Liam Bullingham - Edge Hill University, Sally Dalton - University of Leeds, Jo Havemann - Access 2 Perspectives // AfricArXiv, Keletso Masisi - AfricArXiv, and Nicholas Outa - AfricArXiv AfricArXiv is an award-winning, community-led digital archive for African research. In addition to African researchers, it is open to submissions from ‘scientists who report on research relevant to African affairs’. This presents an opportunity for many UK-based authors, who by depositing their eligible papers will make them more accessible to African research users and broaden their readership. Use of Creative Commons licences (whereby authors retain copyright) has made this possible, but some barriers remain. We submitted an initial batch of papers and assessed engagement by research users. We maintained regular dialogue with AfricArXiv to ensure the scholarship is relevant and beneficial, so its potential can be realised.

1. Supporting AfricArXiv and broadening
our universities’ research audience
Liam Bullingham, Sally Dalton,
Jo Havemann, Keletso Masisi, and Nicholas Outa

2. Where we are based
Johanna
- Berlin, Germany
Keletso
- Palapye, Botswana
Nicholas
- Kisumu, Kenya
Sally
- Leeds
Liam
- Ormskirk

3. Outline of this breakout session
● What is AfricArxiv?
● How UK universities can contribute
● Aims and drivers for our project
● Evaluation
● Potential for further work
● Is this a new kind of library service?
● Perspective from AfricArxiv

4. What is
AfricArXiv?

6. We chose to submit research outputs to AfricArXiv on Figshare

7. Ways UK university libraries can contribute:
How we decided to get involved
1. for those ‘who report on research relevant to African affairs’
1. for African researchers at UK universities
Research support staff can advise how this can complement researchers’ publication/dissemination strategy
1. for African researchers, with whom UK-based researchers
collaborate

8. The opportunity: The University of Leeds
Leeds Open Research Statement:
As a university we are committed to the following actions
to embed open research practices throughout our
institution:
● Improving the discoverability and external
engagement with our open research outputs
● Engaging with external stakeholders to promote
open research practices globally
University strategy:
● Promote our education, digital innovation, and
research impact internationally, particularly to key
stakeholders in national and global policy
development and in Higher Education institutions
worldwide

9. The opportunity: Edge Hill University
Edge Hill University Research
Strategy 2021-25
Commit to open research and:
“Ensure that research findings that are
of particular interest to countries on the
ODA list are immediately accessible”

10. Project outline

11. Project: Depositing EHU and Leeds research in AfricArXiv
Aims
● Connect our researchers’ work with African research users
● Increase the potential impact of this research
● Support AfricArXiv’s mission to provide a platform for African scientists to
upload research by populating it with authoritative research
● Support open research priorities at Leeds and Edge Hill
Africarxiv.Figshare.com/

12. The initial, experimental deposit

13. The sample set
Papers identified:
14
(+1 trial submission)
14
Final set:
Due to copyright issues, the final set
included:
14 x EHU papers (+1),
7 x Leeds papers

14. The sample set: subject breakdown
29

15. Project process
We didn’t promote the content (as our audiences are not the intended users)
1 Search: use research repository or LUCAS to identify eligible research outputs
2 Contact author: explain aims and ask for permission to deposit their paper
3 Checks: does copyright licence allow inclusion?
Ask colleagues with specialist knowledge.
4 Deposit: using AfricArXiv on Figshare
5 Monitor: usage using available tools - views, downloads, altmetrics

16. Project enablers
- Creative Commons licences
- Transitional open access deals
- Supportive authors
- Lots of interest in African affairs (eg LUCAS)
- Institutional support for open research
An excellent idea! Absolutely no
problem and totally ok with it.
We want this research available
to anyone who could benefit
from it anyway!
Senior Lecturer in Geology
Yes, of course, please add my paper to AfricArxiv. My research I hope, will
always centre around Africa/the UN in Africa so please feel free to add any
of my future outputs to this too (when I get round to completing them!)
Associate Head of Department, Law, Criminology & Policing

17. Project barriers
- Caution around copyright
- Unclear whether some versions can be shared > did not deposit these papers
E.g. ambiguity as to whether Figshare is ‘a commercial repository’
- Rights Retention will help in future
- Needed expertise from repository team (Sally)
- Author concerns
- ‘Will this affect my contributions to the REF submission?’
- ‘Will this dilute my citations?’
- Green open access embargoes
- ‘Messy’ versions of the accepted author manuscript
- Currently a laborious, manual process

18. African Digital
Research
Repositories:
Mapping the
Landscape
Published by
International
African Institute
(IAI) and AfricArXiv
Open dataset on
GitHub

19. Have we made a difference?

20. Views to date
Views can be helpful as an
indicator, as Figshare’s
preview feature allows you
to view content directly in
the browser.
This serves to show what is
catching viewers’ attention.

21. Downloads to
date
Downloads indicate closer
reading, which is suitable in
the case of research papers.
Frantz et al:
although not the most-viewed
paper, this has a higher
download figure. Might there
be a particular demand for
health articles from AfricArXiv
users?
Frantz, J. et al. (2019). Understanding faculty
development as capacity development: A case
study from South Africa. African Journal of Health
Professions Education, 11(2), 53-56.

22. Potential for further work
- Dedicated collections in AfricArXiv’s PubPub site
- eg infrastructure, LGBTQI+, religion, politics, COVID
- Promoting the research to African research
communities
- Investigating potential for an automated process
- Other partners to work with?
- Opportunities emerging from Rights Retention

23. Is this a new service that UK libraries can provide?
Yes ✅
● Increases research visibility
● Complements librarians’ knowledge of scholarly communications
● Open access and open licences have minimised barriers
No ❎
● Not yet scalable
● Are we undermining AfricArXiv’s mission?
● We need to better understand knowledge of region-specific repositories

24. Perspective from AfricArxiv

25. access2perspectives.org/
Establishing FAIR publishing modes for the
African scholarly community
website: africarxiv.pubpub.org email: info@africarxiv.org @AfricArXiv
the pan-African
Portal
Jo Havemann, ORCID: 0000-0002-6157-1494
access2perspectives.org
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7550656

27. + ensuring physical ownership and curation of research data to African stakeholders
+ utilizing open-source package/s (PKP/OPS - COS/OSF - InvenioRDM - …)
Establishing local hosting of the AfricArXiv submission portal
Way forward
+ Establishing African University Presses and thereby empowering their institutions
+ Following the JISC University Press Toolkit
Facilitating the setup of cloud-based University Pressen
+ preprint to journal article aka post publishing quality assurance
+ Community based Open Peer Review
+ supporting African publishing institutions and the wider ecosystem in the region
Fostering community-based publishing workflows and quality assessments

28. CALENDLY.COM/AFRICARXIV
africarxiv.org | info@africarxiv.org
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | Instagram: @AfricArXiv
the pan-African
Portal

29. So what can you do?
- Tell us if you want to work with us!
- Identify what research from your organisation would enhance
AfricArXiv, then deposit it
- Investigate benefitting African research users further by
translating research into local languages
- Catch up with Johanna at UKSG or on Calend.ly