Open Access Policies and Mandates: A Study of Their Implementation in Academic Institutions in India

Higher Education System in India is the third largest in the world next to the United States and China. India’s contribution to OA Journal publishing is phenomenal. In the backdrop of these, this paper aims at critically analyzing the Open Access Mandates and Policies of higher education institutions and also the efforts made by other institutions including the research centers and government bodies in India. The paper describes the Open Access Movement and Open Access Publishing, essentially as a tool to achieve the noble ideal of ‘Information for All’ and democratization of information and knowledge. The paper describes various developmental initiatives and programs of Open Access Publishing in India, such as, Open Access India- an online community of practice, launching of LOAD (Listing of Open Access Databases), the initiatives taken by the CSIR (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), DST and DBT in making it mandatory to maintain a repository / publish in OA of the government funded research results and also the mandates of other institutions. The paper also describes the efforts of INFLIBNET’s ShodhGanga project -- a digital repository of Indian theses and dissertations. The e-prints archives viz.,Eprints@iisc of Indian Institute of Science, NDL (National Digital Library of India) project, TKDL (Traditional Knowledge Digital Library) etc. A detailed study of the OA journals published from India and also chronological growth will be discussed, taking the DOAJ as the source. The available data at ROARMAP (Registry of Open Access Repository Mandates and Policies) on the Indian OA mandates shall be made use of in finding implementation of OA Mandates. The paper concludes that there is a need for a blanket mandate by the UGC and AICTE to publish the research publications of Indian academic community in OA.