African Research Research Articles

Mapping education 4.0 research trends

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has profoundly impacted education systems globally, including in Africa. However, there is a dearth of research on Education 4.0 in Africa. To fill this gap, a bibliometric analysis of Scopus database data was conducted, with VOSviewer used to analyze the data. The study found that African research outputs on Education 4.0 have increased linearly between 2015 and 2022, but most are published outside Africa. Limited collaboration among African institutions and academics was observed, with African authors citing more academics outside Africa than within. E-learning, machine learning, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence were the most frequently researched areas. This study provides crucial information to researchers and policymakers, allowing them to map out future research and policies on Education 4.0.

EpiCass and CassavaNet4Dev Advanced Bioinformatics Workshop

EpiCass and CassavaNet4Dev are collaborative projects funded by the Swedish Research Council between the Swedish University of Agriculture (SLU) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA). The projects aim to investigate the influence of epigenetic changes on agricultural traits such as yield and virus resistance while also providing African students and researchers with advanced bioinformatics training and opportunities to participate in big data analysis events. The first advanced bioinformatics training workshop took place from May 16th to May 18th, 2022, followed by an online mini-symposium titled "Epigenetics and crop improvement" on May 19th. The symposium featured international speakers covering a wide range of topics related to plant epigenetics, cassava viral diseases, and cassava breeding strategies. A new online and on-site teaching concept was developed for the three-day workshop to ensure maximum student participation across Western, Eastern, and Southern Africa. Initially planned in Nigeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zambia, the workshop ultimately focused on Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia due to a lack of qualified candidates in the other countries. Each classroom hosted 20 to 25 students, with at least one bioinformatician present for support. The classrooms were connected via video conferencing, whereas teachers located in different places in Africa and Europe joined the video stream to conduct teaching sessions. The workshop was divided into theoretical classes and hands-on sessions, where participants could run data analysis with support from online teachers and local bioinformaticians. To enable participants to run guided, CPU and RAM-intensive data analysis workflows and overcome local computing and internet access restrictions, a system of virtual machines (VMs) hosted in the cloud was developed. The teaching platform provided teaching and exercise materials to support the use of the VMs. Although some students could not run heavy data analysis workflows due to unforeseen restrictions in the cloud, these issues were solved. All participants had the opportunity to run the analysis steps independently in the cloud using the protocols hosted on the teaching platform.

Constraints on peace research in war-torn situations: Cabo Delgado, Mozambique

Purpose It is assumed that fieldwork experiential learning on constraints of survey and ethnography research orientations in investigating armed conflict in Africa can contribute to the body of knowledge and help practitioners as well as other researchers working in difficult situations, such as war zones. More importantly, this paper aims to understand significant problems in Southern Africa, further methodological debates and produce new frontiers of knowledge in Southern African research studies. This paper will help other researchers who will be planning to conduct research in ongoing war-torn zones to be flexible with mixed research methodologies and data collection techniques that can ensure not only reliability and validity of the data but also, and more importantly, greater generalizability of this study. Design/methodology/approach This research in Cabo was initially guided by survey and ethnographic approaches. After facing constraints in their use in investigating the complexity of new wars, the author developed and shifted to interpretivism methodology as an alternative. It is essential that researchers be sensitive to the tensions between survey and ethnography methodologies and how they can be a mismatch to the research purpose. Findings The fieldwork experiences, using standardised survey and ethnography research orientations in Gabo, show that there is no generally appropriate blueprint of how to conduct research in violent conflicts. The valorised survey and ethnographic research strategies were not closely matched to facilitate understanding of the complexity of hybrid armed actors, indiscriminate and targeted violence which combined to militate against data generation. In the face of these problems, the author developed a new methodology, interpretivism, which embedded the descriptive, explanatory and predictive approaches. In tumultuous contexts, the standardised methodologies prioritize data generation more than critical thinking. Originality/value It is essential to study the nature of African armed conflicts by combining creativity and flexibility in the selection of research strategies. The constraints on peace research in war-torn situations in Cabo Delgado, Mozambique, have laid out the weaknesses of peacetime research methodologies, including survey research and ethnographic approaches. Now is the time to reassess fieldwork-based research particularly in violent settings.

