A Guide to African Open Access Resources and Landscape
The African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA) has developed a Guide to African Open Access (OA) Resources as part of its broader mission to strengthen access to African-generated knowledge. The initiative aims to make African scholarly publishing more visible, improve access to research, and help librarians and information professionals better serve their communities.
The Guide is combines a desk study and a continent-wide survey to ensure that the information is comprehensive and collaborative. We collected data from existing publications as well as direct input from stakeholders such as librarians, editors, and researchers actively engaged in scholarly communication across Africa.
So far, a wide range of Open Access journals and resources have been identified from across Africa. These cover many disciplines and reflect the diversity of Africa’s scholarly ecosystem. As presented in the table below, the data captures key details such as: Journal title and country of publication, Language(s) of publication, Subject focus or disciplinary coverage, Type of OA model (gold, diamond, hybrid, etc.), Licensing or copyright information, Official website or online access point. This guide is a living resource, updated regularly as new information becomes available, and will serve as a valuable reference for librarians, researchers, and publishers seeking credible, Africa-based OA content.
Below is the preliminary list of journals and OA resources compiled so far:
| Name of Journal | Publisher | Country of publishing | Focus area(s) | Language | Website | OA model | License |
| Acta Academica | University of the Free State | South Africa | General: History of scholarship and learning. The humanities, political science | English | https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/index | Diamond | CC BY |
| Education as Change | Unisa Press | South Africa | Education | English | https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/EAC/index | Gold | CC BY SA |
| Educational Research for Social Change | Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University | South Africa | Education, Social Sciences | English | http://ersc.nmmu.ac.za/index.php?id=1%20 | Gold | CC BY NC |
| Information Impact; Journal of Information and Knowledge Management | Information Practioners Network | Nigeria | Bibliography. Library science. Information resources: Information resources (General) | English | https://www.ajol.info/index.php/iijikm/about | Gold | CC BY |
| Interdisciplinary Journal of Education | Islamic University in Uganda | Uganda | Education (General) | English | https://journals.iuiu.ac.ug/index.php/ije/index | Diamond | CC BY |
| Interdisciplinary Journal of Rural and Community Studies | ERRCD Forum | South Africa | Language and Literature, Social Sciences | English | https://pubs.ufs.ac.za/index.php/ijrcs/index | Gold | CC BY |
| International Journal of Educational Development in Africa | Unisa Press | South Africa | Education | English | https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/IJEDA/index | Diamond | CC BY SA |
| Journal for the Study of Religion | Association for the Study of Religion in Southern Africa | South Africa | Philosophy. Psychology. Religion: Religions. Mythology. Rationalism | English | https://www.scielo.org.za/revistas/jsr/iaboutj.htm | Gold | CC BY-NC-ND |
| Journal of Education | University of KwaZulu-natal | South Africa | Education: Special aspects of education | English | http://journals.ukzn.ac.za/index.php/joe/index | Gold | CC BY-NC-ND |
| Journal of Information, Education, Science and Technology | Federal University of Technology Minna | Nigeria | Education, Science, Bibliography. Library science. Information resources: Information resources (General), Technology | English | https://jiest.futminna.edu.ng/ | Gold | CC BY-NC |
| Journal of South African Democratic Teachers Union | The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union | South Africa | Education | English | https://jsadtu.com/ | Diamond | CC BY-NC-ND |
| Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | Journal of Student Affairs in Africa | South Africa | Education: Special aspects of education | English | https://upjournals.up.ac.za/index.php/jsaa/index | Diamond | CC BY NC SA |
| Journal of the Reading Association of South Africa | AOSIS | South Africa | Education | English | https://rw.org.za/index.php/rw | Gold | CC BY |
| Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training | COMPRESS.dsl | South Africa | Education | English | https://jovacet.ac.za/index.php/JOVACET | Diamond | CC BY |
| KIU Journal of Education | Kampala International University | Uganda | Education | English | https://kjed.kiu.ac.ug/index.php | Diamond | CC BY |
| Koers : Bulletin for Christian Scholarship | Scriber Editorial Systems | South Africa | Philosophy. Psychology. Religion: Practical Theology: Practical religion. The Christian life: Moral theology | English | https://www.koersjournal.org.za/index.php/koers | Gold | CC BY |
| Perspectives in Education | University of the Free State | South Africa | Education: General, Special aspects of education | English | https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/pie | Gold | CC BY |
| Pythagoras | AOSIS | South Africa | Science: Mathematics, Education: Theory and practice of education | English | https://pythagoras.org.za/index.php/pythagoras | Gold | CC BY |
| Regional Journal of Information and Knowledge Management | Regional Institute of Information and Knowledge Management | Kenya | Bibliography. Library science. Information resources | English | https://www.rjikm.org/index.php/rjikm | Diamond | CC BY |
