Open Access Journal Publishing in India: A study with OJS software Nagaraj N. Vaidya Librarian, Tech Mahindra Ltd., Bangalore, India Obaiah B Open Knowledge Society Bangalore, India Thomas Abraham Open Knowledge Society Bangalore, India

Introduction ● Scholarly Communication  crucial part of research ● Scholarly Journals  carriers of scholarly knowledge ● Scholarly information, research results available to general public ● aid researchers with latest information ● facilitate further research

Introduction ● Traditional process of publishing  Print only ● Most popular journals published in developed countries ● Commercial interest ● Solution is Open Access

Open Access ● Digital, online ● Free of charge ● free of most copyright and licensing restrictions ● What makes it possible is the Internet and the consent of the author or copyright- holder

Open Access ● Two primary vehicles ➢ OA journals – perform peer review and then make the approved contents freely available to the world ➢ OA archives or repositories – do not perform peer review, but simply make their contents freely available to the world – Archives may belong to institutions, such as universities and laboratories, or disciplines Open Access

Open Access Publishing (OAP) ● Free & unrestricted access to research literature ● Author's copyright retained & acknowledged ● promotes research progress ● OAP maximizes research impact ● Open source e-publishing systems  Digital Publishing Systems (Dpubs)  epublishing Toolkit (ePubTk)  Open Journal Systems (OJS)

Open Journal Systems (OJS) ● Open Journal Systems (OJS) is a journal management and publishing system developed by the Public Knowledge Project ● Helps to expand and improve access to research ● OJS is open source software made freely available ● making open access publishing a viable option for more journals ● Designed to facilitate OA, peer reviewed publishing with entire editorial management work flow

OJS Features ● OJS is installed locally and locally controlled ● Editors configure requirements, sections, review process, etc. ● Online submission and management of all content ● Subscription module with delayed open access options ● Comprehensive indexing of content part of global system ● Reading Tools for content, based on field and editors' choice ● notification and commenting ability for readers ● Complete context-sensitive online Help support

OJS Workflow ● OJS is structured around traditional journal workflow ● Uses roles to organize activities ● Roles  Journal Manager  Editor  Section Editor  Subscription Manager

Advantages ● Provides and manages website for editorial and publishing processes, while reducing need for editorial office. ● Authors do not need to print, photocopy, and mail papers. ● Improves administration and record-keeping ● Enables editors, reviewers, and authors from anywhere to work together ● OJS is being used by at least 2000 journals worldwide ● OAI-PMH, LOCKSS, Unicode compliant

OA in India ● DOAJ  107 Indian journals ● ROAR  39 repositories ● Indian Academy of Sciences (11 journals) ● Indian Medlars Center  MedIND programme 40 bio-medical journals ● MedKnow (More than 70 journals) ● Indian National Science Academy (4 journals) ● Calicut Medical College (3 journals)

Issues facing OAP in India ● Fear that revenue loss from print subscriptions if journal becomes OA  even as it increases readership and circulation of knowledge ● Lack of IT infrastructure or the funds to develop it for using far more efficient online means of managing and publishing journals. ● Other obstacles include uncertainty around copyright issues and a lack of management support and clerical support.

OJS Initiatives ● SJPI NCSI  Partnership with PKP (Oct 2004 – Mar 2007)  Demonstrated e-publishing with 13 prototype journals  Harvester  OJS in Hindi  Workshops ● Open Knowledge Society 

Open Knowledge Society (OKS) ● non profit organization ● PKP partner in India ● OKS supports  publication of Open Access Journals  conversion of print journals into online versions  creation of Institutional Repositories  automation of libraries  other activities that promote open access to knowledge

OKS Support ● Medicinal and Aromatic Plant Association of India  Scientific society at National Research Centre for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (NRCMAP) ● Open Access Journal on Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (OJAMP) 

OKS Support ● Demo OKS  ● Some of the test journals — Mysore Journal of Agricultural Sciences. — Journal of Spices and Plantation crop — Journal of soil Science and management’ — Journal of Pest Management. Etc…

Journals using OJS in India

Conclusion ● Need to create OA awareness ● With well defined work flow and easy to use functionality OA journals can easily be set up using OJS ● OJS is a multilingual system ● Draw many non-English speaking people to computer and Internet ● More and more OA journals will increase the visibility of Indian research

References ● Open Journal Systems, Public Knowledge Project  ● OJS in an Hour  ● OJS Documentation 

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