Embracing Electronic Scholarly Publishing In Africa; The Kwame Nkrumah University Of Science And Technology Library, Kumasi, Ghana As A Case Study

Presenter: Helena Asamoah-Hassan, Library, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana
Time: 9:40 AM - 10:40 AM, 13 July 2007
Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Westcoast Energy Executive Meeting Room, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Abstract
Paper

“the wind of ICT revolution…has also blown onto the continent”

Helena Asamoah-Hassan presented on her university library’s consideration of publishing a scholarly journal electronically. What follows is a case-study of their assessment, evaluation and conclusions. While a study of her particular library’s experience, her observations are relevant to e-publishing throughout Africa.

Demerits of Electronic Scholarly Publishing in Africa:
- lack of standardization
- lack of knowledge that many journals maintain both online and print versions and only a small proportion are strictly online
- few journals have put back issues online
- URLs change and crash
- lack of a permanent archive
- e-journal articles may not be recognized for promotion decisions

Merits of Electronic Scholarly Publishing in Africa:
- online access to journals
- ease and speed of use
- access available at anytime to multiple users
- embedded links add value to article
- articles may be available ahead of complete issue
- reduces space issues and labour costs at libraries
- multi-media options (sound, video etc) that unavailable with print

Both the merits and demerits have a strong relationship with libraries so it is logical that libraries get involved in publishing and work to find solutions to the demerits.

African Libraries as Electronic Publishers:
Africa produces a lot of scholarly journals and reports, most in print form. African researches, however, also need information from other parts of the world. While it is important to provide access to knowledge created elsewhere, it is more important to promote the creation of knowledge within Africa. Further, it is imperative that an avenue is created to disseminate this knowledge. Libraries are age-old conduits for information acquisition, repackaging and dissemination.

KNUST Library:
- consists of Main Library and 6 College Libraries.
- total stock ~320,000 volumes, 500 print and e-journal subscriptions as well as fee e-journals (mostly through INASP)
- in total ~19,000 e-journal titles for 22,000 students and 650 faculty and researchers

KNUST as Publisher:
- training programmes begun on setting up Institutional Repository (IR) with plans to set up an IR for KNUST with the server in the Main Library
- workshop held in Kumasi 23-24 November 2006 to introduce OJS to editors, grad students and IT administrators from 6 research institutions and 5 universities
- KNUST planning a multidisciplinary journal that will feature research reports, technical reports, theses, conference papers, articles and other scholarly communication between staff (this journal will be in addition to KNUST’s journal the Journal of Science and Technology (JUST) already featured in African Journals Online (AJOL)

KNUST must still decide:
1) whether to institute a referee system for the journal
2) whether to make journal online only or also produce a print version
3) whether to place copyright with library or author
4) amount of information to make freely available and timeframe for doing so
5) whether author role will differ from role in print publishing
6) what type of reading software to be used
7) whether services will be performed voluntarily, how to fund
KNUST is currently working on a budget so hopefully the journal will be able to launch by early next year.

Having been introduced to OJS, Helena Asamoah-Hassan then offered some comments and recommendations for PKP software in Africa. Generally, from her own experience and from conversations with others who had used the software, she indicated that it is considered user-friendly (not filled with technical jargon) with a logical process and built in guides that are easily understandable. She offered the following suggestions for PKP software in Africa:
1) Government approval of software from the Ministry of Education, Science and Sports is required in order for it to be used by institutions. Approval is more likely if the Ministry is approached by the software manufacturer and not the institutions.
2) A CD-ROM of the software would be valuable to institutions with no regular Internet access or slow bandwidth
3) Regular updates on developments and full training on the use of OJS after installment would be helpful
4) Training should be provided to core IT staff in each country
5) Software requires a regular automatic saving function given regular breaks in electricity
6) OJS developers should consider assisting in sourcing equipment support to interested institutions who lack basic equipment
7) Public relations work is need to demonstrate OJS software will last (skepticism attached to fact that it is free “too good to be true”)

References:
http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/03-03/rohe.html
http://www.bookrags.com/electronic_publishing

Blogger's Blurb:
“The publisher of an Africa scholarly journal is faced with the rapid expansion of higher education and an increased number of disciplines. This results in many small niche markers of isolated scholars, who either look to the North for specialized journals or are tempted into creating one of their own.” - Jaygbay, J. 2007 Jun 29. The Politics of and Prospects for African Scholarly Journals in the Information Age. Developments in Scholarly Publishing

Helena Asamoah-Hassan’s presentation was followed with a presentation by Charles Kiven Wirsiy, Library Services, University of Buea, Cameroon. The presentations are closely related to the extent that Helena visited Cameroon to help launch the Consortium of Cameroon University and Research Libraries. Both presenters, and the libraries discussed, suffer from a dearth of information and resources and are constrained by small budgets. While electronic journals and open-access seem an ideal means of enabling small libraries to access a wealth of information, the disparity of the “digital divide” is evident in the African context. Access to computers and reliable Internet connections were noted by both presenters and scholars at the University of Buea now depend on their mobile telephones to download and Internet cafés play a crucial role. Both presenters however expressed optimism and interest in electronic journal publishing and open access. Crucial insight was offered on how to introduce software such as OJS despite fear, skepticism and the challenges of government bureaucracy in Africa. While global access to information is the ultimate vision and hope, both presentations highlighted that global access still requires knowledge of regional and cultural issues.

Thomas Abraham’s presentation on scholarly publishing in India raised many similar concerns and considerations. His discussion of customizing OJS software in Hindi and the potential to extend this to other Indian languages seems particularly relevant in the African context. While the coordination and sharing between the libraries in Ghana and Cameroon is promising, extending such dialogue to other countries outside of Africa, such as India, would not only be valuable for all involved but very much in the spirit of expanding lines of communication with the aim of improving the quality of information that underlies the Public Knowledge Project.

