Increasing the availability of West African Grey Literature to improve marine fisheries research and management
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Vicary, Tamsin
The Fishery Committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic (CECAF) seeks to promote the sustainable utilization of the living marine resources across the Eastern Central Atlantic between Cape Spartel and the Congo river through informed development of fisheries management actions. Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) is contributing to the CECAF-PESCAO project “Improved Regional Fisheries Governance in Western Africa”, by developing a comprehensive inventory of marine fisheries research covering both primary literature (available online on both commercial and free to use platforms) and grey literature available at institutions holdings and not always accessible online. This assessment of fisheries management research in the region will enable CECAF, ASFA and, critically, member countries the means to access relevant contextual and discernible science-based materials and publications. Cataloguing and subsequent bibliometric analysis of large amounts of information specific to regional fisheries management will encourage solid research-based fisheries management recommendations at the national level by highlighting areas of fisheries management to investigate. This paper presents the preliminary results of the research inventory and bibliometric analysis, comparing the amount and type of information available in primary and grey literature collections for the region and at individual country level.
 So, as Sylvia said, the title of my presentation is increasing the availability of West Africa Grey literature to improve marine fisheries management in the region. So my name is Tamsa Vickery, I work for the Asfa Secretariat, which is based at FAO in Rome. I'm presenting this presentation, which was put together with my colleague Maria Calenzas, and also with help from Dowel Superior of SeafDec Philippines and Aram Gita of Dukit Shung de Beshmaratam in Dakar, Senegal. So, a quick agenda, I'll give an overview of Asfa's support to the Seacuff Pescau project, in which we are producing an inventory of marine fisheries research in the region. I'll give a brief overview of the search methodology that we used, a timeline of our activities, the preliminary results and conclusions before I go to the next steps. So at the time I was planning this presentation, I hoped the project would be further on, as everyone can appreciate, 2020 has had quite a few surprises for everybody. So it's just the preliminary results and conclusions I'll be presenting today. So, starting off with an introduction to Seacuff, Pescau and Asfa. Seacuff is the fishery committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic. It promotes the sustainable utilisation of the living marine resources within its area of competence by the proper management and development of fisheries and fishing operations. Seacuff Pescau is a project which focuses on improving the regional governance of marine resources in the Seacuff area. It's an EU funded project and it runs from December 2018 to December 2021. As I said, I work for the Asfa Secretariat and Asfa is a 50 year old partnership dedicated to promoting aquatic sciences, fisheries and aquaculture research. We have a network of over 100 partners around the world and we also have nine Asfa partners in the Seacuff region who have been recruited to work on this project. So this map here shows where our Asfa partners are located who are working on this project. We've recruited a library and professional from each of the institutions you can see on this list here and they've been recruited to work and provide help to compile this research inventory. So those countries are Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal and Spain. So what specifically is Asfa's role in the Seacuff Pescau project? This is contributing to Output 1.2 which is collaboration on data and information sharing procedures and research enhance between relevant countries, sub-regional and regional organisations to harmonise data and knowledge. So how are we achieving this? The output will be the development of a comprehensive research inventory of marine fisheries research across the Seacuff area of confidence. So in order to build this research inventory, we developed a search criteria and a search methodology. The main thing to note of the search criteria is that we're looking for research by authors affiliated to one of the countries in the Seacuff region. So doing it that way allows us to assess the research strengths and gaps of each of those countries which will enable us to better plan future research as well as gaining access to the research being conducted at present. It will increase access to overlooked grey literature from the region and it's helping already to foster new relations and information sharing networks in the region. So you can see the document types that we're looking for as part of this inventory. It's a wide range of document types and they include both grey and primary literature that we're looking at and the subject topics we're looking for are also listed. So all of these are marine fisheries related, so fishery biology, fisheries management, climate change, how it relates to fisheries and marine protected areas. So here's a quick timeline of activities. As I said, activities were slightly delayed, we had planned to do an in-person meeting in September but all activities were then moved online and we're delivering them now in the month of November. So we split compiling the inventory into two stages. The first stage is compiling online resources. So once the search methodology was agreed, we searched Web of Science Scopus, Asper and Google Scholar for relevant references. So that was the start of compiling the inventory and once we identified a relevant reference, it was added to the inventory to form an inventory of all the online resources that were easily available. Now, stage two looks at those harder to reach research and in order for us to do this, we recruited the nine Asper partners you saw earlier who are compiling research available in their country that was not identified in stage one. So they're looking at their library holdings, their institutional research output that's not been added to one of the databases I mentioned. So their results, they're halfway through that work and the results are being added to the research inventory to form an overall comprehensive picture of research in the area. So stage three will be in December where we'll perform a bibliometric analysis to identify the research capacity, strengths and gaps of the region and we're really excited to do a comparison of what we find in stage one and what we find in stage two. So how much research are we missing from the region? If we only search these online sources, what research are we not finding? And the inventory will be made available online and we'll be