United Kingdom

This paper emphasises the need for strategic approaches to boost scholarly publishing and literacy in African academic institutions. Despite the potential of scholarly publishing to enhance scholarly communication, African content remains underrepresented due to factors like low digital literacy, inadequate training, limited internet access, and high subscription costs. The paper proposes several strategies, including developing digital infrastructure, fostering global collaborations, enhancing training programmes, and advocating for policy changes. By implementing these strategies, African scholars can improve digital content creation and visibility, ultimately benefiting teaching, research, and the global digital economy.

UKSG Annual Conference 2025

Adopting strategic approaches to increase scholarly publishing and digital literacy in African academic and research institutions

technical paper

The UKSG Annual Conference is a major event in the scholarly communications calendar which attracts delegates each year from around the world - librarians, publishers, content providers, consultants and intermediaries.

Those involved in running community-led infrastructures and funding models that support Diamond open access will be familiar with questions being repeatedly raised about the sustainability of their work. In this breakout session, we will hear short talks from five initiatives that are engaging directly with this question, in relation to both open access books and journals, even as they sometimes push back against its often unspoken assumptions. Each contributor will unpack what “achieving sustainability” means for them, including reporting on their concrete progress in support of this work, in their own terms, as well as potentially highlighting the limits of understanding sustainability as merely financial. Panellists will also reflect on developments in the broader scholarly system that potentially both are a challenge for their work and present opportunities. This will be followed by questions from the audience.

Scaling Sustainability: Open Book Collective and Community-led Open Access – Joe Deville, Open Book Collective / Lancaster University

From the Back of the Sofa to the Budget Line: Sustainability at Opening the Future – Kira Hopkins, Copim Opening the Future / Birkbeck, University of London

Why we need a Big Deal for Diamond Open Access Journals – Caroline Edwards, Open Library of Humanities / Birkbeck, University of London

Sustaining open metadata as a public good: benefits and challenges – Rupert Gatti, Thoth Open Metadata and Open Book Publishers

Sustainable Principles: POSI in Practice – Niels Stern, Directory of Open Access Books & OAPEN

It’s Nice, but is it sustainable? Rethinking sustainability for Diamond open access infrastructures and funding models

Open Science is gaining momentum in Africa as a movement to make scientific research more accessible, transparent and inclusive. However, the practice of open science within the region is at different stages of development requiring Librarians to play an active role in the advocacy for open science and open data management best practices. This paper reviews the state of Open Science in Africa and examine lessons learnt from the AfLIA Open Data Management Foundational Course for African Librarians.

Advancing Open Science in Africa: Lessons from the AfLIA Open Data Management Foundational Course for African Librarians

In light of the Jisc Review of TA agreements, financial pressures faced by HE sector (UK) and uncertainty of block grant support, the sector is as a turning point. Without knowing what comes next we must continue working to analyse the deals to determine what we want and do not want from any future iterations. This session will discuss how we analyse these deals including the use of Unsub and EZProxy. We have begun to adapt our processes and will provide an overview of how we have established our data requirements and created a framework for assessing deals.

Using data to analyse Read and Publish deals and a look to how we adapt our processes in a post TA future/world

With frozen budgets and more financial pressure than ever before we need to show value for money on every purchase. Evidence-based decision making for resource acquisition has always been high strategic priority for the library this paper seeks to illustrate how linking disparate datasets can illustrate and enhance value for money purchasing. We will present four mini-case studies using datasets from JUSP, Reading lists, Alma and OpenAthens. We will explore some data modelling and various ways to visualise the stories emerging from the data and how these feed library conversations both internally and with the wider university.

Not just JUSP. Beyond the silos, making datasets sing to each other

Libraries are increasing becoming involved in publishing in ways that have the potential to bring about change in scholarly communications. From setting up new presses, to providing financial support as well as advocating for open research within institutions, librarians are key to realising a new future for academic publishing.

But much of this work is happening in siloes, split across roles or taking place across different professional departments. There is a lack of a coherent vision for a credible alternative to the status quo and no clear division of labour or allocation of responsibility. This panel explores the way forward to effect positive change.

Realising a New Vision for Academic Publishing: How
Open Institutional Publishers and Libraries are Working Together to Bring About Change in Scholarly Communications