Feeding back of individual genetic results in Botswana: mapping opportunities and challenges

PurposeWe explored the views of Botswana stakeholders involved in developing, implementing and applying ethical standards for return of individual study results from genomic research. This allowed for mapping opportunities and challenges regarding actionability requirements that determine whether individual genomic research results should be fed back.MethodsUsing in-depth interviews, this study explored the views of sixteen (16) stakeholders about the extent, nature and timing of feedback of individual genomic research findings, including incidental findings that arise in the context of African genomics research. Coded data was analyzed through an iterative process of analytic induction to document and interpret themes.ResultsOverall, respondents were of the view that feedback of actionable individual genomic results was an important outcome that could benefit participants. However, a number of themes surfaced that pointed to opportunities and challenges that exist in Botswana that could help in planning for feeding back of individual genomic results that were mapped. Some of the opportunities cited by the respondents included the existence of good governance; democracy and humanitarianism; universal healthcare system; national commitment to science; research and innovation to transform Botswana into a knowledge-based economy; and applicable standard of care which could promote actionability. On the other hand, contextual issues like the requirement for validation of genomic research results in accredited laboratories, high cost of validation of genomic results, and linkage to care, as well as lack of experts like genomic scientists and counselors were considered as challenges for return of individual results.ConclusionWe propose that decisions whether and which genomic results to return take into consideration contextual opportunities and challenges for actionability for return of results in a research setting. This is likely to avoid or minimize ethical issues of justice, equity and harm regarding actionability decisions.

The Afrocentric-Youth Paradigm

Abstract The Afrocentric-Youth Paradigm proposes a research methodology or a model for doing African youth research. Afrocentrism highlights that African research is done by African people through the actual African lens and approached from African cultural perspectives. This means that the lived cultural experiences of the African people are imperative in producing a more reliable and credible research output. On the other hand, it is normal for young people in Africa to experience discrimination and exclusion from major decision making and activities due to age. Most African cultures value the aged above young people with the assumption that they are inexperienced and therefore do not have much to offer. It is in this light that I propose that African cultures need to be interrogated holistically and thoroughly when researching on young people. The Afrocentric-Youth Paradigm is a proposed research methodology that provides specific questions that need to be addressed in the culture while doing African youth research.

Ten simple rules for successful and sustainable African research collaboration

African countries are experiencing a surge in national and international collaborations, and key steps are needed to guide such partnerships for the benefit of all. Proposed solutions aim to scale meaningful collaboration with African researchers.

Genomic resources for Asian (Elephas maximus) and African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) conservation and health research.

We provide novel genomic resources to help understand the genomic traits involved in elephant health and to aid conservation efforts. We sequence 11 elephant genomes (5 African savannah, 6 Asian) from North American zoos, including 9 de novo assemblies. We estimate elephant germline mutation rates and reconstruct demographic histories. Finally, we provide an in-solution capture assay to genotype Asian elephants. This assay is suitable for analyzing degraded museum and noninvasive samples, such as feces and hair. The elephant genomic resources we present here should allow for more detailed and uniform studies in the future to aid elephant conservation efforts and disease research.

Children deserve simple, short, safe, and effective treatment for rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis

Children deserve simple, short, safe, and effective treatment for rifampicin-resistant tuberculosis

Dataset: A consolidated and harmonised Verbal Autopsy dataset from Health and Demographic Surveillance Sites in South Africa.

