Unveiling the present status of open access repositories: a comparative analysis of India and China

Abstract

PurposeOpen access repository is an essential element of an organization's strategy for enhancing the visibility and accessibility of its intellectual output to a global audience. Owing to its importance, the study aims to explore the current status of open access repositories in India and China by analyzing the different characteristic features of repositories.Design/methodology/approachThe data for the study is collected from OpenDoar which is labeled as a quality assured repository directory across the globe. The country-wise contribution of Asian repositories is extracted from OpenDoar using various filtration options available in the repository. Further, the URL of every Indian and Chinese repository was manually accessed to gather the following metadata: Repository Type, Software Usage, Repository Interface Language, Year of Development, Subject Coverage, Content Coverage, and the utilization of Web 2.0 tools by repositories. FindingsThe findings of the study highlights that among the Asian countries, India is at 4th rank while China is at 5th rank in terms of repository count. The study depicts that India has shown more promising growth than China. However, both the countries mainly focused on institutional repositories while disciplinary, aggregated, and governmental repositories are very few in number, therefore building such repositories is the need of an hour. Dspace as the preferred software and English as a dominant interface language occupy the prominent places in the repositories of both countries. Moreover, the repositories of both countries have embraced web 2.0 tools like RSS 1.0, RSS 2.0 and Atom with little presence of social media tools.Research limitations/implicationsThe study has limitations, and results should be interpreted with caution. The comparison between the two countries is based on only one data source, i.e. OpenDoar. However, there is a possibility that future studies can take various repository directories as a data source that will give a clear picture of comparison.Originality/valueThe study can be beneficial to the policymakers and the administrators of these two regions as it will provide them a vivid picture of the diffrent characteristic features of their repositories so that they can formulate better policies that will be helpful to foster green open access.