Policy

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of the project are:

• to provide a policy map of the overlapping national and institutional policies that affect scholarly publishing in Africa;
• and  to identify the shape of a sustainable and enabling Open Access policy environment for research publication that might enhance the dissemination of African research and impact positively on national development priorities.

The project will produce a policy study and research paper in coordination with the Group Advisor for Open Information Policy and the Centre for Educational Technology at the University of Cape Town, consulting with the Departments of Science and Technology and of Education in South Africa and the national agencies and institutions responsible for research publication policy in that country, such as the National Research Foundation.

The  fellowship research project has obvious potential for broad-based collaboration with the OSI Information Initiative.  The policy focus of the IPF project will require a critical examination of research publication policy and practice – including Intellectual Property policy - in South Africa and in other African countries. In particular, the IPF project will examine the politics of knowledge and information flows and will explore the extent to which  higher education policy, IP legislation, and development initiatives support or undermine the production and dissemination of local knowledge.  These are issues that touch closely on concerns of the IP and Knowledge Governance Initiative and it is hoped that there could be a close two-way cooperation in this area.

The Copy South Dossier on the Economics, Politics and Ideology of Copyright in the Global South has just been released, with support from the Open Society Institute. Challenging debates are initiated in this report, which will in turn raise questions of policy development and sustainability models, something that the IPF project should build on and take forward.

Open Access policy and advocacy and an investigation of the practical aspects of OA implementation in Africa are core to my IPF project. There is therefore potential for  linkages with the Open Access Initiative in New York and the programmes it is conducting. The examination of sustainability and quality of Open Access research publication in the IPF project is germane to projects in the Open Access Initiative while the focus on practical publication strategies links to a number of other Open Access projects. The project could also draw on the Lund University directory and would aim to contribute to this with further findings on Open Access initiatives in Africa.

As Open Access publishing is dependent on the availability of Internet connectivity and broadband access, there is likely to be a useful linkage with the Internet and Information Policy Initiative and cooperation in exploring the current state and the potential future profile of connectivity in African countries.

Given that one of the case studies in the project is likely to be the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town, there might be some potential for interaction with the Network Women’s Program, from the perspective of knowledge and research networking between gender studies programmes in Africa.

Regionally, the IPF project would seek collaboration with the OSI Southern Africa programme. In particular, the OSISA ICT Program addresses many of the same issues that are being tackled in the Fellowship project. Although the Education Initiative of OSISA focuses predominantly on early childhood and primary education, findings on policy relating to research dissemination and development might well be of relevance to the Education Initiative.

PROJECT DELIVERABLES

An issue paper will be developed and will be posted on my personal IPF website and on the Open Information Group website by the end of June 2006.

A  Policy Study will be prepared and posted to my IPF website and the Open Information  group website by mid-February 2007.

Conference attendance will include the iCommons Summit in Rio de Janeiro in  June 2006  and a paper has been proposed for the Codesria/APC  conference on Electronic Publishing and Dissemination in September 2006. The World Congress on Sociology In Durban in July 2006 should provide an opportunity for discussion on a number of issues
relating to globalisation and  the African social sciences, as well as providing access to an international forum of journal editors. The Wikimania conference in Boston in August 2006 should provide an opportune to canvass approaches to collaborative research development and collaborative peer review and publication strategies.

An advocacy programme will be built progressively as the project is developed. Research to date on awareness of Open Access among faculty in South African institutions suggests that there is a lack of knowledge and a good deal of misinformation  about Open Access research dissemination and the  different sustainability models that might be applied. Interviews, presentations and discussions will therefore be planned with  a wide range of academics and policy-makers at different levels in South African institutions and these interactions will be used to increase levels of awareness in the debate around research publication policy and Open Access. This should in turn  create upward pressure on policy-making at national level.

A comprehensive communication strategy will be aimed for, using personal communications, workshops, online newsletters and blogs, publications produced in the higher education sector and the national media. Departmental and faculty level workshops and seminars will be delivered in partnership with existing discussion forums in the universities and research councils. It is hoped that a wide-ranging conference on research policy and Open Access could be planned and held in South Africa in the first half of 2007. 

Working in partnership with key role-players in the higher education sector in South Africa, discussions on research publication policy and sustainability will be opened with the government departments and national institutions involved in  higher education policy development: the Departments of Science and Technology, Arts and Culture and Education, the National Research Foundation, Higher Education South Africa, the Academy of Science, and the Science Councils and their national body, Consort.

Support will be sought from local and international organisations involved in promoting African research dissemination, such as INASP, the Bellagio Group, ASC in Leiden, Codata, Creative Commons, FLOSS, Wikipedia.