Open access repositories in India: Characteristics and future potential

The present study examines the development of open access repositories in India. Institutional repositories development in India dates back to the development of Eprints @ IISc by TB Rajasekhar in 2002. Since then considerable development of institutional repositories has occurred. The data for the study were collected from OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories) in January 2015. OpenDOAR provides a quality-assured listing of open access repositories around the world. The findings of the study show that the Indian repositories are also represented in the Ranking of Web Repositories. It also indicates that the trends towards the development of open access repositories are increasing among higher education and research institutions. It serves as a means for the dissemination of the intellectual output of the institutions that may be a research organization or university to communities and to the public at large. It is the prime responsibility of public funded organizations to reveal the results of the research to the public.