Good News from India: Open Access Journals Work!

According to this piece by independent journalist Frederick Noronha, "an innovative experiment in publishing, by a medical doctor from Mumbai, has sparked off a wide range of academic publications, giving authors hundreds of new readers and a genuine chance to create relevant new knowledge." Open access (OA) refers to the free online availability of digital content, a model best known (and perhaps most feasible) for peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journal articles, because scholars publish without expectation of payment.

He explains that the 33-year-old paediatrician Dr. Dev Kumar Sahoo has launched a Mumbai, India-based open publishing firm called Medknow Publications Private Limited; as of Noronha's writing, the company had published 33 academic (mostly medical) journals, put them online, and made them accessible to all - without a fee. Dr. Sahoo's aim is to "provide solutions for the scientific publishing community, helping in publication and dissemination of the research and thus converting research to knowledge." Medknow has a staff of 20, and also does a lot of outsourcing.

According to the Medknow website, the firm "has successfully put in place an original electronic manuscript submission and peer review system [click here for access] for the first time in India." Instituted in 2001, over 10,000 manuscripts have reportedly been processed through it. "Eliminating use of postal or hard copy submissions, this online submission and processing of articles has resulted in considerable decrease in the submission to decision (turnaround) time."

Noronha suggests here that the Medknow experience "flies in the face of the traditional wisdom - that if you share your knowledge, you won't be able to earn from it. MedKnow shares its information promiscously, and not just survives, but thrives." As Dr. Sahoo explains, printing and mailing a journal constitutes 85-95% of the cost of producing it; by spending 5-15% more to put it online, readership actually increases, an advantage he describes as "tremendous". For example, Medknow's first online venture, India's Journal of Post Graduate Medicine reportedly grew from a 2001 print circulation of 300-400 to about 3,000-4,000 visitors per day; the journal received 19 article submissions in 1999, in contrast to 770 in 2005. Dr. Sahoo also believes that the OA model is enhancing the quality of the journals - particularly those from developing countries - as well as increasing visibility, attracting authors, encouraging more citations, and making misconduct (i.e. plagiarism) more visible. In Dr. Sahoo's estimation, "Very few (academic) journals in India have a subscription of over 200-300 journals. None of our journals that we've published for more than three years have lost subscriptions. In fact, we have gained our print subscriptions."

To request a copy of the full article, please see the author's contact details, below.