G.JAYANTHI MLIS FINAL YEAR STUDENT BHARATHIDASAN UNIVERSITY TRICHY

INTRODUCTION Open access to scholarly information is a burning issue in web based education and research nowadays. Open access has become an increasingly important and potentially divisive issue in recent years as journal inflation rates have increased. Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What make it possible are the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder. OA literature is not free to produce, even if it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature. The question is not whether scholarly literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than by charging readers and creating access barriers.

Selected open access resources The following are the open access resources were selected for this study and the details are: DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals The aim of the Directory of Open Access Journals ( is to increase the visibility and ease of use of open access scientific and scholarly journals thereby promoting their increased usage and impact. The Directory aims to be comprehensive and cover all open access scientific and scholarly journals that use a quality control system to guarantee the content.

NPTEL-National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning The main objective of NPTEL program is to enhance the quality of engineering education in the country by developing curriculum based video and web courses. This is being carried out by IITs (Seven), IISc Bangalore and other premier institutions as a collaborative project.

NDLTD – Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations The Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD), an international organization dedicated to promoting the adoption, creation, use, dissemination, and preservation of electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs). We support electronic publishing and open access to scholarship in order to enhance the sharing of knowledge worldwide. Our website includes resources for university administrators, librarians, faculty, students, and the general public.

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY  To identify the level of awareness about Open Access Resources among Research Scholars of Bharathidasan University.  To examine the tools used to get awareness on Open Access Resources by Research Scholars.  To analyse the usage of Open Access Resources by Research Scholars.  To study about the barriers of Open Access Resources by Research Scholars.

METHODOLOGY The study is focused to identify the awareness of Open Access Resources (OAR) among Research Scholars of Bharathidasan University. In order to fulfill the objectives of the study, a well structured questionnaire was designed and administrated directly to the Research Scholars by using simple random sampling technique. It was divided into four sections such as, Awareness of Open Access Resources, Usage of Open Access Resources, and Tools for Open Access Resources and Barriers of accessing Open Access Resources. The respondents were categorized into two major groups based on the research programmes as M.Phil and Ph.D. A total of 450 questionnaires randomly administrated and 274 responses received (60.8%). The data collected were converted into SPSS for analysis.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The Bharathidasan University library got a very good collection in open access resources and collection development on continues basis. Now it is required to check the usage of the open access resources. Hence this project ‘Usage and awareness of open access Resources by the student and research scholar of Bharathidasan University’ has been initiated

DATA ANALYSIS S.NoDescription No. of Questionnaire Received % 1. Research scholars Ph.D % 2. M.Phil % Total274100%

AWARENESS ON OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES BY PROGRAMMES S.No Descripti on Ph.D n=113 M.Phil n=161 LowMediumHigh M Std. Deviatio n RLowMediumHighM Std. Deviatio n R 1 DOAJ (Dir ectory of Open Access Journals ) % % % % % % NPTEL( N ational programm e on Technolog y Enhanced Learning) % % % % % % NDLTD( Networke d Digital Libraries of Thesis and Dissertati on) % % % % % % OAJSE- Open Access journal Search Engine % % % % % % Open J- Gate % % % % % % Shodhga nga % % % % % %

Cont… It is found from the table 3 that majority of the Ph.D were highly aware of DOAJ (Mean 2.30) and NPTEL (Mean2.30), occupied first rank, followed by Open J-Gate (Mean 2.16) ranked third rank. whereas the M.Phil were highly aware of same DOAJ (Mean 2.21) occupied first rank, followed by Open J-Gate (Mean 2.19) placed in the second rank, NPTEL (Mean 2.18) occupied third rank. It is further found that very few Ph.D and M.Phil were aware of OAJSE (Mean1.69), (Mean1.82) and occupied last ranking of the Open Access Resources.

