The current publishing landscape

in South Africa

Susan Veldsman & Ina Smith

Agenda

• About ASSAf• ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Programme

• SAJS & Quest

• Journal Publishing in SA

• ASSAf Initiatives/Services• SciELO SA

• OJS Pilot

• Support & Training

2

ASSAf Mandate (1)

• Honour distinguished scholars in all fields of scientific enquiry

3

Quarraisha Abdool Karim Jonathan Jansen Justin Nono Komguep

ASSAf Mandate (2)

• Generate evidence-based solutions to national and global challenges

4

ASSAf Goals (aligned with Gov. Goals)

• Recognition and reward of excellence

• Promotion of innovation and scholarly activity

• Effective, evidence-based scientific advice

• Public interest in and awareness of science & science education

• National, regional and international linkages

5

Scholarly Publishing Programme (1)

Increase visibility, accessibility & searchability of SA accredited scholarly journals

• Add 10 journal titles to SciELO SA platform

• Conclude license agreements with new journals

• Prepare new journals for OA platform

• Host annual SciELO SA Users’ Group Meeting

• Monitor & evaluate OA platform

6

Strategic Objective 1

Activities

Scholarly Publishing Programme (2)

Improve quality of SA scholarly journals, books & conference proceedings

• Publish 2 discipline-grouped panel reports

• Coordinate activities of National Scholarly Book Publishers’Forum & National Scholarly Editors’Forum

• Evaluation of books, conference proceedings for DHET

• Host 4 webinars on scholarly publishing topics

7

Strategic Objective 2

Activities

Scholarly Publishing Programme (3)

• Provide DOI service to SciELO SA journals

• Assist with online hosting & managing of SciELO SA journals

• Update & expand SA journal database

• Monitor value & impact of activities of SPU

• Advise on implementation of DHET Research Outputs Policy

• Adoption of new technologies i.e. ORCiD, Portico, XML

8

Activities (cont.)

Scholarly Publishing Programme (4)

• Publish report on impact of DHET policy

• Establish impact of the SPU in South Africa

• Engage stakeholders

9

Study: Scientific Journal & Book Publishing: 2005-2015

Scholarly Publishing Programme (5)

Promote visibility & impact of SA research through publication of SAJS

• Publish 6 issues per annum

• Highlight ASSAfs 20th anniversary

• Introduce article-level metrics for improved impact measurement

• Undergo ASSAfs peer-reviewed evaluation to assess quality

• Undertake an independent bibliometric assessment to monitor impact

10

Strategic Objective 3

Scholarly Publishing Programme (6)

Promote awareness of science among youth

• Full-colour, quarterly, popular science magazine

• Print-run 25 000 per issue

• Aimed at Grades 10-12, educators, scientific community

• Improve impact through:• Targeted distribution strategy

• Increased collaboration with DBE, University Education Departments, SAASTA, Science Centres

11

Strategic Objective 4

SA Policy on Research Output

12

+ 75% of contributions/articles

published must be from

outside a specific

organization

+ Editorial board: two thirds

beyond a single institution

http://www.dhet.gov.za/Policy%20and%20Development%20Support/Research%20Outputs%20policy%20gazette%202015.pdf

Accredited Scholarly Journal Titles

Lists acknowledged by the Dept. of Higher Education & Training (SA):

• Web of Science (Thomson Reuters)

• Scopus (Elsevier)

• DHET List

• SciELO SA Journals

• IBSS (ProQuest)

• Norwegian Registry for Scientific Journals, Series and Publishers (Level 2 only)

13

Journal Publishers in South Africa• African Journals Online (AJOL)

• Sabinet

• AOSIS Publishing

• Health & Medical Publishing Group (HMPG)

• African SUNMedia

• Medpharm

• SciELO SA (65)

• Juta (10)

• Taylor & Francis (48)

• NISC (17)

• UNISA Press

• Wiley Butterworth (3)

• Elsevier (6)

• Societies, Associations, Universities, Museums, Institues, Centres14

Journal Publishing in South Africa

• 396 journal titles published in SA

• 329 scholarly journal titles accredited by the SA Dept. of Higher Education and Training

