Twelve Years Later: Second ASSAf Report on Research Publishing in and from South Africa (2018) Applying scientific thinking in the service of society PO Box 72135, Lynnwood Ridge 0040, Pretoria, South Africa Tel: +27 12 349 6600 • Fax: +27 86 576 9520 • Email: [email protected] Department: Department: Science and Technology Science and Technology TWELVE YEARS LATER Academy of Science of South Africa December 2018 ISBN 978-0-6399410-5-9 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/assaf.2018/0030 Cite: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), (2019). Twelve Years Later: Second ASSAf Report on Research Publishing In and From South Africa (2018). [Online] Available at: DOI:10.17159/assaf.2018/0030 Published by: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) PO Box 72135, Lynnwood Ridge, Pretoria, South Africa, 0040 Tel: +27 12 349 6600 • Fax: +27 86 576 9520 E-mail: [email protected] Reproduction is permitted, provided the source and publisher are appropriately acknowledged. The Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) was inaugurated in May 1996. It was formed in response to the need for an Academy of Science consonant with the dawn of democracy in South Africa: activist in its mission of using science and scholarship for the benefit of society, with a mandate encompassing all scholarly disciplines that use an open-minded and evidence-based approach to build knowledge. ASSAf thus adopted in its name the term ‘science’ in the singular as reflecting a common way of enquiring rather than an aggregation of different disciplines. Its Members are elected on the basis of a combination of two principal criteria, academic excellence and significant contributions to society. The Parliament of South Africa passed the Academy of Science of South Africa Act (No 67 of 2001), which came into force on 15 May 2002. This made ASSAf the only academy of science in South Africa officially recognised by government and representing the country in the international community of science academies and elsewhere. 2 Twelve Years Later: Second ASSAf Report on Research Publishing in and from South Africa (2018) Applying scientific thinking in the service of society PO Box 72135, Lynnwood Ridge 0040, Pretoria, South Africa Tel: +27 12 349 6600 • Fax: +27 86 576 9520 • Email: [email protected] Department: Department: Science and Technology Science and Technology TWELVE YEARS LATER CONTENTS List of Tables iv List of Figures iv Acronyms and Abbreviations vi Preface viii Chapter 1: 1 Concise Review of the First ASSAf Report (2006) – 1 Main Findings and Recommendations Chapter 2: 14 Concise Review of the 2009 ASSAf Report on Scholarly Books – 15 Main Findings and Recommendations Chapter 3: 22 Roll-out of Scholarly Publishing Programme 2007 – 2018 23 Chapter 4: 44 Enhancing Access by SA Scholars/Researchers to Global 45 Commercial Scholarly Publishing System Chapter 5: 58 A Study of Scientific Journal and Book Publishing in 59 South Africa: 2005 – 2014 Chapter 6: 116 Scholarly Publishing Pitfalls: Navigating the Complex 117 Environment of Authoring and Publishing Scholarly Scientific Material in order to Maintain Research Integrity Chapter 7: 124 The Problems Concerning Scholarly Publishing Still Faced in SA 125 Chapter 8: 138 Recommendations for Action in the Next Period 139 References 141 III TWELVE YEARS LATER LIST OF TABLES Table 5.1: The mega-SA journals 63 Table 5.2: Distribution of journal papers by Level 2 scientific field 66 Table 5.3: Collaborations in journals not indexed by WoS (2005 – 2014) 69 Table 5.4: Trends in co-authorship by scientific field 69 Table 5.5: The share of South African science in global science – in total and by discipline (1996 – 2015) 71 Table 5.6: Summary overview of journal level indicators 74 Table 5.7: Citations from non-source SA journals of articles in the WoS 77 Table 5.8: Headline demographics of publishing individuals at SA universities 80 Table 5.9: Comparing good practice in scholarly publishing with predatory Publishing 83 Table 5.10: ‘Predatory’ journals with SA-authored papers: 2005 to 2014 85 Table 5.11: ‘Predatory’ papers by SA university (2005 to 2014) 89 Table 5.12: Most prolific Journal A* authors in descending order 94 Table 5.13: The most prolific authors who published in Journal B* 96 Table 5.14: Overview of book and book chapter submissions (2005 – 2014) 99 Table 5.15: Comparison between SENSE and NSD rankings and ASSAf recommendations 103 Table 5.16: List of conference names in descending order by % positive recommendations by ASSAf (N>20 submissions) 107 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Traditional research lifecycle – ‘closed’ science 53 Figure 4.2: Open research lifecycle – ‘open’ sience 53 Figure 5.1: Total research publications produced by South African universities from 1994 to 2014 59 Figure 