creating bibliographic records to put onto open Asper. So onto the preliminary results from stage one. These are compiled by a Dower Superior who has been responsible for the stage one online sources. So researchers from Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania and Benin, Ghana, they were less likely to publish their results whereas researchers from Spain, Nigeria, Morocco and Senegal were more active in publishing. Dow found that researchers in West African countries tend to collaborate more with researchers from outside the region. So I think that's quite interesting and it shows the importance of creating networks to foster collaboration in the region. Of those collaborators outside the region, France and Canada were the top collaborators. Research gates and dot player dot net were important file sharing websites to aid the discoverability of great literature. So I think that shows there's a need for online databases such as Asper, the partnership I work for to kind of step up and make sure that there are wider repositories where research can be deposited. And a matter of concern, a considerable number of research outputs were published in predatory journals. So these are journals that kind of target offers you pay to publish and there's no kind of peer review or rigorous kind of control over the work. So onto the preliminary results from stage two. As I said, we're halfway through roughly this work. So all these results are based on what we found so far. But for looking at the research participants have identified at their institutions and in their countries, we found that working papers, conference proceedings and annual reports are most likely most likely document types to be overlooked as sources of research. And we found that local knowledge is key. So we had a strategy we were hoping everybody would follow to identify research, but they were the experts in their country. They knew how research was published and who to contact. So they followed their own strategy as a way to identify and get the most references possible. So authors and librarians are gateways to great literature. Contacting authors and librarians is a massively important way to discover great literature. It's through identifying the correct people and being able to access the right resources that we've uncovered so much literature. And there were significantly more male than female authors. So we're only halfway through the work and things might change when we discover more. So preliminary conclusions. We really feel that work is needed to promote marine fisheries, great literature in the region. So great literature produced in the region deserves a wider platform to increase its reach and only two weeks into stage two of looking at institutional holdings. And we're uncovering so much research that will benefit projects in the region. So support is needed to counter publication bias and the reliance on predatory journals. So publishing fees and other barriers need to be overcome to help offers publish irreputable journals where that is the case and they want to make their research published. Training and access to technologies was required. So depositing records and databases indexed by Google scholar will definitely help it to increase the reach of this great literature. So lastly, I'll just mention some of the project outcomes. So as I said, there'll be a bibliometric analysis and report which will make available comparing what we find in stage one with stage two and helping us to understand the research strengths of each country and plan future research. So it'll be a rollout of training to non ask for partners in the sea cap region. So at the moment we've only worked with those partners with those countries where an ask for partner is present and we'd like to expand it to the full region and possibly expand it to other regions to produce global comparisons of available research. Lastly, the inventory will be uploaded onto open as per. So we will be making bibliographic records for research identified by us for partners. This will be available on as per free to search platform open as per, which will be available next year. So that was my 10 minute presentation. Thank you for listening. Thank you.
 So, as Sylvia said, the title of my presentation is increasing the availability of West Africa  Grey literature to improve marine fisheries management in the region.  So my name is Tamsa Vickery, I work for the Asfa Secretariat, which is based at FAO in  Rome.  I'm presenting this presentation, which was put together with my colleague Maria Calenzas,  and also with help from Dowel Superior of SeafDec Philippines and Aram Gita of Dukit  Shung de Beshmaratam in Dakar, Senegal.  So, a quick agenda, I'll give an overview of Asfa's support to the Seacuff Pescau project,  in which we are producing an inventory of marine fisheries research in the region.  I'll give a brief overview of the search methodology that we used, a timeline of our activities,  the preliminary results and conclusions before I go to the next steps.  So at the time I was planning this presentation, I hoped the project would be further on, as  everyone can appreciate, 2020 has had quite a few surprises for everybody.  So it's just the preliminary results and conclusions I'll be presenting today.  So, starting off with an introduction to Seacuff, Pescau and Asfa.  Seacuff is the fishery committee for the Eastern Central Atlantic.  It promotes the sustainable utilisation of the living marine resources within its area  of competence by the proper management and development of fisheries and fishing operations.  Seacuff Pescau is a project which focuses on improving the regional governance of marine  resources in the Seacuff area.  It's an EU funded project and it runs from December 2018 to December 2021.  As I said, I work for the Asfa Secretariat and Asfa is a 50 year old partnership dedicated  to promoting aquatic sciences, fisheries and aquaculture research.  We have a network of over 100 partners around the world and we also have nine Asfa partners  in the Seacuff region who have been recruited to work on this project.  So this map here shows where our Asfa partners are located who are working on this project.  We've recruited a library and professional from each of the institutions you can see  on this list here and they've been recruited to work and provide help to compile this research  inventory.  So those countries are Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria,  Senegal and Spain.  So what specifically is Asfa's role in the Seacuff Pescau project?  This is contributing to Output 1.2 which is collaboration on data and information sharing  procedures and research enhance between relevant countries, sub-regional and regional organisations  to harmonise data and knowledge.  So how are we achieving this?  The output will be the development of a comprehensive research inventory of marine fisheries research  across the Seacuff area of confidence.  