1. 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

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

3. 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

4. # Journals from Region in Web of Science
GLOBAL RESEARCH REPRESENTATION
WEB OF SCIENCE COVERAGE
Region
# Journals from Region in Web of Science
Europe
5, %
North America
4, %
Asia-Pacific %
Latin America %
Middle East/Africa %
Language
# Journals in Web of Science
English %
Other %

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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Sustainability is not guaranteed (examples of journals being withdrawn)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

9. Science Research How are we doing as a continent?

10. On Poverty?

11. 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

12. 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...

13. 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

14. 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.

18. 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

19. 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

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

24. 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!!)

30. 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