In the Center for Educational Technology, special thanks are due to office administrator Shirley Rix. In the UCT Comm faculty, many scholars remain unconvinced of the merits of OA outputs.
Programme overview
Because many scientific publications from Africa are not published in WoS-listed journals – but rather in a plethora of other publications – they are not measured in the prestige-based indices that reflect so much of Africa's research (including reports , short articles, conference papers). (seminar presentations, consultancy work, etc.) invisible.3 The conclusion many analysts draw from this is that there is no research of value on the continent – an inappropriate conclusion given the limited perspective it offers on African research output. 7 For example: “The government-funded Human Genome Project and freely reusable data generated a massive 141-fold return on investment in economic returns alone [and] 30% more new clinical products than the privately funded closed genome sequencing project of the American biotech company Celera Genomics” (Neylon 2012).
Project components and methodology
This research component involved rigorous documentation of the participatory processes involved in the change labs and site visits. In the fourth and final set of workshops, the PI team presented preliminary findings from the strands of research, which enabled a “mirroring” process (ie, the final phase of the expansive learning cycle implicit in the CHAT process).
The University of Cape Town context
Varghese says private higher education is one of the fastest growing segments of higher education in Africa. It is one of the most prolific producers of research results in the country and occupies an elite position in a differentiated higher education system.
Scholarly communication policy landscape at UCT
In many ways, this is due to the achievements of the open access movement, which gained the scientific, institutional, and governmental support needed to move from the activist fringe to the mainstream. Every year, the share of open access articles increases by approx. 1%, a total of approx. 17% of the 1.66 million articles listed in the Scopus journal article index in 2011. One of the key laws defining South Africa's research infrastructure is the NRF Act which was written "to provide for the promotion of research, both basic and applied, and expansion and transfer of knowledge in the various fields of science and.
Certainly, during the apartheid era, many of the country's leading minds were unable to make such a positive contribution to the nation through their research due to the government's restrictive laws. Whatever the reason, it is clear that the decline in research output calls into question the ability of the higher education system to meet the country's research and development agenda. Instead, he simply noted these concerns while maintaining his belief in the accuracy and credibility of the ISI indexing mechanism.
This is not the case in many other African countries (including those profiled by SCAP), where the national flagship university has to bear a high proportion of the country's research requirements because it does not enjoy the support of a broad and diverse national research infrastructure.
Research & communication practices
At the other end of the continuum, purely intrinsic motivations come from within the individual. Many take this value for granted, assuming that it is one of the primary reasons people join academia in the first place. The moral element of the OA ethics is only one of many in scholars' understanding of it. 103.
This updated understanding of the research and dissemination cycle allows us to assess UCT Comm's activities from a unique perspective. The third phase of the research and communication cycle involves the presentation of findings by scientists to other scientists. As one of the few research-intensive universities in the country, scientists often benefit from their literal knowledge.
The fourth and final stage of the research and communication cycle involves translation and engagement. Finally, many of the academics talked about how important their research was to their teaching. The final element to explore in UCT Comm's scholarly communication ecosystem is the system of rewards and incentives that, in part, drives the production and dissemination of research by researchers.
The SCAP implementation initiative
In 2010, SALDRU – a high-profile research unit with a global reputation – was subjected to an external review (one year before SCAP's engagement) in which one of the criticisms leveled at it was that it lacked sufficient online visibility. The unit was aware of this shortfall and its executive managers had a list of key areas they wanted to address by the first SCAP Change Lab workshop in June 2011. This was a particular challenge within the structure of SALDRU, given the dispersed nature of the unit and its egalitarian leadership style .
There were no hierarchical leadership entities that could act as the "official mouthpiece" of the unit. Given the unit's cyclical grant funding structure and fluctuating cohort of staff, the unit needed a more regular internal communication system to keep staff informed of the work being done by their colleagues. Participants felt that this should be included in the formal assignment to shape and reflect the unit's science communication strategy.
This problem was exacerbated by the fact that UCT did not have an institutional registry at the time of the SCAP initiative.
