Paper delivered in Dakar, Senegal, at the Codesria conference on Open Access and the Future of Africa's Knowledge Economy, 2016

1. Open Access and the
Decolonization of the
University in Africa
Open Access and the Future of Africa’s Knowledge Economy
Fourth Codesria Conference on Electronic Publishing and Dissemination
Dakar, 30 March – 1 April 2016

2. The ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement at UCT,
demanding an end to neo-colonial higher
education, launched countrywide student protests
in South Africa in March 2015

4. Open Access, with its democratic
ethos, should play into this
movement, yet the question of
access to research publication,
open access and the
democratization of scholarly
publishing has not been on
#RhodesMustFall agenda…

6. But open access appears to be heading for
stormy weather…

7. Instead of decolonizing, is OA losing out to the
corporate strength of the big journal publishers
and their hold on academics keen for promotion?
A knock-out blow….?

9. In the last few months, weeks and days, and
accelerating unease …

10. Bernard Rentier, a leading champion of OA in
Europe, accuses scholars of succumbing to a
‘Stockholm Syndrome, betraying their own
interests in negotiations with publishers’.

11. Email from Bernard Rentier (University of Liege) to the Communaute
de Libre Acces Francophone, 25 March 2016

12. Email from Bernard Rentier (University of Liege) to the Communaute
de Libre Acces Francophone, 25 March 2016

13. One of the best-known and longest-standing OA
advocates and missionary champion of green OA,
Stevan Harnad, walks out in despair

15. A weakness of the OA movement - ideological
arguments about the right road, the Green or the
Gold, finally culminate in this impasse.

16. AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Tambako the Jaguar

17. What has been missing is a lack of clear strategic
thinking that looks beyond the journal article

19. The weakest point – researchers’ addiction to
prestige journals and impact factors…

20. Yochai Benkler in 2006 expressed reservations about OA based on the
conservatism of universities and, given the conservatism of universities,
the weight carried by the leading journals like Science and Nature, and
the persistence of the reward system. ‘[A]s long as hiring and promotion
decisions continue to be based on the prestige of the journal in which a
scientist’s work is published, the ability of these new journals to replace
the traditional ones will be curtailed.’
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2006: 323-4.
http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks.pdf

21. AttributionNoncommercialNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by Mennonite Church USA Archives
We chase after global
prestige…

22. A competitive and individualistic system in conflict
with the collaborative culture of digital media and
with the collaborative development-focused
research that many African countries seek.

23. http://otwartanauka.pl/in-english/experts-on-open-
access/open-access-will-remain-a-half-revolution-interview-
with-richard-poynder
2 March 2016

24. The source of our unease – a scholarly
publishing system brokered over 60 years ago

25. We have failed to build a strategy on what is
needed in a digital 21st century in Africa.

27. And so we get this… an Elsevier OA African
megajournal…

28. And the ‘gold route’ leaves the system vulnerable
to the strategies of the multinationals..

30. Relationships are not good…

31. htphhttps://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/wellcome-criticises-publishers-over-open-
access

33. Despite the claim by Elsevier that the policy advances sharing, it actually does
the opposite. The policy … requires authors to apply a “non-commercial and no
derivative works” license for each article deposited into a repository, greatly
inhibiting the re-use value of these articles…Furthermore, the policy applies to
“all articles previously published and those published in the future” making it
even more punitive for both authors and institutions. This may also lead to
articles that are currently available being suddenly embargoed and inaccessible
to readers.
https://www.coar-repositories.org/activities/advocacy-leadership/statements-and-guidelines/petition-against-elseviers-
sharing-policy/

34. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/big-deals,-bad-feelings-in-the-
knowledge-business/6480274

35. …the war continues and the battlefield resembles
the Western Front in WWI: a stalemate. Both sides
have won significant victories and suffered
significant defeats, but the key questions remain
the same. Who owns scientific information? How
much does it cost to access it? Who should be
able to access it?

36. Now Africa is being re-colonized…

38. ‘One of the fundamental questions is whether you regard the knowledge that's
generated through research as a common good,’ says Professor Leeder. ‘In other
words, it should be there for everybody to use, paid for by the community
through its taxes to research workers, or whether someone can come along and
put a fence around these paddocks and say, “Well that's actually mine.”’
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/rearvision/big-deals,-bad-feelings-in-the-knowledge-business/6480274

39. This is only one of many African-centred
initiatives by the multinational publishers

40. …who until now have denied that Africa is part of
their ‘international’ world, and therefore capable
of offering research impact..

41. With disastrous results

42. Photo European Commisison CC-BY-NC

44. How did we get into this mess? A lack of
strategy?

45. … someone who did strategise very carefully,
after World War II…

46. Robert Maxwell –
media mogul, possibly
a double or treble
agent, but also one of
the main architects of
post-war scientific
publishing…

47. … from a poverty-stricken background in what is
now Czeckoslovakia, he landed up at the end of
World War II working for British information
services in British Occupied Germany

48. Maxwell recognised that research content ,
scientific and technical knowledge had become
valuable – a matter of money….

49. AttributionNoncommercial Some rights reserved by daniel.d.slee
English became the
dominant language
Politically?

50. The power base was that of the victorious
Allies, the UK and the USA …

51. … Maxwell lionized scientists, paid for travel,
editorial parties, took the business management
over for them, created new journals for their
specializations…

52. …promotion and prestige became inextricably
linked to journal publication…

53. … so that now
the real
problem lies in
our promotion
and reward
systems…
AttributionNo Derivative Works Some rights reserved by ayomide!

54. What we have failed to address…

56. We are literally throwing away a lot of the
research that is being carried out on critical
national priorities – it often reaches only the
relevant donor

58. This is being addressed, for example, in the
Carnegie-funded Poverty and Inequality
Initiative, that is developing policy, working
with governments for effective poverty
alleviation

59. The University of Cape Town, which chases
citation counts to maintain its position as the top-
ranking African university overall has in fact come
8th in the world subject rankings for development
science…

60. So how should we be strategizing?

61. Align our publishing practices with our strategic
imperatives, developmental, commercial, and the
quest for real excellence…

62. Although radical alternatives have started to
suggest themselves and need to be watched for
potential revolutionary impact…

64. Eve Gray
Research Associate
Intellectual Property Law Unit
University of Cape Town