Open Access Initiatives in India - an Evaluation

Developing countries have embraced open access with a view to promote visibility of research done in these regions. Open access initiatives described in this paper are based on interviews with information professionals responsible for creation and maintenance of online research repositories in the country. Open access journals, e-print archives and e-theses repositories are covered with an emphasis on the sciences including the physical sciences, mathematics and the biomedical sciences. Existing repositories were identified from the Institutional Archives Registry at http://archives.eprints.org. Key contacts were facilitated by well-known open access advocates Dr.Leslie Chan and Dr Subbiah Arunachalam.

Participants were contacted by e-mail and sites were visited wherever possible. Universities in India are at present lacking in infrastructure for establishing institutional repositories, so most of the institutions visited were research institutes and informatics centres. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to ascertain the background of participants, institutional culture, software selection, nature of funding, submission policies and future plans of these repositories. Also covered were promotion methods, training and support.

Barriers to setting up institutional repositories were identified. Whereas some sites have difficulties in populating repositories, others showed a lack of current research material due to faculty non-compliance. Sites flourish where there is adequate funding and institutional commitment at the highest level. Based on participant feedback a list of best practices will be presented. Certain commonalities and differences with the western world will be outlined. Key sites with innovative features will be demonstrated. The intent of this paper is to create an awareness of emerging institutional repositories in India in the context of recent developments with regard to open access.