African Journals Online (AJOL)

Based in Grahamstown, South Africa, African Journals OnLine (AJOL) is a Non-Profit Organisation and the world's largest and pre-eminent collection of peer-reviewed, African-published scholarly journals. Historically, scholarly information has flowed from North to South and from West to East. It has also been difficult for African researchers to access the work of other African academics.

In partnership with hundreds of journals from all over the continent, AJOL works to change this, so that African-origin research output is available to Africans and to the rest of the world.

At the same time as online academic resources from the developed Global North are made available to Africa (such as HINARI, AGORA and OARE), there needs to be corresponding online availability of information from Africa. Important areas of research in Africa are not necessarily covered by publications from the developed world. African countries need to collectively play a greater role in the global online scholarly environment. African researchers also need access to their own continent's scholarly publications.

Mainly due to difficulties accessing them, African-published research papers have been under-utilized, under-valued and under-cited in the international and African research arenas. The internet is a good way to change this, but many hundreds of worthy, peer-reviewed scholarly journals publishing from Africa cannot host their content online in isolation because of resource limitations and the digital divide.

Valuable information has not reached the people who need it. AJOL is working to change this. Journals published from developing countries are still largely excluded from the major, commercial indexing companies based in the developed Global North. It is often said, as a result, that African research is invisible, or that there is very little of it. AJOL proves that this is not true.