AfricArXiv Projects

Permanent URI for this community

https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/handle/1/19

Nestled within the AfricArXiv registry lies an archive showcasing the dynamic and innovative project activities, presentations, and scholarly contributions presented by the AfricArXiv initiative. This repository serves as a treasure trove of insights, encompassing AfricArXiv's specialized projects, workshops, seminars, and collaborative initiatives. From pioneering workshops to thought-provoking seminars on emerging trends in African digital services, this collection embodies the essence of AfricArXiv's commitment to advancing scholarly discourse and fostering collaborative networks across the African continent. It stands as a testament to AfricArXiv's mission, offering a glimpse into cutting-edge research management and dissemination initiatives driving the evolution of African scholarship while fostering an inclusive, dynamic platform for knowledge exchange and innovation.

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 89

Open Science in Africa – Challenges, Opportunities and Perspectives
(2018-11-24) Ahinon, Justin, Sègbédji; Havemann, Johanna
Open Science is becoming increasingly popular globally and provides unprecedented opportunities for scientists in Africa, South East Asia, and Latin America. African scientists face several difficulties when attempting to get their work published in peer reviewed journals -there is a small number of publication platforms, a lack of knowledge and access difficulties related to existing journals, whose visibility on the web is not very good (Piron et al., 2017). There are also obstacles related to the functioning of the journals themselves (notably the duration of the revision process and the cost of publications) and the result is that science and scholarly publishing are often perceived as a prerogative of the Northern countries. The methods and techniques (including the peer review process) that are being developed for its dissemination are not necessarily adapted to the contexts of other regions of the world, including Africa. Indeed, many African-based peer-reviewed scholarly journals are unable to host their content online due to resource limitations and the digital divide (Agaba et al., 2004). In this article, we provide an overview of the most important initiatives and actors in the Open Science movement in Africa. We further identify three major challenges for Open Science on the African continent and offer perspectives for African researchers to actively contribute to the global scientific community and share knowledge to meet the challenges we all face.
A Case for Open Science Hardware
(2019-02-13) Havemann, Johanna
Presentation about Open Science Hardware held at the Berlin Open Science - Reproducible Research - Meetup on Feb 06, 2019.
What Role Can Open Science Play in Enabling South-North Dialogues?
(2019-10-27) Havemann, Johanna; Ahinon, Justin, Sègbédji
This presentation was held at the 14th eLearning Africa Conference in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. HEI10 Thursday, 24 October 2019 14:30 – 15:30 Room: Daloa Description: Participants of this Knowledge Exchange Session will learn how an open repository specific for the African research community can trigger interdisciplinary research within the continent as well as globally, with research institutions overseas. The aim of this platform is to provide more visibility and more opportunities to African scientists.
What Role Can Open Science Play In Enabling Global Knowledge Exchange?
(2019-12-18) Havemann, Johanna; Ahinon, Justin Sègbédji
Global threats and challenges resulting from climate change and political crises call for a new agenda to find solutions that work for not just a few but the global community. To provide more visibility and more opportunities to world-wide scientific discussions to African scientists the region-specific preprint repository AfricArXiv.org is meant to trigger interdisciplinary research within the continent as well as globally with research institutions overseas. The repository is a platform for African scientists to publish their research output immediately and free of cost. This makes it possible for them to receive feedback on their work, improve the manuscript for submission to a peer-reviewed journal and identify potential collaboration partners for future projects. Researchers in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia now have the opportunity to find up to date research results through online publishing systems, databases and scientific service providers, make their own research output more visible and build transcontinental collaborations more effectively. We propose that practiced Open Science allows for more diversity in research output and the convergence of the global scientific community. In this discussion, we will address, based on the different experiences with the initiatives mentioned above, how open science can help to facilitate collaboration and the dissemination of knowledge between North and South.