1. This session will explore the One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) initiative of Government of India which aims to provide countrywide access to national and international scientific and academic content. The ONOS intends to sign national licenses with most of the prominent STEM publishers and database producers of the world whose contents are already being subscribed by various institutions of higher education and research organizations either directly or through Government-funded consortia. This initiative is expected to benefit access to e-resources from 70 publishers to all research and educational institutions including universities, colleges, research organizations as well as every citizen of the country. 2. He will present availability Digital Open Access Resources or e-learning platform initiated by the Government India and other educational institutes in India used by the students, faculty and researchers. Digital resources and e-learning have become significantly important in education systems across the world. These open educational Resources includes course materials, modules, textbooks, videos, software, and other tools, materials or techniques, used to support and provide access to knowledge and educational resources. The Ministry of Education, Govt. of India undertakes a large number of projects for providing on-line content and resources for all-round development of students. Some of these are NPTEL, Virtual labs, Talk to Teacher, Spoken Tutorial, e-PG Pathshala, SWAYAM, MOOCS Project, Sakshet, etc. There are also NDLI, National Science digital Library, Shodhganga, E-Pathshala, Gian, E-PG Pathshala, Moocs, SWAYAM, SWAYAMpraba, Virual Labs etc. It will also explain what the benefit is and who can be beneficial of these e-learning portals. It will also discuss thee valuable Government information Sources used for research and educational purposes like, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation including National Statistical Office, Central Statistical Office, National Sample Survey, the Registrar General of India, the Reserve Bank of India, NITI Aayog, The Labour Bureau, Census of India, and resources like the Indian Statistical Abstract, the Report of Currency and Finance, and the Combined Finance and Revenue Accounts of the Union and States.

Joint Session : One Nation One Subscription (ONOS): The Path to Transformative Knowledge Agreements in India / Open Educational Resources and sources: Initiatives from Government of India and Higher Education-al Institutions

Without the resource to purchase new records or employ trained cataloguing staff to create bespoke metadata and enhance existing records, how can library collections teams ensure that their catalogue records are of sufficient quality to drive discovery and enable collective collections comparison work to be as accurate as possible?

Our session we will give example workflows, highlight useful resources and helpful community members. We’ll demonstrate the impact and added value technical services teams have on improving end user experience, as well as discussing how improving accuracy and detail in MARC records can positively affect the results of collective collections work.

The art of the possible: Mid-tech and low-cost ways to upgrade your skill set and harness free data
sources to enhance your bibliographic metadata

The role of student staff in academic libraries has changed. Libraries are increasingly working in partnership with students to Co-create and co-develop services, projects and initiatives (Salisbuy et al. 2021), but what is the impact of these schemes and how can we evaluate them effectively? This breakout session will explore how HE libraries are developing and evaluating students as partner roles. It will communicate the results of a large scale research project exploring the approaches of SCONUL institutions to student roles within their Libraries and if (either intentionally or not) these roles have had an impact on progression into the Library and Scholarly Communications sector or onto LIS programmes.

The breakout session will also discuss two case studies of libraries developing student as partner roles at Manchester Metropolitan University and Lancaster University, including how the impact of these roles has been evaluated. Attendees will benefit from learning more about the current approaches of other institutions to developing student as partner roles and the impact this has had on diversifying the workforce of the sector, as well as receiving practical tips on implementing and evaluating student as partner schemes at their own institutions.

Growing and diversifying our future profession: How HE libraries develop and evaluate their Students as Partner roles

Retracted research is published work that is withdrawn, removed, or otherwise invalidated from the scholarly record can be inadvertently propagated within the digital scholarly record through citations. This is more likely to happen when the process for effectively communicating retraction at all publication lifecycle stages is unclear. In June 2024, the NISO CREC (Communication of Retractions, Removals, and Expressions of Concern) Working Group published its Recommended Practice, a solution that aims to ensure that retraction metadata is shared across the publishing and discovery ecosystem. This session aims to educate potential adopters about the benefits of integrating this Recommended Practice into their workflows.

Catching Up with NISO’s CREC: Tools for Preventing the Spread of Retracted Research

It’s been over 20 years since the Budapest Declaration on Open Access and while the OA movement has made significant headway, the future end-state is becoming increasingly less clear. In the wake of Plan S, a future fully Gold Open Access state seemed, for the first time, a possibility and then – to the concern of many stakeholders – a potential inevitability. Global market conditions in the interim, however, have made it increasingly difficult for publishers and libraries to negotiate OA agreements supporting a full transition to Gold OA. Instead, recent policy mandates have focused on immediate OA without the provision of financial support for Gold OA, effectively preferentially promoting Green OA. Concurrently, we’re seeing broader interest/adoption of the Rights Retention Strategy and a move away from paying APCs – and for the first time, we’re seeing a decline in the growth of Gold OA relative to pay-walled content. We’re also starting to see agreements suggesting financial support for zero embargo Green OA. This session seeks to examine the complex interplay and potential consequences of a shift in global policy mandates from Gold to Green and what it could mean for stakeholders across the industry, including researchers. Speakers will examine existential questions such as ‘What do we really want from OA?’, ‘What does a shift to green OA mean for subscriptions, TAs and the transition of the industry to fully OA?’, ‘How can Green OA routes be developed to better support researchers’ etc.

Adopting strategic approaches to increase scholarly publishing and digital literacy in African academic and research institutions

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Adopting strategic approaches to increase scholarly publishing and digital literacy in African academic and research institutions

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Next from UKSG Annual Conference 2025

It’s Nice, but is it sustainable? Rethinking sustainability for Diamond open access infrastructures and funding models

Stay up to date with the latest Underline news!

PRESENTATIONS

CONFERENCES

COMPANY

RESOURCES

Downloads