Dine Roseline Dzekem is a public health professional and social scientist. She is also the founder of the Rwanda Preprint Club. In this session, she was joined by other members of the club, who made presentations and engaged in discussions about the benefits of preprints, their support for scientific progress, and the challenges and opportunities for preprint sharing in Rwanda, specifically, and Africa at large.

Watch the recording

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

Session Summary

The session on preprint sharing in Rwanda and Africa highlighted several key challenges and opportunities for advancing open scientific communication. A primary barrier is the lack of awareness among researchers about what preprints are and doubts regarding their recognition and credibility. Concerns about idea theft and the seriousness of preprints persist, underscoring the need for education, institutional policies, and mentorship to help build trust and shift cultural perceptions. Preprints offer a powerful way to accelerate scientific research and knowledge dissemination by enabling faster sharing of findings without waiting months for peer review. This rapid access supports timely policy decisions, fosters collaborations, and gives early-career researchers visibility and feedback while bypassing paywalls.

In Rwanda, academic institutions have taken progressive steps by integrating preprint sharing into graduation requirements, exemplified by the University of Rwanda’s encouragement of students to preprint dissertations on institutional repositories. To ensure research credibility, simplified guidelines and training programs have been proposed, alongside linking preprints with their updated versions and encouraging evaluation of preprints’ value akin to traditional articles.

Increasing awareness and adoption requires embedding preprints into scientific communication curricula, hosting targeted workshops for lecturers, and sustaining preprint clubs that guide researchers through the processes of preparing, posting, and reviewing preprints. These efforts foster a culture where preprints are seen as dynamic work-in-progress contributions to open science.

Overall, preprints in Africa hold the potential to democratize access, improve research visibility, and promote rapid scientific progress, provided that adoption barriers related to awareness, quality assurance, and institutional support are comprehensively addressed. This collective approach will strengthen the scientific ecosystem and empower African researchers globally.

African researchers and institutions can gain valuable insights from the session on preprints to foster a more open and efficient research ecosystem. The session clarified that preprints do not undermine publishing credibility but rather complement it by providing early visibility and allowing for community input. Institutions can support this by incorporating preprint education into training programs and organizing seminars to demystify misconceptions.

For preprints to be widely adopted, formal recognition in academic assessments such as hiring, promotion, and funding decisions is essential. Policy-level endorsement encourages researchers to share preliminary findings confidently, knowing their work will be valued. The session also highlighted the critical role preprints play in rapidly disseminating research during urgent situations like public health crises or environmental challenges, enabling timely policy interventions and raising public awareness.

Preprints foster collaboration by connecting researchers with shared interests, as exemplified by the Rwanda Preprint Club, which promotes a culture of openness and collective problem-solving, particularly crucial in resource-limited environments. Additionally, preprints empower early-career researchers by giving them a platform to gain recognition, receive feedback, and build citations ahead of traditional publications, accelerating their academic development.

Engagement with global preprint platforms such as AfricArXiv, OSF, and Preprints.org enhances African research visibility and promotes equitable knowledge exchange, making it imperative for institutions and researchers to participate in these networks actively. By embracing these lessons, African research communities can overcome barriers, improve knowledge dissemination, and strengthen regional and global scientific collaboration.

Related resources

Rwanda Preprint Club needs an assessment link: https://docs.google.com/forms/

Speakers’ profiles

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). 

LinkedIn:/roseline-dzekem-dine/
ORCID: 0000-0002-8210-9258

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. 

LinkedIn: /sindayigaya-patience/
ORCID: 0009-0005-7823-3108

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. 

LinkedIn: /Dr. Izuchukwu Azuka Okafor/
ORCID: 0000-0003-1017-9297

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.

LinkedIn: /nuhulawan/
ORCID:0000-0001-7734-167X

Mercury Shitindo is a bioethicist and researcher, currently serving as the Chair and Executive Director of the Africa Bioethics Network, where she leads initiatives advancing bioethical discourse across Africa. She is also the Co-founder and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Bioethics, contributing significantly to scholarly publishing in the field.

LinkedIn: /mercury-shitindo/
ORCID: 0000-0002-3814-8786

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.