Related conference presentations:

On libraries
"Rethinking Collections: Libraries and Librarians in an Open Age", "Librarians as campus OA leaders: the University of Alberta experience", "The Library as a mediator for e-publishing. A case on how a library can become a significant factor in facilitating digital scholarly communication and open access publishing for less web savvy journals", "The National Library of Australia: open access to Open Publish", "A content management strategy – implementing OJS and OCS at Swinburne University library", "Beyond the Experiment: The Scholarly Publishing Office and the Maturation of Library-Based Publishing", "Survey of Librarian Attitudes about Open Access", "A Critical Theory of Library Technology: Libraries & Electronic Publishing"

On Africa
"Strengthening African Research Culture and Capacities Project", "Scholarly publishing in sub-Saharan Africa in the twenty-first century: challenges and opportunities", "Open Source Software in Education in Africa", "The State of Acquisition, Organization and Use of Open Access Information Resources in Cameroon University Libraries: The Case of the University of Buea and University of Yaounde I Libraries"

Newfound Press: Digital Imprint of the University of Tennessee Libraries

PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
13 July 2007
9:40-10:40 SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

Presenter:
Linda L. Phillips, University Libraries, University of Tennessee.
Knoxville, Tennessee, United States of America.


Abstract
Full Text HTML

The University of Tennessee Newfound Press is positioned at the start of a new movement in scholarly publishing. Linda L Phillips, Alumni Distinguished Service Professor and Head of the University's Collection Development & Management provided reasons why the library made the move into digital availability of documents and some of the challenges of this move into the digital imprint.



The homepage of the Newfound Press site illustrates the four components of the library's work in web-based document access. Click on the logo to visit the site.

Developing the Newfound Press started with the familiar, the monograph, and lead to the non-traditional, incorporating video-streaming of conference presentations. In the future, journal articles could contain sound clips, video links, and further context to content in the electronic environment - adding value to textual content.

The wide disciplinary background of the Newfound Press editorial board reflects the interdisciplinary work that is possible and thrives with OA products. As the Press moves forward, building on a growing and positive interest by University of Tennessee faculty in OA and OJS publishing, the board is committed to providing a place for high quality and significant scholarly work as well as specialized work that might not be published in a print environment.

Current and ongoing work at the Newfound Press includes:

• Creating a sustainable labour pool (this includes collection management, learning to use OJS, and transitioning staff)
• Appropriate funding
  
• Documentation
• Marketing (convincing potential authors that Newfound Press benefits them personally as it benefits the scholarly community)

Phillips' closing anecdote related the reason for the the name of the University of Tennessee's press as a reference to the Newfound Gap between North Carolina and Tennessee. The university library, through digital imprints and digital publishing is venturing into this territory where there are unimaginable possibilities in the field of scholarly communication.

Question from the audience:

In Phillip's presentation, she noted the importance of attracting tenured faculty as authors to contribute to OA and OJS. So, is the perception that OJS and similar ventures are not of yet of value to those in established academic positions?

-Fair statement. Phillips explained that as those with tenure do not face the same pressure to establish their reputations via publication, OJS is not the risk that it might be for newer members of academia. Currently, creating and establishing a publishing persona in the print journal world might be the better option for scholars just starting out in their respective fields. As the perceptions of digital publishing change and if senior tenured faculty continue to contribute to OJS, this reputation bias will change as well.

Commentary

As Phillips explained, marketing will be key to expanding contributions to OJS and developing the Digital Imprint at the University of Tennessee. Funding for Newfound Press projects has come thanks to librarians using internal leverage within their institutions and building on past grants that suggest there is an interest in funding OA ventures.

The commitment to publishing high quality and significant scholarly work as Newfound Press moves forward should combat the reputation bias (regarding questions of peer-review and the inherent value of articles that are free to access) that can be associated with OJS. Instead of requiring continued funding to access the same material via subscription on-line publications, OA publishing needs the most investment at the idea stage – making possible the presentation of scholarly knowledge to a wide community, not the long-term management of institutional subscriptions.

Scholarly publishing will always be rooted in an economy. Moving from a monetary for-profit publishing scheme to a for-knowledge circulation scheme is possible. (See Paul David’s chapter for a discussion of “Economic Logic” and Dominique Foray's chapter in The Economics of Knowledge) For this to happen, universities can lead the way by recognizing that an initial investment in OJS start-up and maintenance can allow for a greater return to students, faculty, and staff who can freely access and share ideas with colleagues around the world and outside the academic fields. Continuing to pay increasing subscription fees to for-profit publications not only limits the number of projects libraries can fund, it limits the access to ideas that form the basis of the knowledge economy.

Links:

The Digital Library Center at the University of Tennessee


Gamut - The Newfound Press online journal for the Music Theory Society of the Mid-Atlantic
This summer marks the journal's adoption of the OJS format and Newfound Press is working to integrate the homepage with the on-line journal format.

Goodness Gracious, Miss Agnes, Newfound Press' first fully digitized monograph available for on-line viewing. The memoirs of Lera Knox, a Tennessee woman who documented life in the state during the Depression and onward.

Newfound Press adds value to textual contents of digital imprints by designing the images like the one at left, producing page-like pdf documents for easy readability, fully editing the monograph, translating documents, and providing authoritative introductions to the works.

OJS goes mobile – An investigation of how to adapt OJS to meet the needs of mobile users

Above: Lawrence Poon (left) and Shubhash Wasti are working on OJS mobile friendliness.

Shubhash Wasti (Athabasca University, Library Services, Alberta, Canada)
Lawrence Poon (Athabasca University, Library Services, Alberta, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 11am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

Thanks and more thanks to modern technology, the various means of accessing knowledge grow exponentially.

“Mobile OJS” sounds very hi-tech and is certainly in tune with the increasing popularity of mobile technologies. Although Shubhash Wasti points out that the usefulness of a mobile-friendly OJS for authors, editors, etc. is “arguable”, we cannot possibly argue its advantages for users wishing to read journal articles on their mobile device. At this point, there are many technical issues to be resolved, but the idea of a mobile-friendly OJS serves the interests of both public and commercial spheres. There can be economic incentives for companies to improve their mobile devices to allow better support of OJS. Scholars and seekers of knowledge nowadays no longer spend hours crouched over a desk at the library, but are moving towards finding a variety of ways to access that knowledge through modern technologies. In this sense, the commercial sector is also contributing to increasing access to knowledge.

