Policies

All African Minds’ publishing policies are consistent with those set out in the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association’s (OASPA) membership criteria, including polices related to open access, peer review and transparency.

Open access policy

All African Minds titles are published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY).

African Minds does not seek to place any restrictions or encumbrances on the re-use of its publications. Whether an African Minds publication is reused for commercial or non-commercial purposes is not important; reuse is. Commercial reuse extends the possibility of reuse, and African Minds is of the opinion that there are instances where reuse for commercial purposes may have positive social benefits. African Minds’ only requirement is that the source is acknowledged. In other words, authors retain the copyright of their published works and allow others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the source.

Authors are free to use, reuse and share their publication without any embargo period. This freedom includes, for example, posting the article in an institutional repository. Authors are also permitted and encouraged to post their work online and to disseminate both electronic and printed copies within their networks.

Page fees

The cost of publication is either partially or fully subsidised by the author(s) or their sponsors. The amount of the subvention is negotiated on a case-by-case basis. However, in order to support the publication of high-quality titles where funding is not available, African Minds will, in certain cases, carry the full publication cost.

Submissions

Please see our submission guidelines for the submission of publishing proposals and manuscripts to African Minds.

Peer review policy

African Minds publishes books for the academic market as well as titles that are the outcome of research conducted by non-governmental organisations. All academic titles are peer reviewed. The review process for non-academic titles is more flexible but nevertheless involves both internal and external review in some form. African Minds makes explicit on the imprint pages of its publications the nature of the review process followed.

Academic books

Manuscripts undergo a double-blind peer-review process. At least two external reviews are sought. Reviews are considered by the List Editor and the Editorial Board before a decision is taken to accept a manuscript for publication. In cases where conflicting reviews are received, a third reviewer is requested to make recommendations. All reviewers must meet African Minds’ selection criteria in order guarantee the quality of the review. These criteria include the reviewer being a recognised expert in the field and not being affiliated with the same institution as the author(s).

Example of statement on the imprint page of a peer reviewed African Minds publication:

A NOTE ABOUT THE PEER REVIEW PROCESS

This open access publication forms part of the African Minds peer reviewed, academic books list, the broad mission of which is to support the dissemination of African scholarship and to foster access, openness and debate in the pursuit of growing and deepening the African knowledge base. Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education was reviewed by two external peers with expert knowledge in higher education in general and in African higher education in particular. Copies of the reviews are available from the publisher on request.

Non-academic

African Minds receives numerous requests from authors who do not require their publications to be reviewed by peers. In cases where the African Minds Editorial Board considers the publication of such manuscripts to be in line with its broad mission of building the African knowledge base, and the Editorial Board is itself satisfied with both the review process followed by the authors and the quality of the manuscript, such manuscripts may be accepted for publication.
Example of statement on the imprint page of a non-peer-reviewed African Minds publication:

African Minds is a not-for-profit, open-access publisher. In line with our goal of developing and fostering access, openness and debate in the pursuit of growing and deepening the African knowledge base and an Africa-based creative commons, this publication forms part of our non-peer reviewed list, the broad mission of which is to support the dissemination of knowledge from and in Africa relevant to addressing the social challenges that face the African continent.

Twenty Years of Education Transformation in Gauteng 1994 to 2014: An Independent Review was, however, internally peer-reviewed in a two-stage process. The first review process was undertaken by the editors. The revised versions of the chapters were then internally reviewed by respective specialists at the Gauteng Department of Education necessitating further revisions which were completed before final acceptance by the editors and by the publisher.