Presented during the Tshwane University of Technology, Open Access Symposium 22 October 2014

1. Be Seen!
Be Cited!
Have Impact!
Open Access and the Role of the
Academy of Science of South
Africa
Ina Smith, Louise van Heerden
22 October 2014
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2. What is Open Access?
Open Access is the free, immediate, online
availability of research articles, coupled
with the rights to use these articles fully in
the digital environment.

3. Why Open Access?
• Research is expensive
• Publishing on WWW comes at minimal cost
• OA accelerates the pace of scientific
discovery, encourages innovation, enriches
education, stimulates the economy

4. Why Open Access?
• Increased visibility, citations, impact
• Encourages scientific dialogue, collaboration
• Continuous review process
• Rapid dissemination

5. Open Access Saving Lives
Fifteen-year-old high school student Jack Andraka has created a pancreatic
cancer test that is 168 times faster and considerably cheaper than the gold
standard in the field.

6. Open Access Advancing
Innovation

7. “Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of
sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the
creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then
lay intellectual property landmines behind us to
inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to
that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits
against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our
technology.” – Elon Musk, CEO

8. Open Access Informing Society

9. Open Access Influencing Policy
2013 Article published in Food
Control (Elsevier)
27 Feb. 2013 uploaded
12 Nov. 2013 984 downloads
13 May 2014 1 534 downloads
21 Oct. 2014 1 950 downloads
21 Oct. 2014 15 citations

12. Open Access Routes
• Green: Institutional Repository (IR)
Submit a 2nd copy of research output (articles), theses,
dissertations, data sets, open educational resources
(OERs), etc.
• Gold: Open Access Journal Titles
- Publish in OA journal titles
- Offer OA journal hosting service

13. Institutional Repository
• Central online archive
• Collecting, digitally preserving, and
disseminating digital copies of the
intellectual output (research) of an
institution
• More accessible (open), more researchers,
more impact

14. Institutional Repository Landscape
Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR) 3 817 (SA 43)
Directory of Open Access Repositories
(OpenDOAR)
2 600+ (SA 24)
Webometrics Ranking Web of Repositories 1 983 (SA 22)

15. Example: SUNScholar

16. Open Access Journal
• Peer-reviewed
• Serve as forum for introduction and
presentation for scrutiny of new research &
critique existing research
• Available online to reader without financial,
legal, technical barriers

17. Scholarly Journal Publishing
Landscape
Database Titles
Genamics JournalSeek 102 139
Thomson Reuters Master Journal List 16 970
Scopus SCImago Journal & Country Rank 29 385
JURN Directory 3 000
Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory 336 000+

18. Open Access Scholarly Journal
Publishing Landscape
10 032
titles
10 032
titles
http://doaj.org/

19. SA Open Access Scholarly
Journal Publishing Landscape
HMPG
11
AOSiS
26
AOSiS
26
ASSAf
47
ASSAf
47
SU
20
SU
20
AJOL
86
AJOL
86
Sabinet
95
OASPA
Non-OASPA
HMPG
11
Sabinet
95

20. Institutional Scholarly Journal
Publishing Landscape
Example: Stellenbosch University
Open Access 59
Subscription 47
Total 106
http://wiki.lib.sun.ac.za/index.php/SUNJournals/list

21. THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
(ASSAf)
The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) receives funding from the
Department of Science and Technology, along with the NRF, CSIR, HSRC
and the SA National Space Agency.
(Universities in turn receive funding from DHET)
ASSAf’s Mission:
Using science for the benefit of society

22. ASSAf EVIDENCE BASED REPORTS

23. THE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE OF SOUTH AFRICA
(ASSAf)
The 2006 Academy of Science of South Africa’s Report on a Strategic
Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa revealed the invisibility of
South African Research

24. INVISIBILITY
-Papers published in 60 SA journals received not even 1 citation in
any of the 9 000 WoS (TR) journals over a 15-year period
-About 75% of SA scholarly research is not internationally visible or
accessible
•Of the 270+ South African scholarly journals accredited by DHET,
only ±70 are indexed in the Web of Science (Thomson Reuter)
(formerly known as ISI) academic citation index

25. INVISIBILITY (continued)
•Journals from Africa & the Middle East comprise 1% of the Web of
Science
•Furthermore, articles (journals) published by commercial publishers are
not available to researchers who cannot pay for the subscription fees
which renders them invisible to the majority of South Africans
-Journals that are mainly print based are not accessible via the Web
-Quality of the content was very low at the time – not adhering to
international standards

26. RESPONSE FROM GOVERNMENT
•Department of Higher Education & Training (DHET): Encouraging journals to
adhere to international editorial standards. ASSAf now evaluated the quality
of SA journals for accreditation purposes on behalf of DHET
•Department of Science & Technology (DST): The creation of an open
access collection with optimal indexibility to promote South African
scholarly research through enhanced visibility of and easier access to South
African research, leading to higher citation rates and greater collaboration.
DST & DHET approached the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) for help

27. DST & DHET approached the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) for help.
Within the countries’ National System of Innovation (NSI) ASSAf’s Scholarly
Publishing Programme has been mandated to focus on the
QUALITY
VISIBILITY
ACCESS
INDEXIBILITY of peer-reviewed South African scholarly publications

