The Academy of Science of South Africa's (ASSAf’s) first Journal Editor's Forum held its inaugural meeting in late July....This event marks the first step in implementing the recommendations of ASSA'fs five-year research study of the state of scholarly publication in South Africa. The wide range of recommendations focuses primarily on the strengthening of both the quality and the volume of scholarly publishing, particularly of journals, using an Open Access model....
The meeting was remarkably well attended, with upwards of 100 journal editors and other interested bodies participating. Discussion was wide-ranging and lively and there appeared to be general degree of support for the proposals, including the Open Access proposals, with the biggest stumbling blocks appearing to be a perceived need to retain print publications, with the sustainability issues that that raised; and the question of society publishers....
Dr Wieland Gevers outlined the mission of the Academy of Science of South Africa. The Academy, in line with its international colleagues, he said, is a consultative body aimed to offer the best expertise, independently of government, on science-based policy issues. The first project it has undertaken has been its research and policy proposals on scholarly publishing and knowledge production. The Report on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa arising out of this research took note of the potential of new technologies and of Open Access publishing. The recommendations made in the Report focus on the need to support and grow an indigenous South African scholarly publishing industry with international stature, using an Open Access publishing model....
Dr Gevers said that there was an opportunity for the country, using the modality of Open Access gold route publishing, to grow the output and reach of its research publishing, with sustainability coming from government subsidy supplemented by author and institutional charges, as well as other streams of finance. He said that in South Africa, if we are to deliver a high profile publication programme, we cannot avoid Open Access as the major option of the future. When one looks at the traditional, print and subscription model of journal publishing, with its small print runs and slow turnaround times, it is clear that there is no option, he argued, as OA would greatly enhance the impact, reach and speed of the dissemination of South African scholarship....
Questions were also asked about the policy for Green Route research repositories, in line with recommendations being made in the rest of the world. Wieland Gevers pointed out that the recommendations of the ASSAf report included support for a national system of harvesting of institutional repositories. This would be particularly important in providing access to pre-and post-prints of articles published in expensive toll-access international journals....
Monica Seeber, representing the Association for Academic and Non-Fiction Writers, pointed to clash in DST policy, given that the provisions for the Draft Bill on Intellectual Property Rights in Publicly Funded Research appeared to contradict the Open Access policies for publication that were being debated here. Many delegates expressed reservations during the course of the day about the very wide-ranging scope of the provisions of the Draft IPR Bill and its potential to derail scholarly publishing. In the afternoon workshop sessions it was agreed that the Draft Bill would be very damaging to scholarly publishing and that ASSAf should take this up with the DST....
In the second session of the day, which focused on publishing models for Open Access publishing, presentations were made by Paul Peters of Hindawi Publishing Corporation in Egypt and Pierre de Villiers of the South African Family Practice journal.
Paul Peters gave an impassioned account of the success story of Hindawi, an African-based publisher which has developed a financially sustainable and successful Open Access journal publishing business, now the third-largest commercial Open Access publisher in the world. It was a powerful presentation which held the undivided attention of his audience of journal editors for nearly an hour, as he spelled out the different ingredients of Hindawi's recipe for success. His main message was that African scholarly publishers cannot afford not to go Open Access: all the evidence shows that this is the one way of expanding access to African journals, increasing visibility, attracting a wide range of high quality authors from across the world, and growing the impact of the journals....
Traditional subscription systems limit accessibility, Peters said, and are an artefact of the paper world. For smaller journals , he said, Open Access is not an option, but is essential, as it is simply not possible for smaller developing country journals to get their publications out into the world in the print subscription model. The choice is an Open Access model or a failing subscription model....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/20/2007 10:00:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
