A Academy of Science of South Africa publicou dois estudos empíricos sobre comunicação científica, um sobre periódicos científicos (2006) e o segundo sobre livros científicos (2009). Ambos fizeram recomendações significativas para a formulação de políticas. A criação do SciELO África do Sul foi vista pela Academia como uma resposta em atenção ao pedido do governo para a implantação das recomendações dos dois estudos. Essa plataforma de acesso aberto serve como base para o fortalecimento do impacto, da visibilidade e qualidade dos periódicos sul-africanos, e, deste modo, aumentar o impacto do trabalho científico de um país emergente. Junto com o Departament of Higher Education and Training, a Academia está auxiliando na implantação da “politica e procedimentos para a mensuração da produção de pesquisas das instituições públicas de educação superior”. A interação entre o SciELO SA e as políticas sul-africanas para a pesquisa e a comunicação científicas e os incentivos relacionados serão discutidos. The Academy of Science of South Africa has published two evidenced based studies on scholarly communication, one on scholarly journals (2006) and the second on scholarly books (2009). Both made significant recommendations for the development of policy. The establishment of SciELO South Africa was seen by the academy as a key response to government’s request to implement the recommendations of the two studies. This OA platform serves as the basis for strengthening the impact, visibility and quality of South African journals and hence to enhance the impact of scholarly work from an emerging country. Together with the Department of Higher Education and Training, the Academy is assisting with the implementation of “the policy and procedures for the measurement of research outputs of public higher education institutions”. The interaction between SciELO SA and South African policies on research and scholarly communication and the related incentives will be discussed. La Academia de Ciencias de Sudáfrica ha publicado dos estudios basados en la evidencia sobre la comunicación académica, uno en revistas científicas (2006) y el segundo en los libros académicos (2009). Ambos hicieron recomendaciones importantes para el desarrollo de la política. El establecimiento de SciELO Sudáfrica fue visto por la academia como respuesta clave a la solicitud del gobierno para poner en práctica las recomendaciones de los dos estudios. Esta plataforma AA sirve de base para el fortalecimiento del impacto, la visibilidad y la calidad de las revistas sudafricanas y por lo tanto para mejorar el impacto de la labor académica de un país emergente. Junto con el Departamento de Educación Superior y Capacitación, la Academia está colaborando en la aplicación de “la política y los procedimientos para la medición de los resultados de la investigación de las instituciones públicas de educación superior”. Se discutirá la interacción entr

1. SciELO: South Africa: implementation
of policy advice by an Academy of
Science
Robin Crewe
Chair: Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South
Africa (CSPiSA)
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
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2. Academy Reports on Scholarly
Publication
2006 – Report of a Strategic Approach to Research
publishing in South Africa
2009 – Scholarly Books: their production, use and
evaluation in South Africa today.
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3. Report on Research Publishing
The 2006 ASSAf report identified the following:
“the …. low visibility of the existing local journals, most
appearing only in print and with low circulation
figures, and with few achieving inclusion in
prominent international journal indexes, as the key
barrier to general enhancement of the quantity and
quality of locally performed research” Gevers
(2013)”.
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4. Academy Committee on Scholarly
Publishing (CSPiSA)
Supported by The Scholarly Publishing Unit (SPU)
Functions of the Unit –
 National Scholarly (Journal) Editors’ Forum
 National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum
 Open Access Platform –SciELO SA
 Discipline-grouped Peer review panels for journals
 Online Scientific writing courses
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5. Global Open Access to Quality Local
Journals
To achieve this:
-Task Team to review possible National Platform for
Open Access Publishing lead by Wieland Gevers
Reviewed potential international platforms
Visited SciELO, Brazil 7-11 June 2008
Concluded that SciELO started in Brazil would best
achieve this purpose
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6. HISTORY OF SciELO SA
 Following Task Team visit in 2008. Pilot Established:
mid-2009 with 7 titles
 SciELO Brazil hosted the platform and did all the epublication, including mark-up of articles.
 ASSAf started doing more and more mark-up of
articles. 2010-2011
 ASSAf took over ALL the e-publication and IT
processes of its collection 2012
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7. TRAINING OF SciELO SA
Brazil
South
Africa
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8. Policy Environment in South Africa
 Department of Higher Education and Training –
Responsible for funding Higher Education
Institutions
Introduced research incentive scheme for
Universities in 2003
Direct funding of ‘research publication outputs’
via publication units – US$ 12 000/ unit
 Department of Science and Technology –
National Research Foundation – funding
individual scholars
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9. Current South African Publications
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10. Endorsement of ASSAf reports
 Both departments of government endorsed the
reports on scholarly publishing.
 DST supported and funded extension to South
Africa of the SciELO e-publishing platform.
 SciELO SA is a premier, OA searchable, full-text and
fully indexed journal database that covers a selected
collection of peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
 It is an integral part of a project being developed by
FAPESP in partnership with BIREME.
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11. Academy Committee on Scholarly
Publishing (CSPiSA)
Supported by The Scholarly Publishing Unit (SPU)
Functions of the Unit –
 National Scholarly (Journal) Editors’ Forum
 National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum
 Open Access Platform –SciELO SA
 Discipline-grouped Peer review panels for journals
 Online Scientific writing courses
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12. Return to Policy Environment
Categories:
-Full length peer-reviewed journal articles
-Scholarly books and chapters in books
-Conference proceedings
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13. Return to the Policy Environment II
 Policy makes provision for the recognition of
papers appearing on approved lists: ISI, IBSS
indices and list of South African Journals
 Peer review by ASSAf of South African
journals to be considered for inclusion in
South African list
 Journals approved by peer review can be
included on SciELO SA and recognised for
research incentives.
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14. Status of SciELO SA
 April 2013 - SciELO SA Collection was certified as an
independent collection.
 Currently 28 South African journals are listed as part
of the collection
 Journals in the following disciplinary groups have
been reviewed – Social Sciences; Agriculture and
Related Basic Sciences
 Disciplinary groups under review – Religion,
Theology and related Fields; Health Sciences and
related Medical Fields; Law and related Legal Fields;
Humanities Part 1: Literature Group
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15. SciELO SA Launch - Certification
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16. Policy on OA for Publically Funded
Research
 USA, UK, the EU granting agencies and some grant
funders are developing policies to make OA
mandatory for the research they fund
 Funds made available in grants for this purpose
 In SA, there are 12 institutions that have signed the
Berlin Declaration on OA – institutional initiative
 No established government Open Access Policy
 MRC allows use of grants for OA costs
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17. SciELO SA and quality assurance
 “Get scientific nonsense published”- study by John
Bohannon reported in Science of quality of peer
review in OA journals
 The findings were damning in that a large number of
journals were not undertaking appropriate peer
review and their process of acceptance was flawed.
 OA platforms need to be vigilant in monitoring
journal publishing practices
 As with paper based journals the quality of the
reviewing process is key to credibility.
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18. Obrigado
Gracias
Thank you
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