

Transcription of the handwritten flipchart notes taken by Michelle Willmers (OpenUCT, South Africa) from the discussions by participants during the Workshop on the Discoverability of African Scholarship Online  #scholarAfrica, 10-11 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya

More info:
http://openuct.uct.ac.za/events/workshop-discoverability-african-scholarship-online
http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/promoting-discoverability-african-scholarship
http://epriego.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/scholarafrica-hello-nairobi/
https://zenodo.org/collection/user-scholarafrica



Transcription of flipchart notes on this text file by Ernesto Priego

Day 1, 10 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya

Challenges (summary of post-it wall at end of day 1)

Social/political

Political resistance and silo approach to regional policy-making
How to grow acceptance of credit for non-journal publication **
Non-Africa research agenda
Language as a barrier **
Holding funders to account for supporting openness
Resistance of academics to sharing information
Knowledge colonialism
Heavy teaching workloads 
Perception that IT will be the answer
African inferiority complex
Generate publishing online to help researchers understand
Capture of African researchers by rich universities [brain drain]

Capacity

Tech expertise that scholarly communications takes for granted
How to navigate licensing and IP issues ***
Metadata literacy (and harvesting)/digital literacy ***
Skills training programmes
Scaling up islands of success into landscapes of sharing

Research Management

Lack of communication strategies
Identifying effective methods for disseminating back to communities
Lack of institutional support
Limited research funding
Perception of research as separate from teaching
Research ethics and ROM
Lack of research management systems
Reward and incentive structures don't support sharing **

Infrastructure

Creating African Internet backbone
High cost of Internet
Lack of infrastructure **
Repositories that actually meet our needs

Questions

How does data sharing not exacerbate digital colonialism?
Sharing data is costly. Where will money come from?*
The long tail of digital curation. Who pays post-project?

WHO PAYS?

What are the downsides of sharing for the African researcher?

Sharing data- what's in it for me?

How to address challenges of institutional data collection?

How to address challenge of solving other people's problems?

---

Day 2, 11 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya

Day 2 --the future, how we see ourselves/scholarly communications in 20 years' time


Wish List

IT infrastructure 
	Internet backbone
	Internet in every home
	Access to education

Scaling of repositories
	Repositories for restricted information

Metadata that is accurate and self-generating

Devices that allow for immediate/anywhere access to information

Free flow of information to enhance citizen democracy

Abundance of funding for research

Sharing as the norm rather than exception

Libraries as social learning spaces for collaboration and learning
	Libraries accessible to all

Unique institutionnel collections accessible to all

Libraries part of mainstream publishing

All content Open Access

Continental purchasing power

All software OS with government support

All educational resources open, students select components

Automatic language translation

"In 20 years' time… we will have put ourselves out of jobs" *
	Open movement will be the norm

"What-you-ma-callits" will have job titles and recognition

High visibility for African content with physical barriers meaningless - holograms etc.

Democratisation of funding

Political enablement with policy frameworks (enforcement)
Continent-region-nation-institution-department

African government investment in funding research so that Africa owns research and data

Balanced teaching with research

Decreased dependence on government (noble research agenda)

Recognition of scarce skills

Software that works and integrated with the full research process

Search engine that indexes African content

African developers' community

Talk across disciplines with common terms
(academic and sectoral- IT, library, etc.)

Translation software across languages (Africa inclusive)

Alternative to journal publication (multimedia)

Critical mass in visibility

Many more ways to talk about research

Bring research to the street and street to research

Your journal is your friend

Less barriers to travel in order to participate (do your research where you live)

Access to virtual archives and resources

Harmonising academia with real world

More agency in civil society (broad representation)

Increased mobility across disciplines

Clarify at continental/national level as visibility strategy (access within Africa for Africa)

Civil action and engagement

Clear case for why research NB - National priority

Focus on youth and linking to primary education

Popular champions of research and knowledge 

--

Day 2: Plenary discussion


What can we fund?

Case study: ILRI/CGIAR Model

	Transdisciplinary (?)
	Infrastructure
	Software
	Data
	Communications strategy
	VRC/VRE 
	Gov/Policy/Strategy

Shared documentation on common protocols and procedures *

#scholarAfrica Editorial/communication channel
	*composite elements UWN, Twitter account
	Surface islands of success

*Support for continuing this network

Education and Training

	Libraries: how to support this work
	Library as natural home in training librarians to train researchers on repositories, social media
	Knowledge commons as locus for collaboration
	- Retraining of librarians as critical issue
	*Development of OER for librarians and researchers
		Focus on information literacy (advanced)
	The role of the library as publisher
	Librarian as negotiator with publishers (copyright issues)
	Long tail of data curation

Continental platform for OER for librarians

Emerging reseacher and student 21st century scholarly communication camps
	*IP
	Code

Research on behavioural attitudes/values (around sharing)

*Support for continuing this network
	


 