This data note provides details of the development of a Verbal Autopsy (VA) dataset produced with the South African Population Research Infrastructure Network (SAPRIN) drawing on datasets from health and socio-demographic surveillance sites' (HDSS) ' covering a population of over 250,000 in two rural provinces in South Africa for the period 2012-2019. The purpose of the data set was to refine an analytical tool within VA, which provides unique information on care seeking and utilisation at and around the time of death complementary to that of medical cause of death. On an individual basis, the dataset includes demographic data, probable cause of death data, and data on care seeking and utilisation at or around the time of death drawn from longitudinal population cohorts. The purpose of this publication is to describe both the dataset and methods in formatting and processing the data for other researchers who may be interested in similar data. The data described in this paper are available to be requested from the respective HDSS repositories.

Clinicopathological Characteristics and Mutational Landscape of APC, HOXB13, and KRAS among Rwandan Patients with Colorectal Cancer.

Cancer research in Rwanda is estimated to be less than 1% of the total African cancer research output with limited research on colorectal cancer (CRC). Rwandan patients with CRC are young, with more females being affected than males, and most patients present with advanced disease. Considering the paucity of oncological genetic studies in this population, we investigated the mutational status of CRC tissues, focusing on the Adenomatous polyposis coli (APC), Kirsten rat sarcoma (KRAS), and Homeobox B13 (HOXB13) genes. Our aim was to determine whether there were any differences between Rwandan patients and other populations. To do so, we performed Sanger sequencing of the DNA extracted from formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded adenocarcinoma samples from 54 patients (mean age: 60 years). Most tumors were located in the rectum (83.3%), and 92.6% of the tumors were low-grade. Most patients (70.4%) reported never smoking, and 61.1% of patients had consumed alcohol. We identified 27 variants of APC, including 3 novel mutations (c.4310_4319delAAACACCTCC, c.4463_4470delinsA, and c.4506_4507delT). All three novel mutations are classified as deleterious by MutationTaster2021. We found four synonymous variants (c.330C>A, c.366C>T, c.513T>C, and c.735G>A) of HOXB13. For KRAS, we found six variants (Asp173, Gly13Asp, Gly12Ala, Gly12Asp, Gly12Val, and Gln61His), the last four of which are pathogenic. In conclusion, here we contribute new genetic variation data and provide clinicopathological information pertinent to CRC in Rwanda.

Trends in African Research and Innovation Using Dimensions Data

In this webinar hosted by Training Centre in Communication (TCC Africa), we are joined by a panel of experts from the African Population and Health Research Centre (APHRC) and Digital Science discussing the latest trends in African research and innovation using Dimensions.

Trends in African Research and Innovation Using Dimensions Data

Trends in African Research and Innovation Using Dimensions Data

Research capacity strengthening in Africa: Perspectives from the social sciences, humanities, and arts

Global and human development and freedoms increasingly thrive on robust and policy-orientated research and related activities. Yet, the African research landscape faces a myriad of challenges which have resulted in a very unequal continent in terms of research and research capacity. The prevailing research inequities and challenges in Africa are even more pronounced in the social sciences, humanities, arts, and related fields (SSHA). Here, the strengths and impact of scholarship in SSHA fields are often overshadowed by deficits and apparent preferential investment in research in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related fields. In response, the African Academy of Sciences commissioned a study in 2020 to generate evidence on the SSHA research support landscape in Africa. This paper summarizes findings from literature review, key informant interviews, a bibliometric analysis, a survey with a sample of 670 respondents from SSHA communities in Africa, and a series of focus group discussions. We highlight key messages and make recommendations focussing on lessons learnt, opportunities, needs, and priorities for intervention to enhance significant SSHA research leadership capacity strengthening and, ultimately, minimize research inequalities in Africa.

Towards a data transfer agreement for the South African research community: The empowerment approach.