Multilingual COVID-19 Information Videos
(2020-03-26) Bezuidenhout, Louise; McNaughton, Anna; Havemann, Johanna
We propose to address a lack of CODIV-19 information in local languages with short, consistent messages provided in as many regional/local languages as possible. For that, we need help of researchers and other communicators. This is a proposal to create 2-minute videos in as many languages as possible that present a consistent message about COVID-19, containment strategies and practical health information.
African Digital Research Repositories: Mapping the Landscape
(2020-03-28) Bezuidenhout, Louise; Havemann, Jo; Kitchen, Stephanie; De Mutiis, Anna; Owango, Joy; Zeni, Kevina
This data set accompanies the text at doi 10.5281/zenodo.3732273. // Correspondence: JH: info@africarxiv.org, SK: sk111@soas.ac.uk Visual Map: https://kumu.io/access2perspectives/african-digital-research-repositories Dataset: https://tinyurl.com/African-Research-Repositories Archived at https://info.africarxiv.org/african-digital-research-repositories/ Submission form: https://forms.gle/CnyGPmBxN59nWVB38
African Digital Research Repositories: Mapping the Landscape [preprint]
(2020-03-29) Havemann, Jo; De Mutiis, Anna; Bezuidenhout, Louise; Owango, Joy; Kitchen, Stephanie
The International African Institute (IAI, https://www.internationalafricaninstitute.org) in collaboration with AfricarXiv (https://info.africarxiv.org) present an interactive map of African digital research literature repositories. This drew from IAI’s earlier work from 2016 onwards to identify and list Africa-based institutional repositories that focused on identifying repositories based in African university libraries. Our earlier resources are available at https://www.internationalafricaninstitute.org/repositories. The interactive map extends the work of the IAI to include organizational, governmental and international repositories. It also maps the interactions between research repositories. In this dataset, we focus on institutional repositories for scholarly works, as defined by Wikipedia contributors (March 2020)
Harnessing The Open Science Infrastructure For An Efficient African Response To Covid-19 [Preprint]
(2020-03-30) Havemann, Jo; Bezuidenhout, Louise; Achampong, Joyce; Akligoh, Harry; Ayodele, Obasegun; Hussein, Shaukatali; Ksibi, Nabil; Mboa Nkoudou, Thomas Hervé; Obanda, Johanssen; Owango, Joy; Sanga, Valerian Linus1; Stirling, Julian; Wenzelmann, Victoria
We are seeking feedback and further input on this preprint manuscript. Go to outbreaksci.prereview.org/10.5281/zenodo.3733767 to leave a review. Please note: This document in its current preprint version (v1.0) is open for comments. Please make direct suggestions to the text at tinyurl.com/Open-Science-Africa-COVID-19, or email the corresponding authors. To contribute in the collaborative response in some of the work steps and/or financially, please visit https://info.africarxiv.org/contribute/.
Higher Education & Research in Africa – The Stakeholders
(2020-04-07) Havemann, Jo; Ksibi, Nabil; Maina, Mahmoud Bukar; Obanda, Johanssen; Okelo, Luke; Owango, Joy
List of stakeholders and research-related institutions in Africa and abroad. The list is continuously being updated and displayed at https://info.africarxiv.org/stakeholders/.
The Varying Openness of Digital Open Science Tools
(2020-09-03) Bezuidenhout, Louise; Havemann, Johanna
Digital tools that support Open Science practices play a key role in the seamless accumulation, archiving and dissemination of scholarly data, outcomes and conclusions. Despite their integration into Open Science practices, the providence and design of these digital tools are rarely explicitly scrutinized. This means that influential factors, such as the funding models of the parent organizations, their geographic location, and the dependency on digital infrastructures are rarely considered. Suggestions from literature and anecdotal evidence already draw attention to the impact of these factors, and raise the question of whether the Open Science ecosystem can realise the aspiration to become a truly “unlimited digital commons” in its current structure. In an online research approach, we compiled and analysed the geolocation, terms and conditions as well as funding models of 242 digital tools increasingly being used by researchers in various disciplines. Our findings indicate that design decisions and restrictions are biased towards researchers in North American and European scholarly communities. In order to make the future Open Science ecosystem inclusive and operable for researchers in all world regions including Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, those should be actively included in design decision processes. Digital Open Science Tools carry the promise of enabling collaboration across disciplines, world regions and language groups through responsive design. We therefore encourage long term funding mechanisms and ethnically as well as culturally inclusive approaches serving local prerequisites and conditions to tool design and construction allowing a globally connected digital research infrastructure to evolve in a regionally balanced manner.