• DHET funds each article with ±R 118 000-00 once successfully published in accredited journal

15

Accredited Scholarly Journal Titles (329) (58 in DOAJ)

16

172

157

Subscription Open Access

STM vs SSH Scholarly Journals

17

STM

SSH

STM SSH

Indexing of Journal Titles in SA

18

Data collected during:

2015 2016 Comments

DHET 271 273 2 titles added

Web of Science 66 63 3 titles removed Decline in IF: 28 titles Increase in IF: 25 titles10 titles without IF

Scopus 131 133 2 titles added

IBSS 39 41 2 titles added

Norwegian List ----- 135 Only 0s and 1s; No 2s

SciELO SA 56 65 9 titles added

What do Authors prefer?

• Publish in journals accredited by the SA Dept. of Higher Education and Training (DHET) (± R 118 000-00 per article)

• See 6 lists accredited by DHET

• High Impact Factor (IF) journals

• International acknowledged journals specially those in their fields

19

What do Editors want?

• Focus on sharing new research through journal articles

• User friendly journal management system, simple to use, functional

• System must reduce financial burden, burden of setting up technology, burden of struggling to keep up with international best practice

• Independent to focus on scholarly role

• Someone to contact – one-stop service for independent advise (ASSAf?)

20

21

Preserved via Portico

DOIs & metadata registered

Indexed via SciELO SA

Published in print/online

Managed via

OJS/other

ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Workflow Journal Specific

SciELO SA

• Full-text searchable database of selected, high-quality South African open access scholarly journals

• Main focus: global dissemination of open access journal content

• Purpose: To increase the visibility, accessibility, indexibility and impact of South African scholarly journals• Implementation of Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs)

• Creative Commons Licenses

• Digital Preservation Strategy

• Researcher IDs (ORCID)

• Allocation of online ISSNs

• XML22

The SciELO Citation Index (SCI) is part of the WoS Portal(Note that the SCI is not part of the WoS Core Collection)

24

SciELO SA

To date, texts in the SciELO SA open access

collection have been viewed more than 4.5 million times in total since its inception in 2009

25

Online Journal System Pilot Project

26

What have we learned? (1)

• This software is relatively new to the South African scholarly publishing landscape, and new thinking was required from the Editors

• ASSAf has limited IT expertise, and IT expertise (programming, system administrator) is not readily available. ASSAf is dependent on outside experts, when they have time to address our needs. Outstanding IT problems.

• New plugins regularly become available. It requires an openness towards new learning/lifelong learning/self-learning/learning on the go/experimenting, and also giving back in the spirit of Open Source Software. It is different from a commercial approach. South Africans still need to get used to this approach.

27

What have we learned? (2)

• Great care was taken to transfer journals from the previous DOI owner to the ASSAf DOI

• Work on parsing Word/PDF documents to an XML format is still in progress, and a plugin will hopefully be released later this year

• Work on article-level metrics is also still in progress, AddThis API?

28

What have we learned? (3)

• Hopefully all OJS journals will – with time – upload retrospective issues. This will increase the online presence of each journal, and the more articles available online, the better the chances of citations increasing, which can then result in an increase in journal impact.

• This is really a cost effectice and sustainable way of supporting the editor and assocaited workflow and the journals!

29

What else do we need to do?

• Consistent display of all journals

• Consistent applications/functionalities/developments across journals

• Integration of social media

• Graphical design

• Hyperlinked references

• iThenticate plagiarism detection software

• ASSAf web page

30

Peer-review of Journal Titles (1)

• Cycle of 5 years

• Peer-review process:

• Identify journals

• Editors complete questionnaire and submit to ASSAf

• Experts identified for peer-review panel

• Peer-review expert panels meet

• Cosolidate data and present consensus views

• Publish report (6)

• Number of titles reviewed up to date: 145

31

Peer-review of Journal Titles (2)

Currently under review

• Engineering and Architecture (15 journals)

• Humanities II: Visual and Performing Arts (10 journals)

• Communication and Information Science (14 journals)

Current panels being established

• Education (17 journals)

• Politics, History and Philosophy (26 journals)

• Mathematics and Science (22 journals)

Total additional titles reviewed: 104

Total: 247 of 309 titles reviewed32

Support (1)

• Criteria for best practice in terms of journal publishing (6 lists + DOAJ criteria)

• Pilot project – ±R 5 000-00 per year (excl. staffing)

• Roadshow on journal management and publishing using OJS (WC, FS, GN, KZN, EC)

• SciELO SA & WoS (65 titles) – growing collection?