| Rehabilitation Advances in Developing Health Systems | AOSIS | South Africa | Social Sciences, Education | English | https://radhs.org/index.php/radhs | Gold | CC BY |
| South African Journal of Childhood Education | AOSIS | South Africa | Education: Theory and practice of education | English | https://sajce.co.za/index.php/sajce | Gold | CC BY |
| South African Journal of Education | Education Association of South Africa | South Africa | Education | English | https://www.sajournalofeducation.co.za/index.php/saje | Gold | CC BY |
| South African Journal of Libraries and Information Science | Stellenbosch University | South Africa | Bibliography. Library science. Information resources | https://sajlis.journals.ac.za/pub | Gold | CC BY-SA | |
| South African Journal of Psychiatry | AOSIS | South Africa | Medicine: Internal medicine: Neurosciences. Biological psychiatry. Neuropsychiatry: Neurology. Diseases of the nervous system: Psychiatry | English | https://sajp.org.za/index.php/sajp | Gold | CC BY |
| Stellenbosch Papers in Linguistics Plus | Stellenbosch University | South Africa | Language and Literature: Philology. Linguistics, | English | https://spilplus.journals.ac.za/pub/index | Gold | CC BY |
| The Journal of Independent Teaching and Learning | The Independent Institute of Education | South Africa | Education | English | https://journals.assaf.org.za/index.php/ijtl/about | Diamond | CC BY |
| The Journal of Quality in Education | amaquen | Morocco | Education | English, French | https://joqie.org/index.php/joqie | Diamond | CC BY SA |
| Transformation in Higher Education | AOSIS | South Africa | Education: Theory and practice of education | English | https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal | Gold | CC BY |
| West African Journal of Open and Flexible Learning | Regional Training and Research Institute for Distance and Open Learning (RETRIDOL), National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN | Nigeria | Education | English | https://wajofel.org/index.php/wajofel/index | Gold | CC BY SA |
Other resources
The journal and research websites given below are either open access or copyright protected but fully available online. In the latter instances, you are probably better off providing a link to the journal rather than copy and paste on the resource because it carries a copyright license.
African Academy of Sciences: Open Research Africa – https://openresearchafrica.org
Open Research Africa is an arm of the African Academy of Sciences in Nairobi, Kenya. It is not a vehicle in which librarians should contemplate publishing, but African librarians should be knowledgeable about Open Research Africa so that they can refer users to the resource—to read or in which to publish. Open Research Africa covers agricultural and veterinary sciences, engineering and technology, humanities and the arts, medical and health sciences, natural sciences, and social sciences.
Indexing: As examples “All published articles will appear in Google Scholar. An article that has passed peer review (i.e. it has received at least two Approved peer review reports, or one Approved and two Approved with Reservations review reports) will be indexed in bibliographic databases, once the platform has undergone a formal evaluation process by these indexing services. If an article is indexed, all versions, along with the peer review reports, are deposited.
All our articles are indexed by Portico. Data and code associated with articles should be deposited by the author(s) into one of the trusted repositories.”
The website gives a full list of where research is published here: https://openresearchafrica.org/about/indexation/
Copyrightight and/or APC information: “Outputs of research funded by, or with at least one author affiliated to one of our partners, will have their APCs covered by that partner.” No information is given about the cost of APCs to partners or researchers. CC-BY and CC-O licenses are used.
AfricArXiv – https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/home
AfricArXiv is not a journal. It is an initiative to showcase “UbuntuNet’s commitment to fostering knowledge sharing, collaboration, and accessibility within the African research community. With AfricArxiv, researchers across the continent have a dedicated platform to disseminate their findings, making them accessible to a global audience. By facilitating open access to scholarly work, UbuntuNet Alliance plays a pivotal role in advancing the principles of open science, enhancing research visibility, and driving innovation across Africa.
AfricArXiv includes research published by African librarians. Go to https://africarxiv.ubuntunet.net/search?spc.page=1&query=library sciences to browse and find research published in the database relevant to and from African librarians.
AfricArXiv gives five reasons why authors should publish on its platform:
- It gives more visibility to African research output.
- It increases collaboration across Africa.
- It triggers multidisciplinary research.
- It allows researchers to submit in their local language, thus reducing the monopoly on English as the primary language of scholarly communication.
Indexing: Key indexing platforms include the Open Science Framework (OSF), which is its primary hosting platform, Google Scholar, and CrossRef.
Copyright and/or APC information: Research articles are professionally peer reviewed. After publication , they receive a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and an open license. There are no publication charges.
