[A2k] Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa

[Teresa Hackett (eIFL)]

<SNIP>

The conference will mark the launch of the Connecting-Africa web portal,
a digital platform for scholarly communication on Africa.
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http://www.ascleiden.nl/GetPage.aspx?url=3D/events/event1142937906

Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa.
Threats and Opportunities in the Digital era

Conference
Date:=09=09September 6, 2006 to September 8, 2006
Place:=09=09Leiden, The Netherlands

Conference Announcement and Call for Papers
The CODESRIA-ASC Conference Series 2006: Electronic Publishing and
Dissemination

Convened by Afrika-Studiecentrum (ASC)
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA)

BACKGROUND
As part of a joint, collaborative effort that includes research, a joint
research masters degree programme, publications and dissemination,
CODESRIA and the ASC have launched a series of conferences on research,
documentation, publishing and dissemination in the context of the ICTs
revolution.

The first conference on 'Electronic publishing and dissemination' was
held in Dakar in September 2004. Most papers fell within thematic areas
such as the role of ICT in the advancement of research, digitising
content for academic outreach and social policy, access and visibility
of African scholarship in the digital age and the role of digital
libraries. In comparison with many other international conferences on
electronic publishing, this conference was particularly interesting
because it brought together researchers, publishers and librarians in
the field of social science research on Africa. In this setting the
conference raised many pertinent issues which need to be addressed.

CONFERENCE THEME
The objective of the second conference on 'Electronic publishing and
dissemination' is to build on the momentum achieved at the Dakar
conference and to explore the use of digital technologies in scholarly
communication on Africa, the effects on the North-South divide and the
role of different stakeholders in exacerbating or countering the divide.

Introduction to the theme

Web publishing and its technical possibilities, as well as the open
access movement that has accompanied it, have resulted in a number of
tendencies with mixed implications for scholarly communication. Web
publishing carries the potential to spread research results much faster
across academic communities and beyond. It opens up new horizons for the
advancement of free access to information and the availability of
publications. At the same time digital technologies are put to use to
enforce rights management, resulting in the publisher's exclusive
control over access to scholarship. With e-journal publishing the
licensing model has replaced the buying model, keeping ownership and
control of digital materials in the hands of publishers. Libraries find
themselves frustrated in their role as safe keepers of science: how can
they ensure optimal access and availability if they do not control the
access systems? How can they preserve the records of science if license
agreements do not permit libraries to hold archival copies? In reaction
to this trend, research libraries have started to form consortia to
negotiate licensing conditions and access terms with publishers. They
are experimenting with the setting up of institutional repositories
coupled with open access. As a result, huge commercial and public
investments are competing to develop new solutions to old problems and
to find new ways of communicating science in the digital age.

It has been said that it is in the nature of any new technology to
exacerbate the existing divide between rich and poor. In how far have
the rapid changes taking place in the publishing industry exacerbated
the relative deprivation suffered by researchers in the developing
world? It has also been observed that Latin American and African
academics in particular, rather than their North American and European
counterparts, are embracing the new technology and its revolutionary
opportunities for scholarly communication. This in turn gives rise to
concerns regarding the equal participation in the free flow of
information between North and South. If scholars in developing countries
eagerly disseminate their work in the public domain whilst those in
developed countries stay relatively reticent to do so, the established
control mechanisms of academic publishing will remain in place and the
free and uncontrolled dissemination of research results on the Web will
become synonymous to unprofessional practice and bad quality output,
exacerbating the imbalance in scholarly publishing between North and
South. Looking at the heavily institutionalized scientific process in
the North, with its age old traditions and vested interests, it is
understandable that transformation and adaptation takes time. But it
also raises questions. Is the print tradition a barrier or a
pre-requisite for developing digital publishing models? Can Africa
leap-frog into the digital age and by-pass the development stages of the
print-based knowledge economy?

An intriguing question concerns the role of scholars, publishers,
libraries, academic institutions and development organisations from the
North in devising schemes to counter the North-South divide. In how far
are these measures geared towards long-term solutions? How far does
solidarity with scholars in the South reach? Africanists, a research
community with strong roots in the western scholarly tradition and close
connections with the African scientific community, represent a
particular case in point. Scholarly exchange with African colleagues is
necessary to validate their research. What are the characteristics of
these exchanges? Do they contribute to more equitable scholarly
communications between North and South?

Practical issues versus theoretical/scientific reflection and research
findings

The conference hopes to attract papers from the different stakeholders
in scholarly communication on Africa, giving a balanced view of the
economic, social and moral dimensions of the issues at stake. It
attempts to relate the research theme to practical issues of web
publishing, scholarly communication, recording and accessing the results
of science, bibliographic control and dissemination and invites case
studies to provide in-depth analysis of specific issues by use of
quantitative data. It encourages theoretical and scientific reflections
on knowledge production, scientific information flows, the
institutionalization of the scientific process, the impact of ICT on
scholarly communication and welcomes contributions that provide
explanatory theoretical frameworks for the issues at stake.

LAUNCH
The conference will mark the launch of the Connecting-Africa web portal,
a digital platform for scholarly communication on Africa. It provides
details of researchers on Africa affiliated to Dutch universities and
titles of published research on Africa. Connecting-Africa offers a
lightweight, extensible solution for the promotion of research and
research networks at a global level.

Conference programme
The three-day conference will bring together internationally respected
scholars presenting cutting-edge insights from their current research.
The programme will be divided in 6 sessions.

Speakers
The conference will host three keynote lectures and will carefully
select a maximum of 30 presentations and 6 session chairs.
Funds will be made available to invited speakers from Africa who do not
have the resources to cover their travel and accommodation.

Call for papers
Those interested in contributing to this conference are requested to
send a CV and an abstract of 250 words (describing the main points of
their paper, its central argument and the type of research/methodology
employed) to vanderwerf@ascleiden.nl

The deadline for the receipt of abstracts is April 30, 2006.
The steering committee will decide on submissions by June 30, 2006 and
will notify applicants after this date. Papers are due by August 15, 2006.

Participants
The conference is open to participants on an invitational basis and is
restricted to a maximum of 60 participants.

The invitees will represent the 3 target groups evenly: social science
researchers on Africa, information professionals and publishers/editors.
The conference will be bi-lingual (French and English translations) and
at least 1/2 of the participants will come from Africa.

Conference Fee
Invited participants will be asked to pay a conference fee of =80150.

Consolidated Results
- Conference Proceedings on the web

Steering Committee
Prof. Dr. L.J. de Haan (ASC) Dr. E. Sall (CODESRIA)
Dr. M. de Bruijn (ASC) Dr. F. B. Nyamnjoh (CODESRIA)
Titia van der Werf (ASC) Abou Moussa Ndongo (CODESRIA).

Contact
For further information please contact:
Ms Titia van der Werf
Afrika-Studiecentrum
LEIDEN
T. +31 (0)71 5273352
E. vanderwerf@ascleiden.nl