As for the public sphere and the effort to increase openness of knowledge, a mobile-friendly OJS can certainly contribute to wider circulation of academic material for the community and allow more people to participate in the Open Access movement. By combining developing technologies with the aims of Open Access, both areas can see major advancements. As we seek new ways to increase access to knowledge through technology, improvements to modern technologies must also be made. Indeed, while the advancement of knowledge access is contributing to the advancement of technologies, these technologies in turn are opening wonderful possibilities for the public to exercise their right to knowledge.

Perhaps in the future, we will not think only of open access to knowledge, but also of “mobile open knowledge” that is available wherever we go.

~Summary of Presentation~
Motivation
- “Face of the web” annual report by Ipsos Insight found that 28% of mobile phone users worldwide access the web on their handset
- less than 0.1% of the OJS users access via their mobile device
- this study is to see how OJS can be made more mobile-friendly
- there is a trade-off between features and mobility: for example, using Flash on the website
- in terms of practicality: readers would be the ones to benefit greatly by a mobile-friendly OJS, but the usefulness of it to authors, reviewers and editors is arguable

Most important limitations of mobile devices

- screen size, resolution (some web browsers in mobile devices attempt to fit content on the small screens but often these optimizations can distort the pages)

- navigation: often having to use virtual keyboards or difficult to use buttons

- memory limitations may make them unable to handle large files

- lack of support for certain formats (e.g. some devices cannot read Word or PDF)

- limited or no support for certain web features (e.g. Javascript, Java, Flash, Frames, Auto refresh, pop-up windows etc.)

Mobile devices used in the testing:
Palm TX (browser: Blazer)
Dell Axim X30 (browser: Pocket Internet Explorer)
Sony MYLO (browser: Opera)

Potential Problems in view of W3C recommendations


What works and what does not

Intermediary Approaches (Proxies)
- can be used as a “service”
- burden of mobile friendliness is shifted from the software/web developer to a third party
- examples:
Google – http://www.google.com/gwt/n
Skweezer – http://www.skweezer.net
- but these are not perfect and not all problems can be solved this way

A possible approach using plug-in architecture
- “One Web” - different views
- requires a clear separation of presentation and application layers
- having mobile plug-ins for using OJS

Future studies
- study involving real users to find out impract of mobile friendlyiness in the use of mobile devices in accessing articles in OJS
- where is balance between features and mobile friendliness

Conclusions and suggestions
- strong separation of program logic from the presentation
- plug-in developers can develop plug-ins to detect mobile devices and serve pages optimized for mobile devices
- we cannot rely on the end users’ device to handle the page optimization
- provide support team for mobile OJS users
- OJS in its current form is near the unfriendly side on the spectrum of mobile friendliness

~ About the Presenters~
Shubhash Wasti
Lawrence Poon’s CV (personal website)

~Related Links~
W3C Mobile Web Best Practices 1.0: Basic Guidelines
Smartphone - Wikipedia
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) - Wikipedia

OJS – MP3 Article Usage: A pilot study

Main Presenter:

Kathy Killoh

(Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada)

Other memebers of the team:
Paula Smith (Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada) - Absent
Shubhash Wasti (Athabasca University, Alberta, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 11am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s Commentary~

The pilot study on MP3 articles conducted at Athabasca University demonstrates what the meaning of “innovation” is. The idea behind this study is to allow access to academic articles in a format different from traditional formats (HTML or PDF), while using an audio format widely used in today’s society. MP3 articles provide a brand-new way of using academic material, and allow scholars to temporarily rest their tired eyes and work their ears a bit instead.

Kathy Killoh points out that much research still needs to be done on this topic, but this pilot study is certainly one of its kind and carries great implications in the larger scope of things. MP3 articles present a new possibility for accessing knowledge and thus help widen the circle of people who can take advantage of this possibility. For example, MP3 articles can be helpful for people with reading disabilities. Users of mobile technology can also easily listen to MP3 articles on the run. In short, MP3 articles exploit modern technology and open up new accessibility avenues. After all, and at the risk of sounding redundant, we must remind ourselves that accessibility makes up a major part of the spirit of Open Access.

We have been used to the idea of audio-books for quite some time now, and MP3 articles might also someday become as popular as PDF files when it comes to accessing academic journal articles. These days, almost everyone is listening to MP3s on the bus or subway, but perhaps next time when you ask your friends what they are listening to, instead of “some popular music artist”, the answer might be “I’m listening to John Willinsky’s newest article on open access.”

~Summary of Presentation~
- A team of researchers from Athabasca University conducted a study on the use of MP3 as a format for academic articles available for download
- MP3 articles are available for download on the IRRODL web site

-IRRODL is an open access, peer reviewed e-journal that has been online since 2000
-IRRODL adopted OJS in 2005
-IRRODL’s editorial scope is international, and the vision is to narrow the digital divide by providing rigorously peer reviewed ODL (Open and Distance Learning) literature using a variety of technologies
-since June 2006, IRRODL content has been available also in MP3 format
-this pilot study is to collect some data on how, when, where and why readers are using MP3 articles

Selection of software: NeoSpeech Voice Text software
- issue of cost: for desktop use or for creating files to publish on the internet, this can create a big difference in pricing
- time it takes for conversion to MP3: 2 – 2.5 hours for 16 – 20 pg. articles
- editing for conversion:

Remove: references, citations, end notes, tables, graphs, figures, charts, etc.

