TOWARDS A NEW VISION FOR ACADEMIC PUBLISHING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

My Response to Professor Henry Uro-Chukwu's comments below on a post entitled 'Top 2% Nigerian Scholars'

Preamble

In a highly motivating Research Scholars Forum on WhatsApp set up by the Vice Chancellor of Coal City University, Nigeria, Professor Uro-Chukwu notes as follows.

The Nigerian scholars and SCOPUS! It absolutely makes no sense. Enter the classrooms where these scholars teach and educate, in most of the environments, you will vomit. Yet, they place emphasis on a publisher’s ingenious approach to make money—a collection of journals represented by SCOPUS. They will not even respect their own university journals—but mere mention of an international journal, heads begin to crackle. These intellectuals are mentally colonized. We need a decolonization agenda. Nigerian journals are better than European journals. Now, what’s wrong with that?

My Response

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG WITH DEVELOPING MORE ENABLING JOURNAL AND ACADEMIC PUBLISHING SYSTEMS IN NIGERIA, AFRICA, AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, AND WE'RE AT IT NOW, see https://www.afriworldpublishing.com/philosophy.

Please see related ResearchGate preprints as follows.

1. The Story of an Unassuming Global Mathematical Scientist, His Grace Professor Bishop A R T Solarin With Supplementary Debates and a Truce on Meeting and Dominating Global Publishing Standards, https://www.research.net/publication/379448070
2. Mathematical Sciences for Development and Relevance: Links With the African Union Agenda 2063, a Key Note Paper I presented at the 70 Years International Valedictory Conference in honour of Professor Solarin, https://www.research.net/publication/384332187, also about to be published in the Journal of the Nigerian Mathematical Society.

The articles argue that the reason Nigeria, African and developing countries of the Global South remain perennially underdeveloped several years after their independence, is because traditional academics have been dubiously incentivised to see success in the academic business as mainly publishing in so-called 'international' SCOPUS- and Simago-rated journals.

Painfully, this unconscionable enfeeblement of academics in developing countries and globally, to rent-seeking legacy publishers, numbs their minds away from developing journal systems that are truly change-setting, by maintaining research-teaching excellence whilst maximally impacting academia, public services, industry sectors, and wider society - the Global Quadruple Helix.

Consequently, by the Special Grace of God, as noted above, we are almost finished developing an alternative publishing system which follows a New Vision for Higher Education in Developing Countries. Again, see https://afriworldpublishing.com/philosophy.

We published a LinkedIn article on this New Vision about two days ago, 'Towards a New Vision for Higher Education in Developing Countries, https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/patrick-oseloka-ezepue-ba409569_in-a-recent-valedictory-keynote-paper-presented-activity-7245300104482496513-dIVT?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop. For easy follow-through here, the New Vision, fondly called Oselux Vision, is

To Live a Spirit-Led, Project-Based Life, Transforming and Democratising Global Education and Change, By Continually Up-skilling People, Creating Innovative Products, Services, Digital Firms, Wealth, Jobs, Enhancing the Peace, Prosperity, Joy and Happiness of Individuals and Countries, Especially Nigeria, Africa, and Developing Countries of the Global South, and Publishing the Ideas Through Multimedia Channels Across Academia, Public Services, Industry Sectors, and Wider Society - the Global Quadruple Helix.

The Vision is underpinned by a new Corporate Academic Model for performing higher education engagements and leadership, which enables academics to live the Vision. See related ideas in the following core references below.

As noted in the above LinkedIn article, the term performing connotes the need to infuse the Entertainment Mystique into the corporate academic game, same as elite sports and entertainment personalities do. For this, we are happy to develop an Oselux Omnimedia platform as part of the AfriWorld ecosystem of educational platforms at different stages of development, https://www.linktr.ee/ssgsacademy. We can't resist the temptation to re-render this link-tree as The Oselux Pie below.

The Core References and Supporting Reads

1. Ezepue, P. O. (2018) Secrets of the Masters: Model-Based Hyper-Performance in the Corporate Academic Business of Life, Journal of the Nigerian Association of Mathematical Physics, also available at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344576216.
2. Ezepue, P. O. and Veronica N. Okaro (April 2023) The Many Faces of Publishing: Conversations on Global Corporate Academicism, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370068626.
3. Ezepue, P. O. (2023) The Corporate Academic Celebrity Business Model https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369365373.
4. Ezepue, Udo and Achumba (February 2024) Historical Development of the Corporate Academic Model of Higher Education, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378205784.

For further ramifications of corporate academic ideas, in no particular order of importance, since, by dint of a Circular Economy in Oselux Global Education at https://www.linktr.ee/ssgsacademy, everything flows into everything else, see some supporting reads below.

