Contents

Introduction

What Is Feasibility?

Methodology

Summary of Results

A Closer Look at Each University:
Zambia
Makerere
Ghana
Cheikh Anta Diop

Recommendations

Conclusions and Next Steps

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Africa Project has long been involved in projects to improve information access for scientists in Africa. These efforts have included a journals distribution program, a CD-ROM database and document-delivery pilot project, and other efforts to enhance African access to and representation in major international databases. As an increasing number of scientific and scholarly journals have been made available online, the Internet has offered the promise of instant electronic access to these vital sources of information. Online journals, while they have their own direct and indirect costs, eliminate the shipping expenses and time delays of paper journals, and in addition provide powerful searching and citation-linking utilities.

The promise of online journals is muted in Africa, however, not only by the subscription costs, but also by low-bandwidth Internet connections that raise serious questions about the accessibility of these often graphics-intensive journals. Unless technical feasibility can be established, the cost issue is a moot point. Thus AAAS has undertaken, with UNESCO support, a feasibility study to address the technical issues, as the foundation for a future project to address the larger question of how African universities can formulate sustainable and effective information strategies.

The feasibility study involved a two-person team traveling to four African universities in order to test the downloading of articles from online journals, and to evaluate a range of technical and other factors that affect the overall feasibility of online journals accessibility. The team consisted of John Schoneboom, representing the AAAS Africa Project, and technical consultant Ian Freislich, Senior System Administrator for UUNET Internet Africa. The participating universities were the University of Zambia (UNZA), Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda (MUK), the University of Ghana at Legon (UG), and the University of Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, Senegal (UCAD). For purposes of the study we had full-text access to Science magazine, the weekly journal published by AAAS, and the 174 journals comprising the IDEAL (International Digital Electronic Access Library) catalog. We also had full-text access to a sample copy of the British journal Nature.

We met with senior science faculty members and library personnel at each university, and they were invariably eager to hear about and assist our study in hopes of establishing sustained access to online journals and other electronic information resources. This report will discuss the meaning of feasibility, present findings for each of the universities visited, draw some generalized conclusions, and make some recommendations for African universities, interested donors, and publishers of online journals.