New continental platform for open access publishing

A new continental platform for the open access publishing of journals, monographs and textbooks in Africa has been developed by South Africa’s University of Cape Town (UCT) through its library service.

The platform allows the African research community to share their scholarly content, which could advance the growth and development of local research aimed at benefiting African society.

“The major publishing houses have inadvertently northernised the publishing landscape,” said Dr Reggie Raju, the director of research and learning at UCT Libraries.

“These publishing houses are driven by the fundamental principles of economics; that is, they will publish that which will be bought. It is the Global North that has the buying capacity.”

The “unintended but systematic” ‘northernisation’ of the publishing landscape has marginalised the research voices from the Global South, Raju told University World News.

He added that the inequalities in publishing for and by marginalised voices are compounded by economic circumstances: the inability of Global South authors to pay exorbitant article processing charges in an environment in which there is a push via the openness movement for the free sharing of research output.

“There is a desperate need for the democratisation and de-northernisation of the publishing landscape – a publishing process that promotes social justice and the inclusion of African researchers and research output into mainstream research processes,” he said.

Enhance research sharing

Raju further explained that the creation of the platform is meant to dismantle structures that perpetuate information poverty.

“It is common cause that access to research is critical for the production of new research. This vicious cycle contributes to information poverty.

“The platform is meant to provide greater opportunity for the sharing of research with the positive effect of leading to the production of new research, thus dismantling structures that support information poverty,” said Raju.

He envisions enhancing the discoverability, visibility and accessibility of African research, thereby providing an opportunity for the improved distribution of African scholarship.

The platform will apply a formal publication process and would include some peer review process as some of the articles on the platform could end up in a formal journal.

He said that, when viewing other open access platforms such as pre-print publishers, “my contention is that the pre-prints have the potential [for] carrying poor science”.

“As a member of editorial boards, I am aware of the fact that there is a high percentage of manuscripts that are rejected. With regard to a pre-print platform, there is the potential for hurtful science being accessible to the world,” he said, acknowledging that his views could be biased.

Among other requirements for participation is that the journal or book must be linked to a university.

The assumption is that the publisher (that is, the university) will determine its standards as no university will want to be associated with the production of poor science.

Training to be provided

UCT hosts the platform and meets the most significant cost of server spaces, and UCT library staff will provide training to libraries that intend adopting the platform and to journal editors at other African universities.

When more institutions come on board, there will be a harder push for the platform to be hosted by one of the large networks, Raju said.

African open access journals already available on the continental platform are from UCT, Durban University of Technology, the University of Namibia, Bindura University of Science Education in Zimbabwe, the Catholic University of Zimbabwe and the University of Botswana.

Raju said there is a drive via LIBSENSE to have this publishing service or platform also become a mainstream service offered by academic libraries.

LIBSENSE is an initiative which was launched in 2016 to bring together the research and education networks and academic library communities in order to strengthen open access and open science in Africa.

Raju said the intention was for the platform to be hosted by one of the large networks in Africa.

West and Central African Regional Network (WACREN), through LIBSENSE, has the potential to host this platform.

The hosting by a ‘neutral’ entity would engender greater acceptability by other African countries, Raju noted.

“Until this comes to fruition, engaging with colleagues at UCT Libraries would be the way to participate,” he said.