An Overview of Publication Patterns in India's Agricultural Research Community: Journals, Open Access, and Preprints
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Abstract
In April and May 2020, a survey was conducted to gather opinions and experiences regarding publications and preprints. The majority of respondents were from the agricultural science field in India. The survey revealed that the 'Journal's Impact Factor' was deemed the most important factor when choosing a suitable journal for publication. When publishing articles in Open Access, most respondents had paid Article Processing Charges, funded by various sources such as project funds, institutional support, and personal funds. While respondents expressed trust in preprints and favored institutional repositories as their preprint platform, the main drivers for sharing preprints were increased indexing, citation and visibility, and inclusion in assessments. However, the survey found that the majority of respondents had never cited preprints, nor had their preprints been cited, indicating a need for increased advocacy for preprints in India.
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Peer review report
Title: Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in Indian Scholarly Community: Insights from a Survey
version: 2
Referee: Moumita Koley
Institution: Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
email: moumitakoley@iisc.ac.in
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2394-0663
General assessment
The author of the article provides a limited perspective on Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in the Indian Scholarly Community. This article sheds some light on open science practices, considering the scarcity of data on this topic. The main drawbacks, the survey conducted in the article is the only methodology used, and it is limited to a small group of researchers. Understanding publication patterns (Open Access publication and use of preprints) should be made using bibliometric studies. Another drawback of the …
Peer review report
Title: Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in Indian Scholarly Community: Insights from a Survey
version: 2
Referee: Moumita Koley
Institution: Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India
email: moumitakoley@iisc.ac.in
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2394-0663
General assessment
The author of the article provides a limited perspective on Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in the Indian Scholarly Community. This article sheds some light on open science practices, considering the scarcity of data on this topic. The main drawbacks, the survey conducted in the article is the only methodology used, and it is limited to a small group of researchers. Understanding publication patterns (Open Access publication and use of preprints) should be made using bibliometric studies. Another drawback of the article is that it primarily focuses on researchers from the agriculture field, which is over-represented and makes it misleading to claim that the study represents the entire Indian scholarly community. This is particularly problematic since the physical and chemical sciences dominate the Indian research community, and data from these fields are entirely absent in the article.
Essential revisions that are required to verify the manuscript
This study is at an early stage; more data points and representations of various fields are necessary to claim validity. Moreover, a mixed-method approach is more suitable.
Other suggestions to improve the manuscript
The introduction section mentions several preprint servers, but some are not operational. For example, ArabiXiv is not accepting new submissions, and IndiaRxiv has few submissions. Since there are limited responses from other South Asian countries, the author has chosen to focus on India. However, it is unclear if the percentages of career levels of professionals are representative of India alone.
One drawback of this article is the over-representation of researchers from the agriculture field. In the Indian ecosystem, agricultural research institutes are separate from the general university system and governed by different funding and governance systems. Therefore, the norms and practices can vary significantly.
In the STEM subjects, Chemical Sciences contributed the most publications in India from 2015-2019, followed by Physical Sciences. Biological Sciences had fewer publications during this period(the method used for this statement: a quick search in the Web of Science). However, this data does not represent the publication behaviour of the major constituents (Physical and Chemical Science) of the Indian academic community. Therefore, it is suggested to shift the narrative towards agricultural science.
The statement "patent and scholarly data website, India has produced 19,76,966 scholarly works till date" lacks a timeframe.
The APC section statements are unclear. As far as current knowledge goes, no study has shown a correlation between JIF and APC. The statement "Was it because of JIFs they must publish in Open Access when there is Green Route to Open Access (depositing in subject or institutional repositories)" is unclear. Moreover, while Indian national funding agencies have green OA mandates, they have not been enforced. Several studies indicate that Indian researchers' adoption of green OA is low, so authors have no obligation to publish OA.
The article concludes that advocacy is needed, but it is essential to understand the research assessment frameworks of Indian academia and funding agencies. Without recognition in assessment, researchers are unlikely to adopt Preprints. Preprint submission is becoming the norm in some disciplines, which may improve the situation.
Decision
Requires revisions: The manuscript contains objective errors or fundamental flaws that must be addressed and/or major revisions are suggested.
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Peer review report
Title: Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in Indian Scholarly Community: Insights from a Survey
version: 2
Referee: Subhash C. Lakhotia
Institution: Banaras Hindu University
email: Lakhotia@bhu.ac.in
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1842-8411
General assessment
This manuscript covers an important issue about publication practices followed by science researchers in India and neighboring countries. The study is based on a survey conducted by authors.
Essential revisions that are required to verify the manuscript
While the inferences are interpreted to reflect perceptions of researchers in the India, their general applicability is greatly limited by the very small sample size (few hundreds) for a big country like India. Moreover, a majority of the limited responders are from a specific area (Agriculture), which …
Peer review report
Title: Publication Patterns and Perceptions of Open Science in Indian Scholarly Community: Insights from a Survey
version: 2
Referee: Subhash C. Lakhotia
Institution: Banaras Hindu University
email: Lakhotia@bhu.ac.in
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1842-8411
General assessment
This manuscript covers an important issue about publication practices followed by science researchers in India and neighboring countries. The study is based on a survey conducted by authors.
Essential revisions that are required to verify the manuscript
While the inferences are interpreted to reflect perceptions of researchers in the India, their general applicability is greatly limited by the very small sample size (few hundreds) for a big country like India. Moreover, a majority of the limited responders are from a specific area (Agriculture), which further limits a wider applicability of the survey results.
Other suggestions to improve the manuscript
With respect to the presentation of results, the authors have mixed the survey results with what should be done to 'rectify' the weaknesses or inappropriate practices as perceived by the authors. It would be better if the two components are kept distinct so that the carry-home message from the study can be clearly followed.
Decision
Requires revisions: The manuscript contains objective errors or fundamental flaws that must be addressed and/or major revisions are suggested.
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