Author Description

The 2006 ASSAf Report on a Strategic Approach to Research Publishing in South Africa dealt comprehensively with research outputs published in and from the country in scholarly journals. The present Report addresses the much less unitary, clear-cut and codified world of book publishing, in and from South Africa. It seeks to explore the special scholarly virtues of these non-periodical works, and the contributions that they make to 'the literature' and to the general advancement of scholarship and science. Above all, it sets out to do this in a form that will be useful to practitioners and policy-makers alike, answering as best possible the many questions that have arisen in relation to such issues as optimal research practice, training, planning and resourcing. The immediate prompt was a request from the former Department of Education (DoE), now the Department of Higher Education and Training (DoHET), for a follow-up consensus study by the Academy of books and book chapters published in and from South Africa, in order to inform policy on the recognition of research outputs by higher education institutions - implementation of the Regulations promulgated in 2004 in this sector have been associated with numerous problems at the operational level, particularly concerning the comparison of such outputs with journal articles, and the heterogeneity of the materials presented for accreditation.