Open Access in Africa

Deborah KahnPublishing Director, BioMed Central Ltd

Open Access Africa 2011

Bringing together researchers, librarians, funding bodies and technology companies to discuss how open access publishing can support science in Africa

The old world of access to knowledge

The new world of access to knowledge

African internet connectivity is improving dramatically

Source: African Mobile Factbook 2008

International Telecommunications Union report (2009)

“The increase in the number of mobile cellular subscriptions over the last five years has defied all predictions and Africa remains the region with the highest mobile growth rate”

Although number of Internet users has also grown faster than in other regions:“Africa’s ICT penetration levels in 2009 are still far behind the rest of the world and very few African countries reach ICT levels comparable to global averages”

Growth of mobile phones in Africa

Mobile phone networks are already aiding scientific data gathering

As connectivity improves, other access barriers become significant

Access to computers Computer skills Access to research funding Access to the scientific literature Skills to write scientific papers Available outlets to publish

Access to computers and computer skills

Access to Research Funding

Many initiatives to improve funding of science in Africa– Governmental sources– NGOs– Research funders – Private initiatives

New Plant Bioinformatics Academy in Accra

Article published in Science on 30th September about a new academy being set up in Accra to develop bioinformatics skills in plant breeders

Access to the Scientific Literature

Traditional journals– take ownership of the research– provide access to subscribers only

Open access journals– have no subscription barriers– take advantage of the economics of the internet to

allow universal access– research is openly licensed to allow reuse

Characteristics of Open Access

The publisher charges directly for the service of

publication/ dissemination

Research permanently available via the Internet

No barriers to access such as subscription costs

Licensed so as to allow redistribution and reuse (Creative Commons)

Archived in an internationally recognized repository

(e.g. PubMed Central)

Open Access Waiver Fund

All African countries receive automatic waiver, except:

Algeria Botswana Equatorial

Guinea Gabon Libya Namibia South Africa

What does the APC cover

• Open access journals need to cover the costs of– managing peer review, – Development, maintenance and operation of online journal systems– Formatting and mark up of articles, inclusion in indexing services– Making sure readers and authors know about the journal– Responding to authors/readers

• Publication fee is a very small fraction of the cost of doing research

• Most open access publishers give waivers to authors from developing countries

• In many cases, open access journals have central support, so no charges for authors or readers

Open Access publishing is growing fast

Improving skills to write scientific papers

Free Editing for African scientists submitting to BMC Journals

To mark Open Access Africa 2011, Edanz will provide free editing for 20 African authors submitting to 5 BioMed Central Journals that are particularly relevant to African authors

AIDS Research and TherapyBMC Public HealthInternational Journal for Equity in HealthJournal of Ethnobiology and EthnomedicineVirology Journal

Where the journal editor feels the science of the paper is good but that the language needs polishing before submission and the author’s funding conditions could make it difficult to obtain the high level editing needed. The journal editor will refer the author to Edanz for free language editing

About BioMed Central

Largest publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals

Launched first open access journal in 2000 Became part of Springer in 2008 Now publishes over 220 open access journals >100,000 peer-reviewed OA articles published All research articles published under Creative

Commons license Costs covered by article processing charge (APC)

Some BioMed Central journals

BioMed Central submissions

2411589 1683

3349

6894

10793

15145

17950

22957

29465

35602

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2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

BioMed Central and Africa

ComputerAid

Growth in manuscript submissions from Africa to BioMed Central

Submissions from Africa compared to total

BMC Foundation Membership

A new type of membership created for developing nations

Designed to support Open Access advocacy

No cost

Criteria for Foundation Membership

Institution should have a Open Access policy in place

Institution should have published at least 5 articles in BioMed Central journals in the last year

Benefits of Foundation Membership

A BMC Webpage A Member welcome pack Membership usage reports Member logo/badge for use on

institution website PR of Membership

Malaria Journal - an open access journal case study

Malaria Journal homepage

Annual growth in submissions to Malaria Journal

Top 20 African countries publishing in Malaria Journal (no. of articles)

Kenya 68

Tanzania 59

Nigeria 33

South Africa 30

Uganda 29

Ghana 21

Benin 16

Madagascar 14

Sudan 12

Ethiopia 11

Zambia 10

Cameroon 9

Senegal 9

Malawi 9

Mali 9

Burkina Faso 8

Cote d'Ivoire 7

Gabon 6

Gambia 6

Mozambique 3

Impact Factor trend

A highly accessed Malaria Journal article

17,000+ downloads

41 citations

Parasite to Prevention - Malaria Journal’s scientific conference

Inaugural conference October 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland

Full bursaries for participants from low-income countries, supported by Gates Foundation

Next conference 2012

Other high profile open access journals relevant to tropical diseases

The latest open access research on global health issues

Open Access repositories

Allow archiving of articles published both in traditional journals and open access journals

Traditional publishers typically only allow author version to be archived

Many require a 6 or 12 month embargo period

Open access articles can be deposited and made immediately available

Open Repository

Hosted digital repository service, operated by BioMed Central

Built on the DSpace open-source platform Dramatically reduces time and costs

involved in setting up, maintaining and developing a repository

Hosting in UK ensures maximum international exposure

MSF 1

MSF 2

Thanks, and enjoy the rest of the conference!