The Regional Institute of Information and Knowledge Management in Nairobi, Kenya, has initiated a project that will institutionalize and systemize the operations of its no-fee open access peer reviewed scholarly journal, the Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management, and enhance the journal’s efficiency and sustainability.

The institute publishes the journal biannually, aiming to provide a credible, authoritative and trustworthy platform for information and knowledge management professionals and scholars in Africa and beyond to engage, share and learn.

Since its launch in 2016, the journal has been published using individual financial and technical support, primarily from the Editor-in-Chief. Currently, manuscripts are submitted to an email address, and are processed manually. The number of manuscripts has grown, placing extreme pressure on the journal’s human and financial resources. At the same time, limited funding has placed constraints on the journal’s ability to scale up its operations and improve visibility through indexing and other means.

The ‘Institutionalizing the Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management for sustainability’ project aims to improve the efficiency and systemize journal publishing, and to develop a sustainability strategy that will help the journal to identify and embrace a business model that is able to mobilize or generate funds adequate for its future day-to-day activities.

The 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

• Develop an institutionalization and sustainability strategy and form strategic partnerships;
• Recruit an editorial assistant and appoint and train two associate editors; 
• Streamline the editorial process;
• Equipping the journal with IT hardware and software to systemize and automate manuscript processing workflows and procedures;
• Migrate the journal to an online publishing platform, design publication layout templates, and optimize the online presence and visibility of the journal for indexing;
• Deploy persistent identifiers to ensure continued discoverability and accessibility  of articles; 
• Strengthen the no-fee open access publishing ecosystem by training editorial board members, peer reviewers and authors.

More about the Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management