For more information on AfricArXiv, including the five reasons why authors should publish on the platform, go to https://info.africarxiv.org/about/
African Journal of Information and Communication – https://ajic.wits.ac.za/
From the Journal of Information and Communication website: “The African Journal of Information and Communication (AJIC) is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal published by the LINK Centre University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg. AJIC‘s content focuses on dimensions of digital, electronic and physical ecosystems that facilitate information, communication, innovation and transformation in African settings and in the broader Global South.”
Indexing: AJIC‘s articles are indexed and hosted in the following open access databases:
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) SA
- Web of Science (under the SciELO citation index)
- Sabinet African Journals
- WIReDSpace institutional repository, Wits University
Copyright and/or APC information: All AJIC articles are published online under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Authors retain copyright and publishing rights without restriction.
African Journal of Libraries, Archives, and Information Science – https://ajlais.com/index.php/ajlais
The journal is published in Ibadan Nigeria. Its website does not provide any information about its purpose. But from the African Journals Online website: “African Journal of Library, Archives and Information Science is established mainly to provide a forum for librarians, archivists, documentalists, information scientists and other information related professionals in Africa to report their research findings but with emphasis on African setting. The Journal is refereed by distinguished scholars. Emphasis is on empirical research; however, manuscripts of high quality on theoretical aspects of the three information related disciplines will be considered for publication.” The journal is published in Ibadan, Nigeria and is open access, effective January 2025.
Indexing: The journal is vague about where it is indexed. This is their statement: “The Journal is covered/indexed in highly rated indexing services/databases such as Web of Science, Scopus, Library Literature and Information Science (USA), Social Sciences Citation Index (USA), Social Research (USA), Journal Citation Reports, and Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA), among others.”
Copyright and/or APC information: There is no information about any APC charges. The journal owns copyright for all articles published in it.
Journal of eScience Librarianship – https://publishing.escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/
“The Journal of eScience Librarianship (JeSLIB) (ISSN 2161-3974) is an open access, peer-reviewed journal advancing the theory and practice of librarianship focusing on services related to data-driven research in science, technology, engineering, math, social sciences, medicine, and public health. JeSLIB explores the many roles of librarians in supporting eScience and welcomes articles by contributors from all areas of the globe related to education, outreach, collaborations, policy, tools, and best practices. Submissions covering both theoretical and practical applications are welcomed.” It is published by the University of Massachusetts in the United States.
The journal is published in the United States and has included full-text articles from African researchers. See this from a group of scientists in Uganda: https://publishing.escholarship.umassmed.edu/jeslib/article/id/806/
Indexing: The journal is indexed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), Google Scholar, Informed Librarian Online, and Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory.
Copyright and/or APC Information: Authors of original work accepted for publication give first publication rights to the journal but retain ownership of the copyright of their content and all other rights. The journal uses a CC-BY license, but authors must cite the original work.
International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education –https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/
This journal is open access and “aims to: facilitate the dissemination of critical scholarly works and exchange of information from a variety of cultural perspectives for researchers, professionals and practitioners in the technology enhanced and digital learning fields in higher education; contribute to the advancement of scientific knowledge regarding the human and personal approach to the use of technology in higher education; and inform readers about the latest developments in the application of digital technologies in higher education learning, training, research and management.”
Indexing: All articles published in the journal are indexed in:
- SCOPUS
- Social Sciences Citation Index® (SSCI)
- Current Contents®/Social and Behavioral Sciences
- Journal Citation Reports/ Social Sciences Edition
- ProQuest Central
- Google Scholar
- DOAJ
- EBSCO Discovery Service
- EBSCO Education Research Complete
- EBSCO Education Source
- EBSCO Fuente Académica
- EBSCO TOC Premier
- OCLC WorldCat Discovery Service
- ProQuest-ExLibris Primo
Copyright and/or APC information: “Authors of articles published in International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work.” All publication costs are paid for by the journal. There are no APC charges.
The visibility of African scholarly journals and Open Access repositories is growing. This marks an important move toward fair access to knowledge and inclusion in global research. Documenting these resources helps to make African research easier to find and use. It gives librarians practical tools to guide users to open, African-led content. It also supports local publishers and promotes sustainable Open Access practices. Through this work, AfLIA strengthens the role of libraries as key champions of open knowledge across Africa.
Call to Action
AfLIA continues to expand this initiative and invites contributions from across the continent. If you are an Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor, publisher, librarian, or researcher who knows of an African OA journal, repository, or resource that has not yet been captured, we encourage you to share the details by completing our short survey.
Contribute to the Survey: https://forms.gle/RXSdS3PsKtEoSekg8