28. ASSAf
EVIDENCE-BASED
REPORTS
for decision making
SPP
(Scholarly Publishing
Programme)
REPORTS
e.g.
Report on Research
Publishing in SA
Review
National Scholarly Peer Review Panels
Book Study Editors’ Forum Online Scientific
Writing
SciELO SA

29. 1st – QUALITY
Towards a new quality assurance system in SA
• In 2009 DHET approached ASSAf to undertake the quality evaluation of
the content of South African journals
• ASSAf is facilitating the external peer reviewing of SA journals
• Aim: To establish their quality and their role in the nation’s knowledge
capital and to provide journals with advice on how to improve their
journals

30. Improving the quality of South African journals
PEER-REVIEWING OF SA JOURNALS
– +/- 270 SA journals divided into broad subject (discipline) groups
– ASSAf has appointed panels and reviewers (from the ASSAf
membership or other experts in the field)
– Formulated process guidelines and editor questionnaires
– Published 6 Reports: Social Sciences; Agriculture; Theology; Health;
and Law
– Rolling out the 8 groups as by end-2014

31. 2nd VISIBILITY
Increasing visibility of SA scholarly research
• Based on the Recommendations of the ASSAf Report on a Strategic
Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa DST decided on the
creation of an open access collection to improve the visibility of SA
publications both locally and internationally
• The collection would include SA journals recommended by the ASSAf
Peer Review Panels for inclusion in the collection
• The creation of a an open access SA collection is a service to the
South African research community towards the development of a
knowledge economy and new innovation in South Africa

32. 2nd VISIBILITY
Increasing visibility of SA scholarly research
• ASSAf selected the SciELO publishing model
• In 2009 the SciELO SA open access platform was established
• Currently: 45 titles in the collection
• The journals that are peer-reviewed by ASSAf and indicate proven
quality (peer review, international indexing) are invited to join the
SciELO SA collection
• Aim: to invite ± 180 titles out of 270 SA journal titles to join the
collection

33. WHAT IS SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library
Online) ?
•A digital library of open access journals
•Portal to all the SciELO articles
•A cooperative electronic publishing model aimed at developing
countries
•Originally from Brazil, currently in 12 countries with
3 more in development

34. WHY SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) ?
Open access
South African research becomes searchable through the SciELO
network portal which feeds into the Web of Knowledge portal
Exchange of metadata with other international databases
Designed for the needs of developing countries
The SciELO Network focuses on promoting the scientific publications
from countries in the South, whereas the well-established ‘Web of
Science’ has until recently been focused mainly on the scientific
publications of developed countries in the North.

35. ORIGIN OF THE SciELO INDEX
Scientific American, v.237, p.76-83. 1995
 Research from developing countries are being excluded from the
WoS/TR (JCR) indexing and citation system
 Few journals of developing countries are read in or outside their country

37. So in line then with the mandate of the
Academy of Science of South Africa
to apply scientific thinking
in the service of society
one of these “Service to Society” projects is the creation of an
open access full-text database
of prestigious academic South African journals to improve access & visibility

38. • Managed by the Academy of Science of SA
• Mainly funded by the Department of Science & Technology
• Partially funded and endorsed by the Department of Higher Education
& Training
• Only high quality journal are included (ASSAf Peer Review Panels)
• Strengthens the scholarly journal evaluation and accreditation systems in
South Africa

39. www.scielo.org.za

40. 3rd ACCESS SciELO Growth
SciELO SA September 2014
Titles 47 titles
Issues 598 issues
Articles 9 721 articles

41. Growth in SciELO SA site visits
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42. Growth in cities visiting SciELO SA
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43. INTERNATIONAL USAGE OF
THE SCIELO SA RESEARCH

44. INCREASE IN VISIBILITY OF PRINT-ONLY
JOURNALS
Journal title
Articles viewed
From 2010 to date
South African Orthopaedic Journal 136 951
Kronos: Southern African Histories 60 254
Psychology in Society (PINS) 32 678

45. 4th INDEXABILITY – MAXIMIZING LINKS
The creation of optimal links
from SciELO Journals to the
main international databases
increases the visibility and
citations of these journals on
national and international
levels

46. SciELO IS WELL OPTIMISED FOR SEARCH
ENGINES – AN EXAMPLE

47. IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENTS TO ENSURE
CONTINUED QUALITY ASSURANCE, VISIBILITY AND
ACCESSIBILITY FOR SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNALS
• SciELO SA collection certified in April 2013
• Included on the Web of Knowledge platform
• Have a signed a Memorandum of Agreement with DHET to quality peer review
ALL South African journals
• Proposed change in the DHET policy for the automatic accreditation of SciELO
SA journals for subsidy purposes. Waiting for final notification from Parliament for
2015 publications

48. ACTION
•Encourage researchers to publish in open access journals
•Encourage editors to join ASSAf’s National Editor’s Forum

49. Ina Smith, Planning Manager: SciELO SA
Louise van Heerden, Operations Manager: SciELO SA
www.assaf.org.za

50. Thank you
Website: www.assaf.org.za
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