Access to Scholarly Research Information in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Review

Libri ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 67 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thembani Malapela
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Research Information ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Major Barrier ◽  
Sub Saharan

AbstractSince the year 2000, the world has witnessed an increased call for improved access to scholarly information. The cost of scholarly content is a major barrier in accessing needed research information. In order to fully contribute to the global knowledge economy, African scholars need to access both global information resources and locally published works. Few studies have focused on the African knowledge production vis-à-vis access to scholarly research information in Africa. This paper examines access to scholarly research information in sub-Saharan Africa. The review focuses on available published works on access to scientific literature in Africa and seeks to understand Africa’s scholarly publishing scene. In the process, challenges and opportunities regarding access to scholarly research information are explored. Three approaches in addressing these issues emerge in literature – namely (i) open access, (ii) donor-funded schemes and (iii) negotiated access schemes for scholarly content. This review shows that these approaches have leveraged information access to the African researchers who now have almost the same levels of access to scientific literature as their peers in the developed world. African governments, institutions, researchers and librarians still need to exploit the potential of open access. There remain, however, infrastructural issues that need to be addressed to ensure that the African scholar enjoys access to current scientific information.

scholarly journals Social, Behavioral, and Cultural factors of HIV in Malawi: Semi-Automated Systematic Review

10.2196/18747 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (8) ◽  
pp. e18747
Author(s):  
Amaury Thiabaud ◽  
Isotta Triulzi ◽  
Erol Orel ◽  
Kali Tal ◽  
Olivia Keiser
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Open Access ◽  
Hiv Infection ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Quantitative Analyses ◽  
Sub Saharan

Background Demographic and sociobehavioral factors are strong drivers of HIV infection rates in sub-Saharan Africa. These factors are often studied in qualitative research but ignored in quantitative analyses. However, they provide in-depth insight into the local behavior and may help to improve HIV prevention. Objective To obtain a comprehensive overview of the sociobehavioral factors influencing HIV prevalence and incidence in Malawi, we systematically reviewed the literature using a newly programmed tool for automatizing part of the systematic review process. Methods Due to the choice of broad search terms (“HIV AND Malawi”), our preliminary search revealed many thousands of articles. We, therefore, developed a Python tool to automatically extract, process, and categorize open-access articles published from January 1, 1987 to October 1, 2019 in the PubMed, PubMed Central, JSTOR, Paperity, and arXiV databases. We then used a topic modelling algorithm to classify and identify publications of interest. Results Our tool extracted 22,709 unique articles; 16,942 could be further processed. After topic modelling, 519 of these were clustered into relevant topics, of which 20 were kept after manual screening. We retrieved 7 more publications after examining the references so that 27 publications were finally included in the review. Reducing the 16,942 articles to 519 potentially relevant articles using the software took 5 days. Several factors contributing to the risk of HIV infection were identified, including religion, gender and relationship dynamics, beliefs, and sociobehavioral attitudes. Conclusions Our software does not replace traditional systematic reviews, but it returns useful results to broad queries of open-access literature in under a week, without a priori knowledge. This produces a “seed dataset” of relevance that could be further developed. It identified known factors and factors that may be specific to Malawi. In the future, we aim to expand the tool by adding more social science databases and applying it to other sub-Saharan African countries.

The Idea of Economic Development

2014 ◽  
pp. 270-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hippolyte Fofack
Keyword(s):  
National Income ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Development Models ◽  
Development Framework ◽  
Broad Concept ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Development Outcomes

Although development generally refers to a broad concept, the quest for development in sub-Saharan Africa has been biased by ideological considerations which made abstraction of local conditions and people’s aspirations. The prevalent development models have used increased national income as a sufficient statistics for broad-based development. This chapter argues for an alternative and a more comprehensive and reflexive development framework that harnesses local and global knowledge and advocates generalized balanced growth and structural transformation to move sub-Saharan African countries towards self-reliance—their collectively defined aspirational goal. Analytically, it shows that the potential development outcomes of the region under such an endogenous framework would be superior to the results achieved under the prevailing development models.

scholarly journals Impact of Soil Fertility Improving Trees on Crop Productivity and Farmer Wealth in Zambia

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 14
Author(s):  
Elias Kuntashula
Keyword(s):  
Soil Fertility ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Information Access ◽  
Crop Productivity ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Wealth Creation ◽  
Maize Productivity ◽  
Sub Saharan