• Investigation into APCs

• DOAJ Ambassador – input on international level

• DOAJ inclusion (58 journals)

33

Support (2)

• Transition to online (OJS) – also digitise retrospective articles

• Online help wiki

• Online newsletter & blog

• National Scholarly Editors Forum – annually

• Code of Best Practice in Editorial Discretion and Peer Review (currently being revised)

34

“So, the smallest open access journal has a potentially larger audience than even the most popular pay

walled journal because the work can reach anyone in the world with access to the Internet. When you couple this massive potential audience with the permission to republish and reuse via an open license, authors can

maximize the impact of their work beyond the reach of any closed journal.” - Peter Suber

Source: World Bank Live Event Report: Open Access Policy and Development 2012, http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/32839

35

Requirements for a High Quality

Journal - Checklist

About the Journal

Journal Articles - technical

Journal Articles - content

Journal Financial Sustainability

Journal Visibility & Impact

Journal Guidelines

Journal Policies & Statements

Journal Roles & Responsibilities

Layout and Design

File Formats: PDF

Layout and Design

Easy to save and print

Interactive table of contents

Widely used in most scholarly

journals

File Formats: PDF

Author names, affiliations and contact information clearly visible. Space options for ORCIDs.

How to cite information, with the DOIdisplayed.

Licencing information

Clickable DOI in reference list, for easy citation information

EPUB In-article table of contents. With clickable links

Ability to enlarge letter size. Compatible with screen sizes.

EPUB

Links to online citationsSearch ability and screen size adaption

XML

Easy format for all harvester

Extensive metadata included for optimal visibility

Your Journal Online

Google Analytics

In-depth analytics on site visits, bounce rates and page views

Customisable timeline

Browser data

Overview of countries with most visitsEasy reporting on

monthly/quarterly/annual or per issue details

• Developing capacity in terms of scholarly writing, editing, reviewing etc.

• Open Access Week & other advocacy opportunities

• Webinars

• Funder: National Research Foundation (NRF) made OA Statement

• ORCID Ambassador

• Collaboration with CrossRef, Portico, Creative Commons, others

Continued Support

Please Diarise!

Online Journal Management using

Open Journal Systems (OJS)

Ina Smith

Journal Publishing Needs

“Scholars need the means to launch a new generation of journals committed to open

access, and to help existing journals that elect to make the transition to open access…”

Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002

57

Open Journal Systems (OJS)

• Journal management & publishing system, web site – all in one

• Licensed as Open Source Software (OS)

• Developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP) & Simon Fraser University

• Community of developers

• Download and install on local server https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/

• Version 3.0 in August/September 2016

58

Benefits of OJS• Installed locally and locally controlled

• Editors configure requirements, sections, review process

• Online submission and management of all content

• Central archive – documentation, communication etc

• Comprehensive indexing of journal content

• Reading tools for content

• Plugins (additional tools)

• Email notifications and commenting options

• Builds capacity, reduces dependency

• Allows for flexible publishing frequency

59

E-Workflow

• Author

• Editor

• Section Editor

• Reviewers

• Proofreader

• Copyeditor

• Layout Editor

Not in workflow

• Journal Manager

• Reader

60

Users of OJS in SA

• Societies

• Publishers

• Universities

• Other

61

SA Journal Titles using OJS

62

132 titles

Activity – Using OJS

http://journals.sfu.ca/testdrive/

Username: admin

Password: testdrive

Create an OA journal using OJS:

Trusted List of OA Journal Titles

• Journal management & publishing system, web site – all in one

• Licensed as Open Source Software

• Developed by Public Knowledge Project (PKP) & Simon Fraser University

• Community of developers

• Download and install on local server https://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/

64

ASSAf Approach

• Introduction & Overview (today)

• Discuss with Editorial Board

• Implementation of OJS & Training

• Continued support based on MoU

65

Which Journals Qualify (ASSAf)?

