Benefits and Concerns of One Nation Subscription

Source: The post Benefits and Concerns of One Nation Subscription has been created, based on the article “ONOS bitten: Bringing down cost of access to research papers is only one of many issues” published in “The Hindu” on 30th November 2024

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper 2- Governance-Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education

Context: The article discusses India’s “One Nation, One Subscription” (ONOS) plan, which aims to make expensive research journals accessible to publicly funded institutes. However, it criticizes the plan for favoring foreign publishers, ignoring open-access models, and lacking transparency and consultation. Benefits and Concerns of One Nation Subscription.

For detailed information on One Nation One Subscription (ONOS) Scheme read this article here

What is the “One Nation, One Subscription” (ONOS) plan?

1. The ONOS plan centralizes access to research journals for publicly funded institutes in India.
2. Approved on November 25, 2024, it replaces library consortia with government-negotiated deals.
3. The government allocated ₹6,000 crore for three years to provide access to journals from 30 major publishers.
4. ONOS aims to reduce costs for underfunded institutes and scholars.

What are the benefits of ONOS?

1. It makes research journals accessible to underfunded institutes.
2. Scholars at government-funded institutions can access research without extra costs.
3. It centralizes the subscription process to save resources.

What are the concerns of ONOS?

1. Limited Scope: ONOS benefits only publicly funded institutes, excluding private institutions and independent researchers.It continues to support commercial publishers who profit from publicly funded research.
2. It ignores alternative open-access models like: Green Open Access: Free public access by default. Diamond Open Access: Free for both authors and readers.
3. Transparency Issues: No clarity on journal selection or monitoring to remove irrelevant or predatory journals.
4. The stagnation of research and development spending, as a percentage of GDP, raises concerns about resource prioritization.

Question for practice:

Examine the benefits and concerns associated with India’s “One Nation, One Subscription” (ONOS) plan.