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Herding dinosaurs?
South African research policy and practice in
the digital age
CHED Seminar
11 October 2006
An evolutionary metaphor
A combination of new technology, outdated
business models and greed threatens the survival
of the current, for-profit journal publishing industry.
To use an evolutionary metaphor, in the changing
environment, new, smaller and more agile players
are scurrying about and yapping at the heels of
the lumbering dinosaurs.
Peter Lor: Keynote address, Codesria-ASC Conference Sept 2006
Heading for extinction
Even in the well-resourced countries of the
global North, scholarly publishing is facing a
very real crisis.
Are we committing our energies and
resources to trying to keep dysfunctional
systems from extinction?
The International Policy
Fellowships
Open Society Institute, Budapest
IPF Open Information Working Group
Advanced by the Internet, alternatives to long-standing
intellectual property regimes have created an
environment to reassess the relationship between
democracy, open society and new information
technologies. The promise of Open Source technology
with respect to civil society and the incalculable leaps
in information production by means of open content
and web logs present a new platform for civic
participation. Whether and in what form such promises
can be realised lies at the basis of the questions
addressed in the projects
Knowledge and development
Gross imbalances in
production of and
access to knowledge
and cultural products
– books and digital
content
The knowledge divide
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Africa produces around 3% of books published,
but consumes around 12%.
Africa produced 0.2% of online content in 2002
– if South Africa is excluded, 0.02%.
The major Northern scholarly journals account
for 80% of articles. 163 developing countries
produce 2.5%.
SA has just 0.5% of the articles in Thompson
Scientific indexed journals.
The body count
The impact of this
global imbalance is
increasingly a matter
of concern in
international
development politics
The body un-count
Village
Knowledge
Centres in
India –
innovative uses
of information
networks for
rural
development
MS Swaminathan
Research Foundation,
Channai, India
Leaping the technology gap
Brazil and 'Tropicalism'
I want to face the challenge that the global
cultural industry is proposing to us..
Parabolicamara brings together the word
parabolic, the type of antenna that can be
seen everywhere even in the poorest
corners of Brazil and the word camara´,
the way the players of capoeira.. have
chosen to to name their partners,
'camradas', while they dance and sing
I like to see the world echoing just like the
head of a berimbau. I like to connect the
differences.. ..
Gilberto Gil – Minister of Culture, Brazil
st
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What, then, does this
century
scenario look like?
New technologies and the rise of the networked
information economy are posing radical
challenges not only to knowledge development
and dissemination.
The network society
The change wrought by the networked information
economy is deep. A series of changes in the
technologies, economic organisation and social
practices of production in this environment has
created new opportunities for how we make and
exchange information, knowledge and culture.
These changes have increased the role of nonmarket and and non-proprietary production, both
by individuals alone and by cooperative efforts in
a wide range of loosely or tightly woven
collaborations.
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (2006)
Taking up the challenge
Southern Africa as a 'network society'
The south-eastern frontier – a
network society
Political power tended to be localized, boundaries fluid and
vague, and the authority of chiefs highly variable. The
political landscape was both homogeneous and
kaleidoscopic, with widely dispersed material and symbolic
resources and constantly changing political domains. Even
at moments of relative stasis domains of authority very
frequently overlapped. Political identities were multiple,
with the fluidity of identities generally increasing with
geographical distance from any given center of power...
There were multiple nodes and overlapping domains of
authority....
Crais 2002Custom and the Politics of Sovereignty in South Africa.
Journal of Social History 39 (3). ).
Confronting the myths
The myth of IP benefit models to the
developing world
[T]he above-marginal-cost prices paid in ... poorer countries are
purely regressive redistribution. The information, knowledge, and
information-embedded goods paid for would have been developed
in expectation of rich world rents alone. The prospects of rents
from poorer countries do not affect their development. They do not
affect either the rate or the direction of research and development.
They simply place some of the rents that pay for technology
development in the rich countries on consumers in poor and
middle-income countries. The morality of this redistribution from
the world's poor to the world's rich has never been confronted or
defended in the European or American public spheres. It simply
goes unnoticed.