The Varying Openness of Digital Open Science Tools
(2020-09-03) Bezuidenhout, Louise; Havemann, Johanna
Digital tools that support Open Science practices play a key role in the seamless accumulation, archiving and dissemination of scholarly data, outcomes and conclusions. Despite their integration into Open Science practices, the providence and design of these digital tools are rarely explicitly scrutinized. This means that influential factors, such as the funding models of the parent organizations, their geographic location, and the dependency on digital infrastructures are rarely considered. Suggestions from literature and anecdotal evidence already draw attention to the impact of these factors, and raise the question of whether the Open Science ecosystem can realise the aspiration to become a truly “unlimited digital commons” in its current structure. In an online research approach, we compiled and analysed the geolocation, terms and conditions as well as funding models of 242 digital tools increasingly being used by researchers in various disciplines. Our findings indicate that design decisions and restrictions are biased towards researchers in North American and European scholarly communities. In order to make the future Open Science ecosystem inclusive and operable for researchers in all world regions including Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania, those should be actively included in design decision processes. Digital Open Science Tools carry the promise of enabling collaboration across disciplines, world regions and language groups through responsive design. We therefore encourage long term funding mechanisms and ethnically as well as culturally inclusive approaches serving local prerequisites and conditions to tool design and construction allowing a globally connected digital research infrastructure to evolve in a regionally balanced manner.
AfricArXiv – the pan-African Open Scholarly Repository (Overview and Roadmap)
(2020-09-25) Ahinon, Justin, Sègbédji; Arafat, Hisham; Ahmad, Umar; Achampong, Joyce; Aldirdiri, Osman; Ayodele, Obasegun, Tekena; Bezuidenhout, Louise; Okelo, Luke; Cary, Michael; Fath, Nada; Ksibi, Nabil, Aziz; Zimmer, Niklas, Carl; Nasr, Fayza; Nguemeni, Carine; Maina, Mahmoud, Bukar; Mensah, Priscilla; Obanda, Johanssen; Owango, Joy; Ogunlaja, Ahmed; Simpson, Gregory; Havemann, Johanna
AfricArXiv is a community-led digital archive for African research working towards building an Africa-owned open scholarly repository; a knowledge commons of African scholarly works. We are partnering with established scholarly repository services to provide a platform for African scientists of any discipline to present their research findings and connect with other researchers – on the African continent and globally. It is our aim to promote discoverability of African research output according to sfDORA : https://sfdora.org/read/ FAIR principles: https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/ Helsinki Initiative on Multilingualism: https://www.helsinki-initiative.org/en To contextualize the above to the African scholarly community we have postulated 10 African Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication: https://info.africarxiv.org/african-oa-principles/
Infographic: African Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication
(2020-11-24) Mensah, Priscilla; Havemann, Jo
Infographic representing the 10 African Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication. We, the undersigned, declare to adhere to the following Principles for Open Access in Scholarly Communication in and about Africa: 1) Academic Research and knowledge from and about Africa should be freely available to all who wish to access, use or reuse it while at the same time being protected from misuse and misappropriation. 2) African scientists and scientists working on African topics and/or territory will make their research achievements including underlying datasets available in a digital Open Access repository or journal and an explicit Open Access license is applied. 3) African research output should be made available in the principle common language of the global science community as well as in one or more local African languages. 4) It is important to take into consideration in the discussions indigenous and traditional knowledge in its various forms. 5) It is necessary to respect the diverse dynamics of knowledge generation and circulation by discipline and geographical area. 6) It is necessary to recognise, respect and acknowledge the regional diversity of African scientific journals, institutional repositories and academic systems. 