientific journal publisher. While at the American Society for Cell Biology, she managed Molecular Biology of the Cell (MBC) the first journal to commit its full content to the NIH’s openly accessible PubMed Central repository, and was pleased to be appointed to serve on the National Advisory Committee for this initiative.

Ms. Joseph is a frequent speaker on scholarly communications issues, and serves on the Board of Directors of numerous not-for-profit organizations. She recently completely a term as the elected President of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.

Watch a video of Heather’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links:

• Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition
• Society for Scholarly Publishing
• Alliance for Taxpayer Access
• Youtube video: North American Open Access Policies: Current Trends and Opportunities
• Youtube video: An introduction to Open Access Week 2009

APNET represents 46 African countries with an observer status on the African Union. He is the national chair of the transformation committee established by the ministry of Arts and Culture to develop a national book policy in South Africa. He also works closely with the International Publishers Association, where he has served on the Copyright Committee for a number of years.

Watch a video of Brian’s presentation at the event ➤

Related links

• African Publisher’s Network
• New African Books