Acceptance and adoption of open access publishing by researchers in India
| Pages | 148-158 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-09-2018-0077 |
| Date | 04 February 2019 |
| Published date | 04 February 2019 |
| Author | Mohammad Nazim,Sana Zia |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information in society,Information literacy,Library & information services |
Acceptance and adoption of
open access publishing by
researchers in India
Mohammad Nazim and Sana Zia
Department of Library and Information Science, Aligarh Muslim University,
Aligarh, India
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to examine the level of open access (OA) adoption by researchers in Indian
Institutes of Technology(IITs), identify predictors of OA status (OA vs non-OA) and explore the availability
of OA versionsof the articles and venues used by the researchesfor hosting of their articles.
Design/methodology/approach –Articles contributed by the researchersin IITs were searched using
an advance searchoption in the Web of Science Core collection database. The searchwas restricted to journal
articles published in Englishlanguage in the year 2015. Of the 10,049 articles retrieved, 1,023 (10 per cent of
the total) werechosen randomly. Articles selected after randomizationswere exported to MS Excel for further
analyses.Title of each article was searched in Google Scholar to assess its OA availabilityand venues used by
the author for self-archiving. Details of ten articles could not be traced in Google Scholar, and they were
excluded from the analysis. Based on the analysis of URLs, all OA articles were classified into three
categories: gold OA, green OAand both gold and green OA. The OA articles available through green route
were further classifiedinto six categories based on the analysis of the websites and the self-archiving venues
used by the authors: institutional repository, subject repository, researcher or scholar’s website,
organizationalwebsite, ResearchGate and other websites.
Findings –Of 1,013 articlesexamined, OA versions were found for 68.70 percent of articles. Of the total OA
articles, 10.26 per cent articles were available through gold OA and 58.44 per cent were available through
green OA, while remaining 6.21 per cent were available via both gold and green OA routes. Although
researchers use different venues for self-archiving their articles, ResearchGate and institutional repositories
are the most preferred choicesby the researchers in IITs. Researchers in IITs are seemed to be unaware of the
self-archiving policiesof publishers, as more than 85 per cent self-archived articles were found as final PDF
versionsthat are normally not allowed by the publishers.
Research limitations/implications –This study is limited to IITs, but it offers theoreticalimplications
for extending its scope to different subjects and institutes.The findings of the study may be useful for the
publishers and institutions for formulatingOA policies. The findings of the study might be used for raising
awareness of OA among researchers and encouraging them to contribute their research outcome in OA
outlets.
Originality/value –This is the first studyin India focusing on the availability of OA research.
Keywords India, Scholarly communication, Open access journals, Open access, Self-archiving,
Indian Institutes of Technology
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The concept of open access (OA) emerged in the 1990s when access to the internet and
World Wide Web revolutionizedthe online publishing system. Today, OA is a movement at
the international level for making research publications freely available so that anyone can
benefit from reading and usingresearch (JISC, 2016). There are two widely used channels of
OA, namely, OA journals and self-archiving, which are commonly known as gold OA and
GKMC
68,1/2
148
Received6 September 2018
Revised14 November 2018
Accepted22 November 2018
GlobalKnowledge, Memory and
Communication
Vol.68 No. 1/2, 2019
pp. 148-158
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9342
DOI 10.1108/GKMC-09-2018-0077
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