5.2: Article unit outputs in accredited journals from 2005 to 2014 60 Figure 5.3: Share of article output by journal list 61 Figure 5.4: Distribution of SA journal articles by journal list (full paper count) 62 Figure 5.5: Twenty largest scientific fields (journal papers 2005 – 2014) 65 Figure 5.6: Scientific fields with highest average annual growth rates: 2005 – 2014 66 * [For legal and ethical reasons, all names of authors, journals and their publishers have been replaced by asterisks IV or anonymous references. The original unredacted version is held by Prof J Mouton and his colleagues at CREST/ SCiSTIP at Stellenbosch University.] TWELVE YEARS LATER Figure 5.7: Distribution of journal articles by Level 1 science domain 67 Figure 5.8: Trends in collaboration type (2005 – 2014) 68 Figure 5.9: The annual trend in the share of highly-cited publications within its total publication output from SA 72 Figure 5.10: Gender of authors of scientific papers: 2005 to 2014 80 Figure 5.11: Race of authors of scientific papers: 2005 to 2014 81 Figure 5.12: Age at publication of authors of scientific papers: 2005 to 2014 81 Figure 5.13: The increase in the number of papers published by SA authors in predatory journals (2005 to 2014) 88 Figure 5.14: Distribution of predatory articles by subject category (Probably predatory: strong evidence) 90 Figure 5.15: Distribution of predatory articles by subject category (Possibly predatory: weak evidence) 90 Figure 5.16: Number of papers in Journal A by year 94 Figure 5.17: Institutional affiliations of Journal A authors 94 Figure 5.18: Publication profile of ****** 95 Figure 5.19: Increase in book and book chapter units (2005 – 2014) 98 Figure 5.20: Proportional share of the three publication categories (2005 – 2014) 98 Figure 5.21: Relative share of book/chapter and conference proceedings of overall publication output 99 Figure 5.22: Top-20 book publishers 100 Figure 5.23: Top 20 publishers of book chapters 101 Figure 5.24: Comparing SENSE and NSD ratings at the level of book and chapter titles 102 Figure 5.25: Number of books and chapters 102 Figure 5.26: Number of books and chapters 102 Figure 5.27: Number of books and chapters 103 Figure 5.28: Number of books and chapters 103 Figure 5.29: Conference proceedings approved compared to submissions (2005 to 2014) 105 Figure 5.30: Conference proceedings titles submitted by university (2005 – 2014) 105 Figure 5.31: Conference proceedings subsidies awarded by university (2005 – 2014) 106 Figure 5.32: ‘Success rates’ of universities in securing subsidy for conference proceedings 106 V TWELVE YEARS LATER ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS AAG Average annual growth AOSP African Open Science Platform APCs Article-processing charges ASSAf Academy of Science of South Africa BSP Bureau for Scientific Publications CHE Council on Higher Education COAR Confederation of Open Access Repositories CODATA Committee on Data of the International Council for Science CPUT Cape Peninsula University of Technology CREST Centre for Research on Evaluation of Science and Technology CSPiSA Committee on Scholarly Publishing in South Africa CUP Cambridge University Press CUT Cape University of Technology CV Curriculum vitae DACST Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology DIRF Data-intensive Research Facility DST Department of Science and Technology DHET Department of Higher Education and Training DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals DOI Digital object identifiers DUT Durban University of Technology EU European Union FTSE Financial Times Stock Exchange HEI Higher education institution HEQC Higher Education Quality Committee HSRC Human Sciences Research Council IBSS International Bibliography of the Social Sciences ICT Information communications technology IDRC International Development Research Centre ILL Inter-Library Loans IP Intellectual property ISC International Science Council ISI Institute for Scientific Information JCR Journal Citation Reports JESA Journal of Energy in Southern Africa JIF Journal impact factor MUT Mangosuthu University of Technology NMU Nelson Mandela University NACI National Advisory Council on Innovation NASAC Network of African Science Academies NICIS National Integrated Cyberinfrastructure System NGO Non-governmental organisations NMS Natural and medical sciences NRF National Research Foundation NSBPF National Scholarly Book Publishers’ Forum VI TWELVE YEARS LATER NSD Norwegian Centre for Research Data NSEF National Scholarly Editors’ Forum NSLS National site license system NSI National system of innovation OJS Open Journal Systems OMP Open Monograph Press PRP Peer review panel RR Research Repository RU Rhodes University SA South Africa(an) SADC Southern African Development Community SAMJ South African Medical Journal SANLiC South African National