Conference Announcement

Call for papers

Bridging the North-South Divide in Scholarly Communication on Africa

Threats and Opportunities in the Digital Era

Leiden, The Netherlands, September 6 - 8, 2006

The CODESRIA-ASC Conference Series 2006:
Electronic Publishing and Dissemination

Website
http://www.ascleiden.nl/GetPage.aspx?url=/events/event1142937906

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 ITCs 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 ICTs 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 ICTs 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 [email][email protected]

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 Euros 150.

Consolidated Results

· Conference Proceedings on the web

Steering Committee
Prof. Leo J. de Haan (ASC) Dr. Ebrima Sall (CODESRIA)
Dr. Mirjam de Bruijn (ASC) Dr. Francis 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. [email][email protected]