Transcription of the handwritten flipchart notes taken by Michelle Willmers (OpenUCT, South Africa) from the discussions by participants during the Workshop on the Discoverability of African Scholarship Online #scholarAfrica, 10-11 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya More info: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/events/workshop-discoverability-african-scholarship-online http://openuct.uct.ac.za/blog/promoting-discoverability-african-scholarship http://epriego.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/scholarafrica-hello-nairobi/ https://zenodo.org/collection/user-scholarafrica Transcription of flipchart notes on this text file by Ernesto Priego Day 1, 10 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya Challenges (summary of post-it wall at end of day 1) Social/political Political resistance and silo approach to regional policy-making How to grow acceptance of credit for non-journal publication ** Non-Africa research agenda Language as a barrier ** Holding funders to account for supporting openness Resistance of academics to sharing information Knowledge colonialism Heavy teaching workloads Perception that IT will be the answer African inferiority complex Generate publishing online to help researchers understand Capture of African researchers by rich universities [brain drain] Capacity Tech expertise that scholarly communications takes for granted How to navigate licensing and IP issues *** Metadata literacy (and harvesting)/digital literacy *** Skills training programmes Scaling up islands of success into landscapes of sharing Research Management Lack of communication strategies Identifying effective methods for disseminating back to communities Lack of institutional support Limited research funding Perception of research as separate from teaching Research ethics and ROM Lack of research management systems Reward and incentive structures don't support sharing ** Infrastructure Creating African Internet backbone High cost of Internet Lack of infrastructure ** Repositories that actually meet our needs Questions How does data sharing not exacerbate digital colonialism? Sharing data is costly. Where will money come from?* The long tail of digital curation. Who pays post-project? WHO PAYS? What are the downsides of sharing for the African researcher? Sharing data- what's in it for me? How to address challenges of institutional data collection? How to address challenge of solving other people's problems? --- Day 2, 11 March 2014, Nairobi, Kenya Day 2 --the future, how we see ourselves/scholarly communications in 20 years' time Wish List IT infrastructure Internet backbone Internet in every home Access to education Scaling of repositories Repositories for restricted information Metadata that is accurate and self-generating Devices that allow for immediate/anywhere access to information Free flow of information to enhance citizen democracy Abundance of funding for research Sharing as the norm rather than exception Libraries as social learning spaces for collaboration and learning Libraries accessible to all Unique institutionnel collections accessible to all Libraries part of mainstream publishing All content Open Access Continental purchasing power All software OS with government support All educational resources open, students select components Automatic language translation "In 20 years' time… we will have put ourselves out of jobs" * Open movement will be the norm "What-you-ma-callits" will have job titles and recognition High visibility for African content with physical barriers meaningless - holograms etc. Democratisation of funding Political enablement with policy frameworks (enforcement) Continent-region-nation-institution-department African government investment in funding research so that Africa owns research and data Balanced teaching with research Decreased dependence on government (noble research agenda) Recognition of scarce skills Software that works and integrated with the full research process Search engine that indexes African content African developers' community Talk across disciplines with common terms (academic and sectoral- IT, library, etc.) Translation software across languages (Africa inclusive) Alternative to journal publication (multimedia) Critical mass in visibility Many more ways to talk about research Bring research to the street and street to research Your journal is your friend Less barriers to travel in order to participate (do your research where you live) Access to virtual archives and resources Harmonising academia with real world More agency in civil society (broad representation) Increased mobility across disciplines Clarify at continental/national level as visibility strategy (access within Africa for Africa) Civil action and engagement Clear case for why research NB - National priority Focus on youth and linking to primary education Popular champions of research and knowledge -- Day 2: Plenary discussion What can we fund? Case study: ILRI/CGIAR Model Transdisciplinary (?) Infrastructure Software Data Communications strategy VRC/VRE Gov/Policy/Strategy Shared documentation on common protocols and procedures * #scholarAfrica Editorial/communication channel *composite elements UWN, Twitter account Surface islands of success *Support for continuing this network Education and Training Libraries: how to support this work Library as natural home in training librarians to train researchers on repositories, social media Knowledge commons as locus for collaboration - Retraining of librarians as critical issue *Development of OER for librarians and researchers Focus on information literacy (advanced) The role of the library as publisher Librarian as negotiator with publishers (copyright issues) Long tail of data curation Continental platform for OER for librarians Emerging reseacher and student 21st century scholarly communication camps *IP Code Research on behavioural attitudes/values (around sharing) *Support for continuing this network