This presentation on Open Access Scenario in India, was delivered in the event, titled, Global Perspectives on Open Access: ACS Publications Open Access Webinar, March 14, 2023. It covers: Open Access in India Open Access Policies & Repositories Preprint Repositories Open Access Journals Open Educational Resources Major Contributors to OA Papers Recent Developments in Open Access One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) Conclusions

1. Open Access Scenario in India
Nabi Hasan, PhD, PDF, FNEB, FSLA
Head Librarian
Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
https://web.iitd.ac.in/~hasan hasan@library.iitd.ac.in
(Ex. University Librarian – Aligarh Muslim University)
Coordinator – National Resource Centre in Library and Information Sciences (ARPIT), Govt. of India
Global Perspectives on Open Access: ACS Publications Open Access Webinar, March 14, 2023

2. Outline of Presentation
➢ Open Access in India
➢ Open Access Policies & Repositories
➢ Preprint Repositories
➢ Open Access Journals
➢ Open Educational Resources
➢ Major Contributors to OA Papers
➢ Recent Developments in Open Access
➢ One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
➢ Conclusions

3. Background
➢ India is in the forefront of the developing world in terms
of scientific productivity.
➢ Ranked 7th globally in terms of total research
publications according to Scopus.
➢ 9th largest number of research publications in the
Science citation index/web of science.
➢ Indian scientific research output is diversified.
➢ Institutional Repositories, Open Access Journals, OER
are growing rapidly.
➢ Likely Open Access to public funded research output.
➢ One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) may change the
scenario

4. Open Access in India
➢ OA in India has evolved slowly since the early 2000s.
➢ India’s contribution to OA journals is 1.71% (DOAJ).
➢ ‘Open Access India,‘ a community of practice has been
advocating OA, Open Data and Open Education in India.
➢ Open Access Week is being celebrated in India to create
awareness among the researchers, faculties,
policymakers and research managers.
➢ The government is also looking at strengthening an
existing OA policy and developing new OA policies.
➢ There is a plan to Open Pay Walled Contents to the whole
of India through ONOS.

5. https://openaccessindia.org/
https://openaccessindia.org

6. Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy –
2020 (STIP), India
STIP – 2020 by the Government of
India has a focus on:
➢ National STI Observatory – a central
repository
➢ Open science
➢ Open data policy
➢ Open Access (OA)
➢ Open Educational Resources (OER)
➢ One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
➢ STIP wants to make scholarly knowledge
openly accessible to all.
➢ Other Indian agencies like DST, DBT,
CSIR, ICAR, CFTIs, ICRISAT, are already
pioneer for public funded research.

7. National Open Access Policy of India
(Draft, 2017) Ver. 3

8. Delhi Declaration on Open Access (DDOA)
➢ The Delhi Declaration on Open Access, pronounced on
14th February 2018.
➢ Ensuring the access, equity, and inclusiveness of public
funded research literature.
➢ The keen researchers make use of available open access
resources, including the open research data.
➢ Declaration containing ten sections that is expected to
have a far-reaching impact on the availability of research
literature in the Global South and the dissemination of
research outputs.

9. Open Access Repositories in India
▪ India has set up several national repositories.
▪ Individual Institutions also have OA Repositories.
National Virtual Library
of India (NVLI)

10. Growth of Repositories in India
Source: OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) is maintained by SHERPA services
2
12
19
24
28
34
45 47
60 62
71
76
79
89
95
101
105
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024
Year-Wise Growth of Repositories
7
89
8
1
Types of Repositories
Aggregating Institutional
Disciplinary Governmental

11. Documents in Scopus Vs Open Access
Repositories in India
4,23,221
29,89,167
0 5,00,000 10,00,000 15,00,000 20,00,000 25,00,000 30,00,000 35,00,000
No. of documents in Indian OA Repositories
No. of Documents by Indian Researcher in Scopus
(As on 10th March 2023)
14.15% of documents are made
available through OA repositories
in India
(As on 10th March 2023)

12. https://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in

14. LOADB: Listing of Open Access Databases

15. Preprint Repositories in India
➢ Currently over 100 repositories managed by individual
Indian institutions.
➢ IndiaRxiv and AgriRxiv have been started, but need
support to convert these initiatives into benchmarks.
➢ National funding agencies have policies that recommend
academics post early versions of manuscripts to preprint
repositories, still many Indian researchers are not doing
the submissions.

16. Indian Authors’ Contribution to Global
Preprint Repositories
Indian Authors’
Contributions (Approx.)
Total No. of Records
(Approx.)
% of Indian Author’s
Contributions (Approx.)
arXiv
(During 2018 -
2020)
95,976 7,36,163 13.04
medRxiv 4,599 32,843 14.00
bioRxiv 9,314 1,59,914 5.82
RePEc database 31,863 40,28,671 0.79
OSF Preprints 10,000 23,57,706 0.42
SSRN 1,23,722 11,27,800 10.97
Chemrxiv 888 13,187 6.73
viXra.org 6,110 39,024 15.66

17. Indian Authors’ Contribution to Global
Preprint Repositories
13.04
14.00
5.82
0.79
0.42
10.97
6.73
15.66
0.00
2.00
4.00
6.00
8.00
10.00
12.00
14.00
16.00
18.00
arXiv (3 Year,
during 2018 -
2020)
medRxiv bioRxiv RePEc database OSF Preprints SSRN Chemrxiv viXra.org
Percentage (%) of Indian Author’s Contribution (Approx.)