Include: Front Matter, Coding for Heading pauses, table, image, chart descriptions

Code in extra pauses to indicate a new paragraph

- conversion challenges:

Symbols (e.g. >, *, etc.) are not always recognized by the software

Word tenses e.g. “red” to substitute past tense “read”

Brackets are ignored, need to code in a pause or a change in pitch

Acronyms: software would sometimes spell it out or read it as one word)

An online survey was also conducted by the MP3 research team, and selected portions of the results are included below:

Top 3 Geographic Origins of MP3 Downloads: 1) United States 2) Canada 3) United Kingdom

50% of respondents said they listened to MP3 articles on the PC/laptop, 41% on MP3 players

As for reasons why they listened to MP3 articles, responses ranged from "professional development", "education/study", "curiosity", "research", and others.

24% of respondents said they listened at home, 22% in the office, and 21% while commuting.

65% of respondents said they downloaded and listened to 1-2 articles.

Conclusions
- MP3 audio files are at the beginning of the “diffusion” curve (based on Everett Rogers’ Theory of Diffusion of Innovations)
- further research needs to be done

~About the Team~
Kathy Killoh
Paula Smith
Shubhash Wasti

~Related Links~
IRRODL – International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning

A Case Study of Online Publishing at CJC-Online: Experiences, Insights, and Considerations for Adoption

Presenters:

Michael Felczak (School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Rowland Lorimer (Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University, Canada)
Richard Smith (School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada)

Presented on: July 13, 2007 at 9:40am in SFUHC Sauder Industries Policy Room

~Click for abstract~

~Blogger’s commentary~

The CJC (Canadian Journal of Communications) experience is certainly worthy of note, in terms of its contribution of valuable insights into various issues related to scholarly online publishing.

First of all, in describing the motivation and early stages in moving CJC online, Richard Smith touches on the economics involved in scholarly publishing and sees online publishing as a way to deal with increasingly high prices of periodicals. Although we understand the incentive behind the publishers’ intent to protect their own economic interests, when journal costs become less and less affordable, educational institutions must seek alternatives to protect their own scholarly interests as well as the public’s intellectual rights to access knowledge. The CJC example contributes to increasing that accessibility to knowledge for every one of us, and perhaps also to decreasing just a little bit of that monopoly granted to publishers through copyright law.

Michael Felczak then relates the happy tale of moving all the CJC issues online, as well as the challenge of writing a custom code within the OJS framework. Fortunately, through collaborative efforts, both tasks were accomplished. Currently, everyone with an internet connection can access all of CJC’s issues, and their custom code is in itself a commendable contribution to the Open Access movement, since their code can also be of use to other journals requiring similar functionalities for the system.

Finally, Rowland Lorimer mentions the possibility of cooperation between the commercial sector and the public sphere. These two can attempt to balance the interests of each sphere by working together, so that the tragedy of the commons as well as that of the anti-commons can be avoided. Rowland Lorimer also recognizes the importance of looking at access models and market realities in publishing today. Various access models are out there today, whether it be delayed open access or partial open access, and this diversity only means that the innovation or creativity element is significant in the expansion of Open Access. As we cannot ignore the realities of the publishing industry, the non-profit or academic sector must find innovative solutions to achieve the aim of making knowledge public, while finding workable ways around the legal, economic, moral and epistemological issues.

~Summary of Presentation~

1) Motivation, First Steps, Early Challenges (Richard Smith)
- interested in online publishing because of curiosity, desire to find an alternative (to continually rising serials pricing), extendability (i.e. new options for delivery) and possibility
- DIY online publishing: first steps involved converting SGML to HTML but this was not a sustainable method because it required a lot of manual work, and conversion routes were never reliable
- the team found a community alternative in PKP/OJS

2) Transition to and Participation with OJS (Michael Felczak)
- moved to OJS in February 2004
- at time of import, 12 volumes online (1993-2003), with 3-4 issues in each volume
- OJS import tool requires XML description of volumes/issues/articles: fortunately this info was already in the database, making it so much easier to export data into XML format and begin using OJS
- within a year, back issues vol. 1-15 (1974-1990) were scanned, with help from SFU library (scanning into PDF format)
- today, all back issues are online and open access (currently Vol 31)
- some functionalities were missing at the time, but custom code was later written within the OJS framework. These functionalities included:
a) enter individual or institutional online subscriptions;
b) post announcements to keep in touch with readership;
c) allow graduate students to submit thesis abstracts
- custom code can also benefit community/journals with similar needs

3) From Production to Publishing (Rowland Lorimer)
- production is not the same as publishing; production is the foundation for publishing
- non-profit publishing model: emphasis on the scholarly record, with peer review as essential element

Example: Nature
- has an editorial identity, an existence beyond simply the summation of its articles
- has a publishing vision: how the journal is presented to the world, such as what is presented on the cover, giving it a “planned public face”
- important to look at market realities, which is another word for your “readership”, so it is essential to think about the market and how you present yourself to your readers

Issues to consider in Online Journal Publishing
- human resources: cannot depend only on one person to ensure things run smoothly
- infrastructure: server farms are more reliable than one single server
- enriched production: once the journal is online, it is possible to add other forms of media (such as sound, video, etc.)
- looking at access models & publishing realities

We can also consider strategic cooperatives for online knowledge dissemination through the libraries, editors, and even through commercial sectors where they are people interested in cooperating with the non-profit sector.

Online Public Knowledge Infrastructure
- authors and journal producers and publishers
- journal repositories and provisioners: library systems and library acquisitions
- aggregation and metacontent: tools and marketing e.g. Synergies)
- emergent: a Public Knowledge Infrastructure
- coda: from patents to copyright, as there is much valuble intellectual property that we want to keep in the public domain through public sector cooperatives

~Info on the Presenters~
Profile: Michael Felczak, Rowland Lorimer, Richard Smith
ACT Lab » Michael Felczak
studies in technology & society – Richard Smith

~Related Links~
Canadian Journal of Communication (CJC)
School of Communication, Simon Fraser University
Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing, Simon Fraser University

New publishing models for scholarly communication and the Brazilian open access policy

Presenter: Sely M. Costa
Partner: Helio Kuramoto
PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
Thursday, July 12, 2007
2:55 PM - 3:55 PM in SFUHC
Westcoast Energy Executive Meeting Room
Vancouver, Canada
Abstract



Sely Costa is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Brasilia and can be reached at selmar@unb.br.

