Keynote address at the EADI-IMWG Workshop, Open for Development, held in Antwerp, 13-14 September 2012

1. Open Access in 2012 – a
developing country perspective
EADI-IMWG Workshop
13 September 2012

2. `Yesterday we were a bunch of activists…
I-Commons, Dubrovnik 2007

3. Attribution Some rights reserved by James Cridland
but now Open Access is in the mainstream

4. ..for the
STM
publishing
industry, a
‘tsunami’…

5. …as high-level policy initiatives are
adopted…

6. AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by riac
…based on the right of public access to
publicly funded research…

7. The World Bank

8. .. transformative uses of information..

9. UNESCO - OA to scientific information…

10. OA to increase journal
impact, especially in the developing
world

11. 2010 -12 - The EU Open Aire…

12. Committing investment to
infrastructure development for
knowledge preservation and impact

13. … the UK, where the Finch Report recommends
investment in OA journal publishing…
http://www.researchinfonet.org/publish/finch/

14. Earmarking funds for encouraging
publication in open access journals

15. … with repositories for research
papers, grey literature and research
data..

20. The first Open Access
declaration –2002
An old tradition and a new technology have
converged to make possible an unprecedented
public good. The old tradition is the willingness
of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of
their research in scholarly journals without
payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge.
The new technology is the internet
..
Budapest Open Access Initiative

22. Why is OA needed?

23. World Research Publication - 2001
http://www.worldmapper.org
2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark
Newman (University of Michigan).

24. Behind this
picture, hierarchies
of power exerted
through a
commercial journal
system …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence

26. …in which ‘mainstream’
(i.e publishable in the index)
=
‘relevant to the English-speaking
global North’
Guédon, J. Open Access and the divide between “mainstream” and “peripheral”
science, 2008. In Como gerir e qualificar revistas científicas (forthcoming , in
Portuguese). (In Press) [Book Chapter].

27. No known copyright restrictions
… the other two-thirds of the world is
‘local’.

28. Attribution Some rights reserved by Will Clayton
…and the emphasis is on
competitiveness…

30. …with the Impact Factor entrenched
as the dominant global measure for
research performance…

33. …there is a
problem…
Attribution Some rights reserved by music2work2

34. …tunnel vision –
only about
journals
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence

35. “The public good they make possible is the
world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-
reviewed journal literature and completely free
and unrestricted access to it by all
scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and
other curious minds.”
Budapest Open Access Initiative

36. Two ‘routes’ to OA -
both focus on journals
Some rights reserved by mrhayata

39. .. The target is increasing exposure and
impact…

40. And this is working - Brazil is now
the 3rd largest publisher of OA
journals in the world, second only
to the USA and the UK.
Alperin et al., 2008, Open access and scholarly
publishing in Latin America: ten flavours and a
few reflections
revista.ibict.br/liinc/index.php/liinc/article/vie

42. …is this enough?
How transformative is
the journal focus?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence

43. In the South this month…

47. Formal publishing
is only the tip of
the iceberg -
Attribution Some rights reserved by natalielucier

49. SCAP project – aligning scholarly
communication with national and institutional

50. Institutions hammered by successive policy
changes…
AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by Peter Curbishley

51. …to whom we offer technical platforms as
the solution - but the scaffolding is lacking…

52. …trying to re-establish
themselves as global
players in higher
education…
AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Mennonite Church USA Archives

53. …yet wanting a research contribution
to national development ….
Some rights reserved by mimaba

54. …in a clash
between
collaborative and
competitive
research
values…
Attribution Some rights reserved by Anthony_Joel

55. National policy – about money
In the knowledge economy
AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved by 401(K) 2012

57. …incentive
systems are
out of line with
national and
institutional
strategies…
AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by ayomide!

59. Our universities, in
particular, should be
directing their research
focus to address the
development and social
needs of our communities.
The impact of their research
should be measured by how
much difference it makes to
the needs of our
communities, rather than by
just how many international
citations researchers receive
in their publications.
Blade Nzimande, UNESCO World Conference
on Higher Education 2009

60. What can be done?

61. Move scholarly communications into
the policy mainstream…

62. Move beyond the journal…

64. Expand the concept of what a
journal is

65. Work with OA publishers more sympathetic
to developing country issues

66. Open everything – from research to
teaching and learning to development
impact

67. Recognise changing patterns of
communication in networked
collaborative research…

68. Traditional Scholarship
Literature reviews
Student Conceptual frameworks
Bibliographies
Proposals
Conceptualisation
Notes Interview transcripts
Lectures Translation
Data sets
Data Collection
Presentations Engagement Data Analysis
Images
Reports Audio recordings
Interviews
Community Findings
Books
Conference papers
Journal articles Technical papers
Scholar
Laura Czerniewicz: The Changing Scholarly Communication and Content Landscape

69. Open Research
Literature reviews
Bibliographies
Conceptual frameworks
Proposals
Conceptualisation
Notes Interview transcripts
Lectures Translation
Data sets
Data Collection
Presentations Engagement Data Analysis
Images
Reports Audio recordings
Interviews
Findings
Books
Conference papers
Journal articles Technical papers
Laura Czerniewicz: The Changing Scholarly Communication and Content Landscape

70. A wider range of measure … Altmetrics

71. Take into account capacity issues in an
integrated approach – technical
platforms on their own do not resolve
the issues…

72. Eve Gray
Scholarly Communication in Africa
Programme
University of Cape Town
http://www.gray-area.co.za
Twitter: graysouth