NEWS BITS

SUMMARY OF A WORKSHOP HELD UNDER THE AUSPICES OF INASP ON ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING HELD ON
4TH MARCH 2003, AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI, NAIROBI, KENYA

Prepared by Anne Wangalachi and Michael Okumu, on behalf of AJFAND

The information and communication technology industry is by far one of the most dynamic, the world over. The advances in this industry have greatly revolutionized journal publishing as well. More and more journals are being published electronically, with some, like the African Journal of Biotechnology, being entirely and solely available electronically. It is in light of these developments that the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), in conjunction with the University of Nairobi, organized a one-day workshop for Kenyan journal editors in Nairobi, Kenya.

Salome Mathangari, the University of Nairobi Librarian, officially opened the workshop. In her remarks, she observed that the increasing significance of information and communication technology (ICT) in education was evidenced by the fact that the university has hosted three workshops dealing with the same. She also hoped that more organizations, both regional and international, would collaborate with Kenyan journal editors and publishers, especially in the field of electronic publishing.

The over twenty workshop participants were drawn from various organizations: the universities, NGOs, research institutions as well as professional associations. The publications represented included: the African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND)1, Insect Science and its Application (ISA)2, the East African Medical Journal (EAMJ)3, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS)4 Newsletter, among others.

The workshop, which was facilitated and convened by Pippa Smart, Head of Publishing and Training Initiatives at INASP, was divided into two sections. In the first, participants were given an overview of INASP and its activities. During the second part, electronic publishing was discussed at length.

Participants were particularly interested in the topic: the Enhancement of Research Information, PERI: its objectives, components as well as its activities. PERI has four components, namely:

• Delivery of information
• Dissemination of national and regional research results
• Enhancement of ICT skills
• Strengthening of local publishing

It emerged that the Africa Journals OnLine, AJOL, held great promise for African journals in terms of assisting with the process of going online. This is because the journals would enjoy greater visibility, credibility as well as obtain financial gains from INASP’s document delivery service. Participants were encouraged to visit the INASP website to see how their publications could benefit from AJOL as well as the African Journals OnLine Publishing Project, AJOPP.

All the aspects of online publishing were critically analyzed during the workshop. The reasons for embracing online publishing were advanced as:
1) A changing research environment, whereby users of research results had greater expectations than before, as well as the increasing global nature of research
2) More opportunities were available from online production as opposed to the print production; increased citation, submissions, impact and quality, all as a result of increased visibility and accessibility
3) Improved timeliness of the publication; it takes up to two months to prepare an online publication as opposed to much longer periods for the print version

In addition, the various models of online publishing were identified and discussed in-depth. These models are: the conventional one that involves availing of the abstracts and table of contents only; the full text variation, as well as emerging alternative models such as ‘interactive’ and pre-print.

The challenges of online publishing were identified as:
1) Loss of characters, upon conversion, e.g. from Microsoft Word to HTML
2) Additional costs were to be incurred, such as purchase of a PDF writer
3) Requirements by some online journal hosts that the journal be in specified formats such as XML, which is not user friendly
4) Incompatibility of the computer hardware
5) Archiving problems such as: lack of adequate space, among others

Below is a summary of what emerged and the recommendations made:
• Online journal publishing is indeed viable and represented many new opportunities for Kenyan journals
• Prior to going online, a journal’s management should consider whether this would harm or benefit the journal; would it be read more or less? Would it give a good enough first impression?
• Some of the participants, particularly those from IDS, felt that the emerging trend of article-by-article publishing represented great potential for their organization
• The participants highlighted the need for extensive as well as intensive awareness creation about PERI-Kenya, as well as networking among the Kenyan editors. This would be extremely useful in the implementation of PERI- Kenya projects, more specifically training
• It was also felt that PERI-Kenya should customize the workshops, so as to effectively tackle the needs of each of the Kenyan publishing sub- sectors: journals, books as well as non journal research periodicals such as newsletters
• In order to alleviate the inevitable problems resulting from online archiving, journal editors were advised to have an emergency plan in place . This would involve storage of journal files’ back up as well as having a print copy in the national archives

All in all, it was a workshop that was as well organized as it was timely!

Note:
The organizations responsible for the production of these publications are:

1. African Journal of Food, Agriculture, Nutrition and Development (AJFAND) – Rural Outreach Program / African Institute of Knowledge Management
2. Insect Science and its Application (ISA) – International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology
3. East African Medical Journal (EAMJ)- Kenya Medical Association
4. Institute of Development Studies (IDS) Newsletter – IDS, University of Nairobi (UoN)

For more information on the workshop, kindly contact the following:
Pippa Smart, INASP Email: psmart@inasp.info
Wakari Gikenye, UoN Email: wagikenye@yahoo.com

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