The presentation was based on a study of Brazilian online journals using Open Journal Systems (OJS) and of Brazilian open access policies. The idea behind the study was to ask if, using open software, it is possible to implement both the “green road” and the “golden road” in scholarly publishing in Brazil? The “green road” relates to open self-archiving policies, through such resources as Dspace and Eprints. The “golden road” relates to open access publishing, through such resources as Open Journal Systems (OJS) and Open Conference Systems (OCS).

Theoretical Framework
The high prices of journal subscriptions required by prestigious publishers have produced a journal crisis, the result of which has been the bourgeoning new and varied business models for scholarly journals, including open archiving and open access models.

The conventional process of journal publishing is not changing outright because of open access, but a number of patterns in the process are revealed, and questions arise when we talk about open access. Each stage of the conventional process has been called into question by the open access movement, because of new business models. It is unlikely that every journal will become open access, nor is the journal the only communication medium for scholarly communities.

Methodological Procedures and Data
The study performed an analysis of documents, and used both a quantitative and a qualitative approach. It studied 207 scholarly, open access, OJS journals in Brazil, and the Instituto Brasileiro de Informacao em Ciencia e Tecnologia’s (Ibict) Open Access information policies.

OJS journals created per year in Brazil:
In 2004, there were 28 OJS journals created.
In 2005, there were 42.
In 2006, there were 71.
In 2007 (the 1st semester only), there were 66.
The total OJS journals in Brazil as of the end of the study was 207, although Kuramoto (the partner mentioned at the beginning of this blog) told Sely Costa by phone that today, on July 12, 2007, the number has become 230.

The way that OJS journals caught on in Brazil was that, in 2004 John Willinsky presented at a conference. Kuramoto was there and he decided to carry out OJS initiatives in Brazil.

OJS journals in Brazil by discipline:
Science, Technology, Medicine: 62
Social Sciences: 54
Arts and Humanities: 53
Multidisciplinary: 38
Total: 207

OJS journals in Brazil by geographic region:
North: 5
Northeast: 20
South: 82
Southeast: 83
MiddleWest: 17 (Sely Costa’s region)

What is being Done in Brazil in the Open Access Movement
-Carrying out technology prospective studies
-Customizing software (OJS, OCS, Eprints, Dspace, NDLTD)
-Training people (640 people, at 189 institutions)
-Translating/transferring technology (SEET, SOAC (OCS in Portuguese), Institutional Repositories at universities)
-Building portals (data and service providers, such as BDTD; Oasis.br)
-Sensitizing the scholarly community and policy makers to the issues and benefits of Open Access (for example, Sely Costa has run two international conferences in Brazil; also Brazil has been the first country to have a bill presented to parliament proposing a mandatory policy for open access).
-Expanding Brazilian initiatives to the Portuguese speaking (ALemPLus project) and Latin American countries (DRIVER)

Some Problems with OJS in Brazil
There is a rapidly growing number of OJS journals being created in Brazil, contributing to the gradual accomplishment of the “golden road,” full open access approach.

However, the study revealed some problems within the open access journal movement in Brazil: 1. a great number of OJS journal titles do not reflect any area, field, topic, or discipline. An academic journal title should reflect the topic in some respect, especially with the creation of so many new journals; 2. discontinuities of publication, wherein some journals are created without studying whether there is enough knowledge production in the area and there will be enough submissions to publish regularly. Some journals publish only one or two issues, then stop; 3. many journals do not disclose information about the submission process and peer review process of the journal, so it is unclear if these process are even happening at all, or how they are proceeding, a lack of disclosure which is unscholarly; 4. although the majority of OJS journals in Brazil are created and maintained by an individual researcher of a university dept/course/post-grad programme, there is a problem with the journals not complying with academic standards, even though they are created in academic environments. The problem is that publishers are not trained in the standards of academic publishing before actually going ahead and publishing with the easy and straightforward OJS system.

Many problems identified are due to a lack of knowledge about scholarly publishing itself, in whatever medium. Although there are technicians developing competence in OJS, none are concerned with or aware of the process of scholarly publishing as a whole.

In closing, the presenter briefly went over Ibict’s role in the open access movement in Brazil (although Sely Costa is not part of Ibict, Kuamoto is part of the institution): 1. it is involved in promoting disseminating, and implementing OA initiatives and policies; 2. it has sponsored 5 academic conferences to provide workshops to train people in these systems; 3. in 2006 the Brazilian Open Access Movement issued its manifesto; 4. work has been done with Portugal, and Latin American countries; 5. work has been done with the SciELO people (though they do not want to work with OA people because they believe their positions of leadership are being taken); 6. work with the Brazilian parliament, Brazilian Council of University Chancellors (have met with every university chancellor), learned societies, funding agencies, and researchers.

Comments and Questions:
Comment: People don’t want to switch to Open Access because they want to make money. What they (policy makers) do not see is that problems with the OJS system can be fixed by the general populace, and there need not be secrecy and proprietary software use.

Costa’s response: Yes, I agree. There is a problem with paying for things. From the information side in Brazil, they pay companies to hold conference proceedings, to manage that information, but then they can’t access the information! OCS could have done this for them for free.

Comment (same commenter): There are also human resource problems. People now know about the software, but not about standards of scientific publication in general. Everyone needs training in this area. But three day workshops are not enough to fully train people in all these areas-OJS, academic publishing in general, and the greater philosophy of OA. The problem with the Public Knowledge Project development team is that, in Brazil, we need resources to understand what they at the PKP know already about OA and scholarly publishing. We need PKP chapters around the world to do this.


