Section outline

  • A study performed by PublicHealth.Africa and LIBSENSE explored the open publishing practices of African journals expected to publish articles on public health. You can link to the published paper (of course it is published as open access itself) Open access publication of public health research in African journals, and here are some of the key findings:

    One hundred and seventy four journals were identified from 13 African countries, 55% of the publishers were professional societies, and 52% of the journals were published only twice a year or less. While 64% were freely available to download, only 39% had a Creative Commons Licence, and only 22%, 9% and 21% were indexed in PubMed, MEDLINE or the Directory of Open Access Journals respectively, and only 58% had a Digital Object Identifier. Fifty one percent of the journals levied full Article Processing Charges – 36% of these the journals stated that these charges could be fully or partially waived.

    The 6 countries above the group’s median Gross Domestic Product (GDP) published 145 journals, while the 7 countries at or below the median GP published 29 journals. Journals from countries at the median GDP or below were less likely to charge full Article Processing Charges than journals from countries above the median GDP, 28% and 55% respectively (chi-square 7.36; p=0.007).

    The study concluded:

    Improved opportunities are required for African researchers to publish their findings in local journals, allowing research users to access these findings.

    There are a number of resources freely available to assist journals and their editors to create open access opportunities, and to have the journals indexed so that articles can be found through literature searching. Below are some of the resources that you may find of use: