Delhi Declaration on Open Access

Published by Open Access India on February 14, 2018. Read the original post here.

This declaration was drafted by a group comprising of researchers and professionals working for opening up access to research outputs for public good in India. The declaration is aimed at scientific communities, scholarly societies, publishers, funders, universities and research institutions to promote openness in science and research communications.

Preamble

The South Asian region, home to 24% of the world’s population faces major challenges such as hunger, poverty and inequality. These challenges become the collective responsibility of scholars and experts in research universities across the country. Consequently, it becomes imperative that  research institutes share scientific research outputs and accelerate  scientific research. The Open Access movement which aims for making all  ‘publicly funded research outcomes publicly available for the public good’ is gaining momentum.

“Open means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose(subject, at most, to requirements that preserve provenance and openness)” –Open Definition.

As per the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), ‘Open Access’ (to scholarly literature) is “free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself”.

Since the launch of the BOAI on 14th Feb. 2002, efforts are being made by various scholarly societies, academic communities and governments to make scholarly content Open. However, due to various reasons, the full potential of Open Access is not realised by the producers (scholars), publishers and readers (scholars and society at large) of this knowledge and the world is still disconnected in terms of sharing the scholarly content openly.

As per the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (SJR), India ranks 9th in the year 2016 producing about 13 lakhs articles. However, 82% of them are not Open Access and the Institutional Repositories in India are sparsely populated in spite of having Open Access mandates in place. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) lists only 200 out of the 20,000+ journals being published from India.

The historical BOAI is now 16 years old, but still there is a need for all of us to be educated and empowered to realize the power of Open Access to scholarly content and harness it for public good in India. With burgeoning commercial scholarly publications and increasing diversity in terms of availability of & accessibility to the information, we need to create a necessary framework for making Open Access the default by 2025 in India.

To ensure the wide availability and encourage the use of of research data and information for the purpose of addressing multifaceted  challenges, Open Access to publicly funded research and scholarly outputs are to be made available under Open Licenses (e.g. Creative Commons) while duly acknowledging  the intellectual property (work/rights of the creators/producers/authors).

Declaration

We, the contributors and signatories of this declaration, members of the Open Access India,  Open Access communities of practice in India and the attendees of the OpenCon 2018 New Delhi held on 3rd Feb., 2018 at Acharya Narendra Dev College, Kalkaji, New Delhi (University of Delhi) agree to issue this declaration:

1. We advocate for the practice of Open Science (sharing  research methods and results openly which will avoid “reinventing the wheel”) and adoption of open technologies for the development of models for sharing science and scholarship (Open Scholarship) to accelerate the progress of research and to address the real societal challenges
2. We will strive to publish our interim research outputs as preprints or postprints (e.g. Institutional Repositories) and encourage our peers and supervisors to do the same to make our research open and actionable in a timely manner.
3. We will practice and encourage researchers and scientists to implement openness in peer-reviewing and other editorial services, influence the scholarly societies to flip their journals into Open Access and will contribute for the development of whitelist of Open Access journals in India adhering to the “Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing”.
4. We will garner support of the relevant stakeholders (scholars, journal editorial teams, university libraries, research funders, authorities’ in-charge of dissemination of scholarship in higher education) for spearheading the Open Access movement.
5. We will take forward the concept of Open Access to further bring all the publicly funded research outputs (not limited to journal literature alone) to be freely available under open licenses to the public to use, reuse and share in any media in open formats.
6. We will impress upon policy makers to adopt an open evaluation system for research and an institutional reward system for practicing openness in science ,scientific communications and academic research across disciplines including Humanities and Social Sciences
7. We will support and work for an alternate reward system in recognition and promotion not in terms of the ‘Impact Factor’ of the journals, but the ‘Impact’ of the articles/scholarship in science and the society and impress upon all the scientists/scholars, research funders, research institutes, universities, academies and scholarly societies to sign the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).
8. We strongly agree with the Joint COAR-UNESCO Statement on Open Access ,  Jussieu Call and Dakar Declaration. And will also follow the international initiative Open Access 2020, to develop roadmaps to support sustainable Open Access scholarly communication models which are free of charge for the authors and free of charge availability to the readers.
9. While learning from South South cooperation on Open Access,  will work for developing a framework for Open Access in India and South Asia: National Policies for Open Access and country-specific action plans will be formulated aimed at making Open Access as the default in India and South Asia, by 2025.
10. For creating more awareness on Open Access, infrastructure, capacity building, funding and policy mechanisms, as well as incentivizing for the Open Access, we come forward to share success stories, studies and discussions during the Open Access Week.

Adopted on 14th February 2018

Signatories (along with their affiliation):

Anasua Mukherjee, BRICSLICS
Anubha Sinha, CIS India
Anup Kumar Das, Open Access India; CSSP, JNU
Arul George Scaria, NLU Delhi
Barnali Roy Choudhury, Open Access India
Bhakti R Gole, Open Access India
Girija Goyal, ReFigure.org
Javed Azmi, Jamia Hamdard
Kavya Manohar, Open Access India
Neha Sharma
Nirmala Menon IIT Indore
Sailesh Patnaik, Access to Knowledge, CIS
Savithri Singh, Creative Commons India
Sridhar Gutam, Open Access India
Subhashish Panigrahi, Internet Society, O Foundation
Vijay Bhasker Lode, Open Access India
Virendra Kamalvanshi, Banaras Hindu University
Tanveer Hasan A K, Access to Knowledge,  Bangalore
Waseem A Malla

Ahsan Ullah, Bangladesh
Anila Sulochana, Central University of Tamil Nadu
Anoh Kouao Antoine, Ecole Supérieure Africaine des TIC, Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Antonio Solís Lima,México
Atarino Helieisar, FSM Supreme Court Law Library, Federated States of Micronesia
Bidyarthi Dutta, Vidyasagar University
Binoy Mathew, INELI
Boye Komla Dogbe, Ministère De La Communication, De La Culture, Togo
Srikanth Reddy, CBIT
Cajetan Onyeneke, Imo State University, Nigeria
Chantal Moukoko Kamole, Universitty of Douala, Cameroun
D Puthira Prathap, Extension Education Society
Daniel Bossikponnon, Ministère du plan et du Développement, Bénin
Dare Adeleke, the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
Dilip Man Sthapit, TU Central Library/LIMISEC, Nepal
Emmy Medard Muhumuza, Busitema University Library, Uganda
Fabian Yelsang, Institute for Interdisciplinary Research and Consultancy Services, Ghana
Fayaz Loan, University of Kashmir
GJP Dixit, Central Library, Central University of Karnataka
Gurpreet Singh Sohal, GGDSD College
Harinder Pal Singh Kalra, Punjabi University
Hue Bui, Thainguyen University of Sciences, Vietnam
Jacinto Dávila, Universidad de Los Andes, Venezuela
Jaishankar K, International Journal of Cyber Criminology
Jancy Gupta, National Dairy Research Institute
JK Vijayakumar
Jonathan Tennant, Open Science MOOC, Germany
Julián Vaquerizo-Madrid, Unidad de Neurología Clínica Evolutiva, Spain
Kamal Hossain, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB), Bangladesh
Kasongo Ilunga Felix, Democratic Republic of Congo
Kavita Chaddha
Kojo Ahiakpa, Research Desk Consulting Ltd., Ghana
Krishna Chaitanya, Velaga, the Wikipedia Library
Kumaresan Chidambaranathan, New Zealand
Kunwar Singh, Banaras Hindu University
Luis Saravia, PERU
Mahendra Sahu, Gandhi Institution of Engineering & Technology,Gunupur
Maidhili S., Meenakshi College for Women
Manika Lamba, University of Delhi
Md. Nasir Uddin, BRAC University, Bangladesh
Md. Nazim Uddin, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
Md. Nurul Islam, International Islamic University Chittagong, Bangladesh
Md. Shahajada Masud Anowarul Haque, BRAC University, Bangladesh
Mir Sakhawat Hossain, Kabi Nazrul Government College, Bangladesh
Munusamy Natarajan, CSIR-NISCAIR
Murtoza Kh Ali, Bangladesh
Subash Pillai, ICAR-Indian Institute of Farming Systems Research
Nasar Ahmed Shah, Aligarh Muslim University
Nimesh Oza, Sardar Patel University
Niraj Chaudhary, United States
Poonam Bharti
Prerna Singh, Central University of Jammu
Rabia Bashir, Law and Parliamentary Affairs, Pakistan
Rajendran Murugan, Department of Education, University of Delhi
Rama Kant Shukla, Delhi Technological University
Raman Nair R, Centre for Informatics Research and Development
Rebat Kumar Dhakal, KUSOED Integrity Alliance, Nepal
Revocatus Kuluchumila, AMUCTA, Tanzania
M. Humayun Kabir, Tutul, National Health Library & Documentation Centre, Bangladesh
Sabuj Kumar, Chaudhuri, University of Calcutta
Sandipan Banerjee
Satwinder Bangar
Shahana Jahan, Bangladesh
Shamnad Basheer, SpicyIP
Shivendra Singh
Shreyashi Ray, NLU, Delhi
Sivakrishna Sivakoti
Soumen Kayal, Maharaja Manindra chandra College
Srinivasarao Muppidi, Sanketika Vidya Parishad Engineering College
Stephanie Gross, MSLIS from Pratt Institute, USA
Sujata Tetali, MACS-Agharkar Research Institute
Surjodeb Lulu Hono Basu
Susmita Das, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, Bangladesh
Susmita Chakraborty, University of Calcutta
Thilagavathi, Thillai Natarajan, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women
Umesh Kumar
Umme Habiba, Noakhali Science and Technology University, Bangladesh
Vinita, Jain, M D College of Arts, Science and Commerce
Virginia Inés Simón, Red Iberoamericana de Expertos sobre la Convención de los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad, Argentina
Vrushali Dandawate, AISSMS College of Engineering/DOAJ
Waqar Khan, Dhaka Shishu Hospital, Bangladesh
Wilbert Zvakafa, Chinhoyi University of Technology, Zimbabwe
Yasser Ahmed, South Valley University, Egypt
Yohann Thomas, Wikimedia India
Zakir Hossain, International Association of School Librarianship, International Schools Region, Switzerland
Dahmane Madjid, CERIST, Algeria
Nagarjuna G, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, TIFR
Sulyman Sodeeq Abdulakeem, Federal Polytechnic Offa, Nigeria
Leena Shah, DOAJ
Hamady Issaga Sy, Sénégal
Sanket Oswal, Wikimedia India
Chitralekha, University of Delhi
Chris Zielinski, University of Winchester, United Kingdom
Mourya Biswas, Prateek Media