EDITORIAL

Of the twenty-three manuscripts received for consideration for this issue, only five made it to final publication. With the publication of each issue of SAJLIS, the Editorial team works tirelessly to target at least seven papers but this seems so difficult to achieve. In part, this is due to the journal's rigorous peer-review process, and rightly so, as quality matters more than quantity. In searching for other contributory factors, the issue of the role of research supervisors and support of their students comes to the fore. As reported in the Editorial of the last issue of SAJLIS, the journal encourages submissions co-authored by students and their research supervisors. But the question to be asked is: Are research supervisors supporting their students enough to expedite publication of their research? It has become standard practice in most parts of the world that papers published out of completed master's and PhD studies carry the names of supervisors as co-authors. Writing a paper for journal publication has different demands compared to preparing a dissertation for examination. The successful completion of the latter does not guarantee journal publication. As Editor of SAJLIS, I have observed over the past few years, how students struggle on their own to get their papers to reach final publication stage. Hence, with the majority of student submissions, the outcome of the first review process is that of 'revise and re-submit for review', with the Editor often appealing to supervisors (usually senior academics carrying professorial titles) to assist their students with revisions suggested by reviewers. SAJLIS is likely to reach at least seven papers per issue if research supervisors are more supportive of their students in their publishing endeavours. After all, do academics not benefit from the publication of their students' research in terms of number of publications and, in the case of South Africa, subsidy earnings from the Department of Higher Education and Training for publications in accredited journals? Hence, as Editor of SAJLIS, which receives a large number of submissions reporting on studies carried out in fulfilment of higher degrees (in this issue, four out of five of the papers fall into this category), I appeal to academics to fulfil the ethical and academic obligation of more proactively supporting their students in their publishing endeavours, so that their research may be published sooner or, in some cases, at all. SAJLIS wishes to congratulate the authors in this issue on the publication of their papers, especially those student authors who travelled a 'long and winding path' to get to this final stage of publication.

Embedding information literacy into academic programmes is something academic librarians have long strived for in the interest of impacting students' academic performance and enhancing the value of academic library services. This issue opens with Zulaiga Davids and Yunus Omar reporting on the implementation, at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, of a Certificate of Information Literacy programme through engaging with faculties.

In an 'open' age in which online free access to scholarly output is universally encouraged, Wanyenda Leonard Chilimo and Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha ask the question: How open is the open access research in Library and Information Science?

Simeon Nwone and Stephen Mutula, in their paper, report on a PhD study which investigated the information seeking behaviour of the professoriate in the social sciences and in the humanities in selected universities in Nigeria.

"Mobile phones … have of late become ubiquitous among university students". In an issue dominated by higher education and research contexts, Aubrey Harvey Chaputula and Stephen Mutula report on the findings of a PhD study undertaken to ascertain academic and library-related uses of mobile phones by students in public universities in Malawi.

The final paper in this issue addresses the topic of continuing professional development (CPD). Anushie Moonasar and Peter Underwood report on a study that used the Durban University of Technology as a research site to investigate the extent to which academic librarians appreciate the need for CPD, how they perceive the opportunities that CPD could offer and the extent to which academic institutions provide for continuous professional development and encourage participation thereof.

Enjoy the read!

Associate Professor Jaya Raju

Editor-in-Chief