Open Access India is an online group advocating for open access to scholarly research in India's National Agricultural Research System (NARS). It was formed in 2011 and has over 2300 members. The group aims to increase awareness of open access, provide training, develop policies, and establish repositories for researchers to share their work openly. Currently there are over 90 open access repositories and 450 open access journals in India, though growth has been slow in NARS due to various challenges. Open Access India partners with organizations like CIARD and the FAO to advance open access globally and populate existing repositories.

1. Open Access India
Advocating for Open Access to Scholarly Research
Sridhar Gutam
Senior Scientist, Central Institute for Subtropical Horticulture, India
Convener, Open Access India
gutam2000@gmail.com

2. 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

3. Repositories in Agriculture
Open Access Repositories
1. 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

4. 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

5. OA Journals in Agriculture
1. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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

14. 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

15. Thank You all
Questions?
eMail: gutam2000@gmail.com
Visit: https://www.facebook.com/oaindia