An Overview of Publication Patterns in India's Agricultural Research Community: Journals, Open Access, and Preprints

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An Overview of Publication Patterns in India's Agricultural Research Community: Journals, Open Access, and Preprints

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2565275/v3

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In April and May 2020, a survey was conducted to gather opinions and experiences regarding publications and preprints. The majority of respondents were from the agricultural science field in India. The survey revealed that the 'Journal's Impact Factor' was deemed the most important factor when choosing a suitable journal for publication. When publishing articles in Open Access, most respondents had paid Article Processing Charges, funded by various sources such as project funds, institutional support, and personal funds. While respondents expressed trust in preprints and favored institutional repositories as their preprint platform, the main drivers for sharing preprints were increased indexing, citation and visibility, and inclusion in assessments. However, the survey found that the majority of respondents had never cited preprints, nor had their preprints been cited, indicating a need for increased advocacy for preprints in India.

Publishing/Media

Scientific Communication

Open Access

Preprint Repositories

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

Scientific Publication

Scientific Community Attitudes

Open Science

The rapid communication of scientific knowledge is crucial for its positive impact on society and the environment. The advancement of science is a continuous process and new knowledge is constantly being generated through scientific research. The scientific knowledge is communicated to peers through the publication of peer-reviewed articles, Primarily the governments fund for the development of new knowledge for the public good with taxpayers’ money and thus the demand for making the publicly funded research publicly available. With the growing momentum of Open Science, the popularity of preprints has been increasing rapidly in recent years. Preprints are the first draft of the articles written for larger peer review and has become means of rapid communication of research results. The report by Crossref[1] shows a growth rate of 30% from 2016-2018, compared to a growth rate of 2-3% scholarly articles during the same period (Jennifer, 2018). The history of preprints goes to 1991 when arXiv server was set-up to archive physics articles. Now it is the most populated repository of 2.2 million scholarly articles and is widely used by physicists to share their research results. Other disciplines, such as agriculture, biology, and medicine, also have preprint repositories like AgriRxiv, bioRxiv, and MedArxiv, respectively, as well as regional repositories like RINarxiv (Indonesia), AfricArxiv (Africa), IndiaRxiv (India), ArabiXiv (Arab world), ChinaXiv (China), and FrenXiv (French) etc have been established but not are all populated with good number of records. A study by Polka and Penfold (2020) showed that the percentage of preprints per month in the biological field increased from 0.20% to 7.98% from 2013 to 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has also contributed to the increase in preprints, with 6,753 preprints being shared within four months of the first confirmed case (Fraser et al., 2021). Sharing preprints has several benefits for authors, including the ability to establish priority, receive citations, and increase visibility for their work, as well as provide evidence of their work to secure funding (Fry, et. al., 2019; Puebla et. al., 2022). However, there is one caveat for readers and journalists. Guterman and Braunstein (2020) warned that the communication of clinical research results through preprints can potentially mislead policymakers and the public, which would not occur if the manuscripts underwent peer review and methodological correction. Nevertheless, preprints have the potential to accelerate the dissemination of scientific knowledge, but it is important to consider the credibility of the information and ensure that it is thoroughly evaluated before being widely accepted. At the backdrop of growing popularity of preprints and the re-launch of IndiaRxiv, the only South Asian preprint repository, a survey was organised to assess the awareness and attitudes towards preprints.

[1] https://www.crossref.org/

The methodology of the survey consisted of creating a set of questions focused on scholarly communications and preprints. As for as Open Science is concerned, Preprints comes first and foremost as more open and accessible way of sharing research outputs. The questionnaire was loaded onto Qualtrics platform, and the survey was conducted during April and May 2020. The survey was primarily directed towards the member states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), viz., Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. However, looking into the responses, the is now regarded as survey among the Indian agricultural researchers and scientists. The Qualtrics survey link was distributed to research scholars and scientists through mailing lists and social media channels related to research scholars, scientists, and faculties. Additionally, the survey was shared among the institutional networks of the survey organisers with a request for them to share it with their peers. It is pertinent to mention that the survey organisers are affiliated with agricultural research organisations. The Qualtrics platform's built-in features facilitated data collection, which was subsequently categorized into different sections which include participants' backgrounds, countries, professions, perspectives on journal selection criteria, strategies for acquiring funds for publications in journals that charge Article Processing Charges (APCs), and opinions on preprints as a means of advancing open science. The collected data was organized and presented in a tabular format.

