The document discusses open knowledge and policy developments in open access in South Africa. It notes that South Africa has a small share of scientific output relative to its size. It outlines South Africa's colonial history and trade partnerships, and how this has influenced its approach to scholarly publishing and intellectual property. More recently, open access is seen as a way to increase the visibility and impact of South African research, though challenges remain in infrastructure, skills, and recognition of development-focused research. Initiatives like SciELO South Africa and open educational resources are positive developments in making knowledge openly available.

1. Dealing in Disruption
Contextualizing Policy Developments for
Open Knowledge in South Africa
National Library – Ex Libris Annual Meeting
19 August 2015 Cape Town
Contextualizing Policy Developments in Open
Knowledge in South Africa
Photo: Michael Horwitz- CC-BY-NC

2. How do we orient ourselves?

3. We live on a huge continent

5. but have a tiny share of scientific
output

6. Science Research - 2001
http://www.worldmapper.org
2006 SASI Group (University of Sheffield) and Mark Newman (University of Michigan).

7. Geographically?
The nearest landfall?

9. Where are we?
Photo Turismo Bahia CC-BY-SA

10. Brazil with its SciELO platform is
now the second biggest producer
of OA journals in the world
Alperin et al., 2008, Open access and scholarly
publishing in Latin America: ten flavours and a
few reflections
revista.ibict.br/liinc/index.php/liinc/article/vie

11. With support from the Department of
Science and Technology, the Academy
of Science runs an open access journal
platform, Scielo South Africa

12. Who were our traditional trading
partners?

13. Photo – SA Tourism

14. A long trade history between gold-
producing S and E African
communities, Arabia and India

16. Ghandi’s printing press on Tolstoy Farm
near Durban reached across continents..

17. AttributionNoncommercial Some rights reserved by daniel.d.slee
Colonial history and
neo-colonial heritage?
Politically?

18. ..more rigid IP regimes and the neo-
colonial prohibition against parallel
importation, plus USPTO Special 301
reports targeting India have kept SA’s
gaze firmly North…

19. The liberation struggle was driven
substantially by student movements,
was reliant on protest publishing,
music and art…

20. By Paul Weinberg (direct donation to Wikimedia Commons from Author) [CC BY-SA 3.0

21. Post-apartheid, two strands of policy –
liberation rhetoric, Afrocentric, public
benefit…

22. Dan Brown CC2.0

23. And neo-liberal policy driven by the
Mineral-Energy Complex, which the
ANC accommodated, resulting in an
economistic approach to publication
and a market approach to research
impact…

24. …as the Minister of Higher Education
and Training confirms

26. The results were perverse…

27. We have tended to base our scholarly
publishing policy on the potential for
increased impact in ‘mainstream’
‘international’ journals..

28. Attribution Some rights reserved by Will Clayton
…a competitive
system in which the
rules are weighted
agains the
developing world…

30. … the real
problem has
to do with
promotion
and reward
systems…
AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by ayomide!

31. ..particularly our reliance on the ISI
Impact Factor…

32. … and the sums of money paid from
government to universities for
publication in ‘accredited’
publications..

33. AttributionNoncommercial Some rights reserved by emily_mas
Real impact?

34. …a system in which ‘mainstream’
(i.e publishable in the index)
=
‘relevant to the English-speaking
global North’
Guédon, J. Open Access and the divide between “mainstream” and “peripheral”
science, 2008. In Como gerir e qualificar revistas científicas (forthcoming , in
Portuguese). (In Press) [Book Chapter].

35. … the other two-thirds of the world is
‘local’.
No known copyright restrictions

36. http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence
Is this a case of fatal
tunnel vision?

37. …or
is OA providing a solution?

38. The beginning of Open Access, in Budapest in
2002…

39. …OA policy has moved steadily into
the mainstream…

40. Attribution Some rights reserved by James Cridland

41. …was taken up slowly in South Africa,
but was seen as an answer..

42. ...with a vision of the
power of regional
open networked
science…
Attribution Some rights reserved by Anthony_Joel

43. … and a human rights
approach more
appropriate to our
constitution…
AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by riac

44. Our universities, in particular, should be
directing their research focus to address the
development and social needs of our
communities. The impact of their research
should be measured by how much difference it
makes to the needs of our communities, rather
than by just how many international citations
researchers receive in their publications.
Blade Nzimande, SA Minster of Higher Education and Training, Women in Science
Awards. 2010

45. http://www.flickr.com/photos/adactio/ CC attribution licence
Is this STILL a case of
tunnel vision?

46. …we offer technical platforms as the
solution but the scaffolding is lacking

47. .. In a situation in which we need to
pay attention to digital librarian skills,
the availability of technical skills and
infrastructure..

48. … in institutions hammered by successive
policy changes…
AttributionNoncommercialShare Alike Some rights reserved by Peter Curbishley

49. …including two decades of World Bank
and IMF denigration of the value of
higher education as a driver of
economic growth and social
development

50. In the UK in particular, OA has become
a spat between the green..

51. The green route…

52. and the gold…

53. AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by ENOUGH Project
… or the ‘gold route’ of open
access journal publishing…

54. AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Tambako the Jaguar

55. In SA the SciELO approach of publicly
funded and resourced platforms has
paid dividends…

56. SciELO and SciELO South Africa
have been incorporated into the
Web of Science
Alperin et al., 2008, Open access and scholarly
publishing in Latin America: ten flavours and a
few reflections
revista.ibict.br/liinc/index.php/liinc/article/vie

57. … but there is
a problem…
AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by ayomide!

59. Formal publishing
is only the tip of
the iceberg -
Attribution Some rights reserved by natalielucier

60. …at the same time as we seek
development impact for our research
production…

61. Michelle Willmers: Willmers_Altmetricsimpact_2012-1.pdf

62. Something we have in fact delivered on for
a long time…

63. .. through high quality, rigorous,
development-focused research units
not properly recognised in the
research reward systems…

65. …although in South Africa we have
demonstrated the power of open
social science book publishing through
the Human Science Research Council…

66. …whose books were downloaded in
their hundreds every month, were
used as educational resources, and
were downloaded in every country in
the world, except Greenland

67. … this has now been undone by an
adminstration that thinks tht
scholarly publishing makes money
in Africa…
AttributionShare Alike Some rights reserved by 401(K) 2012

68. The development of Open Education
Resources is now being supported by
government in Open and Distance
Learning

69. The answer from Open UCT was ‘Open
Everything’…

71. … which might also provide
answers to the chronic problems of
cross-border trade in books and
publications…

72. Eve Gray
Senior Research Associate
IP Law Unit
University of Cape Town
Blog: www.gray-area.co.za
Twitter: graysouth

74. Readings
Seeking Impact and Visbility: Scholarly Communication in Southern
Africa http://open.uct.ac.za/handle/11427/2310
The full list of SCAP reports can be found on Open UCT: open.uct.ac.za
and search on scap.
SciELO South Africa: www.scielo.org.za
Guédon, J. Open Access and the divide between “mainstream”
and “peripheral” science, 2008. In Como gerir e qualificar
revistas científicas [Book Chapter].
Links
The True Size of Africa:
http://static02.mediaite.com/geekosystem/uploads/2010/10/true-
size-of-africa.jpg;
http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/cartography