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Purpose: In the present era, research data is a concern for researchers, as they are trying to find new ways to communicate their research findings and conclusions to other researchers in order to increase visibility and credibility. BRICS nations are fast emerging economies and contribute significantly in research output. This study makes an effort to analyze and explore the role of BRICS nations towards open access research data repository registered with Registry of Research Data Repositories. Design/methodology/approach: The data were gathered from re3data repository, and the search was limited to BRICS nations. The data were further analyzed and tabulated as per set parameters, namely, country-wise distribution, types of contents, subject coverage and language diversity. Findings: The findings depict that in terms of strength, India has the highest number of data repositories, thereby achieved the first rank among BRICS nations, and South Africa has the least number of data repositories, whereas in terms of content type and subject coverage, India again is leading among BRICS nations. The English language is used by repositories as the main language of the interface. Practical implications: The study helps to understand the development of research data repositories by BRICS nations. The study is further beneficial to researchers, as Registry of Research Data Repository provides a single platform to access repositories from various disciplines. Readily available data saves time, money and efforts of researchers and helps the researcher in completing their research activity in a very short span of time. Originality/value: The paper has investigated open access data repositories of BRICS nation that has not been attempted earlier. This gives readers comprehensive overview of research data repositories developed in fast emerging economies of the global. The paper can be very helpful for information managers, OA promoters and education and research policy makers to devise plans and policy bearing in mind the evolving research channels in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to draw a comparison of the Web traffic ranking, usage and popularity of websites of databases of reputed publishers, namely, ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight, that provide access on subscription basis with Sci-Hub, on the basis of data obtained from Alexa databank (www.alexa.com). Sci-Hub is a website that provides pirated open-access to the research literature, where piracy, according to The Economic Times (2020), refers to the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted content. Design/methodology/approach: Under present study, the quantitative study of the collected data was carried out with help of descriptive research methodology. The Alexa databank was singled out as the source of data. This study crawled through Alexa databank on 01.12.2019 and collected relevant data regarding Sci-Hub, ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight using the search terms Sci-hub.tw, Sciencedirect.com and Emeraldinsight.com sequentially. Different criteria were taken into consideration, which include global traffic rank, the average number of page views per user, time taken for uploading, bounce rate, percentage of users, the number of in-links and daily time spent on the site. Findings: The results of this study showed that ScienceDirect has the highest traffic rank and in-linking sites among the surveyed databases. But highest number of page visits were recorded for Sci-Hub with fastest downloading speed. It has also been observed that the users spent less time on ScienceDirect and Emerald Insight as compared to Sci-Hub. This study further observed that Sci-Hub has the lowest bounce rate. Users from both the developing and developed economies use the Sci-Hub, though the highest number of visitors belongs to the developing nations. Originality/value: This study provides an overview of the performance of toll-based publishing databases with pirated database based on different criteria through World Wide Web. Though, this study in no way supports or endorses the unauthorized and illegal access to knowledge, but such data helps in depicting and analyzing how much a particular database is accessed by its users all over the globe and also determines and illustrates the time spent by users while accessing a specific database, thus, providing the user preferences in information seeking activities. This study provides an overall view of adoption of open resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In the present era, research data is a concern for researchers, as they are trying to find new ways to communicate their research findings and conclusions to other researchers in order to increase visibility and credibility. BRICS nations are fast emerging economies and contribute significantly in research output. This study makes an effort to analyze and explore the role of BRICS nations towards open access research data repository registered with Registry of Research Data Repositories. Design/methodology/approach: The data were gathered from re3data repository, and the search was limited to BRICS nations. The data were further analyzed and tabulated as per set parameters, namely, country-wise distribution, types of contents, subject coverage and language diversity. Findings: The findings depict that in terms of strength, India has the highest number of data repositories, thereby achieved the first rank among BRICS nations, and South Africa has the least number of data repositories, whereas in terms of content type and subject coverage, India again is leading among BRICS nations. The English language is used by repositories as the main language of the interface. Practical implications: The study helps to understand the development of research data repositories by BRICS nations. The study is further beneficial to researchers, as Registry of Research Data Repository provides a single platform to access repositories from various disciplines. Readily available data saves time, money and efforts of researchers and helps the researcher in completing their research activity in a very short span of time. Originality/value: The paper has investigated open access data repositories of BRICS nation that has not been attempted earlier. This gives readers comprehensive overview of research data repositories developed in fast emerging economies of the global. The paper can be very helpful for information managers, OA promoters and education and research policy makers to devise plans and policy bearing in mind the evolving research channels in emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This paper aims to gauge the visibility of open content available in different formats of select open courseware (OCW) repositories through prominent search engines.Design/methodology/approach Open content in three formats (pdf, audio and video) from four OCW repositories listed in the OCW consortium under the science and technology subject heading were searched through seven select search engines.Findings None of the selected OCW repositories are fully visible on the selected search engines. Visibility of OCW content varied from one search engine to the other and was affected by the format in which it is available. Google is the best search engine for retrieving OCW content, whereas OCWfinder – a specialized search engine for retrieving OCW – has performed dismally.Research limitations/implications The study demonstrates the need for enhancing the visibility of open content through using search engine optimization techniques.Originality/value The study intends to supply findings that could be used by stakeholders to improve the visibility of OCW repositories. It is an attempt to draw a comparison between search engines for their ability to index different formats of OCW in the selected repositories. Findings can be used by information professionals to brush their information hunting skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the findings of the study which aims to implement a web-based knowledge management system (WBKMS) for university libraries that will support the creation, dissemination, utilization, and storage of the institution's digital knowledge assets. It cites several aims of implementing WBKMS in libraries including to encourage coordination between libraries and library uses, improve library staff's professionalism, and to promote knowledge innovation. The study revealed that the said WBKMS will help in achieving satisfaction levels on both users and library professionals. Further, it implied that knowledge innovation in a web-based environment will aid in the creation of better knowledge based society.