• SciELO SA Journals

• Journals in good standing

• Print to Online

• “Challenged” journals

• Committed & dedicated editorial team

66

Online Help – OJS Tutorials

67

Online Help – OJS Video Tutorials

68

http://www.youtube.com/user/PublicKnowledgeProj/

Online Help – PKP School

69

Academic Integrity (1)

70

• Researchers should take ownership of their

academic identity & integrity on the web – be pro-

active

• Create a Google Profile (Google Scholar & Google

Citations)

• Create an ORCID ID

• Setup alerts and know who cites your work and in

which context it is used

Academic Integrity (2)

71

• Assign good quality metadata to OA research so

that Google will return quality research at the top of

Google listing

• Conduct Google searches for your own

research/name, and see where it has been

mentioned

• Know what is being researched in your field

• Take action if needed

Beall’s list of predatory journals/ publishers

• Use with caution, but nevertheless consult

• Lists of suspicious publishers & journal titles

• Authors: consult list before deciding where to submit paper

• Editors: regularly check and confirm that your journal is not listed

• Funders: consult before funding research published in journal

http://scholarlyoa.com/

Requirements to partner with ASSAf

• Use Open Source software, open standards

• Make base URL available to harvesters

• Journal setup complete

• Google Scholar site map in configuration

• Article persistent URLs (DOIs)

• Quality metadata

Registering for Indexing (1)• InCites Journal Citation Reports (TR WoS)

• Criteria: http://wokinfo.com/essays/journal-selection-process/

• Apply: http://ip-science.thomsonreuters.com/info/journalsubmission-front/

• SCImago(Elsevier Scopus)• Criteria: http://www.elsevier.com/online-

tools/scopus/content-overview#content-policy-and-selection

• Apply: http://suggestor.step.scopus.com/suggestTitle/step1.cfm%20

Registering for Indexing (2)• Google Scholar Metrics

• Criteria: http://scholar.google.co.za/intl/en/scholar/metrics.html#inclusion

• Google Scholar Profile• Register:

https://scholar.google.co.za/intl/en/scholar/citations.html

• Google Web Site registration• Gmail & Google Search Console

• https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/submit-url?pli=1

Registering for Indexing (3)

• Discipline specific indexes• E.g. Music: Rilm Abstracts; The Music Index; Sabinet

Online; African Journals OnLine

• E.g. Aquatic Science: Agris; ASFA; Aquatic Biology; Aquaculture & Fisheries Resources; BIOBASE; BIOSIS; Fish & Fisheries Worldwide; Journal Citation Reports; Science Citation Index Expanded; Zoological Record

• Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)• https://doaj.org/application/new

• SHERPA RoMEOhttp://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/index.php

Social media

Wikipedia

Facebook

Twitter

Google Plus

YouTube

South African Journal of Science

AddThis toolbar

Traditional marketing & training

• One-on-one, Group

• Face-to-face, Virtual

• Pamphlets, Posters

• Exhibits

• Email signature

• Marketing opportunities during conferences, special events

• Etc.

Measuring journal impact

• Google Scholar Metrics

• Google Scholar Profile

• Google Analytics

• OJS System Statistics

• Altmetrics

• Piwik

The index is based on the set of

the journal's most cited papers

and the number of citations that

they have received in other publications.

Google Analytics

OJS System Analytics

Finding References (OJS)

http://piwik.org/

Monitor impact

http://blogs.biomedcentral.com/bmcblog/2014/11/06/the-impact-factor-of-journals-converting-from-subscription-to-open-access/

Questions? Thank you!

Susan VeldsmanDirector: ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Unit

susan@assaf.org.za

Ina SmithPlanning Manager: ASSAf Scholarly Publishing Unit

ina@assaf.org.za