Open Access to Scholarly Literature in India - Centre for Internet and ...

In terms of subject-wise spread, biomedical sciences (all
cal and related life sciences) account for the highest percentage of
journals covered. Table 2 reflects subject-wise coverage of
nals in Open J-Gate. It should be noted that J-Gate classification
system does place a journal in more than one subject category depending
on the multi-disciplinary nature of the journal.
Features & Functionalities
Open J-Gate is designed to be simple and easy to use. All features and functionalities
in J-Gate are provided in Open J-Gate also. The service has two Dr A Ratnakar modules
for users to navigate. Users can: (a) browse the table of contents of the latest issues (like
in Current Contents); and (b) Search across all journals or within a
selected list of journals by broad subject categories.
Future
We estimate the total coverage of free journals in J-Gate at
around 30 per cent, with number of freely available articles at
around 20 per cent. At current growth trends, we expect the open
access content to cross 50 per cent in the next 10 years. With the
gradually increasing quantitative pressure, open access content will N V Sathyanarayana
acquire its acceptance standard in qualitative terms too. The journals in the open access
domain now provide critical mass of content for exploring an independent citation index.
Open J-Gate is expected to undergo a major enhancement in its content and user interface
in the coming months as J-Gate itself will be moving to a new platform in 2011,
supporting several new innovative features and functionalities. For some strange reason
usage of Open J-Gate is much wider outside India than within.
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