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Book Chapter

Open Access to Scientific Knowledge: Policy Perspectives and National Initiatives

01 Jan 2014-
TL;DR: Open access to scientific knowledge is an integral part of India's S&T policy intervention as discussed by the authors, and some of the major international and Indian national initiatives are highlighted in this article.
Abstract: Various initiatives are taken globally to make knowledge repositories more accessible to researchers by exploiting the internet platform and developing a model that allows free access. India is also actively participating in this new initiative. Open access to scientific knowledge is an integral part of India’s S&T policy intervention. Some of the major international and Indian national initiatives are highlighted. Further efforts that would be required to make Indian participation more fruitful are also brought out.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article affirms that the proposed methodology in the context of regular comparative analysis of the benchmarking tables with setting the target integral indicators for the lagging countries is very convenient for the development of Global or Regional OA-Strategies.

8 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Eight country open access indices which were initially connected with open access initiatives and instruments were identified and their weighing, normalization and aggregation in a weighted average value was calculated.
Abstract: The present paper investigated a developed method for the quantitative evaluation of involvement of countries in the international open access movement. It identified eight country open access indices which were initially connected with open access initiatives and instruments, their weighing, normalization and aggregation in a weighted average value. In a second more strict approximation, the number of indices was reduced up to six for the account of discarding duplicated data in ROAR and Open DOAR. Budapest initiative and Berlin declaration were considered as ОА-initiatives; and data of the international registers, DOAJ, SHERPA/RoMEO, ROAR MAP and the Webometrics ОА-repositories ranking, was considered as the tools. The calculation was done on the basis of a developed method for 133 countries.

2 citations


Cites background from "Open Access to Scientific Knowledge..."

  • ...…317 25,36 United Kingdom 136 10,88 Germany 129 10,32 Japan 69 5,52 Australia 68 5,44 Netherlands 45 3,60 Canada 44 3,52 Italy 42 3,36 68 other countries 400 32,00 Total 1250 100 More up-to-date data on the OAR distribution in the Open DOAR and ROAR registers are shown in the Table 2 (Das, 2014)....

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  • ...More up-to-date data on the OAR distribution in the Open DOAR and ROAR registers are shown in the Table 2 (Das, 2014)....

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Open access facilitates the availability and distribution of scholarly communication freely, as a means and effort to solve the problem of inaccessibility, primarily due to financial constraints, particularly in the developing countries as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Open access facilitates the availability and distribution of scholarly communication freely, as a means and effort to solve the problem of inaccessibility, primarily due to financial constraints, particularly in the developing countries. In India there has been a gradual realization of the usefulness of open access among various institutions. Various open access initiatives have been undertaken and are operational. Many are in the developmental stage. Some initiatives have also been taken in the area of metadata harvesting services particularly public funded ones. The future of open access in India is dependent upon a proper policy and developing a proper framework. In the implementation of open access, LIS professionals should play a proactive role in the growth of collections in institutional repositories. The paper provides an overview about the present state of open access initiatives by various institutions of the country.

111 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Impact of OER on Indian systems of education, ranging from lifelong learning, technical and vocational education and training to higher education systems, is analyzed to understand India's stand on OER in comparison with other promising developing countries.
Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to critically examine the evolution of open educational resources OER initiatives in India – how OER movement emerges from the open access movement in the backdrop of an emerging knowledge‐based economy. This paper also illustrates how OER help in democratizing lifelong learning spaces that eventually help in skills development.Design/methodology/approach – This paper primarily uses baseline surveys and recommendations of different working groups of Indian National Knowledge Commission. Relevant policy instruments of the Ministry of Human Resources Development, UNESCO, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions and other national and international bodies are also critically examined to understand India's stand on OER in comparison with other promising developing countries. This paper analyses impact of OER on Indian systems of education, ranging from lifelong learning, technical and vocational education and training to higher education systems....