OpenSALDRU
Our preliminary investigation showed that there was a significant amount of SALDRU content on the Internet, but that it was hosted on different sites and was poorly indexed. To explore the best means of addressing the situation, SCAP resources were used to bring on board a part-time content architect from the UCT Digital Libraries Laboratory (a postgraduate research unit in the Computer Science department). The SALDRU Content Architect, reporting directly to the SCAP Program Manager, would function as an intermediary to translate community wishes, assess current e-infrastructure capabilities, and work with stakeholders in the SALDRU community to implement systems and new curatorial processes. .
The content architect will also be tasked with ensuring that systems are as open and interoperable as possible. The desire for interoperability in SALDRU content systems revolved not only around links with international content aggregators and indexing services, but also towards institutional e-infrastructure and content services. The SCAP program saw itself as having an important role in mediating this improved cohesion, as SALDRU members seemed disillusioned with institutional systems (according to their statements in the change lab workshops) and reluctant to pursue any strategy they to institutional systems would make. , especially in relation to IT service provision.
Despite this legacy of disillusionment based on past experience, SCAP reopened the dialogue between SALDRU and the central information and communication technology services, based on the idea that the preservation and sharing of content via secure, institution-based infrastructure, which can be linked and shared elsewhere become , was preferable to investing in building content collections with third-party organizations.
Situational analysis
SALDRU's community approach has been key to ensuring that this remains sustainable beyond the end of the SCAP programme. Our situational analysis showed that the SALDRU website was managed from the Joomla platform and integrated a document archive (DocMan) that was used to store, manage and facilitate access to research publications. Lack of use of a controlled vocabulary for metadata elements such as author details and publication date (which generally resulted in inconsistencies on the front end).
Important metadata elements such as author details were embedded as HTML elements instead of data in discrete fields. The purpose of the situational analysis was to derive a set of recommendations and a process to address phase 2, content curation. We reached this decision after the content architect evaluated the suitability of the CMS (Joomla) versus repository (DSpace) approach.
Based on the outcomes of the evaluation exercise and consultation with institutional stakeholders, curation experts and SALDRU, our situational analysis concluded with a decision to invest in a repository-based system for the implementation initiative.
Content description and indexing
Explore mechanisms for content profiling
Round-table policy forum
After the first workshop, the SCAP research coordinator facilitated further exploration of the concept by identifying the topic of teenage pregnancy as a focus for the process. This would be carried out in collaboration with a scientific writer who would participate in the round table and produce a set of results in accordance with a SALDRU assignment. The writer would ideally be familiar with the topic and the policy environment, but not be a member of the SALDRU research community.
2011). The process was completed with the help of an external team consisting of a scientific writer and designer based at another UCT affiliated research unit – the. Their expertise was central to the rapid completion of the assignment and the professional character of the product. Outputs used as a pilot in presenting a series of outputs on the website in line with the developments taking place in the parallel stream of SCAP activities.
This activity represented the first layer of research activity, with the feasibility and value of the endeavor assessed for the purposes of the case study.
Internal communication tools
The nature of that shift is open to debate, but one of the main ways it is judged by UCT students and scholars is through the university's curricular commitments. Like all South African universities, UCT benefits from the benefits of government support for higher education. They seek to operationalize the values of the university and faculty by encouraging activities believed to further the institutional mission.
UCT already has most of the technologies needed to promote open scholarly communication that can reach a wide audience. One of the reasons for this is that it is difficult to define where this activity should be located, especially given the decentralized nature of the institution's activities. This would allow members of the entire staff structure to contribute to the university's "Afropoliticization" efforts.
An overview of the adoption of Web 2.0 tools for research collaboration by development researchers in the Global South. Mamdani M (1998) Teaching Africa at the post-apartheid University of Cape Town: a critical look at the 'Introduction to Africa' core course at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. Report of the Scholarly Communication in Africa Program (SCAP) for the International Development Research Centre, March 2014, University of Cape Town UCT (University of Cape Town) (2009) UCT strategic plan.
Challenges, contradictions and opportunities
Key findings
Recommendations
