The Pan African Medical JournalInside an African Journal

Open Access Africa Conference25-26 October 2011, Kumasi, Ghana

Raoul KAMADJEU, MD, MPHManaging editor

editor@panafrican-med-journal.comNairobi - Kenya

www.panafrican-med-journal.com

At the end, you will know

1. Who we are

2. What we do

3. How we do it

4. Our challenges

5. Our future plans

Questions about the status of biomedical publishing and

African journals

How many African journals are out there? Is it too many, is it too

little, is there a need for a new journal?

How easy is it to publish in an African Journal?

Is it affordable and user-friendly?

How easy is it to access research published in an African journal?

What are African researchers’ perceptions and expectations about

African biomedical journals?

What is the best business model for an African medical journal?

Is it sustainable?

Some statistics on African journals

African journals in PubMed and ISI

5000 Journals in Medline, 38 from Africa (2009, Dirk Schoobaert)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Rest of the world Africa

Less than 1% of the journals are from Africa

Dirk Schoonbaert. PubMed growth patterns and visibility of journals of Sub-Saharan African origin. J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 October; 97(4): 241–243Thomas J. Goehl, Annette Flanagin. Enhancing the Quality and Visibility of African Medical and Health Journals . doi:10.1289/ehp.12265

6700 Journals in ISI, 20 from Africa, only 1 medical journal (2009, Thomas J. Goehl)

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Rest of the world Africa

Less than 0.3% of the journals are from Africa

Nigeria

South Africa

Ethiopia

Kenya

Ghana

Others

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45

41%

20%

3%

3%

2%

30%

Nigeria

South Africa

Kenya

Ethiopia

Ghana

Others

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

43 %

18%

6%

5%

5%

24%

411 journals in AJOL

African Journal in African indexes

AJOL* (October 2011) AIM (October 2011)

122 journals in AIM

Contribution of African countries to AJOL and African Index Medicus (WHO)

*Scope not limited to Biomedical journals % %

African journals in DOAJ

Contribution of Africa to DOAJNumber of journal in DOAJ in 2011 (October 14): 7162

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 20110

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Africa Brazil

Num

ber o

f Jou

rnal

s

219 African journals in DOAJ in 2011

• 88 from 5 countries: Egypt , South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia and Kenya

• 50 from Egypt alone..!

1

10

1,000

DOAJ world map

7162 journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals (October 14, 2011)

Number of journals in DOAJ

There is plenty of space to add a dot on Africa..!

Where authors from SSA publish* A study of 24,417 articles in PUBMED from the top 10 countries in SSA (1995-2004)*

*Karen J. Hofman. Mapping the health research landscape in Sub-Saharan Africa: a study of trends in biomedical publications. J Med Libr Assoc. 2009 January; 97(1): 41–44

Only 27% of 24,417 articles in PUBMED, by African authors, were published in African Journals

The case of ICT in African journals

The potential of ICT for African journals

• ICT potential for African journals− Quality affordable platforms (OAJ) − Increase access to journal contents− Reduce paper submission challenges− A good alternative to printing and dissemination of hard

copies

• ICT implementation has some challenges:− Expertise required to set up and operate the system− Software acquisition and/or development− Software maintenance− Adaptation to a rapidly changing technology

The potential of ICT is not maximized by African journals

• Not very appealing journal websites,

• Limited use of electronic publishing

platform

• Limited use E-marketing (social media,

mailing lists)

• The expertise require to set up and

maintain these systems not easily

accessible (availability and cost)

• Capacity building opportunities are rare

Some initiatives to improve access to IT by

African journals

− Open Journal System (PKP):

http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs_download

− African Journal Online (AJOL):

http://www.ajol.info/

− African Journal Partnership project:

http://www.ajpp-online.org/

African journals - Consequences

• The visibility of African journals can be greatly improved

• Most journals have limited geographical scope

• Not the primary target for submission by African authors

• Access to African journals remains a challenge (despite recent

improvements)

BMC

PLOS

African journals

OthersAfrican journals at a critical stage

• Why will an author submit to an African Journal?

• Why will he pay authors fees when big publishers waive those fees for African authors?

What a modern African journal should aim for?

• Open Access

• Peer-reviewed

• Maximize the opportunities of ICT

• Easily accessible from within Africa and globally (online)

• Bilingual (English and French)

• No authors fees or minimal charges to authors

• User friendly

• With high visibility and impact (indexed)

• Sustainable over time

The new journal should be:

PAMJ’s vision

To be the leading medical journal in Africa and one of the best in the

world

PAMJ strategic intent and approach

Reduce the burden of diseases

Create, stimulate and perpetuate a culture of

scientific publication amongst African health professionals

Increase the availability of health information and

knowledge from Africa, for the global health community

Increase the availability of health information and knowledge from Africa,

for the global health community

Increase awareness and capacity for scientific publication among the medical and public health community in Africa

Establishing a high standard/quality and financially viable OA medical journal

Birth and early development of PAMJ

Feb –March 2007

• Idea was born around discussions between friends• Journal’s name adopted and web domain registered

May-Sept 2007

• Adopting IT infrastructure, development of journal website• Set up of the Editorial board

May – July

2008

• Website completed - PAMJ is up and running• Call for paper issued• First articles published online

Sept 2008

• Memorandum of Understanding with The African Field Epidemiology Network

PAMJ – Rapid growth

Jan 2009

• Indexed in African Index Medicus (AIM)

