Open Access Journals (OAJ): Use and Awareness Among Scientific Community Mr. Subhash Reddy Librarian PES University, Bangalore Dr. Rajendra Babu H Tumkur University Tumkur

This paper discusses concepts of open access (OA) and open access journals (OAJ), determined to find how OA helps further science communication. The authors have studied the pulse of the life scientists from among major scientific and R&D institutions in Bangalore, Karnataka to assess the awareness and use of open access journals for their research and teaching. There are very specific issues such as use, awareness, copyright, awareness about OAJ dealt in detail. This is an effort to showcase a major paradigm shift in scholarly communication in the world with the advent of Internet and web 2.0 tools and technologies in particular. Abstract

During the 18 th and early 19 th centuries, the broad nature of journals slowly changed with the emergence of multidisciplinary as well as interdisciplinary nature in the form of ‘twigging’ or ‘branching-out’ subjects lead to a creation of more specialized journals. A scholarly scientific paper published in peer-reviewed journals still remains the most important, established and authentic medium of record and dissemination of the scientific findings through the scholarly communication channel. Flaws in peer review, the 1970’s serial crisis and ‘many editors of reputed commercial journals have resigned, have all paved the way for open access movement. Introduction

Scope of the study The scope of this study is confined to five major research institutions in Karnataka located in Bangalore. They are 1.Indian Institute of Science (IISc) 2.National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) 3.Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) 4.Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) 5.University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) This study is limited to find out the use and awareness of Open Access Journals among the life scientists.

To find whether cost free access to article are helpful to reach maximum professionals/ users Find the opinion on: Does the open access journals are peer reviewed or not? To find whether any user/ reader can read/ download/ copy/ distribute/ search/ link to the full text of the open access articles at free of cost and no restriction of copyright. To find the pulse of the scientists on OA and OAJ publishing Objective of the study

The investigators have used multiple data gathering research methods such as Questionnaires, Citation Study and Web log analysis. Necessary statistical measures such as Mean; Standard Deviation (SD); and Correlation Analysis was used for tabulation and interpretation of data. The literature search using Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA) from 1969 to date and the Google Scholar has been carried out. Methodology

Data analysis and interpretation InstituteYesNoTotal IIHR60 (100%)-60 IISc50 (100%)-50 JNCSAR40 (100%)-40 UAS120 (100%)-120 NCBS30 (100%)-30 Total300 (100%)300 Free access helps article to reach maximum users: Institution wise All scientists from different institutes and subjects felt the necessity of cost free access of articles, as it is very helpful to reach maximum professional and users. None of them disagreed for cost free access to articles.

Data analysis and interpretation Open access journals are peer reviewed: Institution wise InstitutePeer ReviewedTotal YesNoTest Statistics IIHR58 (96.7%)2 (3.3%)60 Chi-square=7.639; p=.106 IISc48 (96%)2(4%)50 JNCSAR36 (90%)4(10%)40 UAS118 (98.3%)2(1.7%)120 NCBS27 (90%)3(10%)30 Total287 (95.7%)13 (4.3%)300 Chi-square p value.000

Open access has emerged and would continue to grow amid a strong commercial publisher lobby With the initial glitches on OA gone, it is expected a great proliferation of scholarly communication even more Scientists need to start publishing more and more in Open access journals to get the wide audience worldwide Findings

Library professional need to advocate more open access journals among their scientific user community for two reasons – To counter the disparity between budget and the actual user requirements – To get the easy and fast access to the scientific literature Library professionals to start exploring the possibilities of establishing their own institutional repositories to exercise self-sufficiency in the future Findings

Conclusion Open access has evolved and it is going to be there in spite of a strong commercial publisher vicious pricing model as well as lobby against open access and open access journals. Open access initiative has crossed all the hindrances and hurdles; it has come across and continues to pose a threat to the commercial publishing/publishers lobby…

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