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The purpose of this paper is to assess the status of the open access (OA) movement on the African continent, and if there is any financial or moral exploitation by dominant “foreign” world powers. OA provided the African intellectual community with a tool to prove its academic prowess and an opportunity to display cultural and intellectual independence. OA publishing is prone to abuse, and some in Africa have sought to exploit the OA boom to profit from non-academic activity rather than use this tool to glorify Africa’s image and diversity on the global intellectual stage. These issues are explored in detail in the paper.

The authors broadly assessed literature that is related to the growth and challenges associated with OA, including the rise of OA mega journals, in Africa.

African OA journals and publishers have to compete with established non-African OA entities. Some are considered “predatory”, but this Jeffrey Beall-based classification may be erroneous. Publishing values that African OA publishers and journals aspire to should not equal those published by non-African publishing entities. Africa should seek solutions to the challenges on that continent via Africa-based OA platforms. The budding African OA movement is applauded, but it must be held as accountable as any other OA journal or publisher.

African scholars need to reassess the “published in Africa” OA image.

The adoption of mobile technology by the youth has been gaining momentum as a growing area of exploration for scholars. Several aspects of this technology, including its adoption and usage patterns, have been explored both theoretically and in empirical research. The purpose of this paper is to understand the cell phone usage of the young university students, the effects of this usage of the cell phone on their personal communication needs, their perceptions of cell phone communication in the society, and gender similarities and differences in these matters.

This paper relies on primary data of randomly selected engineering students in a university in South Africa. Data was collected from 200 respondents using face-to-face interviews with the help of a structured interview schedule.

The analysis shows the relationship between the measures of cell phone usage, personal communication, and perceptions, across different racial groups. The findings of the study have relevance and significance for the understanding of the communication patterns and their social consequences for the youth in South Africa.

Most of the research in this area has originated from the developed regions and countries in the Nordic region and Japan. This paper presents the findings on the cell phone use of students in South Africa.