Moses Magadza
8 April 2008
Windhoek — The Polytechnic of Namibia's peer-reviewed academic journal has scored a first for Namibia by becoming the first such publication to be marketed by world-renowned EBSCO-Host Publishing, which markets more than 8 000 academic journals all over the world.
Dr Jairos Kangira, the founding editor of Nawa Journal of Language and Communication, which was launched at the institution in June last year, confirmed the development last week.
"We signed an agreement with the USA-based EBSCO-Host Publishing which will not only earn our institution a bit of money in royalties, but popularize the journal," an elated Kangira said.
Under the agreement, the Polytechnic of Namibia should submit electronic versions of all editions of Nawa to EBSCO-Host Publishing, who in turn will market it to its clients, who are mostly libraries of academic instruction all over the world.
The first edition of Nawa is already avai-lable online.
"This has popularized the journal and we are getting inquiries from all over the world," said Kangira, who revealed that the second volume of the journal had been published.
Whereas the maiden issue of Nawa carried 15 articles by scholars from Africa and as far afield as the United Emirates and Canada, the second one drew 12 articles from southern Africa.
Kangira revealed that the third edition of Nawa, scheduled to be out in June this year, will carry 12 articles, including some from Canada, Hong Kong and the United States of America.
Probed on the quality of articles in the journal, Kangira said: "Generally, we receive very good articles. Others do not meet our expectations and are politely rejected."
Some universities in the region that include the University of Cape Town have subscribed for the journal. Kangira appealed to local institutions of higher learning to subscribe to Nawa for the benefit of their students and lecturers.
Book reviews carried by Nawa can help lecturers identify books that they can use as set books in their disciplines.
The latest edition of Nawa carries a review of a Professional Communication book that was written by a team of academics from universities in South Africa.
Perhaps the most striking of such reviews is one by University of Zimbabwe academic and writer Memory Chirere on a thought-provoking literature book entitled Writing Madness: the borderlines of the human body written by German scholar Flora Veit-Wild. The writer uses 'poetic licence' to talk about the otherwise tabooed subject of sex in such a way that leaves the reader awe-stricken.
A new introduction in Nawa is the contact e-mails of the writers which makes it easy to correspond with the writers of the articles.
The editorial board of Nawa is made up of the following renowned academics: Prof Carolyn Harford (Midlands State University: Zimbabwe), Dr Sarala Krishnamurthy (Polytechnic of Namibia), Prof Alison Love (National University of Lesotho), Prof James Ogude (University of the Witzwatersrand), Prof Fred Opali (Polytechnic of Namibia) and Distinguished Prof Philippe-Joseph Salazar (University of Cape Town).
Talking about the importance of academic journals Kangira said it is through quality research and publication that institutions are rated or ranked in academia. He added that it is the practice everywhere in the world that academics are judged by their research and publications, hence the old saying 'publish or perish'.
Academics especially university lecturers all over the world are encouraged to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals to demonstrate their solidity in their areas of instruction.
Some universities do not promote lecturers to, for example, senior lecturer, associate professor or full professor unless they have published a given number of articles.
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