Discussion on Open Access in Africa
March 31, 2020
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM Nairobi
Participants (listed alphabetically):
AO: This interview, conducted by Raphaël Thierry with Sulaiman Adebowale of Amalion Publishing points to the importance of broadening what constitutes knowledge or scholarly publishing. In order to achieve this, Adebowale describes the need for publishing expanded genre forms like "...Read more
Angela Okune: Sulaiman Adebowale notes the challenge of ensuring a journal's sustainability and thinks aloud about different ways that could be possible:
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This research agenda is driven by profit and economic interests although the articulated narrative is about "solving Africa's grand challenges" which he states are "well-known." But then as he...Read more
The opening (copy-pasted below) from this IBM Research keynote talk by the CTO of Watson outlined why IBM has an optimistic view for "Africa" - because of projected growth in labor and...Read more
Ruth Oniang'o describes why she started the Nairobi-based journal AJFAND and the funding challenge which the journal continues to face even after nearly 20 years of being operational.
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In this interview, Adebowale mentions NGOs becoming an alternative space for African scholars to do research and produce knowledge because of the state disinvestment in education and...Read more
Angela Okune: During the discussion, Sulaiman Adebowale observed parallels across the continent where many academic scholars began to set up journals, largely due to a decrease...Read more
AO: This article (from September 2020) notes that despite a narrative that heavily circulated early in the global spread of the COVID pandemic that "vulnerable" and "high-risk" places, in Africa for example, were going to be devastated by COVID, it has not in fact played out that...Read more
AO: I developed this instrument in preparation for a discussion about Open Access on the continent. Thank you to K. Meagher, L. Chan, and K. Fortun for their suggestions and comments on earlier versions of this instrument. I did not end up following the questions closely as we ran out of time (...Read more