Through an engaging webinar series, we explore with you the transformative impact of Open Science practices on the discoverability of African research. We delve into the significance of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and how they facilitate interoperability across digital services presented here.
Join us on this transformative journey to amplify the visibility of African research and foster a more interconnected and efficient scholarly ecosystem. Let’s pave the way for a future where African contributions are prominently featured and celebrated globally.
Upcoming webinar sessions
- August 07, 2025 – 11 am CAT: Connecting Higher Education with Local Communities: Examples from the EPIC Africa Network
- August 28, 2025 – 11 am CAT: PKP OJS – an open-source scholarly publishing system for affordable, efficient, and equitable publishing in Africa
- date tbc: African Science and Diplomacy
- date tbc: Library Services for Open Science in Namibia and Kenya
- date tbc: Preprint servers and journals: Rivals or allies?
- date tbc: Artificial Intelligence in Scholarly Writing and Publishing in Africa
- date tbc: Enabling Open Science Through Research Code and Research Software in (South) Africa
- date tbc: Comparing Tanzanian forest science (in-)visibility in selected bibliographic databases
Objectives and Target Audience
Designed for African researchers, librarians, journal editors, and research managers by providing valuable insights into the functionalities of digital scholarly tools and persistent identifiers. Our primary goals are to significantly enhance the discoverability of African research on a global scale and streamline scholarly workflows for increased efficiency.
Why Attend?
- Learn practical strategies for adopting digital scholarly tools and PIDs in your research workflows, for literature search, scholarly publishing, and effective research dissemination.
- Gain in-depth knowledge about the role of PIDs in scholarly communication.
- Contribute to the global visibility and impact of African research.
Key Focus Areas
- Open Science practices and progress across African research communities.
- Increasing discoverability of African research outcomes and accomplishments.
- Low- and no-cost scholarly publishing by harnessing Open Science and Open Access best practices and service providers.
- Responsible use and analysis of bibliometrics to increase the visibility and reputation of African research institutions.
- The significance of Persistent Identifiers (PIDs) and how they facilitate interoperability across digital services.
- Open Researcher and Contributor ID – ORCID: Understanding the role of ORCID in uniquely identifying and connecting individual researchers to their contributions, fostering collaboration and recognition.
- Research Organisation Registry – ROR: Exploring the significance of ROR in assigning PIDs to research institutions, contributing to a more structured and interconnected research landscape.
- Digital Object Identifier – DOI: Unraveling the benefits of DOIs in uniquely identifying and ensuring the persistent accessibility of diverse digital objects and scholarly outputs. DOIs are similar to Handles and Arks.
Watch the recordings
All past session recordings are available on YouTube, and the slides are archived in our repository at https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/handle/1/20.
Watch the session recordings
Look up the session slides
Previous webinar sessions
- Join us: Optimizing Open Journal Systems (OJS) for multilingual, open access journal publishing in Africa
Join us on Thu, Aug 28, 2025, at 11 am CAT for a presentation by Müge Bakioğlu from the Public Knowledge Project to learn how to make the most of Open Journal Systems (OJS) with core features for multilingual and #OpenAccess publishing, plugins, and integrations that support #persistentidentifiers, long-term preservation, and streamlined workflows. We will… Read more: Join us: Optimizing Open Journal Systems (OJS) for multilingual, open access journal publishing in Africa - Join us: Webinar session on “Connecting Higher Education with Local Communities”
We are pleased to invite you to the next session in our Open Science Webinar Series, co-organized by UbuntuNet Alliance and Access 2 Perspectives, and supported by the African Open Science Platform (AOSP). 📅 Date: Thursday, August 7, 2025🕒 Time: 3:00 PM CAT / 9:00 AM EST🎙️ Speakers: 🌍 Topic:Connecting Higher Education with Local Communities:… Read more: Join us: Webinar session on “Connecting Higher Education with Local Communities” - HAL, the French national open archive within the global Open Science ecosystem, an African perspective
We hosted Bénédicte Kuntziger as our guest in this session. Bénédicte is the support, trainer, and community engagement lead at HAL and she guided attendees through the following: Watch the recording The slides are available at Speaker’s Profile: Bénédicte Kuntziger Bénédicte Kuntziger has been a documentation engineer at CNRS for over 30 years. She first… Read more: HAL, the French national open archive within the global Open Science ecosystem, an African perspective - Building a Trustworthy Research Environment: Challenges and Solutions to Predatory Publishing
Susan Veldsman, the Director of the Scholarly Publication Unit at the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf), spoke on the challenges and solutions to predatory publishing and how we can build a trustworthy research environment. During her presentation, she gave an introduction to what predatory journals are, how predatory publishing challenges Open Science and… Read more: Building a Trustworthy Research Environment: Challenges and Solutions to Predatory Publishing - The Role of COAR in Advancing Open Access in Africa
The Executive Director of the Confederation of Open Access Repositories (COAR), Kathleen Shearer, shared insights on how COAR supports open access to research in Africa and ways African researchers and institutions can make their work more visible worldwide. Watch the recording The slides are available at https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/handle/1/1817 Speaker’s profile Kathleen Shearer Kathleen Shearer is the… Read more: The Role of COAR in Advancing Open Access in Africa