Unlocking open science in Africa: : Mentorship and grassroot community building
Pages 343 - 351
Abstract
Open Science is becoming increasingly popular among scientists worldwide, but African researchers have hesitated to adopt it. This keynote speech addresses the current state of open science in Africa and the challenges researchers face in implementing open science practices. As an open science advocate and mentor in Africa, I share my experiences and discuss the role of mentorship and grassroots community building in overcoming these challenges. Various initiatives, such as OpenScienceKE, H3ABioNet, and BHKi, aim to increase awareness, empower members, and encourage collaboration to promote open science, information sharing, resource sharing, and the visibility of African research. It is essential to involve all stakeholders within local communities and empower grassroots communities. Like planning for a mountain climb, providing the necessary support to facilitate success is crucial. The article highlights the importance of inclusivity and support to overcome barriers and challenges to reap the benefits of open science. I show how culture changes towards openness, breaking down barriers, empowerment, allyship, and grassroots community building are pathways to achieve this change.
References
[1]
S. Day, S. Rennie, D. Luo and J.D. Tucker, Open to the public: paywalls and the public rationale for open access medical research publishing, Res Involv Engagem 6(1) (2020), 1–7.
[2]
D.G.E. Gomes, P. Pottier, R. Crystal-Ornelas, E.J. Hudgins, V. Foroughirad, L.L. Sánchez-Reyes et al., Why don’t we share data and code? Perceived barriers and benefits to public archiving practices, Proc R Soc B Biol Sci 289 (1987), 20221113.
[3]
K.W. Mwangi, N. Mainye, D.O. Ouso, K. Esoh, A.W. Muraya, C.K. Mwangi et al., Open Science in Kenya: Where are we? Front Res Metr Anal [Internet] 6 (2021), [cited 2022 Sep 16]; Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2021.669675, accessed September 19, 2023.
[4]
B.L. Hedt-Gauthier, H.M. Jeufack, N.H. Neufeld, A. Alem, S. Sauer, J. Odhiambo et al., Stuck in the middle: a systematic review of authorship in collaborative health research in Africa, 2014–2016, BMJ Glob Health [Internet] 4(5) (2019), [cited 2023 May 16]. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6830050/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[5]
A. Brandusescu, C. Iglesias, K. Robinson, J.M. Alonso, C. Fagan, A. Jellema et al., Open Data Barometer : global report : fourth edition. 2018 Nov [cited 2023 May 16]; Available from: https://idl-bnc-idrc.dspacedirect.org/handle/10625/57676, accessed September 19, 2023.
[6]
C. O’Grady, Cape Town meeting slams ‘helicopter research’, Science 376(6598) (2022), 1144.
[7]
N. Mulder, A. Abimiku, S.N. Adebamowo, J. de Vries, A. Matimba, P. Olowoyo et al., H3Africa: current perspectives, Pharmacogenomics Pers Med 11: (2018), 59–66.
[8]
S. Aron, K. Gurwitz, S. Panji, N. Mulder, Consortium HE and T working group as member of the H. H3ABioNet: Developing sustainable bioinformatics capacity in Africa, EMBnet Journal 23(0) (2017), 886.
[9]
S.C. Inzaule, S.K. Tessema, Y. Kebede, A.E. Ogwell Ouma and J.N. Nkengasong, Genomic-informed pathogen surveillance in Africa: opportunities and challenges, Lancet Infect Dis 21(9) (2021), e281–e289.
[10]
A continent-wide collaboration on genomics surveillance shows the power of African science and how the majority of COVID-19 variants were introduced into Africa [Internet], Africa CDC [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://africacdc.org/news-item/a-continent-wide-collaboration-on-genomics-surveillance-show-the-power-of-african-science-and-how-the-majority-of-covid-19-variants-were-introduced-into-africa/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[11]
Fund (Rsif) RS and I. Rsif Capacity Building Strategy - English. 2020 Sep 17 [cited 2023 Jun 22]; Available from: https://repository.rsif-paset.org/xmlui/handle/123456789/124, accessed September 19, 2023.
[12]
Home | Science for Africa Foundation [Internet] [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://scienceforafrica.foundation/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[13]
Open Research Africa | Open Access ... | Open Research Africa [Internet] [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://openresearchafrica.org/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[14]
J. Havemann and A. Team, Roadmap 2023–2025. N. Ksibi, editor. AfricArXiv [Internet]. 2023 Jan 27 [cited 2023 Jun 22]; Available from: https://africarxiv.pubpub.org/pub/roadmap-2023-2025/release/2, accessed September 19, 2023.
