Khulisa Journals December Communique

[Ina Smith]

Dear Khulisa Journal Managers and Editors,

2024 has come to an end, and I think I've been in touch with all of you at some stage during the past year. I will be on leave from tomorrow until 6 January 2025, and Nason will once again stand in for me during this period.  I have also reminded him about the outstanding reported problems, and hope we can have it resolved soon.

New developments

During the past week I've attended the Open Science in the South conference in Cape Town. My attendance was kindly sponsored by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Just announced, is that - from 1 Jan 2025, Wellcome will ONLY fund the cost of APCs for journals within DOAJ. See Wellcome Open Access Policy - Grant Funding | Wellcome. This is indeed fantastic news for DOAJ and open access!

The PKP OJS team, a SFU Core Facility, further indicated that its flagship software, Open Journal Systems (OJS), has been chosen to underpin the European Commission’s Open Research Europe (ORE), an open access publishing platform. One of the developments will be an XML tool that will do the conversion of manuscripts at the start of the workflow. This will result in less download and upload of various versions at the different stages in the workflow.

Lastly, a huge development which you are probably aware of, is the ASSAf Statement on the Recognition of the Work of Editors and Peer Reviewers of Academic Journals and Books in South Africa.

Please help bring about change by bringing this statement to the attention of the decision makers at your institution. Acknowledge Reviewers (and Editors) as follows:

• There are 2 tools that can be considered to acknowledge Reviewers: Reviewer Credits and Publons
• Reviewers and Editors can also be acknowledged through earning CPD points. Please speak to me if interested.
• ORCID is another option. Once an article has been peer-reviewed, the details can be added to the Reviewer's ORCID profile. Read more at https://info.orcid.org/documentation/workflows/peer-review-workflow/

ASSAf will further be hosting the S20 (as part of the G20) during 2025, and the theme identified will be "Climate change and well-being."

We are looking forward collaborating with you again next year, and wish you all the best for this coming season. Thank you for all your work in maintaining high standards in terms of your respective journals, on top of so many other responsibilities, and often with very little resources. ASSAf is extremely proud to host Khulisa Journals!

With kind regards,

Ina

Ina Smith (her/she)

SciELO SA Planning Manager | Scholarly Publishing Programme
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf)

Senior Ambassador for Africa
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)

ASSAf Switchboard: +27 12 349 6600    
Whatsapp: +27(0)82 818 0117
Email: i...@assaf.org.za and i...@doaj.org 

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