The idea of a data transfer agreement (DTA) template for the South African (SA) research community is receiving increasing attention. While developing such a DTA template is certainly a worthwhile project, questions regarding the project's practical execution should be addressed, including how to best operationalise the envisioned DTA template, and the content of the envisioned DTA template. It is proposed that an empowerment approach be followed in operationalising the envisioned DTA template, which is contrasted with the regulatory approach followed with the material transfer agreement that the Minister of Health promulgated in 2018. While the regulatory approach would entail government making the use of the envisioned DTA template compulsory regardless of the quality of such a template, the empowerment approach, by contrast, entails a focus on developing a high-quality, professionally drafted DTA template for the SA research community and making the use thereof a matter of own choice. Regarding the content of the envisioned DTA template, four hot-button content provisions are analysed, and it is argued that SA research institutions and researchers should be empowered to: (i) have clarity and legal certainty regarding their ownership of data, where relevant; (ii) be able to commercialise their research findings without unnecessary contractual constraints; (iii) avoid falling into the trap of unlawful benefit sharing with research participants; and (iv) be aware that their legal role as responsible parties, where relevant, cannot be contracted out via a DTA.

Distance Education Research in South Africa: A Longitudinal Study into the Research Levels of ODL Journal Articles

The measure of an academic field lies in the richness and depth of its published research, especially within the ever-developing field of distance education, which is relatively new. The University of South Africa is one of the oldest open distance learning (ODL) higher education institutes globally, which has given rise to its status internationally as a leader of distance education. It is prudent to analyse and reflect on the research outputs published by South African academics, particularly regarding the levels of research that are conducted. This article follows the research published by Roberts, which analysed South African distance learning research levels and sublevels from articles published between 2011 and 2015. This longitudinal study applied a thematic content analysis of the titles and abstracts of all ODL-related papers published by South African authors. The findings compare ODL trends for the five-year periods from 2010 to 2014 and 2015 to 2019. The data were obtained from the Scopus and SABINET databases, using the same search criteria employed by Roberts. The levels of research publications were analysed according to the open distance learning research framework of Zawacki-Richter presented through descriptive statistics. The results indicate that although the number of published open distance learning research articles has more than doubled, the research levels have not shown any significant change from the previous five years. The South African ODL publications should give attention to meso- and macro-level research to enhance the ODL development within Southern Africa and create local trends fit for purpose.

DETERMINANTS OF PARTICIPATION IN INNOVATION PLATFORMS AND ITS SUSTAINABILITY: A CASE STUDY OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

<p><strong>Background.</strong> Innovation platforms (IP) are a set-up where a group of stakeholders that are somewhat interdependent are identified and invited to get together and interact in a forum for social learning. However, Sub-Saharan African researchers have recently paid very little attention to its participation. <strong>Objective.</strong> To investigate the determinants of participation in IPs and its sustainability. The study specifically outlines the socioeconomic characteristics of the farmers and identifies variables influencing farmers' participation in IPs and the sustainability of such IPs. <strong>Methodology.</strong> The study used a multistage sampling technique to collect its data. The data were analyzed using the Double hurdle count model. <strong>Results.</strong> The results of the first hurdle indicate that the decision to participate in IPs is significantly influenced by factors such as gender, age, household size, years of farming experience, number of female working-class members, young dependents, aged dependents, access to agricultural extension, and asset ownership. While the findings of the second hurdle model reveal that gender, age, marital status, years of schooling, the number of female members of the working class, the number of young dependents, the number of aged dependents, access to extension services, and asset ownership play a significant role in determining the sustainability of participation in IPs. <strong>Implications.</strong> The paper adds evidence for a better understanding of the determinants of participation in IPs and its sustainability<strong>. Conclusions. </strong>Based on these findings, it is recommended that institutional structures and programs that enhance farmers' education, the frequency of extension contacts, and farm income be implemented to sustain participation in IPs.</p><div id="gtx-trans" style="position: absolute; left: 204px; top: 88px;"> </div>

A call to rethink African scholars beyond “local experts”: mobility, race, and gender in Europe

ABSTRACT Development discourses have been widely criticized for creating hierarchical dichotomies, such as “developed” (the global North) and “developing” (the global majority), with the former being the ideal standard to which the rest must catch up. The development paradigm has infiltrated academic spaces globally, including international research collaborations, creating various categories such as (non)scientific (local) expertise. We see such hierarchies as mechanisms of legitimation to maintain the ongoing subjugation of African scholars based on the historical and contemporary asymmetries in global knowledge production. Informed by the experiences of five female African doctoral researchers in the Netherlands, this paper problematizes and disrupts the concepts of “Expert” and “local expert”. We question the relevance of these concepts in a context where global knowledge production continues to feed from coloniality and also question the old power relations that continue to enable knowledge inequalities between the global North and global South.

