The African Journal of Information and Communication (AJIC)

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/19251

The African Journal of Information and Communication (AJIC) is an academic journal published by the LINK Centre, School of Literature, Language and Media (SLLM), Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Accredited by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), AJIC is an interdisciplinary, open access journal concerned with Africa’s participation in the information society and digital network economy. The journal does not impose author processing charges. AJIC's predecessor, The Southern African Journal of Information and Communication (SAJIC), was published from 2000 to 2008, before becoming AJIC in 2010.

Corresponding Editor: Lucienne Abrahams. AJIC Submissions

ISSN: 2077-7213 (online version)

ISSN: 2077-7205 (print version)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23962/10539/19251

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2018 - 20192

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Author: search.filters.author.Baarbé, Jeremiah

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    A Proposed “Agricultural Data Commons” in Support of Food Security
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2019-06-28) Baarbé, Jeremiah; Blom, Meghan; De Beer, Jeremy
    This article identifies a data governance model that could help reduce dataset access inequities currently experienced by smallholder farmers in both developed-world and developing-world settings. Agricultural data is globally recognised for its importance in addressing food insecurity, with such data generated and used by a value chain of contributors, collectors, and users. Guided by the modified institutional analysis and development (IAD) framework, our study considered the features of agricultural data as a “knowledge commons” resource. The study also looked at existing data collection modalities practiced by John Deere, Plantwise and Abalobi, and at the open data distribution modalities available under the Creative Commons and the Open Data Commons licensing frameworks. The study found that an “agricultural data commons” model could give greater agency to the smallholder farmers who contribute data. A model open data licence could be used by data collectors, supported by a certification mark and a dedicated public interest organisation. These features could engender an agricultural data commons that would be advantageous to the three key stakeholders in agricultural data: data contributors, who need engagement, privacy, control, and benefit-sharing; small and medium-sized-enterprise (SME) data collectors, who need sophisticated legal tools and an ability to brand their participation in opening data; and data users, who need open access.
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    Evolution of Africa’s Intellectual Property Treaty Ratification Landscape
    (LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg, 2018-12-07) De Beer, Jeremy; Baarbé, Jeremiah; Ncube, Caroline
    Intellectual property (IP) policy is an important contributor to economic growth and human development. However, international commitments harmonised in IP treaties often exist in tension with local needs for flexibility. This article tracks the adoption of IP treaties in Africa over a 131-year span, from 1884 to 2015, through breaking it down into four periods demarcated by points in time coinciding with key events in African and international IP law: the periods 1884–1935, 1936–1965, 1966–1995, and 1996¬–2015. The article explores relevant historical and legal aspects of each of these four periods, in order to assess and contextualise the evolutions of the IP treaty landscape on the continent. The findings show that treaties now saturate the IP policy space throughout the continent, limiting the ability to locally tailor approaches to knowledge governance.