open access journal initiatives in India

Sawant’s study in 2009 revealed that there were 178 open access journals available online in India. Almost 50 percent of the online journals from India are open access. Out of 178 journals there were 17 social science and 161 science and technology journals. Most of the journals were published or funded by government agencies such as ICAR, ICMR, academies such as IASc, INSA, learned societies, associations, commercial publishers and even editors. About 64 percent journals are published or hosted by MedKnow and Medlars Centre. All journals are peer reviewed, indexed and abstracted in premier indexing and abstracting services such as Index Medicus, Chemical Abstract Service, SCIRUS, SCOPUS, EMBASE etc. Most of them are also linked from DOAJ, PubMed and OJ Gate. Online full text availability of the journals varies and their archives were mostly available from 1998 onwards. All the journals are available online and 163 journals published as hybrid journals. There were only three journals which ask authors to pay for publishing.

Sawant, S (2009). The current scenario of open access journal initiatives in India. Collection Building, 28 (4), pp 159-163. DOI: 10.1108/01604950910999819.