An Overview of Issues, Challenges and Opportunities of Scholarly Publishing in Information Studies in Africa

Abstract

Scholarly publishing has been extensively used by many generations of scholars for self promotion and publicity, networking, the creation
and development of new knowledge, announcement of ownership of research output, justification for funding, and proof of the existence of a scholar or department/research unit, among other reasons. Although scholarly publishing is not a new concept, e-scholarly publishing is, and many scholars still struggle to embrace it for promoting the dissemination and visibility of their research output. The digitisation of research publications and electronic publishing has made scholarly communication exceedingly versatile, accessible, effective and efficient. But these positive traits have also been obscured by the challenges. This paper discusses various issues, opportunities and challenges of e-scholarly publications, focusing on open access, institutional repositories and self archiving, conferences, electronic journals, the Web and the relevant ethical issues, particularly from the perspective of African countries and scholars.