How Africa is overcoming ‘knowledge colonialism’ - 360

"But as the world starts to question why access to knowledge is controlled by a small group of corporate publishers, African scientists are developing their own platform for sharing research findings. It’s sparking interest from other regions around the world.  The stakes could not be higher. In exchange for making scientific papers free to read — open access — the corporate publishers will often charge an up-front fee to the scientist. This is a win-win for the publishers, who secure payment either way.  Many nations have negotiated country-wide deals with publishers allowing their scientists to publish and read articles. During these negotiations in South Africa, one publisher inadvertently let slip that in determining the up-front fee for a South African scientist, the publisher weighed up whether the journal had a high ‘impact factor’ and the number of articles South Africa was likely to publish as open access. The calculations mean a South African scientist is paying almost 200 percent more in up-front fees than a UK scientist (or their institution). If South African scientists have access to read high impact journals (while not necessarily publishing in them) via such nation-wide agreements then it pushes up the up-front fee...."