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Open Access to Public Funded Research

Open Access to Public Funded Research. A Discussion in the Context of Mahatma Gandhi University Digital Archives of Doctoral Dissertations. Prof. Peter Suber; Dr. R. Raman Nair and K.H. Hussain. Universities. Play crucial role in the generation and application of new knowledge

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Open Access to Public Funded Research

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  1. Open Access toPublic Funded Research A Discussion in the Context of Mahatma Gandhi University Digital Archives of Doctoral Dissertations Prof. Peter Suber; Dr. R. Raman Nair and K.H. Hussain

  2. Universities • Play crucial role in the generation and application of new knowledge • Major areas are teaching, research, conservation and extension.

  3. Research • Doctoral research comprises one subset of research. • Research is incomplete until its results have been communicated. • Dissemination of research results can yield rich dividends. • Security, health, education and economy are depended on scientific research.

  4. Doctoral Research in India • 450 universities and research laboratories. • Annual investment over Rs 3000 crore • Annual production is approximately 30,000 dissertations

  5. Lack of Access • No reliable central repository of doctoral dissertations. • Doctoral research receive no attention in further research and application. • Lack of access to bibliographic as well as full text of the dissertations.

  6. Open Access (OA) • Open Access (OA) is free, online full text access to materials in digital form to any user from anywhere at any time over the web. • OA is thus very important for developing countries which cannot afford costly journals in which current research is published

  7. Difficulty for OA • Submission in electronic form can make OA easier. • Indian universities should amend their PhD Regulations to make electronic submission of the dissertation and OA mandatory.

  8. Visibility • Can take advantage of OA to disseminate their research results through the Net. • Wider visibility and greater impact. • Without OA, there is almost no access. • OA helps the scholars who wouldn't otherwise have ready access.

  9. Results of Going OA • Personal experience (Raman) - Dissertation on Agricultural and Farm Information systems was accepted in 2005 by University of Kerala for granting PhD. • In University less than 20 Scholars used the theses in 4 years. • Copy published in ELIS in 2007 attracted 2117 scholars for downloading in 2 years.

  10. Quality of Research  • OA Mandate will elicit better work. • It enlightens the students that the university is taking the dissertation seriously as scholarship. • OA gives scholars a real audience beyond the dissertation committee and the participants in the defense seminars. • OA to dissertation is highly connected to the rationale of universities and value of scholarship.

  11. Public Fund • Public funded universities should make OA mandatory for teachers and students to the results of research. • If the student uses public money, student will have to provide OA to his/ her research; • University thus assists researchers elsewhere and also the society to benefit from this knowledge. • Providing OA should never disqualify the future publication of the dissertation.

  12. Preservation • Paper dissertations are unlike published books that exist in thousands of copies. • They can be lost, destroyed or stolen. • Digital Archives ensure the conservation of paper dissertations.

  13. Doctoral Digital Archives in India • 1995 – Digital archive of Doctoral Dissertations at KAU. • 1998 - CIRD develops DL package ‘Nitya’. • 2003 - Mysore University initiates the project ‘Vidyanidhi’ • 2008 - MG University launches OA Archives of all of its PhD Theses

  14. MGU Digital Archive • Official, authentic and reliable OA archive of doctoral dissertations of an Indian university. • Hosts all the accepted dissertations in the university. • No external funding; low budget project. • Covers dissertations in English, Malayalam, Hindi and Sanskrit • Biggest official collection of its own dissertations any Indian university could host on web.

  15. Objectives of MGU Archives • To provide OA and enhance exposure to the knowledge generated by the University • To avoid duplications and plagiarisms in research • To enhance quality of future research and trigger further investigations • To ensure accountability, transparency and responsibility of research • To provide opportunity for social audit of research

  16. Nitya and Beehive Digital Concepts • Beehive Digital Concepts, Cochin managed digitisation and developed the content . • Beehive developed web version of Nitya archive package of CIRD • S/W requirements modified by MGU

  17. Nitya Online • The Archive can host any number of dissertations in English, Malayalam, Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil and Kannada. • Facility for advanced Boolean search for accurate and relevant search. • Facilitates multilingual data input and query building. • OS independent; compatible with any browser

  18. Technical Data • The Archives is hosted on a live and dedicated Linux Server, catering thousands of simultaneous requests without performance loss. The server is secure and available all time. • The project is built on PHP programming language in combination with MySQL.

  19. Unique Features • Retrieval of specific pages/sections together with entire dissertation. • Open database structure allowing future migration to OAI-PMH compliant packages • Unicode compliant; Query building and searching using all Indian languages

  20. http://www.mgutheses.org MGU Archive has a simple and user-friendly interface similar to Google

  21. Hit list of Dissertations + Pages Search will provide relevant list of dissertations and concerned pages.

  22. Advanced Boolean Search Lets user build complex searches.

  23. Multilingual Search On screen keyboards for Indian languages are provided

  24. Bibliographical Data of Dissertations

  25. Reactions….. “The project is an important step towards democratization of knowledge and that I am sure the model of digital archives created by MG University will be emulated by other Indian universities leading to transparency in the education system.” - H E Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam, Former President of India.

  26. Reactions….. “I am always for the freedom to redistribute such research documents and thereby widen the reach of public funded research activities. It is good initiative from India.” - Dr. Richard M. Stallman

  27. OA Mandates • Doctoral dissertations form primary sources of data for further research. • But doctoral dissertations in Indian universities are distanced from potential users • Research results have become hardly useful and lack of awareness causes duplication in research. • OA archives of dissertations should be made a prime condition for UGC funding. • Without OA the expenditure on research from public fund cannot be justified.

  28. Network of Dissertation Archives of Indian Universities • MGU OA Archives of Doctoral Dissertations reveals that it is not a costly or time-consuming project. • A well planned Network of Dissertation Archives of Indian universities can bring our huge wealth of knowledge from doctoral research into public domain.

  29. “Knowledge is a source that grows with sharing and decays by not sharing” - Bhartruhari

  30. Thanks

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