University of Zambia (UNZA) has initiated a project that aims to encourage greater institutional support for no-fee open access publishing at the university. The project will strengthen the editorial processes and procedures of the Journal of Agricultural and Biomedical Sciences (JABS), and improve discoverability of journal articles.

UNZA-JABS is an no-fee open access peer-reviewed quarterly journal that publishes research in the fields of agriculture, medicine, veterinary medicine, biomedical sciences and allied life sciences.

In 2019, UNZA transitioned all its official print journals, including UNZA-JABS, to an electronic format, using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform. The journal has published regularly; however, workflows, metadata and guidelines need to be improved. In addition, the journal needs to build editorial capacity.

The UNZA project is one of 17 that have received grant support through a three-year project to strengthen no-fee open access publishing in Africa implemented by EIFL, AJOL (African Journals Online) and WACREN (the West and Central African Research and Education Network), with funding from Wellcome.

TIMELINE

October 2024 - September 2025

ACTIVITIES

• Strengthen the editorial team by hiring editorial support assistants; 
• Organize editorial team training; 
• Create comprehensive documentation of journal editorial processes and procedures;
• Design Open Journal Systems (OJS) templates and implement OJS plugin for Quality Metadata  to improve user experience and consistency;
• Improve discoverability by developing software toolkits and registering the journal in AJOL (African Journals Online) and DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals).

More about the University of Zambia-Journal of Agricultural and Biomedical Sciences (UNZA-JABS).