Benkler The Wealth of Networks 2006
The myth of patent revenues
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Even in the USA, universities earn negligible
revenues from patents
For all universities 0.56% of total revenues
come from patents.
This compares with 18.5% from government
grants and contracts.
Only Columbia with and Caltech have
significant revenues – most are under 2% of net
revenues.
Benkler The Wealth of Networks 2006, p. 340.
The reaction
Emphasis on access to knowledge
Research as a public good
Open Access declarations
Government policies on access to
knowledge from public funding
The Budapest Initiative
An old tradition and a new technology have converged to
make possible an unprecedented public good. The old
tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to
publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals
without payment, for the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The
new technology is the internet. The public good they make
possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peerreviewed journal literature and completely free and
unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers,
students, and other curious minds. Removing access
barriers to this literature will accelerate research, enrich
education, share the learning of the rich with the poor and
the poor with the rich, make this literature as useful as it can
be, and lay the foundation for uniting humanity in a common
intellectual
Research policy - the need
There is a fundamental need to develop polices
and strategies that would grow the output and
effective dissemination of Africa-based research in
and from Africa, for African development, in the
most appropriate media and formats
Policy- making – the challenge
Policy-makers need the capacity to look forward,
to plan policies that will still be viable in 2016, not
just 2006 (let alone 1996)
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Policy-makers need to discern,
based on their expert knowledge,
the future trajectories of the
subject and the interventions that
might improve its development ...
(NEPAD 2005)
'The common mimetic route is to define
the nature of capacity-building in terms of
what is now seen as important. This may
well be a recipe to become obsolete
before one's time. The world (of science
and more generally) may well evolve in
such a way that present-day exemplars
will be left behind.'
Arie Rip 'Lock-ins and the Heterogeneity of Knowledge Production' In
Kraak Changing Modes 2000
What does this mean for African
research publication policy?
New technologies and new modes of production
offer real opportunities to break the cycle of
dependency and dysfunction
The problem is the predominance in African HE
policy of received, outdated
paradigms and policies
African research policy on centre
stage
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World Bank has changed direction – higher
education now seen as a key driver for African
economic growth
NEPAD calling for input into African Science
and innovation facility
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Funding is likely to be available for R&D
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Higher education policy suddenly a critical field
Policy-making - the reality
Two, clashing policy discourses
Research policy – the DST
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Strong commitment to development goals and poverty
reduction, research to meet national needs
Uses the language of 'Science' and 'Innovation'
Acknowledges the 'African reality' and stresses the
importance of the humanities and social sciences
Talks of the importance of the information revolution
Promotes the idea of collaboration across disciplines,
institutions and countries
But....
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Uses counts of patents and accredited journal
articles as measures
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Contradictory approaches to IP policy
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Dissemination and publication hardly appear
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The 'information revolution appears to apply
only to the technological vehicle, not the
contents
Instrumentalist approach to communication of
research findings
What would be the shape of a
publication and communication
policy to deliver these goals?
Research publication policy – the
DoE
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Talks of the need to promote research to meet
development goals
Identifies the importance of the social sciences
as mediators of research knowledge
Talks about the 'changing modes of
disseminating research and output'
But...
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'Publish or perish' and publishing by numbers
The system is a mechanical one of numerical
counts – number of journal articles, number of
patents
Journal articles are seen as the major output
'Originality' and personal achievement
supersede collaboration
International citation indexes are the measure
of quality
The effect - a collision between a 21st
century research policy environment
th
and a 19 to 20th-century research
publication policy
Conventional scholarly publishing is
not working in the developed world
'We have a scientific publishing system
that is massively dysfunctional and
really, really broken.'
James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law, Duke University,
at the iCommons Summit, Rio, June 2006
Books [and journal articles].. have
become in the system merely icons
to be counted and worshipped, but
not looked into.'
Lindsay Waters, Humanities Editor of Harvard University Press
We forget too readily that the accepted
scholarly publishing system is is not
'traditional' but a very recent invention –
a combination of the massification of
education and the corresponding
consolidation of publishing by media
baron Robert Maxwell
Publish or perish policies have debased the
value of the scholarly book and led to a
proliferation of poor-quality journals across the
world.
