76% more papers by varsities after access to online journals

Indian universities, including the University of Mumbai, finally seem to be making headway after lagging in the number of research publications in national and international journals, new data has revealed. Snehal Rebello reports.

Indian universities, including the University of Mumbai, finally seem to be making headway after lagging in the number of research publications in national and international journals, new data has revealed.

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Data sourced from the Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), Thomson Press at Philapdelphia, an international research platform, has found that there has been more than 75% increase in the number of research publications from 50 Indian universities between 2005 and 2009 as compared to the previous five years (2000 to 2004). These 50 Indian universities were among the first phase to gain electronic access to high quality national and international academic journals as part of the UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium since 2004.

The number of research publications by the 50 universities between 2005 and 2009 rose to 43,768 as against 24, 861 from 2000-2004.

A three-member team from the Information and Library Network Centre at Ahmedabad and the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune, used found that research output is significantly higher in science as against social science and arts and humanities.

"Today, research culture in the universities is better with the facility of providing electronic access to literature. Students and faculty can now consult literature on the subject from institutes across the world," said Jagdish Arora, director, Information and Library Network Centre, Ahmedabad and co-author of the paper. The paper 'Impact of access to e-resources through the UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium on research output of member universities' is published the latest issue of Current Science by the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore.