Dr Venkateshwara Rama Raju, MS (UK), D.Sc. (UK) PhD (Neuroscience – Neurology, Functional neurosurgery, AI-ML Biomedical Neuroengineering)
Professor & Principal Investigator (DST-CSRI, New Delhi, 2018-2021)
As an author – researcher of many (>200) open access journal articles (OAJAs), I would say that the OA movement has emerged in response to a number of factors: growing journal costs and disparities in access to scholarship, the emergence of the internet and world wide web and public links like Google, Web of Science, ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Scopus, Vidwan, etc., also the growing number big ratio challenges which involve large and distinct team conflict.
Technology and technological knowledge are increasing day by day and the demand is also increasing for OA journal articles. The institutes/universities encouraging research—scholars to publish their PhD etc. in open access journals so that through their h-index, metrics like Eigen factors etc. they are recruited in pioneering institutions and universities that are of national importance in and abroad. So, the demand is very high. But again, questions arise in connection with the quality. Generally quality research papers are only accepted following a peer review process. So, quality of the research does matter in OA journals.
Whilst open access generally refers to published scholarly journal articles, and open movement incorporates open-data, open/educational-resources, and open science. These facets of open research impact different communities in different ways, but all contribute an important piece to open scholarship.
At a more basic level, OA applies published scholarly material, presenting it available online cost-free to all. OA fits into scholarly communication norms. Just like any reputable journal, OA journals are, peer reviewed, indexed in research databases, and have copyright agreements.
The press has a long history of experimentation, and IP IJN journals (published under KERF) program has been at its leading forefront. The OAP program (OAPB) began with the transition of Information Technology and International Development from subscription-based to open access circa ~ 2 decades ago (in 2006?). The first and foremost yet longest-running open access journals (OAJs) started publishing from 2009 onwards. The first OA publication of “Computational linguistics” was in 2009 from MIT, America.
This innovative spirit has continued with trailblazing publications like the IP Indian journal of neurosciences which is our initiating overlie journal dedicated to combating misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic-2019.
The journals make it easy for author researchers to comply with OA publishing and science requirements from funders or institutions and ensure their scholarship reaches the widest global audience possible. Types of OAJs are published as conventional/ traditional (free of charge), green and diamond/or gold (paid).
Flexible open access models:OA journals publishing three ways which meet the needs of individual publications and editorial partners:hybrid journals accommodate open access requests on a case-by-case basis, Gold open access journals fund open access through APC fees paid by author – researchers or institutions, Diamond open access journals charge no APC fees and are often sustained by outside funding.
The IP Indian Journal of Neurosciences (IJN) open access, peer-reviewed quarterly journal publishing since 2015 and is published under the Khyati Education and Research Foundation (KERF), is registered as a non-profit society (under the society registration act, 1860), Government of India.
OA is free, immediate, online manuscripts of research articles for re-use rights, which is about all scientific research content available for anyone anywhere in the world to read and access and build upon. So, people can do interesting things in new ways with the materials and methods.
Through them – the idea is to make the research literature much more valuable.
The history of the model is that publishing scientific research innovative engineering technical and technological manuscript especially ones with complex detailed color figures/images and pictures was expensive. So, if you intended your article to be distributed broadly and widely, you sent it to some journal. So that the Editor-in-Chief and his/her associates would manage and arrange the review process, i.e., they will send your article to peer reviewers, communications with reviewers (via Editor-in-Chief and associates) and revisions and ultimately something would be accepted.
Having said all the above, I as an author of many research articles in OA IJN (my favorite choice journal in the areas of neurosciences) and other journals of KERF (>50), encourage the research scholars to publish their work in KERF journals and seek better h-index or your career point of view.