Commercialisation of journal production, with
control in the hands of large near-monopoly
conglomerates, has led to double-digit price
increases in a captive market
Universities can no longer afford their own
scholarship – the 'serials crisis'
Conventional scholarly publishing works
even less well in Africa
Very real barriers to dissemination within and
between African countries and in the North
The 'core journal' philosophy that underlies the
citation indexes marginalise even further those on
the periphery
The system works to create a 'club' that excludes
outsiders through its selection processes and
value criteria
As Paul Zeleza has argued, the system
is biased against women, racial
minorities and scholars from outside the
metropolitan centres and is built around
Western realities, paradigms and values
Why journals?
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The emphasis on mainstream journals in international
indices skews research priorities – critical research
areas of importance to the developing world can be
marginalised
Local researchers target international priorities for
reasons of prestige and promotion
Restricted access to international research findings
can block development needs
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Local- interest research gets second-rate status
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Journal information out-of date by publication
An illogical model
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The university provides the content (research0
It pays for the author (the time to write the
article
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It provides peer reviewers
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Often pays page charges
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Cedes copyright
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Then buys back the journals in subscriptions
that have risen four-fold in 15 years
The costs of this model
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Universities ignore the real costs of their
contribution
In Australia the cost of getting an article
published (authoring, peer reviewing, editorial
activities) is AUD19,000.00
A monograph costs AUD115,000.00
The costs of administering the evaluation and
assessment process are even higher
Government of Australia, Department of Education, Science and Training.
Research Communication Costs in Australia: Emerging opportunities and
benefits.
Some preconceptions to be
dissipated
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Research dissemination is not the business of
universities
Scholarly publishing is all about personal
promotion
Journal articles are the best way to publish
research
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Scholarly publishing is a profit-based business
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And therefore universities do not need to fund it
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International is by definition superior
What could an effective research
policy environment for Africa look
like?
Open Access – a countermovement
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The importance of access to research
knowledge, particularly when it is publicly
funded
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A more logical economic model
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Digital dissemination increases reach
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Massively increased impact, particularly for
content from developing countries
A rapidly growing movement – now 2o,000 OA
journals
International initiatives
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South Africa is a signatory to the OECD
declaration on access to research data from
public funding (2004)
There are now a number of international
declarations – Budapest, Berlin, Bethesda,
Salvador...
Governments and agencies have addressed the
issues and endorsed OA in varying degrees: the
UK government, the EU, WSIS, the NIH in the
USA, Wellcome Trust...
The 'green' and 'gold' routes
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The green route -research repositories and
archives
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pre- and post-publication prints deposited online
(some 80% of leading journals now allow this)
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provision of research data underlying articles
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deposit of research findings and work in progress
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Repositories of theses and dissertations
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The gold route - open access journals
Sustainability – the gains of OA
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Speed of access
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Improved access and less duplication
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Faster access, leading to better informed
research
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Wider access – collaboration
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Improved education outcomes
Sustainability – impact measures
Financial measure being developed for the
evaluation of the social and economic effects of
greater access
The Academy of Science Report
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Proposals for a research publication strategy,
commissioned by the DST
Detailed analysis of accredited journal
publication
Recommends Open Access publishing
Support for publishing and quality control by
ASSAf
Ring-fencing of a percentage of the publication
Some elements of a good research
publication policy
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Public access to research knowledge
Support for publication costs in research
funding
Prioritization of local and African research
concerns
Publications that can reflect collaborative
research and new fields
Support for a wide range of research products
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century approaches
Research is collaborative and peer-to-peer
rather than individual. This adds capacity and
increases immediacy
Peer review collaborative and lateral rather than
hierarchical
Publish then select – publication becomes a
matter of ongoing development (PLOS One)
IP law increasingly challenged as inappropriate
for developing countries
Most of all, research publication needs to be
put on the agenda for debate and discussion
Dissemination and publication need to be
recognised as worthy of support
Research and publication skills are needed
for effective dissemination
http://www.evegray.co.za
http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/gray_area
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