18. Top Indian Institutional Contribution to
Arxiv.org Preprint Server (During 2018 - 2020)
1209
1313
1462
1485
1675
2168
2294
2420
2518
5088
5869
6544
7304
9233
11923
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000
indian institute of technology roorkee
indian institute of technology indore
indian institutes of technology
indian institute of technology gandhinagar
indian institute of astrophysics
indian institute of technology guwahati
indian institute of technology hyderabad
indian statistical institute
indian institute of technology delhi
indian institute of science education and research
indian institute of technology kharagpur
indian institute of technology kanpur
indian institute of technology madras
indian institute of technology bombay
indian institute of science

19. Open Access is picking Momentum
14,568
18,065
22,575
25,653
30,433
34,653
38,678 38,670
43,816
54,800
61,628
71,013
76,251
11,602
0
10,000
20,000
30,000
40,000
50,000
60,000
70,000
80,000
90,000
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
OA Articles from India
Source: Scopus

20. Open Access Journals in India

21. Growth of Open Access Journals in India
2 5 6 6 3 9 11 12 5 5 6 5 9 24
55 47 34 34 31 17
2 7 13 19 22
31 42 54 59 64 70 75
84
108
163
210 244
278
309 326
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
400
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022
Number of OA Journals Cumulative number of OA Journals

22. Major OER in India

23. FOSSEE (Free/Libre and Open Source Software for Education)
project promotes the use of FLOSS tools in academia and research

24. Open Access Week in India
➢ Every year, last week of October Month India celebrates
international OAW.
➢ OAW celebration in India community practices for
advocating on open access, open data, open education,
open scholarship, open access resources in India.
➢ Provides an opportunity to celebrate progress and bring
additional awareness to help make Open Access.

25. ONOS
One Nation One Subscription

26. ONOS-What is it; what are the implications
➢ ONOS aims at providing access to paywalled content to the
whole country and to promote open access through
agreements.
➢ It intends to acquire national licenses for E-journals/databases
from most of the prominent publishers and database providers.
➢ Central funding/Concessions on Article Processing Charges
(APCs) for open access publications is also aimed as part of
ONOS.
➢ More readers would mean more scientific exposure and
improved research outcomes and development in the long
term.
➢ Support for APC will promote open access publications and
thus help in open access movement throughout the world.

27. Recommendations to build the future of
OA adoption in India
➢ To curb ‘predatory’ publishing
➢ Creation of more OA Repositories
➢ Organizing Workshop Seminars on OA
➢ Greater role for Communities of Practice
➢ Librarians as Champions of OA
➢ Publishing in OA Journals
➢ Think. Check. Submit
➢ Use of Open Formats and Open Licenses
➢ Central payment system for APCs for all reputed APC-
based journals.
➢ Authors allowed pay APC through grants available

28. Conclusions
➢ OA movement has gained significant momentum in India in recent years,
with the government and academic institutions showing strong support.
➢ All government funded research may be made available in an OA format.
➢ There has been a significant increase in the number of OA journals in India.
➢ Many universities and research institutions in India have established their
own OA repositories.
➢ Indian Researchers have more submissions in the global Preprint
repositories comparing those hosted in India.
➢ ONOS seems to be promising in OA movement.
➢ Overall, the future of Open Access in India looks bright, as more and more
institutions and researchers recognize the importance of making scientific
research freely available to everyone.
➢ However, there are challenges that need to be addressed, such as the lack
of awareness about OA among researchers and the need for sustainable
funding models to support OA publishing.
➢ Nevertheless, with continued support and advocacy from the government
and academic community, the OA movement in India is likely to grow and
thrive in the years to come.

29. References
➢ Barik, N., & Je, P. (2021). Does India move toward open access of publications? Journal of Archival
Organization, 18(1-2), 51-62. doi:10.1080/15332748.2021.1992203
➢ Enago Academy. (2022, May 20). Why Researchers Should Use Pre-Print Repositories. Retrieved
from Enago Academy: https://www.enago.com/academy/why-researchers-should-use-pre-print-
repositories
➢ Hettne, K. (2021, October 27). A Practical Guide to Preprints: Accelerating Scholarly Communication.
➢ Hoy, M. B. (2020). Rise of the Rxivs: How Preprint Servers are Changing the Publishing Process.
Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 39(1), 84-89.
➢ Kristina Hettne, Ron Aardening, Dirk van Gorp, Chantal Hukkelhoven, Nicole Loorbach, Jeroen
Sondervan, & Astrid van Wesenbeeck. (2021). A Practical Guide to Preprints: Accelerating Scholarly
Communication (1.0).
➢ Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India. (2020, December). Science, Technology, and
Innovation Policy.
➢ Naika, M., & Pathak, S. K. (2020, August 19). India's open access future. Retrieved from Nature
India: https://www.nature.com/articles/nindia.2020.125
➢ Puebla, I., Polka, J., & Rieger, O. Y. (2022, January 12). Preprints: Their Evolving Role in Science.
Retrieved from ASAPbio, and Ithaka : https://sr.ithaka.org/blog/preprints-their-evolving-role-in-
science-communication/
➢ Singh, V. K., Srichandan, S. S., & Piryani, R. (2020). Preprint submissions by Indian scientists in
arXiv. Current Science, 119.
➢ Tijdink, J. e. (2020, 09 23). Are preprints a problem? 5 ways to improve the quality and credibility of
preprints. Retrieved from London School of Economics and Political Science:
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2020/09/23/are-preprints-a-problem-5-ways-to-
improve-the-quality-and-credibility-of-preprints/
➢ Vishwanath, D. (2020, October 22). Preprints and biological research in India: together in sickness
and in health? Retrieved from IndiaBioscience: https://indiabioscience.org/columns/indian-
scenario/preprints-and-biological-research-in-india-together-in-sickness-and-in-health

30. Think Globally, Act Locally
hasan@library.iitd.ac.in
https://web.iitd.ac.in/~hasan