Link to Open Journal Systems (OJS)

Link to Open Conference Systems (OCS)


Commentary (by blogger)
Sely Costa’s presentation centred on the rapid and accelerating creation of OJS journals in Brazil since the OJS fueled Open Access movement first began in Brazil in 2004, after being initiated by Kuramoto. Her presentation raised points about the counter-productivity of proprietary mindsets and the issue of the continuity of academic standards of publishing. While OJS has taken off and appears to be flourishing in Brazil, the case of Brazil demonstrates that wide implementation of OJS is only one step towards successfully achieving the “golden road” of open access in a nation.

The aim of Sely Costa, Kuramoto, and the Open Access Movement appears to be the establishment of a governmental policy mandating open access in the nation of Brazil. A staunch inhibitor to this aim is the propriety mindset of governmental and institutional policy makers, as well as of academics in general. The Brazilian Open Access Movement has been trying to deal with resistance from government, policy makers, and established scientific research repositories such as SciELO, as well as to spread awareness to scholars about the Open Access movement and its benefits for academic publishing. They have made progress on all these fronts, but continue to face resistance to the changeover to a non-proprietary model of publishing. SciELO, for example, is difficult to work with because they believe the Open Access people are trying to steal their position of leadership in the field of scientific research. This protectionism about reputation is mixed with skepticism about the financial viability of the open access model. Government and university policy makers have a similar skepticism about the financial viability of the open access model, and appear unconvinced by the success of numbers of open access journals being created. The argument in favour of a national policy would be that knowledge distribution and quality increase with open access; however, to convince institutions who think in terms of proprietary economics that knowledge distribution and quality are of greater value than proprietary and financial rights may be difficult. The argument may need to turn to such issues as the cost efficiency of open access, and the overall increase in innovation and therefore of possible economic, profit creating technologies for Brazil.

The other main issue raised in the presentation was one of standards of scholarly publishing in OJS journals. The four problems that Sely Costa found with OJS journals—non-topical titles, discontinuities of publication, non-disclosure of reviewing policies, and lack of academic standards in general—have to do with a lack of training in and knowledge about the long tradition of academic journal publishing standards. The issue arises partly because of OJS’s strength as a free, easy to access, and easy to use system. The technology itself is being mastered in Brazil, but this ease means that old, established channels for publication can be circumvented. The new publications are proving, in some cases, to lack traditional academic standards, such as continuous publication, publicly known review policies, and scholarly editorial standards. The break from the old publication model has shown that that model, although inefficient in terms of distribution, held high and useful standards in terms of the scrutinizing and preparing the work published. Sely Costa argues that these old standards need to be learned and applied to OJS journals, to keep the OJS movement in the continuous tradition of academic journal publishing. It appears that especially regarding the issue of editoral and peer-review processes, which are a crucial check that ensures quality of knowledge, standards must be open and high.

However, it is also possible that OJS will not prove a medium amenable to the exact, proprietary publishing traditions of the past, and that new models and standards might emerge. For example, the idea of continuous publication may fall to the wayside, and new models of “publish when it’s ready” may emerge. In this model, articles would appear in certain fields only when they are available, even if there are gaps in time. The idea of journals in volumes and issues would not be needed. Perhaps, with the high aspirations of the Brazilian Open Access Movement to trigger a national change, achieving and upholding established and strict traditions of academic publishing in open access online journals is crucial for the moment, to convince those used to the proprietary model that Open Access matches proprietary publications in scholarship.

Strengthening African Research Culture and Capacities Project

Presenter: Samuel Smith Esseh
PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
Thursday, July 12, 2007
1:45 PM - 2:45 PM in SFUHC
Westcoast Energy Executive Meeting Room
Vancouver, Canada
Abstract

Samuel Smith Esseh is undertaking doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia and is a member of the Public Knowledge Project.

Samuel Esseh just returned from a research trip to Africa three days ago. He had been in Africa for eight months, traveling to five countries giving workshops and conducting research on the potential of online systems in African research pursuits. He presented a research paper that is still in progress, and discussed initial findings and what the project hopes to achieve.

The Scholarly Publishing Situation in Africa: Statistics
Africa is the second largest continent, and has over 900 million people, and therefore should be a world leader in global scholarship. In 1960-1979, scholarly publishing began to rise in Africa, a result of gains in social and political independence. However, in 1980-1985 scholarly publishing plateaued. From 1986 to now, scholarly publishing in Africa has been declining steadily.

Based on studying the PASCAL databsase from 1991-1997, and the ISI from 1981-2000,
scholarly publishing in Aftrica has been concentrated in only 7 countries of 52. These seven countries account for 75% of scholarly publishing in the continent, while the other forty-five countries account for only 25%.

The circulation numbers for African journals are low. True scholarly publications have an average circulation of 500, or at least 100-200. Only one African journal has more than 400 external subscribers. All the others have a maximum of 50 or less.

Africa has not been increasing its overall contribution to world scholarship, while many countries in other continents have seen huge increases in their contribution of publications and papers. One reason is that African universities have very low budgets for journal access and publication, ranging from a budget of 50 cents per student (Ghana) to $2.66 per student (Cape Coast) to the high of $9.00 per student (Dar es Salaam).

African scholarly works are poorly distributed, barely marketed, and hardly accessed. African scholars do not have access to all the scientific literature they need in order for science in Africa to progress efficiently and effectively.

The Growth of Internet Use in Africa
The introduction of the internet in Africa has given hope for increasing higher education’s access to research and scholarship, as well as for opening opportunities to create and disseminate information. In 1995, very few countries in Africa had access to the internet. There were only 23,000 users in the entire continent. Now, every country has some form of internet access, with an estimated 9, 000, 000 users. The growth of internet use in the world from 2000-2007 has been 203 %, while the growth in Africa has been much larger, at 625%.

The next step, with the increase in internet access, is to support local scholarly publishing initiatives to increase access to African research and advance local research capacities. Print production has failed Africa. Not one resource in the print production process comes from Africa, as the paper, ink, and machines are imported. The only African resource is manpower. However, importing materials is expensive, with many tariffs, and print journals are too costly, putting local publishers out of business.

