Michelle Willmers, Programme Manager, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme

1. Supporting the development agenda:
research information for policy-makers and a non-academic audience
BioMed Central Open Access Africa 2012 Conference, Cape Town, 4 November
Michelle Willmers
CC-BY-SA

2. Towards a definition of Scholarly
Communication that suits the African
context
- Conducting research, developing ideas and informal communications.
- Preparing, shaping and communicating what will become formal research
outputs.
- Disseminating formal outputs.
- Managing personal careers, and research teams and programmes.
- Communicating scholarly ideas to broader communities.
(Thorin, 2003)
> We like this definition because it
speaks to ideas and processes, a
broad range of outputs (formal and
informal) and addresses both
relevance and prestige.

3. What is the relationship between
scholarly communication and impact in a
developmental context?
Values Mission Impact
“Our results indicate that the notion of scientific impact is a multi-dimensional
construct that cannot be adequately measured by any single indicator, although
some measures are more suitable than others.” (Bollen et al. 2009)

4. What kinds of impact should we expect
from research? (Davies et al. 2005)
- Knowledge production (e.g. peer-reviewed papers)
- Research capacity building (postgraduate training and career
development)
- Policy or product development (incl. input into official guidelines or
protocols)
- Sector benefits (impacts on scientific client groups)
- Societal benefits (economic > health > productivity > innovation)

7. So, basically, we need
research to work
harder in our context.

8. Which research
components/formats/ge
nres are we going to
put to work?
(All of them)

9. Statistics tell us that African
research is invisible

10. But that doesn’t mean
there isn’t a large amount
of very important research
going on

11. It depends where you’re looking
(and what you’re looking at)

12. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

13. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

14. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

15. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

16. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

17. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

18. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

19. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

20. Carnegie3 participants (cont.)

21. We see a mountain of research content/output
being produced in African universities
Journal Articles
Conference Papers
Technical Reports
Working Papers
Policy Briefs
Blog Posts
Tweets

22. But we treat the mountain like an iceberg
Journal Articles
Conference Papers
Technical Reports
Working Papers
Policy Briefs
Blog Posts
Tweets

23. Privileging the sharing of outputs that address
prestige
Journal Articles
Prestige

24. How does this serve the development agenda
and address the need for relevance?
Journal Articles

25. Rewards &
Incentives
Values Mission Impact
ce ge
van esti
Rele Pr

26. In the drive for research to
address development we are
exchanging new and
interesting forms of
scholarship with new and
interesting consituencies
(who are often not interested in journal articles)

27. The open science model becomes
more compelling in trying to address
development
“Publishing systems that run as application servers.”
(DeWaard & Martone 2012)

28. Think tanks and research units responding
to issues on the ground through a range of
approaches using a wide range of new
tools and platforms
> Communication is at the centre of this
endeavor
“A think tank does not produce knowledge for the pleasure of
it, but to modify reality and impact on it. With this objective,
not investing in communication is a contradiction.”
Laura Zommer (Cippec, Argentina)

29. Publications Online/Digital Media Events
• Academic journal • Emailed newsletter • Op-eds • Workshops and
• Academic paper • Website • Press release training
• Semi-academic • Blog • Media ‘Q&A’s • Seminars (and
magazine • Twitter • Media Awards participation in
• Working Paper • Facebook • Media training seminars)
(series) • LinkedIn • Media • Webinars
• Research Report • Youtube channel for partnerships/ • Public Events
• Background Note videos and MOOCs • subcontracts (debates and
(on a policy issue • Ustream for for features presentations)
or methodology) ‘webstreaming’ and analysis • Public Event
• Project Briefing • Flickr or Picassa • Media face-to- Series
• Policy Brief • ITunes for podcasts face briefings • Private
• Draft legislation • Scribd for documents meetings with
• Opinion • Google Drive or Dropbox key
• Workshop or for intranet and sharing stakeholders
Event Report documents
• Reading list, • SurveyMonkey
Annotated • Eventbrite
Bibliography or • Wikipedia
Literature Review • Data visualisation

30. There is new
global focus on
research uptake

33. New focus on how
to think about
impact

34. Slide by Cameron Neylon CC-BY-SA

36. New focus on
correlation between
openness and
economic
development /
innovation

40. New modes of
delivery

43. New modes of
interface between
research and
teaching

45. And new
challenges
1. Addressing transformation of reward and incentive
systems > building a new policy environment
2. Addressing content management and curation systems for
alternative forms of content (most systems and processes
set up for journal curation/exchange)
3. Exploring new forms of quality assurance and peer review
4. Making publishers of institutions, research units and think
tanks > cohesive strategic approach

46. References
Bollen J, Van De Sompel H, Hagberg A & Chute R (2009) A principle component analysis of 39 scientific
impact measures. PLOSone 4(6): e6022. DOI: 10.371/journal.pone.0006022. Available at
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0006022
Davies H, Nutley S & Walter I (2005) Approaches to assessing the non-academic impact of social science
research. Report of the ESRC Symposium on assessing the non-academic impact of research, 12-13 May
2005
DeWaard A & Martone ME (2012) Force II: The Future of Research Communications and eScholarship.
NCBO webinar. Available at http://www.slideshare.net/anitawaard/ncbo-webinar-force11
Herb U (2010) Alternative Impact Measures for Open Access Documents? An examination of how to
generate interoperable usage information from distributed open access services. Proceedings from
World Library and Information Congress: 76th IFLA General Conference and Assembly, 10-15 August
2010, Gothenburg, Sweden
Thorin SE (2003) Global changes in scholarly communication. In SC Hsianghoo, PWT Poon and C
McNaught (eds) eLearning and Digital Publishing. Dordrecht: Springer. Available at
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w873x131171x2421

47. Michelle Willmers
Programme Manager, Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme
michelle.willmers@uct.ac.za
http://www.scaprogramme.org.za/
@SCAprogramme
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