USAGE ON OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES BY GENDER S.No Male n=177 Female n=97 Desc ripti on Pooraverage Satisfac tion Good Very Good Mean Std. Deviation RPooraverage satisfact ion Good Very Good Mean Std. Deviatio n R 1 DOAJ( Directo ry of Open Access Journa ls ) % % % % % % % 0.0% % 9 9.3% NPTE L (Natio nal progra mme on Technol ogy Enhanc ed Learnin g ) % % % % % % % % 0.0% 9 9.3% NDLT D(Net worked Digital Librari es of Thesis and Dissert ation) % % % % 0.0% % % % 0.0% 9 9.3% OAJSE -Open Access journal Search Engine % % % % 8 4.5% % 4 4.1% 0.0% 9 9.3% 9 9.3% Open J-Gate % % % % 4 2.3% % 0.0% % 9 9.3% % Shodhg anga % % % % 4 2.3% % % % 0.0% 0.0%

Cont… It is found from table 8 that the majority of Gender belongs to Male were highly used NPTEL (Mean 2.97) occupied first rank, followed by DOAJ (Mean 2.82) ranked second Open J-Gate (Mean 2.61) placed in the third rank, whereas the Female were highly used Open J-Gate (Mean 2.47) occupied first rank, followed by NDLTD (Mean2.30) placed in the second rank, DOAJ (Mean 2.19) occupied third rank. It is further found that “Shodhganga” were used very less by both genders.

OPEN ACCESS LITERACY TOOLS BY SUBJECT S.No Descript ion Science n=176 Humanities n=98 YesNoMean Std. Deviation RYesNoMean Std. Deviation R % % % % E- Discussion % % % % Library Profession al % % % % Journals / Resource Websites % % % % Conference /Seminar/W orkshop % % % % Library Website % % % %

CONT…. It is found from table 13 that majority of Science and Humanities (50.8%), (52.8%), were preferred to use E-Discussion to collect information on Open Access Resources and placed in the first rank, followed by Library Website (41.5%), (34.0%) and occupied second rank. The Science were given least important for the Library Professional (27.7%), and (23.8% ),whereas the Humanities were also given least importance for Conference/Seminar/Workshop (28.5%) and Library Professional(26.4%) both occupied fifth and sixth rank respectively.

BARRIERS ON OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES BY NATIVITY S.No Rural n=167 Urban n=107 Strongly Disagree DisagreeNo Opinion Agree Strongly agree Mean Std. Deviation R Strongly Disagree Disagree No Opinion Agree Strongly agree Mean Std. Deviati on R 1 Difficult to locate the URL of the journals/Re sources % % % % % % % % % % The resources are not constantly available at same URLs address % % % % % % % % % % The information may not be available later % % % % % % % % % 7 6.5% The Open access journals are not always authoritativ e 4 2.4% % % % % % % % % % Lack of uniqueness % % % % % % % % % % Server down is a major problem in open access Resources % 4 2.4% % % % % 5 4.7% % % % a.7 7 Lack of uniform standard in Open access journal publishing industries % 0.0% % % % % 0.0% % % % a.8 8 Lack of awareness of open access Resources % % % % % % % % % %

CONT…. It is found from the table 18 that majority of the Rural and Urban scholars were found the barrier as “Lack of awareness of open access Resources” (Mean 3.68), (Mean 3.56) occupied first rank, followed by “Lack of uniform standard in Open access journal publishing industries” (Mean 3.64) (Mean 3.48) ranked second. Further it found that Rural scholars were facing “The Open access journals are not always authoritative” (Mean 3.61) placed in the third rank, whereas Urban scholars were facing “Server down is a major problem in open access Resources” (Mean 3.45) occupied third rank. The Barriers on “The information may not be available later” (Mean 3.28), and “Difficult to locate the URL of the journals/Resources” (Mean 3.19) among Rural and “Difficult to locate the URL of the journals/Resources” (3.10) among Urban both were ranked and also found in the low level in overall ranking of the Open Access Resources.

CONCLUSION Open Access Resources are published in a variety of forms like Articles, conference papers, books, research reports in all disciplines. The authors are also motivated to publish their research articles in the open access journals to increase the usage of their articles.Morover, the publishers also interested to publish the journals in the open access domain. The study has analyzed the awareness, usage, tool, and barriers of Research Scholars towards Open Access Resources. The following are recommended based on the present study  The publication of Open Access Resource is tremendous increased in all fields of knowledge, but the usage is not increased equally due to lack of awareness, infrastructure facilities. It is the responsibilities of the LIS department, LIS professionals to create awareness about Open Access Resources among the user community.  The publishers should exhibit their products and service by means of conducting seminars, conferences, and workshops in collaboration with educational institutions.