Fexinidazole, A Promising Oral Treatment against Human African Trypanosomiasis, Clinical Research, and Potential

HAT, a parasitic disease that has significant impact on human nervous system, has caused several epidemic in sub-Sahara area. Between 1960-1990, approximately 5 HAT epidemic broke out in these areas. HAT can be aggressively communicable and vital without any treatment with a death rate of 95%. In addition, only little symptoms showed after infection so many patients who are not conscious about it may cause even more severe epidemic. In recent years, roughly 300 patients still die for it yearly. To cope with the disease, several medical companies make efforts to seek for treatments effectively against HAT. These research on treatment can prevent the wide spread of HAT and help patients to come back to their normal lives. The life expectancy and quality will also improve with treatment for HAT. Therefore, in this review, we collect information and data about HAT and relevant treatment. Among treatments, we focus on a recent drug named Fexinidazole, which can be effective to treat all phases of HAT. Furthermore, it also has potential to guide a new approach in finding new drugs by research on its mechanism.

Research Agendas in an Ubuntu Paradigm

The article contributes to the ongoing scholarly exploration of Ubuntu as an indigenous Southern African research paradigm. Building on an understanding of Ubuntu as humanness that embraces the interconnectedness not only of humans, but of all creation, the article emphasises that how we research is inseparable from what is researched. Being human in the sense of Ubuntu is not passive but depends on our continued enacting of our humanness through relating positively to others. On this basis, being/becoming human is understood as an inherent (research) agenda in the Ubuntu paradigm. It is proposed that Ubuntu accommodates research agendas that recognise the interdependence of humans with other humans, other species and our shared planet and that aim at balancing these relationships in search of humble togetherness. Ubuntu research agendas seek to contribute to the healing of our planet’s human made colonial and ecological conditions locally or globally.

Stakeholders’ perspectives on the development of an Africa-focused postgraduate diploma to address public mental health training needs in Africa: a qualitative study

BackgroundDespite the significant contribution of mental health conditions to the burden of disease, there is insufficient evidence from Africa to inform policy, planning and service delivery. Thus, there is a need for mental health research capacity building, led by African public mental health researchers and practitioners, to drive local research priorities. The aim of African mental health Researchers Inspired and Equipped (ARISE) was to develop a one-year postgraduate diploma (PGDip) in public mental health to address the current gaps in public mental health training.MethodsThirty-six individual interviews were conducted online with three groups of participants: course convenors of related PGDips in South Africa, course convenors of international public mental health degree programmes and stakeholders active in public mental health in Africa. The interviewers elicited information regarding: programme delivery, training needs in African public mental health, and experiences of facilitators, barriers and solutions to successful implementation. The transcribed interviews were analysed by two coders using thematic analysis.ResultsParticipants found the Africa-focused PGDip programme acceptable with the potential to address public mental health research and operational capacity gaps in Africa. Participants provided several recommendations for the PGDip, including that: (i) the programme be guided by the principles of human rights, social justice, diversity and inclusivity; (ii) the content reflect African public mental health needs; (iii) PGDip faculty be skilled in teaching and developing material for online courses and (iv) the PGDip be designed as a fully online or blended learning programme in collaboration with learning designers.ConclusionsThe study findings provided valuable insight into how to communicate key principles and skills suited to the rapidly developing public mental health field while keeping pace with changes in higher education. The information elicited has informed curriculum design, implementation and quality improvement strategies for the new postgraduate public mental health programme.