41 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article-level metrics or altmetrics becomes a new trendsetter in recent times for measuring impact of scientific publications and their social outreach to intended audiences as discussed by the authors, and the popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and social bookmarks such as Mendeley and CiteULike are nowadays widely used for communicating research to larger transnational audiences.
Abstract: The Article-level metrics or altmetrics becomes a new trendsetter in recent times for measuring impact of scientific publications and their social outreach to intended audiences. The popular social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and social bookmarks such as Mendeley and CiteULike are nowadays widely used for communicating research to larger transnational audiences. In 2012, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) got signed by the scientific and researchers communities across the world. This Declaration has given preference to the article-level metrics (ALM) or altmetrics over traditional but faulty journal impact factor (JIF)-based assessment of career scientists. JIF does not consider impact or influence beyond citations count, as this count reflected only through Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science® database. Also JIF provides indicator related to a journal, but not related to a published paper. Thus, altmetrics now becomes an alternative metrics for performance assessment of individual scientists and their contributed scholarly publications. This paper provides a glimpse of genesis of altmetrics in measuring efficacy of scholarly communications. This paper also highlights available altmetric tools and social platforms linking altmetric tools, which are widely used in deriving altmetric scores of scholarly publications.

29 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
14 Apr 2013-Vine
TL;DR: This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories.
Abstract: The South Asia sub-region is now in the forefront of the Open Access movement within developing countries in the world, with India being the most prominent partner in terms of its successful Open Access and Digital Library initiatives. Institutional and policy frameworks in India also facilitate innovative solutions for increasing international visibility and accessibility of scholarly literature and documentary heritage in this country. This publication has its genesis in the recommendations and proceedings of UNESCO-supported international conferences and workshops including the 4th International Conference of Asian Digital Libraries (ICADL2001, Bangalore); the International Conferences on Digital Libraries (ICDL2004 & ICDL2006, New Delhi); and the International Workshop on Greenstone Digital Library Software (2006, Kozhikode), where many information professionals of this sub-region demonstrated their Digital Library and Open Access initiatives. This book describes successful digital library and open access initiatives in the South Asia sub-region that are available in the forms of open courseware, open access journals, metadata harvesting services, national-level open access repositories and institutional repositories. This book may be considered an authoritative Source-book on Open Access development in this sub-region.

25 citations

15 Jun 2007
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the policy frameworks, strategic dimensions and analyses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of existing open access electronic theses and dissertations (ETD) initiatives in India.
Abstract: The fruits of research from the formal research programmes of conventional universities and academic research institutions in India were under-utilized as the access to theses, dissertations and research reports were very limited to the next generation researchers and scholars. Modern information and communication technology (ICT) acts as an effective intervener for paradigm shifting from closed access theses and dissertations to open access electronic theses and dissertations (ETD). Now, the researchers in national institutions and universities in India have greater access to research literature, due to subscription to many e-journals and scholarly databases in most subject areas. But, the access to thesis and dissertation literature is very limited due to lack of national databases of theses and dissertations, both in bibliographic and full-text formats. Recently, India's University Grants Commission enacted “UGC (Submission of Metadata and Full-text of Doctoral Theses in Electronic Format) Regulations, 2005” to strengthen national capability of producing electronic theses and dissertations, and, to maintain university-level and national level databases of theses and dissertations. Some elite research institutions, such as Indian Institute of Science, have already started providing access to ETDs through open access archives. Some other institutions have taken initiatives to provide access to ETDs only through intranet (within the campus). The Vidyanidhi, INDEST Consortium, CSIR and INFLIBNET Centre are working towards implementation of open access ETD and/or bibliographic databases of theses and dissertations, but they also have some limitations. National policies on open access to ETD and other research literature, particularly the public funded ones, are yet to be ready. In India, some advocacy and pressure groups also exist that support open access to scholarly literature. Present paper explores the policy frameworks, strategic dimensions and analyses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) of existing ETD initiatives in India.

21 citations