10th Convention PLANNER 2016 Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR ... Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR in Open Access Movement and Universal Access to Scholarly Information Jayanti Chakravorty Saumen Datta Manoj Kumar Sinha Abstract Open Access initiative (OAI) is the wide discussed subject in the world of information and communi- cation technology. The open access philosophy rapidly became popular and a number of universities and research institutions spontaneously came forward to provide open access to their scholarly communications, research outcomes and electronic journals. In the present paper, the meaning, definition and the present scenario of the Open Access initiative, as well as the problems and im- provement of the Open Access initiative has been discussed. Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR in the field of Open Access initiative has been discussed in detail. The data collected from the second- ary sources of information and presented in a tabular form for easy understanding of the LIS profes- sionals and masses to know the importance of the Open Access initiative for giving access to schol- arly communications for wider audience. Keywords: Open Access Repositories, Institutional Digital Repositories, ROAR, OpenDOAR 1. Introduction The issue of unrestricted access to scholarly outputs was in discussion and active consideration Advancement of ‘knowledge’, its growth and wider of the academicians and research scholars since the unrestricted dissemination across national and 1960s. Gradually it developed into a worldwide geographical borders through generations, is the movement and the movement picked up momentum driving force for furtherance of human civilization with the introduction and wide use of the Internet, and human welfare. The 21st century promises to be emergence of digital publishing, and holding of three the century of democratization of nations, successive summits on Open Access in Budapest, modernization of human societies and proliferation Bethesda and Berlin. of knowledge and technology – a century of wide- spread scientific advancements – a century of With popularization of the Open Access initiative, innovations and – all these dimensional changes many Open Access repositories were established in essentially resting on the edifice of unprecedented the different parts of the world including India; the development in the field of information storage and leading among them are the ROAR and OpenDOAR dissemination; and ‘open access’ to information and which are now championing this movement knowledge. throughout the world. Here we shall briefly dwell on the philosophy of open access; the relation of open access movement with the establishment of open 10th Convention PLANNER-2016 NEHU, Shillong, Meghalaya, 09-11 November, 2016 access repositories; and the salient features of © INFLIBNET Centre, Gandhinagar, Gujarat ROAR and OpenDOAR. - 86 - Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR ... 10th Convention PLANNER 2016 1.1 Open Access Initiatives: International and The meeting published a statement named, National Scenario ‘Budapest Open Access Initiative’, on February 14, 2002. Including the initial participants, the statement 1.1.1 Definition of Open Access has till now (January,2016) been signed by 5930 The term ‘Open Access’ (OA) broadly refers to the individuals and 833 organizations. accessibility of various documents, research outputs On April 11,2003, another meeting of 24 people was and other literature free of any charges and having held to stimulate discussion within the biomedical a fewer restrictions on their use, citation, research community on how to proceed, as rapidly reproduction and onward transmission. The thrust as possible, to the widely held goal of providing of OA is maximization of knowledge and its optimum open access to the primary scientific literature at dissemination. the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy 1.1.2 Evolution of Open Access Movement Chase, in the vicinity of Bethesda, Maryland, USA. The proceedings of the meeting was published on The Open Access Initiative (OAI) was a June 20,2003, known as the ‘Bethesda Statement on spontaneous outcome of the need and desire of the Open Access Publishing’.[6] It spells out significant scientists, scholars and academicians to put their concrete steps that all relevant parties – including research findings and intellectual output to wide scientific research organizations, scientists, and unrestricted access; and the movement “traces publishers and librarians – can take to promote the its origin at least back to the 1960s”. It gained rapid and efficient transition to open-access momentum in early 1990s with popular use of the publishing. Internet, consequent upon which, professional associations, learned societies, and academic In October,2003, The Max Planck Society of Germany institutions started putting their intellectual output and the European Cultural Heritage Online (ECHO) for Open Access. The movement gained convened a meeting of international experts at acceleration with the dawn of the new millennium. Harnack House in Dahlem District of Berlin with the The Open Society Foundations convened a meeting aim of developing a new web-based research of diverse academic disciplines from many nations, environment using the OA paradigm as a mechanism in Budapest, Hungary on December 1-2, 2001 to for having scientific knowledge and cultural heritage accelerate progress in the international effort to make accessible worldwide. research article in all academic fields freely available; As an outcome, reputed research, scientific and and to devise strategies for serving the interests of cultural institutions issued and signed the Berlin research, researchers, and the institutions and Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the societies that support research; and put their Sciences and Humanities” on October 22, 2003. intellectual output to open access and to make open- access publishing economically self-sustaining. This Declaration largely corroborates the BOAI statement and has till now (January 14, 2016) been signed by 538 organizations: universities, foundations, libraries, museums, research - 87 - 10th Convention PLANNER 2016 Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR ... institutions, learned societies and associations, awarding bodies that explicitly permit funds to be including the IFLA. used for this purpose is maintained on the BioMed Central website. The gold OA journal contents 2. Essence and Thrust of Open Access generally come through peer review, as in the case The essence of OA is: wide, free, and unrestricted of conventional journals. It may be noted that the dissemination of human knowledge treasure; its repositories usually don’t perform peer review. transmission to the poor and rich alike; and in doing 2.2 Scope of Open Access so, taking effort to bridge up the existent ‘information divide’ and; offering opportunity to people, the Though OA was initially motivated towards world over, to have immediate access to newly disseminating scientific and healthcare related developed knowledge and thereby building up new research output; today it encompasses almost all innovative ideas upon that; and finally to preserve branches of knowledge. The scope of OA, today, is all these treasure for posterity; and the entire not limited to: process be harnessed by world-wide networking. publicly-funded research, it includes privately- 2.1. Forms and Sub-Species of Open Access funded and unfunded research also; Following the Berlin Declaration, OA initiative sets present and future publications, but includes up “two basic forms of implementation …with a past publications as well; focus on academic journals: born-digital work, but includes work digitized the ‘green road’: deposit of copies of already from print, microfiche, film, and other media; and published, peer-reviewed research articles in text, but includes data, audio, video, multimedia, university or research institute repositories; and executable code. the ‘golden road’: Open Access contents consist of: peer-reviewed research articles; un-referred preprints; theses, publication by Open Access publishers or dissertations, conference presentations (texts, in Open Access journals, financed either upfront slides, audio, video); research data, government through publishing fees (e.g. BioMed Central) data, source code; archival records and manuscripts; or through public funds (e.g. Digital Peer images (artworks, photographs, diagrams, maps); Publishing Initiative DPPI); teaching and learning materials, textbooks; digitized the parallel publication of books in printed print works; scholarly monographs; and form (for a fee) and in an electronic version (free newspapers, novels, stories, plays, and poetry[14] access) in Open Access publishing houses, in 2.3 Motivation of Open Access particular university presses.” The motivations for OA are many and varied. In the A good number of institutions and funders have first place, since mid 20th century, there has been a created necessary funds to boost up the OA rapid proliferation of knowledge that precipitated a movement and cover the APCs. A list of grant big demand for scholarly journals. - 88 - Contribution of ROAR and OpenDOAR ... 10th Convention PLANNER 2016 Secondly, “when most peer-reviewed research 2.4 Wrong Interpretations of Open Access journals are toll access, a pricing crisis entails an There are certain mistaken interpretations of OA. access crisis.” Before popularization of OA, all such “It is not self-publishing, nor a way