Sridhar GutamSenior Scientist, Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, India

Convener, Open Access Indiagutam2000@gmail.com

Open Access India Advocating for Open Access to Scholarly Research

Open Access in India - Genesis

• Open Access workshop - 2002– Indian Academy of Sciences at Bangalore

• Open Access seminar - 2003– Indian National Science Academy at Pune

• Open Access workshop – 2004– M S Swaminathan Research Foundation at

Chennai

• AGRIS Open Access workshop – 2006– ICRISAT at Hyderabad

• National Knowledge Commission - 2007

Repositories in Agriculture

Open Access Repositories1. ICRISAT India’s first OAIR – 2009

2. College of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry (AAU via OpenMED@NIC)

3. Eprints@IARI – Indian Agricultural Research Institute – 2009 (NARS’s first OAIR)

4. OpenAgri – first thematic agriculture OAR – 2010

5. Eprints@CMFRI – Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute – 2010

6. DSpice@IISR – Indian Institute of Spices Research – 2010

7. E-Repository@IIHR – Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) – 2011

8. ETD@UASD – thesis repository - University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad – 2011

Repositories in Agriculture

• Other Repositories– Krishiprabha - dissertations from agricultural

universities (7624 dissertations)– CaneInfo– Rice Knowledge Management Portal– India Rice Research Repository– Rohu database– Spices Germplasm– Digital Herbarium of Medicinal and Aromatic

Plants– Digital Library of Bruchids

OA Journals in Agriculture1. Journal of Tropical Agriculture

2. Karnataka Journal of Agricultural Sciences

3. The Madras Agricultural Journal

4. Research Journal of ANGRAU

5. Open Access Journal of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants

6. The Mysore Journal of Agricultural Sciences

7. Journal of Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics

8. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences

9. Indian Journal of Animal Sciences

10. Indian Journal of Fisheries

11. Fish Technology

12. Journal of Agricultural Engineering

13. Tamil Nadu Journal of Veterinary and Animal Sciences

14. Indian Research Journal of Extension Education

Growth of OA in Agriculture

• 450 OA journals in India (DOAJ, 2012)– About 14 in agricultural sciences

• 92 OARs in India (ROAR, 2012)– OAR@ICRISAT – 5449 records– OpenAgri – 1000 records– Eprints@IARI – 229 records– Dspice@IISR – 497 records– E-Repo@IIHR – 193 records– Eprints@CMFRI – 8978 records– ETD@UASD – 1119 records

Survey on Open Access

• Survey on awareness and attitude towards Open Access in NARS.

• There is no mandatory deposit of research outputs in NARS.

• About 50% of the researchers not aware of what is open access.

• When explained, 62% of them convinced to deposit post-prints in repositories but not preprints and datasets.

National Agricultural Research System

• Agricultural Universities – 58 • Deemed Universities – 4 • Directorates/Project Directorates – 25 • Institutions – 45 • National Bureaux – 6 • National Research Centres – 17• All India Coordinated Research Projects – 61 • Network Projects – 17• Other Projects – 10

NARS - Scholarly Communications

• 118 Publishers and 124 Journals• Most of these publications are in print-only form• 9% of universities are publishing research

journals

• 35% institutes and 9% universities share only bibliography of publications.

• All the ICAR institutes make their annual reports available online.

• 24% of universities annual reports online.

• National Agricultural Innovation Project– Two ICAR flagship journals made into OA journals.

Slow OA Growth in NARS - Reasons

• The scholarly societies are very orthodox.– Made their journals online but are not available freely.

• Lack of awareness on OA• Non existence of OA policy/mandate in NARS• OA is not an important agenda by the research

managers.• Lack of clarity on IPR/Copyright issues.• Lack of expertise in use of repository software.• Fear of loosing revenue and their subscribers.• Preference for printed journals.

Open Access India

• An online group formed during June-July, 2011

• By OA evangelists in NARS to take forward the OA movement in India.

• Using Facebook to reach out to scholars– https://www.facebook.com/groups/oaindia– https://www.facebook.com/oaindia– Currently, it has ~2300 members in the group

• Librarians, Researchers, Policy makers and Students from NARS and other organisations in India and Abroad.

• OA advocates shares OA success stories and initiates discussion on OA.

OAIndia - Advocacy Plan• Awareness workshops on OA and relevance of

institutional repositories.• Capacity building for repository administration

and management; Copyrights and Licensing issues.

• Development of database on copyright policies of all the publishers in India (similar to SHERPA/RoMEO).

• Development of appropriate Open Access policies for institutes

• Advocating incentives to researchers for making their work in open access.

• Constitution of 'OAIndia' core team from various NARS institutions.

• Looking for establishment of repository to its members for sharing their research/scholarly outputs.

OAIndia and CIARD• OAIndia wishes to join

global efforts being made by GFAR and FAO towards “openness in agriculture research”.

• Coherence in Information for Agricultural Research for Development (CIARD), – vision is “to make public

domain agricultural research information and knowledge truly accessible to all”,

– CIARD Manifesto 2009 involving 150 people from 70 countries

– Checklist and model Pathways

OAIndia – Friends and Partners

• Currently it has partnered with– MyOpenArchive

• Working along with– FAO's AIMS– Open Access in South Asia– Open Knowledge Foundation– CIARD initiative of GFAR

• Populating Repositories– Repositories in NARS– OpenAgri (Agropedia)– OpenMED@NIC– OpenDepot.org

Thank You all

Questions?eMail: gutam2000@gmail.com

Visit: https://www.facebook.com/oaindia