Building open access in Africa

Abstract

Developing Countries (DCs), particularly those in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), are suffering from scientific information famine. The expectation that the internet would facilitate scientific information flow does not seem to be realisable, owing to the restrictive subscription fees of the high quality sources and the beleaguering inequity in the access and use of the internet and other Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources. This paper aims to assess and evaluate Open Access (OA) movement as a proposed solution to avoid the restrictions over accessing scientific knowledge, particularly in SSA. The paper also outlines the opportunities and challenges in implementing OA in SSA. However, there are often mismatches between what the 'donor' countries can reasonably offer and what the SSA countries can implement. Finally, the paper will discuss the slow uptake of the OA in Africa, the perception of the African scientists towards the movement, the non-expression of concern by policymakers and their implications on the scientific activities in Africa.

Promoting Open Scholarship in Africa: Benefits and Best Library Practices

“…Reviewing the situation, such repositories in Africa have shown relatively substantial growth. South Africa, which leads the continent in research (Nwagwu & Ahmed, 2009;Raju et al, 2012), experienced substantial growth during the period 2008-2010, after which it leveled off. Regarding the rest of Africa, there has been a relatively significant growth in institutional repositories: from 2013 to 2014 there was a 67 percent increase in the number of repositories.…”

“…The continent's movement from the periphery of knowledge production to its epicenter, as indicated by Botman (2012), is arduous, given that access to knowledge is a considerable challenge. Nwagwu and Ahmed (2009) point out that information leads to knowledge, and knowledge is a prerequisite for development. Corroborating this assertion is Ola's (2014) contribution, which argues that knowledge is fundamental to the development of a knowledge society, and the currency for this development is access to information and the capacity to use, reuse, and share it-the core principles of the open access (OA) movement.…”

The Role of Open Access in Fostering Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration in Ethiopia: A Case Study

“…Some also mentioned the HINARI and AGORA projects, which provide access to health and agriculture journals respectively. These three initiatives are prominently mentioned in articles that discuss about access to e-journals in developing countries (Arunachalam, 2003;Costa and Chan, 2005;Nwagwu and Ahmed, 2009). …”

Open access: are we there yet? - the case of Stellenbosch University, South Africa

“…In fact, Africa has supplied only 0.7% of the output with a very large percentage of that coming from South Africa (Nwagwu and Ahmed 2009;Ondari-Okemwa 2007). This statistic may well be a true reflection of scientific activities in Africa.…”

“…This statistic may well be a true reflection of scientific activities in Africa. However, there is sufficient evidence (Ondari-Okemwa 2007;Nwagwu and Ahmed 2009;Adams, King, and Hook 2010;Kotecha, Walwyn, and Pinto 2011;Tise 2011) to suggest that the low profile of scientists in Africa is attributed to poor access to scientific publications. South Africa occupies the paradoxical position in the arena of research publishing of being a dwarf internationally and a giant on the African continent.…”