There has been low uptake of soil fertility improving tree technologies that have been promoted as alternatives to the costly inorganic fertiliser among the poor resource farmers of Sub Saharan Africa. This is surprising given that the majority of smallholder farmers cannot afford inorganic fertilisers. Are these technologies effective? Using data collected in 2013 from 1,231 households across six districts of Zambia, this study showed that the tree technologies increased maize productivity. However, increases in maize productivity were less than those obtained from controlled on-station and field experiments where the technologies could double or more than double maize productivity according to literature. The technologies capacity to marginally contribute to wealth creation was confirmed. Socioeconomic constraints including labour, information access, land and credit need to be tackled for the technologies to give maximum benefits. Research on fertiliser trees should therefore be redirected towards the discovery of such resource constraints saving technologies. 

The role of institutional repositories in developing the communication of scholarly research

2015 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 163-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Mary Marsh
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Scholarly Communication ◽  
Perceived Barriers ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
Research Information ◽  
Scholarly Research ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Institutional Repositories

Purpose – This paper aims to uncover the central purposes of institutional repositories, how developments are being affected by policies and researcher behaviour and also what services and approaches are appropriate in supporting repositories from those partners involved in scholarly communication with a particular focus on services that support the publication of research. Design/methodology/approach – The research reviews the literature and current practices within higher education with regard to the core purposes of institutional repositories, the possible causes of low population of repositories in some institutions and subject disciplines, how this is being addressed and likely future developments. A qualitative survey using semi-structured interviews explores current best practices and tests the specific research questions that emerged from the literature review. Findings – The rate at which institutional repositories have grown in number has been very fast in recent years, but the population of repositories with research has been relatively slow. The research identified a number of reasons as to why the population of repositories was likely to accelerate in the future and have a more significant impact on scholarly communication. The main catalysts are: strengthening of national and funder policies that serve to both mandate open access (green or gold) and raise awareness of open access amongst faculty; the alignment of repositories with current research information systems within universities; and the development of metadata and open archives initiative harvesting that will improve discoverability and usage data. Research limitations/implications – As many of the issues around the development of repositories centre on the attitudes of faculty, it would also provide an interesting extension to the research to understand their views of the role of institutional repositories, too. Practical implications – The study presents a number of possible new ways of working by both information professionals and publishers to improve scholarly communication through the inclusion of research within institutional repositories and how perceived barriers could be overcome. Social implications – The study provides guidance on how the communication of scholarly research could be improved and reach a wider audience. This, in turn, will benefit researchers, corporate organisations and the public at large. Originality/value – The paper provides a review of current best practices in managing institutional repositories and identifies new ways of addressing some of the perceived barriers to populating repositories and the benefits for each stakeholder in the scholarly communication process.

Academic libraries in four Sub-Saharan Africa countries and their role in propagating open science

IFLA Journal ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 242-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Onauphoo Siyao ◽  
Fidelia M. Whong ◽  
Ebenezer Martin-Yeboah ◽  
Annet Namamonde
Keyword(s):  
Open Access ◽  
Academic Libraries ◽  
Case Study Research ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Natural Setting ◽  
Institutional Repositories ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Emerging Media ◽  
Sub Saharan

The study aims at examining libraries in four Sub-Saharan Africa countries and their role in propagating open science. It also seeks to explore existing open science practices, ascertain the level of participation of academic libraries in open science activities, identify the strategies used in marketing open science platforms and enumerate the challenges hindering the success of open science in the selected countries. The study was guided by the qualitative school of thought where the researcher builds a complex, holistic picture, analyses words, and reports detailed views of informants, and conducts the study in a natural setting. The study employed the multiple case study research design approach to assess how academic libraries in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda promote open science. The findings show that there are few scholarly journals which exist in open access for most African academies in Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. Though not massively adopted, open access institutional repositories have been used to preserve and publicize the digital contents in some academic institutions in Africa such as theses, dissertations, administrative and heritage materials, conference proceedings as well as pre-prints and post-print of journal articles. The study recommends the intensification of open science advocacy in academic libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa; institutions should ensure that there is a stable electricity supply as well as reliable internet connectivity, introducing regular training on emerging media technologies to the community members and strengthening the libraries consortium in Sub-Saharan Africa as an enabling platform to share intellectual productivity of their member countries.

