AuthorCafé, in collaboration with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, hosted a one day seminar on ‘Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETDs) Lifecycle Management’ in New Delhi on the 30th of January 2020. 

The seminar aimed to discuss and promote best practices, increase the capacity of academic libraries, and preserve the ETD lifecycle throughout. The panelists included  Dr Ramesh C Gaur, Dean, IGNCA, Dr Shanthi Krishnamoorthy, President, AuthorCafé,  Prof. J P Singh Joorel, Director, INFLIBNET, Prof. Ram Ramaswamy, President, Indian Academy of Science, Neelanjan Sinha, Product Head, AuthorCafé, Soumadri Roy Chowdhury, Chief Architect, AuthorCafé and Mr Manoj Kumar, scientist-D(CS), INFLIBNET. 

In his opening address, Dr Gaur highlighted that Google indexes only 15-20% of the academic content, He talked about two main benefits of ETD

1) Improved visibility of research by putting it online

2) Helps prevent plagiarism. 

Dr Sacchidanand Joshi was critical of the Academic Performance Index (API) scoring mechanism, saying it encourages researchers to publish in predatory journals, thereby reducing the quality of the content published in India. 

Prof. J P Singh Joorel discussed the prevalent issue of theses’ availability only in hard copy, making them unutilized and untapped knowledge resources. Of 920+ universities, only 2-3% institutions have their own institutional repositories. It was disheartening to realize how much of India’s research findings just aren’t accessible. He detailed the solution of Shodhganga, which aims to aid with the visibility and dissemination of research published at Indian universities.  

Prof. Ram Ramaswamy said “one of the biggest problems ETD faces is that it doesn’t have  champions”. For individuals, it is difficult to be champions, but institutions with the right intent and policies can drive the change more effectively, becoming the ideal champions. If India’s information can be aggregated, it can do wonders. Strength lies in unity of universities.

AuthorCafé has been designed to assist researchers and institutions in addressing  challenges they face in academic research writing, publishing and accessing. 

AuthorCafé was met with praise from all panelists who acknowledged the many benefits the product has to offer the academic community. The panelists  were also appreciative of how helpful this seminar was to the students and participants looking to gain knowledge about research writing and publishing.

To organise research writing webinars for your institution, please get in touch with us: contact@authorcafe.com