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---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Lai Ma 
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2022 at 17:10
Subject: Message: Call for paper: Impact of Open Research: Challenges and
Opportunities in the ‘Scientific Periphery’
To: Science Policy List 


Call for Abstracts

Online Information Review
 Special Issue

Impact of Open Research: Challenges and Opportunities in the ‘Scientific
Periphery’

Co-editors:

Professor Nelius Boshoff, Centre for Research on Evaluation, Science and
Technology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Dr Lai Ma, School of Information and Communication Studies, University
College Dublin, Ireland

In recent years, the open research agenda has generated more venues for
open access publishing. The number of articles published in journals listed
in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) has doubled between
2016-2020, while revenues from article-processing charges (APCs) have
tripled (Crawford, 2021). Many universities have entered transformative
agreements with publishers to pay for both subscription and publishing fees
(see ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry
).
However, these developments are not necessarily good news for researchers
in countries that are not part of the so-called ‘scientific core’ because
their research contributions cannot be published due to lack of funding
support for APCs or, if published, either hidden behind a paywall or
appearing in low-quality open access journals. As a result, voices from the
scientific periphery can be further marginalised.

There are also concerns about epistemic diversity when universities in the
scientific periphery strive to balance between international
competitiveness and the promotion of local knowledges, languages and
research topics. This is complicated by the indexing practices of, and
metrics provided by the mainstream publication databases (Scopus and Web of
Science) that set the criteria of quality and impact. Meanwhile, journals
in the scientific periphery can be (mis)labelled as ‘predatory’ (Mills et
al., 2021) and the potential of open research repositories in the periphery
has also not yet been fully optimised (Boshoff & Ngwenya, 2022). Beigel
(2021) argues that knowledge produced in the ‘centers of excellence’ has
been conceived as autonomous/universalist, while the outsiders are
dependent/parochial. Peripheral researchers’ contributions to co-produced
knowledge published in mainstream databases may be limited to specific
roles (Boshoff, 2009). Mbembe (2016) contends that a Eurocentric canon
attributes truth only to the Western way of knowledge production and, as
such, disregards other epistemic traditions. How do we achieve the
sustainable development goals (SDGs) when local knowledges and topics are
marginalised?

In this special issue, we invite contributions to address the impact of the
open research agenda on research and scholarship in the scientific
periphery and we especially welcome contributions from authors in the
periphery. The contributions can address topics including, but not limited
to, epistemic injustice, epistemic diversity, multilingualism,
decolonisation, knowledge practices, publication practices, research
infrastructure and scholarly communication. The open research agenda can
also be more widely interpreted, beyond open access, to address issues
related to open research data and open peer review.

Please submit an abstract (approx. 500 words) with the subject line ‘OIR
Impact of Open Research’ to lai.ma@ucd.ie by September 15, 2022.

Authors of selected abstracts will be invited to submit an article by March
31, 2023. The articles will undergo double-blind peer review as per journal
policy. The authors guidelines are available here:
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/journal/oir#author-guidelines

Emerald’s Open Research Policy includes APC waiver for authors based in
countries classified by the World Bank low- and medium-income. For more
information, please visit:
https://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/publish-with-us/author-policies/our-op
en-research-policies#apc


Authors can also make their research immediately and openly available upon
official publication via the green open access route.



References

Boshoff, N. (2009). Neo-colonialism and research collaboration in Central
Africa. Scientometrics, 81(2), pp. 413-434.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-008-2211-8

Boshoff, N. & Ngwenya, S. (2022). Agricultural research in Zimbabwe: An
author-level bibliometric analysis of publication outlets and research
collaboration. Science, Technology and Society. OnlineFirst version.
https://doi.org/10.1177/09717218221078186

Beigel, F. (2021). A multi-scale perspective for assessing publishing
circuits in non-hegemonic countries. Tapuya: Latin American Science,
Technology and Society, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/25729861.2020.1845923

Crawford, W. (2021). Gold Open Access 2015–2020. Articles in Journals.
Cites & Insights Books. https://waltcrawford.name/goa6.pdf

ESAC Transformative Agreement Registry -
https://esac-initiative.org/about/transformative-agreements/agreement-registr
y/


Mills, D. et al. (2021). “Fake” Journals and the Fragility of
Authenticity:
Citation Indexes, “Predatory” Publishing, and the African Research
Ecosystem. Journal of African Cultural Studies, 33(3), pp. 276–296.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13696815.2020.1864304

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--
Kalpana Shankar (she/her)
Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies
University College Dublin
Belfield 4
Dublin

kalpana.shankar@ucd.ie

Fellow, UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy
Co-Director, UCD Centre for Digital Policy
Co-Editor in Chief (with Professor Eugenia Siapera), *Online Information
Review*
PhD Coordinator
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