Feb-Jun 2009

• Indexed in EBSCO• Indexed in Directory of Open Access Journal (DOA)

July- Sept2009

• Member of Open Access Scholarly Publisher Association (OASPA)

2010

• Indexed in Embase, Scopus, CABI, Pubmed Central/Pubmed• Article-level metrics is introduced• 100 articles published

2011

• First authors survey (May-June)• > 200 manuscripts published• >1000 manuscripts received, Our first supplement scheduled (December 2011)

PAMJ – In short

Online, OA, per-reviewed

Bilingual (French , English)

Focus on Africa

An enthusiastic

team

The Fastest growing

journal in Africa

PAMJ Editorial Team

Lazarus

Landry

AnitaAllanSheba

Raoul

PAMJ editorial office at work

Achievements

PAMJ IT platform

• Designed and constantly upgraded based on PAMJ editorial team

specifications and authors/reviewers feedback

• Includes an online manuscript submission system and peer-review

system

• Use open source software (PHP/MYSQL/APACHE)

• Advanced email notification system

• Allows a decentralized editorial office workflow

• Includes a PMC-XML processing module

PAMJ IT platform

AuthorsManuscript submissionand follow-up

ReviewersPeer Review

EditorsManuscript management

EditorsProduction

EditorsStaff/users

EditorsOthers

XML module

Advanced email communication

Statistics

RSS feed

PAMJ article metrics

PAMJ - Statistics

PAMJ ecosystem (Jul 2008 – Oct 2011)

PAMJ

Manuscripts submitted

Authors

Reviewers

20 000 visitors in 2010 – 2011 from 132 countries countries

1085

4476

1800

132

Capacity building activities• Cap Town Workshop (Dec 2010)• Tanzania Workshop (Dec 2011)

Mailing list: 1750

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 102008 2009 2010 2011

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

Num

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2011

Manuscripts submitted to PAMJ since 2008

2008 2009 2010

11 86 211 877

2011: January to October 14

1185 manuscripts received (April 2008 – October 2011 )

Type of manuscript (2008 - 2011)

Case re

port

Researc

h

Case se

ries

Review

Letter

to the e

ditors

Short

communica

tion

Discussi

on

Edito

rial

Short

report

Opinion

Letter

to Edito

r

Commentar

yother

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

41% case reports32% research

Origin of manuscripts (2008 - 2011)

110

50

100

Manuscripts submitted from 54 countries

Manuscript language• English: 60%• French: 40%

Our winners: Morocco, Nigeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, India, Uganda, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya

PAMJ Authors’ profileFindings of 2011 Authors Survey

0-5 6-10 11-15 16-20 21-25 >260%

10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

100% How many years of experience in scientific publishing do you have

How many years of work expe-rience do you have?

Most authors are new to scientific publishing (< 5 years) – At their first publication

48.9%

37.3%

10.3%From colleagues

From a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc..)

From library search (including Pubmed)

Through Social media (Facebook, etc..) or news coverage

Other (please specify)

Heard of PAMJ from colleagues and search engines

http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/resources/surveys/2011/Pamj_author_survey_2011.pdf

Reasons for choosing PAMJ?Findings of 2011 Authors Survey

Speed of publication

Journal was recommended by a colleague

The editorial board looked serious

The quality of the articles published

It is easy and convenient to submit a manuscript

It is open access

It is indexed in PubMed

It is free (no charges to authors)

Other (please specify)

0.0% 10.0% 20.0% 30.0% 40.0% 50.0% 60.0% 70.0%

No charges, indexation in PubMed and the quality of the articles published are the main motivator

http://www.panafrican-med-journal.com/resources/surveys/2011/Pamj_author_survey_2011.pdf

Challenges

Submission and publication (2008 - 2011)

The processing capacities of the editorial team is surpassed

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 102008 2009 2010 2011

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Submitted Published

Two main challenges

• Facing the rapid increase in volume of submissions

• Designing a viable business model to achieve sustainability

Risk of very high volume of submission

- Editorial staff overburdened

- Increase in backlog of unprocessed manuscripts

- Increase in manuscript processing time

- Increase frustration of authors with lost of

confidence

- Reputation of the journal in jeopardy

- Increase in production cost

Increase in running cost

To cover:

– Increase in production cost (PMC-XML)

– System development and maintenance (publishing

platform, webhosting)

– IT infrastructure (hardware and software)

– Operations (communication with authors,

formatting, invite per-reviewers, etc..)

Financial sustainability plan

A viable business model toachieve financial sustainability

A Comprehensive communication

strategy

Grant application

Institutional Affiliation

Fair author fees policy

Advertisement

Inform about what we are doing

Identify potential donors (in Africa and elsewhere and apply for grants/support)

Encourage institutions to provide support

Charge authors a small fee – Last resort

Future plans

• Deploying the editorial team into new clusters (West and

North Africa)

• Expand partnerships with African institutions

• Capacity building for editorial team

• In-house processing of PMC-XML

• Phased-implementation of the financial sustainability plan

− PAMJ is actively looking for donations, endowments, grants,

institutional affiliations

− Author- fee should remain very limited and last resort

Acknowledgements

• Dr Landry Tsague (PAMJ managing editor) for

his inputs in preparing this presentation

• PAMJ Editorial office

Special acknowledgements