What do Indian Researchers download from Sci-Hub
Vivek Kumar Singh, Satya Swarup Srichandan, Sujit Bhattacharya
TL;DR
This study analyzes the impact of Sci-Hub blocking in India by examining download patterns, revealing that such blocking could significantly harm Indian researchers' access to scholarly resources.
Contribution
It provides an empirical analysis of Sci-Hub download data from India, highlighting potential negative effects of blocking on the research community.
Findings
High volume of downloads from India across disciplines
Blocking Sci-Hub could disrupt access to key research materials
Downloads are concentrated by publisher and publication year
Abstract
Recently three foreign academic publishers filed a case of copyright infringement against Sci-Hub and LibGen before the Delhi High Court and prayed for complete blocking these websites in India. In this context, this paper attempted to assess the impact that blocking of Sci-Hub may have on Indian research community. The download requests originating from India on a daily-basis are counted, geotagged and analysed by discipline, publisher, country and publication year etc. Results indicate that blocking Sci-Hub in India may actually hurt Indian research community in a significant way.
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Taxonomy
TopicsAcademic Publishing and Open Access · scientometrics and bibliometrics research · Research Data Management Practices