[15]
N. Ksibi, J. Owango and Sara, Africa PID Alliance Digital Object Identifiers Registration Concept Note [Internet], Zenodo, 2023 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://zenodo.org/record/7924069, accessed September 19, 2023.
[16]
The Open Definition - Open Definition - Defining Open in Open Data, Open Content and Open Knowledge [Internet] [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://opendefinition.org/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[17]
Draft text of the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science - UNESCO Digital Library [Internet] [cited 2023 May 13]. Available from: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000378381.locale=en, accessed September 19, 2023.
[18]
ORION Open Science - Open Responsible research and Innovation to further Outstanding kNowledge [Internet] [cited 2023 May 13]. Available from: https://www.orion-openscience.eu/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[19]
R. Vicente-Saez and C. Martinez-Fuentes, Open Science now: A systematic literature review for an integrated definition, J Bus Res 88: (2018), 428–436.
[20]
Kenyan Culture - Core Concepts [Internet]. Cultural Atlas. 2018 [cited 2023 May 13]. Available from: https://culturalatlas.sbs.com.au/kenyan-culture/kenyan-culture-core-concepts, accessed September 19, 2023.
[21]
H. Scheub, A review of African oral traditions and literature, Afr Stud Rev 28(2/3) (1985), 1–72.
[22]
Towards a new reward system for open science [Internet] [cited 2023 Jun 22]. Available from: https://www.umu.se/en/feature/towards-a-new-reward-system-for-open-science/, accessed September 19, 2023.
[23]
J.C. Guédon, The “Green” and “Gold” roads to open access: the case for mixing and matching, Ser Rev 30(4) (2004), 315–328.
[24]
J.B. Buckheit and D.L. Donoho, WaveLab and reproducible research. in: Wavelets and Statistics [Internet], A. Antoniadis and G. Oppenheim (eds), Springer, New York, NY, 1995 [cited 2023 Jun 22]. pp. 55–81 (Lecture Notes in Statistics). Available from:, accessed September 19, 2023.
[25]
M. Schilthuizen, C.S. Vairappan, E.M. Slade, D.J. Mann and J.A. Miller, Specimens as primary data: museums and ‘open science’, Trends in Ecology & Evolution 30(5) (2015), 237–238.
[26]
P. Karega, D.K. Mwaura, K.W. Mwangi, M. Wanjiku, M. Landi and C.K. Kibet, Building awareness and capacity of bioinformatics and open science skills in Kenya: a sensitize, train, hack, and collaborate model, Front Res Metr Anal [Internet] 8 (2023) [cited 2023 Jun 22]; Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frma.2023.1070390, accessed September 19, 20923.
[27]
M. Watson, When will ‘open science’ become simply ‘science’? Genome Biol 16(1) (2015), 1–3.
[28]
C. Chambers and B. Nosek, The first imperative: Science that isn’t transparent isn’t science, The Guardian [Internet] (2015) [cited 2023 Jun 22]; Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2015/jun/25/the-first-imperative-science-that-isnt-transparent-isnt-science, accessed September 19, 2023.
Index Terms
- Unlocking open science in Africa: Mentorship and grassroot community building
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
Recommendations
Collaborating with communities in Africa: a hitchhikers guide
CHI EA '14: CHI '14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsDesigning, developing and deploying technologies with local African communities involves a rapport and trust beyond predefined and agreed upon project goals. Pur-suing an agenda for community-driven development involves prioritizing and recognizing the ...
International collaboration in scientific publishing: the case of West Africa (2001---2010)
Bibliographic data of publications indexed in Web of Science with at least one (co-)author affiliated to any of the 15 West African countries and published from 2001 to 2010 included are downloaded. Analyses focused one collaboration indicators ...
A theory of the engagement in open source projects via summer of code programs
ESEC/FSE 2020: Proceedings of the 28th ACM Joint Meeting on European Software Engineering Conference and Symposium on the Foundations of Software EngineeringSummer of code programs connect students to open source software (OSS) projects, typically during the summer break from school. Analyzing consolidated summer of code programs can reveal how college students, who these programs usually target, can be ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
© 2023 – The authors. Published by IOS Press.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher
IOS Press
Netherlands
Publication History
Published: 01 January 2023
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 02 Feb 2025