Aims and Objectives for the Project
This research project aims to assess the potential contribution of online publishing systems for African scholarly journals. It is concerned with studying issues in online scholarly publishing in Africa pertaining to economics, authorship, peer review processes, technical requirements, readership benefits, and scholarly impact.

Achieving these objectives requires examining feasibility requirements and the potential value of online journal publishing in Africa. The project has asked three main Questions to achieve its aims:

1 Scholarly publishing: what is the current state of journal publishing. What changes are underway in editorial, economic etc. areas?
2. Scholarly communication infrastructure: What are current levels and patterns of access to online resources?
3 Online publishing systems. In what ways can online technologies be used, and locally produced?

Research Design
Samuel Esseh's research involved a sample of 280 participants from five countries in Africa (2 from eastern Africa, 2 from western Africa, and 1 from South Africa). He gave workshops about the use of Open Journal Systems (OJS) for online scholarly publishing. The participants ranged from journal editors, journal staff, potential editors, faculty, students, academic administrators, university librarians, and IT administrators and staff. The participation from universities and research groups broke down in the following way. In Nigeria, two regions were visited, and in these two regions, 8 universities and 7 research groups attended the workshops. In Ghana, one region was visited, and 4 universities, and 6 research groups participated. In Uganda, one region was visited and 2 universities and 3 research groups participated. In Kenya, one region was visited and 3 universities and four research groups participated. In South Africa, two regions were visited and 6 universities and 7 research groups participated.

Data collection was done through questionnaires given to four groups: editorial/staff, librarians/IT staff, potential editors/faculty, and IT Administrators. These questionnaires aimed to examine the current state of journal publishing in Africa, and to provide a baseline with which to assess changes in the coming years.

The workshops were tailored for these same groups of people, and aimed to introduce the participants to new developments in online publishing support (for example, OJS) as well as to provide a hands-on opportunity to see how these systems work, and how labour would need to be distributed to use these free online journal publishing systems.

Now that the questionnaires and workshops have been completed, the project is following up with emails to the participants before writing the report.

Findings
Common themes/concerns that came up in questionnaires
-What is the appropriate economic model for sustainability of online publishing systems?
-The problem of the availability of online infrastructure (bandwith, computers, power outages)
-The human resource requirements-skills training (editorial staff, reviewers)
-Institutional acceptability of online publishing (accreditations, safeguarding intellectual property).
-Incentives to publish.
-Where will funding come from?
-How to integrate OJS with other repositories?
-What are the institutional/national policies around this?
-What about institutional priorities?
-Is technical support available for this kind of endeavour?

General comments from the participants:
-OJS is very positive, I see the need for this and it will help the development of countries in Africa.
-It would be nice to have more time on the walk through of OJS.
-OJS is a powerful tool, it is versatile, easy to operate, not expensive, and few staff are required.
-OJS is perfect to launch an institution’s research resources.
-I learned more about Open Access publishing. Despite the disadvantage of many people not having internet access in Africa, the software has potential to support research efforts in Africa.

In closing, there is a pressing need to explore new ways of having African researchers and scholars participate in the global knowledge exchange. This project aspires to research and develop one possible means of increasing that exchange.

Comment at end of presentation:
There is a similar situation in Brazil. This research is good because it shows the numbers, which policy makers need. With the numbers, it is not just an idea or a dream, it is real and grounded.


Link to the Strengthening African Research Culture and Capacities Project website


Link to the original project proposal, before Samuel Esseh's trip to Africa, entitled Strengthening Scholarly Publishing in Africa: Assessing the Potential of Online Systems

Commentary (by blogger)
Samuel Esseh’s research shows that, in general, scholars, researchers, librarians, and IT specialists in the major centres for scholarship in Africa see OJS and Open Access in general as a means for increasing the visibility and contribution of African research globally. A large problem is the low level of internet access on the continent, as most countries on the continent do not have the resources to provide cheap and ubiquitous internet access. This is an issue of continuity—a continuing legacy of poverty in the country, and a corresponding lack of technological advancement. However, Samuel Esseh made it clear that, in fact, it is the old print technologies that are overly costly, and that the new, digital technologies are cheaper for publishing academic journals. It appears that Africa is breaking radically from past trends, as is shown by its 625% increase in internet use since 2000. This break is sorely needed, as the old printing presses have failed African scholarly publishing. Increases in technology, which at first are costly, in the end will result in cheaper and greater participation of Africa on the global stage.

The larger radical break from past trends being aimed at is the increase in the visibility and contribution of African research to the global community. The brief period of increase in African research publications in the sixties and seventies (a result of a break from the colonial past) died off in the eighties and, currently, is continuing the trend of not increasing over time, especially compared with the huge increases in research output of the rest of the global community. It is clear that, with the enormous size and populations of Africa, the past invisibility of African research is wildly out of proportion to the numbers of potential research contributions, and that the radical break being aimed at is radical only in comparison to the extreme dearth of the past. The hope, at first, is to encourage only a just and proportionate level of global contribution for the continent.

OJS and Open Access publishing on the web in general are radical new tools for the efficient and global propagation of new research findings. In some countries, these tools are increasing already vast research contributions greatly. In Africa, these radical and inexpensive tools will hopefully help to produce a radical increase that will result, at first, in an average and proportionate global scholarly contribution. It appears, however, that in Africa the technological issue of lack of internet access must be addressed alongside the changeover to online forms of publishing.

Partners

Presenters: Astrid van Wesenbeeck (right), Martin van Luijt (left), both of whom are from the University Library Utrecht, Netherlands
PKP Scholarly Publishing Conference
Thursday, July 12, 2007
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM in SFUHC Sauder
Vancouver, Canada
Abstract

Astrid van Wesenbeeck is a member of the publishing unit in the University Library at Utrecht, and is responsible for open access projects. Martin van Luijt is the manager of the IT development team in the University Library at Utrecht.

