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Robin Crewe Chair: Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South
Africa (CSPiSA)Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)
SciELO: South Africa: implementation of policy advice by an Academy of Science
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2006 – Report of a Strategic Approach to Research publishing in South Africa
2009 – Scholarly Books: their production, use and evaluation in South Africa today.
Academy Reports on Scholarly Publication
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The 2006 ASSAf report identified the following: “the …. low visibility of the existing local journals, most
appearing only in print and with low circulation figures, and with few achieving inclusion in prominent international journal indexes, as the key barrier to general enhancement of the quantity and quality of locally performed research” Gevers (2013)”.
Report on Research Publishing
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Supported by The Scholarly Publishing Unit (SPU)Functions of the Unit – National Scholarly (Journal) Editors’ Forum National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum Open Access Platform –SciELO SA Discipline-grouped Peer review panels for journals Online Scientific writing courses
Academy Committee on Scholarly Publishing (CSPiSA)
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To achieve this:-Task Team to review possible National Platform for
Open Access Publishing lead by Wieland GeversReviewed potential international platformsVisited SciELO, Brazil 7-11 June 2008
Concluded that SciELO started in Brazil would best achieve this purpose
Global Open Access to Quality Local Journals
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Following Task Team visit in 2008. Pilot Established: mid-2009 with 7 titles
SciELO Brazil hosted the platform and did all the e-publication, including mark-up of articles.
ASSAf started doing more and more mark-up of articles. 2010-2011
ASSAf took over ALL the e-publication and IT processes of its collection 2012
HISTORY OF SciELO SA
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TRAINING OF SciELO SA
Brazil
South Africa
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Department of Higher Education and Training –Responsible for funding Higher Education
InstitutionsIntroduced research incentive scheme for
Universities in 2003Direct funding of ‘research publication
outputs’ via publication units – US$ 12 000/ unit
Department of Science and Technology –National Research Foundation – funding
individual scholars
Policy Environment in South Africa
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Current South African Publications
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Both departments of government endorsed the reports on scholarly publishing.
DST supported and funded extension to South Africa of the SciELO e-publishing platform.
SciELO SA is a premier, OA searchable, full-text and fully indexed journal database that covers a selected collection of peer-reviewed scholarly journals.
It is an integral part of a project being developed by FAPESP in partnership with BIREME.
Endorsement of ASSAf reports
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Supported by The Scholarly Publishing Unit (SPU)Functions of the Unit – National Scholarly (Journal) Editors’ Forum National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum Open Access Platform –SciELO SA Discipline-grouped Peer review panels for journals Online Scientific writing courses
Academy Committee on Scholarly Publishing (CSPiSA)
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Return to Policy Environment
Categories: -Full length peer-reviewed journal articles-Scholarly books and chapters in books-Conference proceedings
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Policy makes provision for the recognition of papers appearing on approved lists: ISI, IBSS indices and list of South African Journals
Peer review by ASSAf of South African journals to be considered for inclusion in South African list
Journals approved by peer review can be included on SciELO SA and recognised for research incentives.
Return to the Policy Environment II
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April 2013 - SciELO SA Collection was certified as an independent collection.
Currently 28 South African journals are listed as part of the collection
Journals in the following disciplinary groups have been reviewed – Social Sciences; Agriculture and Related Basic Sciences
Disciplinary groups under review – Religion, Theology and related Fields; Health Sciences and related Medical Fields; Law and related Legal Fields; Humanities Part 1: Literature Group
Status of SciELO SA
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SciELO SA Launch - Certification
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USA, UK, the EU granting agencies and some grant funders are developing policies to make OA mandatory for the research they fund
Funds made available in grants for this purpose In SA, there are 12 institutions that have signed the
Berlin Declaration on OA – institutional initiative No established government Open Access Policy MRC allows use of grants for OA costs
Policy on OA for Publically Funded Research
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“Get scientific nonsense published”- study by John Bohannon reported in Science of quality of peer review in OA journals
The findings were damning in that a large number of journals were not undertaking appropriate peer review and their process of acceptance was flawed.
OA platforms need to be vigilant in monitoring journal publishing practices
As with paper based journals the quality of the reviewing process is key to credibility.
SciELO SA and quality assurance
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ObrigadoGracias
Thank you