So in order to build this research inventory, we developed a search criteria and a search  methodology.  The main thing to note of the search criteria is that we're looking for research by authors  affiliated to one of the countries in the Seacuff region.  So doing it that way allows us to assess the research strengths and gaps of each of those  countries which will enable us to better plan future research as well as gaining access  to the research being conducted at present.  It will increase access to overlooked grey literature from the region and it's helping  already to foster new relations and information sharing networks in the region.  So you can see the document types that we're looking for as part of this inventory.  It's a wide range of document types and they include both grey and primary literature that  we're looking at and the subject topics we're looking for are also listed.  So all of these are marine fisheries related, so fishery biology, fisheries management,  climate change, how it relates to fisheries and marine protected areas.  So here's a quick timeline of activities.  As I said, activities were slightly delayed, we had planned to do an in-person meeting  in September but all activities were then moved online and we're delivering them now  in the month of November.  So we split compiling the inventory into two stages.  The first stage is compiling online resources.  So once the search methodology was agreed, we searched Web of Science Scopus, Asper and  Google Scholar for relevant references.  So that was the start of compiling the inventory and once we identified a relevant reference,  it was added to the inventory to form an inventory of all the online resources that were easily  available.  Now, stage two looks at those harder to reach research and in order for us to do this, we  recruited the nine Asper partners you saw earlier who are compiling research available  in their country that was not identified in stage one.  So they're looking at their library holdings, their institutional research output that's  not been added to one of the databases I mentioned.  So their results, they're halfway through that work and the results are being added  to the research inventory to form an overall comprehensive picture of research in the area.  So stage three will be in December where we'll perform a bibliometric analysis to identify  the research capacity, strengths and gaps of the region and we're really excited to  do a comparison of what we find in stage one and what we find in stage two.  So how much research are we missing from the region?  If we only search these online sources, what research are we not finding?  And the inventory will be made available online and we'll be creating bibliographic records  to put onto open Asper.  So onto the preliminary results from stage one.  These are compiled by a Dower Superior who has been responsible for the stage one online  sources.  So researchers from Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Mauritania and Benin, Ghana, they were less  likely to publish their results whereas researchers from Spain, Nigeria, Morocco and Senegal were  more active in publishing.  Dow found that researchers in West African countries tend to collaborate more with researchers  from outside the region.  So I think that's quite interesting and it shows the importance of creating networks  to foster collaboration in the region.  Of those collaborators outside the region, France and Canada were the top collaborators.  Research gates and dot player dot net were important file sharing websites to aid the  discoverability of great literature.  So I think that shows there's a need for online databases such as Asper, the partnership I  work for to kind of step up and make sure that there are wider repositories where research  can be deposited.  And a matter of concern, a considerable number of research outputs were published in predatory  journals.  So these are journals that kind of target offers you pay to publish and there's no kind  of peer review or rigorous kind of control over the work.  So onto the preliminary results from stage two.  As I said, we're halfway through roughly this work.  So all these results are based on what we found so far.  But for looking at the research participants have identified at their institutions and in  their countries, we found that working papers, conference proceedings and annual reports  are most likely most likely document types to be overlooked as sources of research.  And we found that local knowledge is key.  So we had a strategy we were hoping everybody would follow to identify research, but they  were the experts in their country.  They knew how research was published and who to contact.  So they followed their own strategy as a way to identify and get the most references possible.  So authors and librarians are gateways to great literature.  Contacting authors and librarians is a massively important way to discover great literature.  It's through identifying the correct people and being able to access the right resources  that we've uncovered so much literature.  And there were significantly more male than female authors.  So we're only halfway through the work and things might change when we discover more.  So preliminary conclusions.  We really feel that work is needed to promote marine fisheries, great literature in the  region.  So great literature produced in the region deserves a wider platform to increase its  reach and only two weeks into stage two of looking at institutional holdings.  And we're uncovering so much research that will benefit projects in the region.  So support is needed to counter publication bias and the reliance on predatory journals.  So publishing fees and other barriers need to be overcome to help offers publish irreputable  journals where that is the case and they want to make their research published.  Training and access to technologies was required.  So depositing records and databases indexed by Google scholar will definitely help it  to increase the reach of this great literature.  So lastly, I'll just mention some of the project outcomes.  So as I said, there'll be a bibliometric analysis and report which will make available  comparing what we find in stage one with stage two and helping us to understand the research  strengths of each country and plan future research.  So it'll be a rollout of training to non ask for partners in the sea cap region.  So at the moment we've only worked with those partners with those countries where an ask  for partner is present and we'd like to expand it to the full region and possibly expand  it to other regions to produce global comparisons of available research.  Lastly, the inventory will be uploaded onto open as per.  So we will be making bibliographic records for research identified by us for partners.  This will be available on as per free to search platform open as per, which will be available  next year.  So that was my 10 minute presentation.  Thank you for listening.  Thank you.
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