1. Ezepue, P. O. (February 2024) The Ecology of Work, Creative Resilience and Continuous Never-Ending Improvement in the Oselux Corporate-Academic ‘Military’ Industrial Complex: Perspectives from Oselux Masterclasses, Events and Publications, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378522797.
2. Ezepue, P. O. and Janet Ijeoma Ejegbu (April 2023) Personal Conversations on Global Corporate Academicism: Sharing My Ideas for a Better World With the Co-Lead ICT and Digital Marketing at Oselux Global Education, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370006113.
3. Ezepue, P. O. (April 2023) Is Traditional Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa a Tool for Economic Subjugation? If So, What Must Be Done To Counteract This? https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370003224.
4. Ezepue, P. O. (April 2023) Reflections on Hyper-Performance Coaching Services in Oselux Global Education, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369946508.
5. Ezepue, P. O. and Godfrey Udo (March 2023) Conversations on Global Corporate Academicism: Corporate Academic Responses to a Nature Article on Burnouts and Quiet Quitting By Overworked, Sometimes Underappreciated and Underpaid Academics and Professionals, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/369063119.
6. Ezepue, P. O. (February 2023) The Raven-Eagle Metaphor for Understanding the Relationships Among Traditional and Corporate Academics in Higher Education, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368309138.
7. Ezepue, P. O. (January 2023) Subordinating RIAT Excellence to Societal Growth and Economic Development in Corporate Academia, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367188578.
8. Ezepue, P. O. (August 2021) Mind the Gaps: Addressing Some Failings in Effective Research Design and Execution Using a Research Methods Canvas, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353953984.

What next?

We are happy to announce that a fundamental set of masterclasses that retrain academics on the dynamics of the Oselux Vision and the Corporate Academic Model, is currently available in introductory webinars and follow-on short-courses. Hence, new dates will shortly be released for the below flyer.

For a bird's eye view of how these capacities address fundamental challenges in global higher education, again especially in developing countries, we will rollover the following international higher education summit. We will leave a generous one-year timeline for this unmissable event, to enable individual stakeholders across academia, public services, industry sectors, and wider society, to attend.

The summit will have two separate but mutually reinforcing flavours - one for Senior Leaders in Higher Education (Participants 1) and the other for individual academics, students, professionals, and policy makers (Participants 2).

Brief Biopic of the Author, Key Note Speaker and Lead Facilitator of Related Workshops

A Platform Global Corporate Academic, Patrick Oseloka EZEPUE received his BSc and MSc Statistics degrees at the University of Nigeria Nsukka and his PhD in Statistics with specialization in Stochastic Modelling in Mathematical Biology at The University of Sheffield, UK. He holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Administration from Manchester Business School, UK, and a Postgraduate Certificate for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education from Sheffield Hallam University, UK, where he lectured for fifteen years from 2002 to 2017. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK. Patrick’s driving vision is 'To Live a Spirit-Led, Project-Based Life, Transforming and Democratizing Global Education and Change, By Continually Up-skilling People, Creating Innovative Products, Services, Digital Firms, Wealth, Jobs, Thereby Enhancing the Peace, Prosperity, Joy, and Happiness of Individuals and Countries, especially African and Developing Countries?of the Global South, and Publishing the Ideas Through Multimedia Channels Across Academia, Public Services, Industry Sectors, and Wider Society'. He was/is a Professor of Statistics and Business Analytics, Director of Academic Practice, Deputy Director of Research and Innovation, and Chair of the Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committee, Coal City University, Enugu, Nigeria, for which he wrote an innovative Quality Assurance and Enhancement Framework; AfriWorld Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship and The Digital Economy, UK; Founder and Director of Research and Enterprise Development, Sigma-Z Analytics Limited UK, www.sigma-zconsulting.com; Consultant User Researcher and User Centred Design Practitioner in the United Kingdom; Visiting Professor of Stochastic Modelling in Business and Finance, National Mathematical Centre, Abuja, Nigeria (2009), Visiting Associate Professor of Statistics at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria (2007-2016), and Visiting Scholar in Mathematical Sciences at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria (2013-2015). He founded the Nigerian Mathematics Finance Statistics and Economics Research Consortium (NIMFSERC) at Afrihero UK, https://afrihero.org.uk, using a British Council grant he secured to facilitate multidisciplinary transnational research in these fields. Patrick has published more than hundred (100) articles, supervised thirteen (13) PhD and more than forty (40) MSc students, across fields like Data Mining, Stochastic-Time Series Modelling, Strategic Marketing Reintermediation in Insurance, Empirical Finance, Mathematical Finance, Integrated Business Modelling for Establishing Digital Internationalising Firms, and Discipline-Based Entrepreneurship. He attracts grants in pursuit of Full-Spectrum Research-Teaching Excellence and Maximal Societal Impact, through a Corporate Academic Model that underpins these engagements. Patrick can be reached at T: +447772632150; E: [email protected]; and social media: https://linktr.ee/ssgsacademy; https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/patrick-oseloka-ezepue-ba409569; https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Patrick-Ezepue-2/research.