Top South African Journals to Go Open Access

Munyaradzi Makoni and Christina Scott | SciDev.Net | March 2, 2009

A new scheme aims to put African research on the map by providing free access to a range of the country's top academic journals. The South African Journal of Science (SAJS) will lead the way, becoming the first high-profile open access journal by the end of March in a pilot project lasting two years.

Robin Crewe of the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSA), the publisher of the journal, announced the project at the African Science Communication Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa, last month (19 February).

The move was welcomed by open-access campaigners. "Open access is relevant to the development of Sub-Saharan Africa, as some of the "closed" journals are expensive and some of our print-only journals do not reach the international academic community," says Kobus Roux from the Pretoria-based Meraka Institute.

The project is based on the Brazil-based Scientific Electronic Online Library (SciELO). It aims to provide readers in developing countries with free online access to peer-reviewed academic journals and has already been successfully implemented in eight countries.