Last year, the EIFL Open Access Programme set aside funding and invited library consortia in our partner countries to submit proposals to strengthen open access publishing by their members. In 2022, we are delighted to support projects in five countries: Ethiopia, Georgia, Ghana, Kenya and Lesotho.

In Ethiopia, Addis Ababa University will upgrade the national open access publishing platform EJOL (Ethiopian Journals Online), which currently hosts 21 journals. The project will also train journal editors to follow current good  practices so that their journals will be eligible for indexing in directories such as the DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals). 

In Georgia, the Georgian Integrated Library Information System Consortium 2017 (GILISC-2017) will redesign the national publishing platform which it hosts. The Open Access Georgian Academic Journals portal currently hosts 15 journals. GILISC-2017 plans to double the number to 30 journals, reflecting the research output of 18 GILISC-2017 members. The project will also develop guidelines for best practices in academic publishing and train journals editors to comply with  DOAJ criteria.

In Ghana, the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Ghana (CARLIGH), will support open access journal publishing at three CARLIGH member institutions: Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST),  University of Cape Coast and  University of Ghana. CARLIGH will organize training in open access online journal management for Chief Editors and Editorial Teams at the three institutions and support them in registering their journals with the DOAJ.

In Kenya, the Kenya Libraries and Information Consortium (KLISC) will support the establishment of open online publishing platforms for research output from 22 research institutions. KLISC will set up OJS and pages for journals, build open access journal publishing capacity of institutional management, librarians and journal editors, scholars and IT staff, guided by best practices in journal publishing set out by AJOL (African Journals Online) and DOAJ.

In Lesotho, the National University of Lesotho (NUL) will train faculty and institutes that publish journals to make the use of the open access journals platform NUL Journals Online, and take steps to meet criteria for registration with DOAJ.

Open Access publishing resources

See the updated EIFL Checklist of Good Practices in Using Open Journals Systems  Software (OJS) for Journal Editing and Publishing. Version 2 includes further details about the current production release of OJS - OJS3, and tips on software plugins, journal procedures and policies, system security, and suggestions for improving content visibility and discoverability. There is also a section on indexing journals in the DOAJ.

Join a series of webinars for journal editors and publishers in Africa, organized by EIFL and partners AJOL, ASSAf (Academy of Science South Africa), DOAJ, LIBSENSE and UCT (University of Cape Town). The webinars take place on Thursdays at 10:00 GMT, from 10 February to 24 March, with sessions offered in English and French. View the recording and  the slides of the first webinar, ‘Introducing DOAJ’ in English and French, and find out about future webinars.