The Historiography of HIV and AIDS in Uganda

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 301-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Kuhanen
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Behavioral Interventions ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
International Health ◽  
Hiv And Aids ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
International Agencies ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Donor Agencies

Uganda has been in the world headlines since the mid-1980s, first as a nation severely hit by HIV and AIDS, and later, from the late 1990s onwards, as the first country in sub-Saharan Africa that has managed to reverse a generalised HIV epidemic. Countless newspaper articles, television and radio documentaries and broadcasts, papers, books, and films have been produced about AIDS in Uganda, making the epidemic one of the most thoroughly researched and documented in the world. Medical doctors, virologists, epidemiologists and social and behavioral scientists, both Ugandan and expatriate, have produced massive amounts of scientific information about it since the early 1980s, in addition to which there have been policy papers, evaluation reports, and action plans produced by various government ministries, international donor agencies, and national and international NGOs and relief organizations which document the epidemic from administrative, developmental, and humanitarian perspectives.Uganda's AIDS epidemic has been publicized worldwide through the news media and various international agencies. It is being constantly monitored not only by national authorities and international health experts, but by myriads of Ugandan and international organizations, media, academics, and concerned members of the public using modern means of communication. Some of these national and international bodies not only monitor, report and educate, but demand their say in how the epidemic should be managed. Uganda has become a testing ground for medical and behavioral interventions, as exemplified by AIDS vaccination trials, the social marketing of condoms, antiretroviral treatment, and, recently, by the male circumcision trial. Positive results have then been marketed to other countries in sub-Saharan Africa as successful AIDS prevention strategies.

scholarly journals Indigenous Knowledge and Public Education in Sub-Saharan Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 57-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Munyaradzi Mawere
Keyword(s):  
Public Education ◽  
Indigenous Knowledge ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Teaching Learning

The discourse on indigenous knowledge has incited a debate of epic proportions across the world over the years. In Africa, especially in the sub-Saharan region, while the so-called indigenous communities have always found value in their own local forms of knowledge, the colonial administration and its associates viewed indigenous knowledge as unscientific, illogical, anti-development, and/or ungodly. The status and importance of indigenous knowledge has changed in the wake of the landmark 1997 Global Knowledge Conference in Toronto, which emphasised the urgent need to learn, preserve, and exchange indigenous knowledge. Yet, even with this burgeoning interest and surging call, little has been done, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, to guarantee the maximum exploitation of indigenous knowledge for the common good. In view of this realisation, this paper discusses how indigenous knowledge can and should both act as a tool for promoting the teaching/learning process in Africa's public education and address the inexorably enigmatic amalgam of complex problems and cataclysms haunting the world.

Academic Divination

2021 ◽  
pp. 156-164
Author(s):  
Oluwole Olumide Durodolu ◽  
Samuel Kelechukwu Ibenne
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Limiting Factors ◽  
Global Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Publications ◽  
Modest Improvement ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Factors Of Production ◽  
Sub Saharan

Information is a significant factor of production in the 21st century, and the effectiveness of other factors of production is contingent on the quality of information available. Production of goods and services will be inoperable if not adequately coordinated with current and time-tested knowledge. Hence, application of knowledge is key to increased and optimal utilisation of other factors of production. Available records put the contribution of Africa to global knowledge production at an insignificant rate of 1.1%. Therefore, the drive of this research is to evaluate the limiting factors to Africa's contribution to scientific research by appraising the research environment, publication outlets, policy renewal, academic funding, availability of academic databases, speed and reliability of the internet, and other incentives. The literature reviewed indicates that African academics and researchers are caught in wide-ranging limitations, to the extent that striking a balance between local and international research outlets has become an uphill task. In some cases, the context under which African scholars operate makes their intellectual contribution unattractive to global audiences. According to the UNESCO science report 2015, it was established that between 2008 to 2014, the global knowledge production improved by 23.4%.In disparity, all the 42 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa put together account for 1.4% of the worldwide share of scientific publications in 2014, a modest improvement from 1.2% in 2008.During the same period, China doubled its stake from 9.9% to 20.2% in 2014.In the light of this glaring paucity of the African contribution to scientific research, discovery and literature, this chapter discusses plausible solutions to the problem.

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