History of Open Access at Utrecht University Library
Utrecht University Library is the biggest university library in the Netherlands, at the largest university in the Netherlands. The library serves 27, 000 students, 8,000 staff members, and 45 university departments, all of whom are potential participants in the PARTNER open access and collaboration program.

Astrid presented a brief history of the library’s involvement in open access journals. In 2000-2001, the library started publishing e-journals, although most were not open access. Recently, the library had come to be publishing 12 open access e-journals, some of them fully open and others having delayed access. They found that their systems for online publishing were inefficient and it was taking a long time to get new journals up and running, and that these did not have an editorial workflow system to manage workflow once the journal was functional. They came across Open Journal Systems (OJS), invited John Willinsky to Ultrecht, researched OJS, and in April 2007 decided to work with this program. The result is a new Open Access journal published through OJS called Relief.

The library wants to do more than publish Open Access journals. As a library, they want to be more supportive to more research communities: to offer an open, solid, clever, smart platform for collaboration. These ideas were put into a five year project called PARTNER. PARTNER found three user groups at the university who wanted to use the library’s proposed collaborative environment and who offered their input in its development stages.

The Goal of the PARTNER Project
Martin then presented, stating that the traditional role of the library is changing, and they as a library want to reinvent themselves by establishing more services and collaborative Knowledge Centers for research groups. Collaboration is hard, so they have begun by focusing on research groups because research groups are small, but not too small. They currently focus on the university community at Utrecht. They want to create this collaborative tool through collaboration with interested research communities.

The idea behind PARTNER is that researchers do not have an environment to host their own work. From consultations with the three research groups, the project has discovered that researchers want tools for developing ideas for research proposals, and the resources to contribute to an ongoing discussion (Virtual Knowledge Centers). The PARTNER project has prototype online services within the university community, such as Wiki collaborative tools and document libraries. The project wants to offer more of these tools to a wider community, and integrate them with other tools.

The trouble the project is currently facing is that they want to integrate their program with other programs, but it is costly to do so because they need to develop each integration by itself. They hope to eventually have 50-100 Virtual Knowledge Centers (VKCs). To do this, they are moving towards an overall architecture that supports the integration of applications. They also wish to obtain different products that can be standardized under similar standards, to develop an architecture based on web services, and to expose functionality openly, so that integration between products can be undertaken easily.

Examples of How it Will Work
Astrid offered concrete examples of this kind of integration in the library at Utrecht.
Their current development are based on wishes from the three user groups (Medicine and Pharmacy research groups). The library hopes to provide a service wherein a researcher can have written a paper, be at the final stage, and easily store their research output in the related Knowledge Center by clicking a button. The idea is to bring various systems together without bothering the researcher. The researcher need only press an archive button, and the library’s repository retrieves the data automatically. The researcher need not leave the research environment, or fill out long, tiresome web forms, or face security warnings when archiving material.

OJS is useful because perhaps you want all the output from one research group combined and/or displayed in a nice way. OJS works well for this kind of thing because OJS can retrieve documents and publish them easily. The new OJS journal at the library, Relief, is not really an example of this, but is a step towards working with OJS more widely.

Other capabilities will be that researchers can submit an article to a suitable journal as easily as they can archive it. They would simply type in the journal name and send it off to be considered for publication by an OJS journal. The researcher can then monitor the status of the submission using the OJS author’s page—a page whose data would be displayed directly at the researcher’s Knowledge Center.

BUT most of this is currently conceptual, based on the sample user groups’ desires. The presenters have no idea if it will go any further.

Questions asked after presentation:
Q: Where I (questioner) work, central services will never cut it, because they work with people at different institutions all over the world. So how will it work if the IT is all based within a single institution?

A: The tools will be provided to international partners as well. There are 3 levels of users: 1.the general public; 2.members of the Knowledge Center (domestic and international partners); 3. groups involved in a specific project (not limited to a single university). The PARTNER project is starting with their own research groups done locally and nationally—international cooperation will come later.

Link to Igitur a department of the Utrecht Library involved in the PARTNER project

Link to Open Journal Systems (OJS)


Commentary (by blogger)
The proposed PARTNER project is concerned with changing the role of the library, in a certain way, and simply maintaining the same role in a new, advancing technological setting. The proposal is that the library will offer easy archiving and collaboration services to researchers. In a sense, it has always been the job of libraries to offer both of these tools, although in a much slower and more cumbersome way. In order to have research archived at a library, the researcher needed in the past to get it published, and then to have the journal or book added to the library’s holdings. These research findings were available to the greater research community, and represented a kind of communication among researchers. However, this communication is not exactly collaboration, and the time lapse between obtaining research findings, acceptance for publication in a journal, and the library acquiring the journal could be years.

The Utrecht University Library is evolving its role as an institution that archives research findings and enables scholarly communication. In the proposed PARTNER project, researchers could archive their materials immediately in Knowledge Centres, which are linked to other researchers who are likely to be interested in the data. This data can be used immediately by other researchers, and can be changed or amended easily by the original author. The time lapse barrier of the past is essentially eliminated. Further, the past ability of researchers to “communicate” through the holdings of libraries (a communication that is largely one-sided, and not at all interactive or fast) is being updated to an advanced forum for immediate, real-time, two-sided (or more) communication which can easily be used for research collaboration. The library aims to both preserving its old role, and update it for a new, digital age.

The Utrecht University Library is not only concerned with maintaining and updating its past role as an archiving and communication-enabling institution. The PARTNER project is also concerned with aspects of research such as incentive, and encouraging innovation among scholars. The incentive to publish is increased when the researcher need only click a button to publish the findings. Further, when the researcher knows that others can use the findings, incentive to publish, and an environment of innovation go hand-in-hand. In the PARTNER project, the library acquires a new concern that goes beyond merely acquiring holdings that might help the academic community—it is concerned with helping the academic community more easily create dynamic archives.

The ideas behind the PARTNER project are certainly inspiring and ambitious, but the problem is that the project is currently only ideas. The actual Knowledge Centers and other collaborative tools are not developed or functioning at the library.