Case Study: How the Discovery of a Siloed Publication Sparked a Cross-National Research Partnership

Siloing of peer-reviewed publications is an often hidden challenge for both scholars attempting to locate and obtain research outputs and those trying to disseminate their work. This case study describes a faculty member in Uganda and a faculty member in the U.S. who uncovered the siloing of a specific peer-reviewed open access (OA) publication. The faculty member in the U.S. was voluntarily reviewing an article published by the Ugandan faculty member in mid 2023 and looked for an online link to promote it through her social media channels. Through these efforts, the U.S. faculty member discovered that even though the publication was OA, it was not discoverable through Google Scholar. Although the original contact between these two scholars happened in 2023, at the time of this article writing (November 2024), the journal article in question was still not discoverable. This exploratory qualitative case study examines this phenomenon along with extant literature around inequalities and possible injustices in scholarly communication affecting scholars in low-and middleincome countries, as with the context of the Ugandan researcher. Evidence shows that discrepancies in scholarly communication abound with many areas needing further investigation to be fully understood. In this case, it is the discoverability of articles that is unequal and possibly unjust. For journal articles to be read and cited, they need to be discoverable. Unfortunately, not all legitimate peer-reviewed journals make it into global scholarly search engines. Future research will be suggested based on the findings, including the study of factors that prevent journal articles or entire journals from being discovered and what can be done to inform scholars and equalize opportunities to engage in global scholarly communication.