Advocating for Preprint Sharing in Rwanda

In this webinar, we discussed about the benefits of preprints, how they support scientific progress, and the challenges and opportunities for preprint sharing in Rwanda specifically and Africa at large.

This session was made for everyone interested in open science, research, and preprint sharing, especially researchers, academics, librarians, students, and science enthusiasts in Rwanda, across Africa and the world. 

This webinar series is co-organized by: UbuntuNet Alliance: https://ubuntunet.net/ and Access 2 Perspectives: https://access2perspectives.org/  as part of the ORCID Global Participation Program: https://info.orcid.org/global-participation-program/

Watch the recording here:

The slides are available here: https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/handle/1/1675

Speakers’ profile

Miss Dine Roseline Dzekem is a public health professional and social scientist in her early career. She has a background in sociology and anthropology from the University of Buea-Cameroon (2016) and a Master’s degree in public health from the University of Rwanda (2019).

Her areas of interest have been Sub-Saharan African public health and social issues, such as infectious diseases, healthcare access, community engagement, and mobilization. Roseline created the Rwanda Preprint Club because she is particularly interested in open science and access. Roseline intends to leverage her network and learning opportunities to produce culturally acceptable solutions and enhance health outcomes and scientific communication in African communities by combining her skills in implementation research and community involvement.

Patience Sindayigaya is a member of the Rwanda Preprint Club with three years of experience in community engagement and outreach activities, with a background in nursing. He has successfully implemented initiatives to enhance health awareness and improve access to healthcare services. Skilled in both quantitative and qualitative research, he excels in data collection, analysis, and reporting, generating valuable insights into healthcare delivery and community health promotion.

Committed to improving health outcomes, Patience integrates his nursing expertise with his public health knowledge. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Rwanda and is currently pursuing a Master’s in Public Health at Mount Kigali University. 

Dr. Izuchukwu Azuka Okafor is an African Union scholar in reproductive health, a clinical embryologist and a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University where he teaches medical and allied health science students, conducts reproductive health research and drives reproductive health advocacies through the university students’ clubs and associations.

He is a cofounder and project manager at LifePorté Educational Project which focuses on science and reproductive health advocacy in Nigeria. He is a project manager trained at Project Management Institute, USA, and has consulted and partnered with institutions both locally and internationally on youth engagement strategy on health advocacy and education including Anatomy Academy USA, UNESCO, and AfricaCDC.

Dr Okafor is currently a part of Public Health Africa team focused on the development of infrastructure and capacity for open science in Public Health in Africa and a member of the eLife Global South Committee on Open Science. He has served as a governing council member of the African Union-owned premier graduate university, Pan African University which hosts graduate students across 54 AU member states.

Nuhu Lawan Adamu is a Nigerian nurse scholar who holds professional registration to practice as a Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Nurse Educator (RNE), and Registered Perioperative Nurse (RPON).​ He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing science, a master’s degree in health planning and management, and is currently pursuing a PhD in community health nursing. He was chosen as the Overall Best Student in 2005 at the University College Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria.

Nuhu has worked for more than 2 decades as a nurse clinician and educator in both clinical and academic arenas. ​ Currently, he is an academic staff and faculty member at the Department of Nursing Science, College of Medical Sciences, Modibbo Adama University in Yola, Nigeria.

Nuhu is a Fellow of the West African Postgraduate College of Nurses & Midwives and a founding member and Editor of the Tropical Journal of Nursing. Nuhu has published several research articles in various African medical journals and has authored a book on the Nursing process.

Nuhu is an alumnus of the prestigious Fulbright Foreign Students Scholarship for Research where he had his research experience at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA.  His research interest is in chronic disease management and infectious disease prevention. Currently, his research focuses on strategies to increase quality diabetes care through diabetes education and support to mitigate the impact of diabetes and cardiometabolic diseases in particularly underserved populations.

Mercury Shitindo is a bioethicist and researcher, currently serving the Chair and Executive Director of the Africa Bioethics Network, she leads initiatives that advance bioethical discourse across Africa. She is also an Ethics Expert for the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Ethics Appraisal Scheme. Her extensive advisory roles include positions on several boards such as the BCA-WA-ETHICS II Project Advisory Board, the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) Program Quality Committee, eLife’s Global South Advisory Committee for Open Science, and the Training Advisory Committee for the Scaling Up Capacity to Support Clinical Trials in the East African Community (SCALE-IT) project.

Mercury is also actively involved in global ethics initiatives participating as a member of the Regulatory and Ethics Work Stream (REWS) for the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and the Ethics and Data Sharing Working Group for the Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE).

As Co-founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Bioethics, she has made significant contributions to scholarly publishing in bioethics. She leads a research project funded by King’s College, which focuses on the environmental sustainability of AI health research in Kenya.

In addition, she co-founded the Centre for the Sustainability of Digitally Enabled Health (SHADE), an interdisciplinary center dedicated to the sustainability of AI-enabled health solutions. As the Principal Investigator for the ORCID Bioethics Community of Practice in Sub-Saharan Africa, Mercury fosters collaboration and innovation within the regional bioethics research community. Mercury is an accomplished Ethics Course/Curriculum Developer and trainer. She also serves as a Technical Expert Consultant for Global Impact and an Advisory Ethical Research Consultant at the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics.

Questions discussed during the session 

1. What are the main challenges and barriers to preprint sharing in Rwanda and Africa, and how can we overcome them?

2. How can preprints contribute to accelerating scientific research and knowledge dissemination in African countries?

3. What role do academic institutions and researchers in Rwanda play in promoting the use of preprints, and what support do they need?

4. How can we ensure the credibility and quality of research shared through preprints in the African context?

5. What steps can be taken to increase awareness and adoption of preprint platforms among researchers and academics in Rwanda and across Africa?

Related resources

• Rwanda Preprint Club need assessment link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1E80xzkiol8wLIDJ9fQrwJTSTJBcik74kFsAAT03sprA/prefill

About the webinar series

This webinar was co-organized by UbuntuNet Alliance and Access 2 Perspectives as part of the ORCID Global Participation Program.

ORCID is the persistent identifier for researchers to share their accomplishments (research articles, data, etc with funding agencies, publishers, data repositories, and other research workflows.

AfricArXiv is a community-led digital archive for African research communication. By enhancing the visibility of African research, we enable discoverability and collaboration opportunities for African scientists on the continent as well as globally.