Scholarly publishing and open access: where is it going and why should researchers consider it?. Susan Veldsman Director: Scholarly Publishing Unit October 2010 Applying scientific thinking in the service of society

Overview Trends in the Scientific communication What is Open Access? Institutional Repositories Scholarly Journals

Trends in Scientific Communication Publishing in Scientific Journals-most common and powerful way to disseminate research findings Visibility and credibility, requires publishing in journals indexed in global indexing databases (WoS, Scopus) Jnl indexed in WoS is to be considered scientifically important The system assumes that 20% journals (biggest, best established, high impact and most respected) contains 80% of real value of scientific knowledge Most scientists in developing countries remain at the periphery of this critical communication process—exacerbating the low international recognition and impact of their accomplishments For science to become influential and productive in dev countries---this needs to change

# Journals from Region in Web of Science GLOBAL RESEARCH REPRESENTATION WEB OF SCIENCE COVERAGE Region # Journals from Region in Web of Science Europe 5,573 49% North America 4,251 38% Asia-Pacific 965 9% Latin America 272 2% Middle East/Africa 200 1% Language # Journals in Web of Science English 9114 81% Other 2147 19%

COVERAGE OF REGIONAL AND SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNALS Web of Science 2005 2010 Growth Variation Total Journals Indexed 8,834 11,423 2,589 + 29% Regional Journals Indexed 1,716 3,605 1,889 + 110% South African Journals Indexed 27 67 40 + 148% 5 5

SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH CHANGING NATURE OF SOUTH AFRICAN RESEARCH South African researchers averaged just over 3,000 papers a year in the 70s – 90s. Now well over 8,000 papers per year

Analysing Journals within WoS 67 journals are WoS indexed 28 open accessible 20 published by commercial publishers 19 societal/association journals 4 journals that are WoS indexed, but not DHET accredited

Commercial publishing? Advantages: Online content management system Takes day –to day admin out of editors work Editors incentives Enhanced publishing methods Visible and discoverable Possible disadvantages: Sustainability is not guaranteed (examples of journals being withdrawn) NOT accessible---limited access to users not subscribing

Science Research How are we doing as a continent?

On Poverty?

Open Access – a counter-movement The importance of access to research knowledge, particularly when it is publicly funded A more logical economic model Digital dissemination increases reach Massively increased impact, particularly for content from developing countries A rapidly growing movement – now 20% of internationally published journals OA

International initiatives South Africa is a signatory to the OECD declaration on access to research data from public funding (2004) There are now a number of international declarations – Budapest, Berlin, Bethesda, Salvador... Governments and agencies have addressed the issues and endorsed OA in varying degrees: the UK government, the EU, WSIS, the NIH in the USA, Wellcome Trust...

The 'green' and 'gold' routes The green route -research repositories and archives pre- and post-publication prints deposited online (some 80% of leading journals now allow this) provision of research data underlying articles deposit of research findings and work in progress Repositories of theses and dissertations The gold route - open access journals

Institutional repositories Publicly accessible repository (archive) where all the work published by researchers/authors affiliated with the university/academy can be posted online. Contributes to the status of the institution by displaying the intellectual output of the institution.

Why publish in an open access journal? Ideas and knowledge derived from publicly- funded research must be made available and accessible for public use, interrogation and scrutiny, as widely and effectively as practicable More people can read the work—bigger impact both in research community, Africa and internationally Other Researchers can learn and build upon work Leads to more citations

What is the underlying purpose of a scholarly journal? Scholarly publishing is a service industry-- even if it doesn’t look like one Journals exist in order to serve the scholarly community—not the other way around Journals provide three core services: Peer review Accessibility Discoverability Some publishers provide additional production services

What are being done in SA? Commercial Open Access Publishing SABINET AJOL Self publishing Examples form UP and US?

New titles to be added South African Journal of Animal Science South African Journal of Agricultural Extension Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Acta Theologica Journal of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers (18!!)

Conclusion Open Access is a concerted intervention into a country’s national system of innovation , which focuses on the enhancement of the quality, quantity and worldwide visibility of original, peer-reviewed publications produced by researchers in the public sector, and the fostering of a new generation of highly competent and productive scientists and scholars