7) African Open Access policies and initiatives promote Open Scholarship, Open Source and Open Standards for interoperability purposes. 8) Multi-stakeholder mechanisms for collaboration and cooperation should be established to ensure equal participation across the African continent. 9) Economic investment in Open Access is consistent with its benefit to societies on the African continent – therefore institutions and governments in Africa provide the enabling environment, infrastructure and capacity building required to support Open Access 10) African Open Access stakeholders and actors keep up close dialogues with representatives from all world regions, namely Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
Building Capacity For Preprint-Based Peer Review And Curation In Africa
(2020-12-04) Owango, Joy; Havemann, Jo
In Africa, only few stakeholders exist that have both the capacity and the pan-African scope to educate and build capacity about the opportunities and regionally applicable research publishing workflows that are available today. African researchers are often struggling with low salaries and high teaching demands, which is why it is difficult for them to serve as reviewers in assessing other researchers’ works. We therefore need to establish a culture and transparent and easy to follow workflow which is mutually beneficial not only for the recipient of a peer review, but also for the reviewer.
Open Science Pie
(2021-03-07) Havemann, Jo
The Open Science Pie visualizes eight (8) important pieces of Open Science that can easily be implemented by any researcher to foster transparent, reproducible, and efficient research practices.
How PIDs & Preprints Are Facilitating The Ownership Of African Scholarly Content
(2021-05-16) Owango, Joy; Havemann, Jo
As part of the NISO.plus conference 2021 in the session "Quality and reliability of preprints, Ms Joy Owango presented the work AfricArXiv and TCC Africa are doing in facilitating ownership of African scholarly content using persistent identifiers.
Language Diversity & Knowledge Equity in Research
(2021-05-18) Havemann, Jo
Presentation and discussion held at the Wikimedia Germany event "Principles and barriers of knowledge equity in science" as part of the Open Science Fellows Program https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/Open_Science_Fellows_ProgramThis input highlights different facets of linguistic diversity in science: English as a lingua franca and applied languages in different disciplines, linguistic diversity in everyday scientific life as well as via translation software and technical options to publish multilingually. With a subsequent reflection: what are the possibilities for inclusion arising from applied language diversity in everyday scientific life?
How To Use AfricArXiv To Increase Discoverability Of Your Research Output
(2021-09-10) Obanda, Johanssen; Havemann, Jo
A presentation about AfricArXiv hosted by Eider Africa, presented on September 10, 2021.
Open Reviewers Africa
(2021-12-06) Munene, Aurelia; Ngugi, Wangari Joyce; Owango, Joy; Obanda, Johanssen; Havemann, Johanna; Saderi, Daniela; Korzec, Kornelia
Eider Africa, TCC Africa, AfricArXiv, PREreview, and eLife are partnering to develop resources and a dissemination strategy for the delivery of an open peer review workshop to African research communities in the life sciences. Our goal is to build capacity and enthusiasm for scholarly open review of preprints among African researchers, and to provide opportunities to actively participate in peer review and gain recognition through community engagement. We will showcase our approach to co-creating resources and a replicable framework tailored to the needs and objectives of a growing community of African reviewers in the context of the changing global landscape of scientific research assessment and dissemination.
Open Reviewers Africa – A Workshop To Empower The Next Generation Of African Peer Reviewers
(2021-12-09) Owango, Joy; Munene, Aurelia; Ngugi, Joyce Wangari; Obanda, Johanssen; Havemann, Johanna; Saderi, Daniela; Korzec, Kornelia
Eider Africa, TCC Africa, AfricArXiv, PREreview, and eLife are partnering to develop resources and a dissemination strategy for the delivery of an open peer review workshop to African research communities in the life sciences. Our goal is to build capacity and enthusiasm for scholarly open review of preprints among African researchers and to provide opportunities to actively participate in peer review and gain recognition through community engagement. We will showcase our approach to co-creating resources and a replicable framework tailored to the needs and objectives of a growing community of African reviewers in the context of the changing global landscape of scientific research assessment and dissemination.

Browse

Browsing AfricArXiv Projects by Issue Date

Results Per Page

Sort Options