The survey, which took place over 45 days in April and May 2020, received 356 responses. However, most responses were from India (83.71%), followed by Bangladesh (6.18%) and Nepal (4.49%) and the remaining 6% from other countries (Table. 1). Because of this, the survey results are now only referred to as from India than any other country. Among the respondents, 37.08% were Early Career Researchers (who are in less than five years of their tenure research career), 33.99% were Scientists (who are established scientists), 23.60% were Faculty members (who are primarily into teaching in the universities), and 5.34% were Librarians (University or Institute) (Table. 2). The field of study (Table. 3) was dominated by Agricultural Sciences, with 54% of respondents, followed by Life Sciences (16.29%) and Social and Behavioural Sciences (14.04%). Hence the survey results and analysis is only attributed to India and agricultural sciences discipline.

Choosing a suitable journal for publication

Regarding publication pattern, 27.24% of the survey respondents ranked ‘Journal Impact Factor’ (JIF) as the most important factor while choosing a suitable journal for publication. On the other hand, ‘wider readership’ was ranked as the least important criterion by 32.3% of the respondents (Table. 4). This indicates that JIF continues to be an important consideration for scholars. However, this proprietary metrics is produced and published by Clarivate for journals through Journal Citation Reports is related to journals but not related to the articles. However, there are many publishers who use the same formula of JIF calculation and boasts that their journals have ‘Impact Factor’. Using JIF as surrogative measure of quality and impact of articles is being criticised by many in the academia and there is a need for alternative metrics (Larivière and Sugimoto 2019). The DORA Declaration[2] and Leiden Manifesto[3] discuss why there should be use of alternative metrics and article level metrics instead of proprietary metrics like JIF. The website ThinkCheckSubmit^{^[4]} should be a guiding reference for anyone to know if the intended journal is of repute or otherwise independent of any so called ‘Impact Factor’. Along with the various journal suggesters and commercial databases, the DOAJ[5] (Directory of Open Access Journals) which is a quality checked whitelist databased of should guiding the authors while choosing a suitable Open Access journal which does not charge any APCs. The Sherpa Romeo^{^[6]} website which is database of the copyright policies of publishers may also be helpful to authors to know the author rights. Using these resources, the authors should be able take informed decisions about journals and platforms where they can publish for ‘Impact’.

Accessibility of Published Research

Among the survey respondents, 75% had at least 25% of their publications in Open Access, while 25% of the respondents reported having no publications in Open Access. And 14.24% of the respondents are having all their publications in Open Access (Table. 5). This shows that most respondents are publishing or sharing their publications in Open Access. However, as per the lens.org[7] patent and scholarly data website, India has produced 19,20,451 scholarly works from 1980 to 2023 (till date) and out of which only 28% (5,34,581 works) are in Open Access. And as far as the agriculture and allied sciences is concerned, only 5% (1,01,565) only comprises Open Access scholarly works which includes 3,869 preprints. Looking at the volume of scholarly works and the merge proportion of Open Access works, we can understand that there is a greater need for advocacy for Open Access.

Article Processing Charges

The survey results showed that 65.33% (Table. 6) of the respondents have paid APCs for their publication, with 9.60% of authors always paying the charges. When asked about the funding for APCs, 16.41% said funding had come from project funds, 20.43% received institutional support, 3.72% received support from funders, 30.34% pooled money from personal funds with other authors, and 29.10% preferred not to disclose (Table. 7). On the other hand, 34.67% of the respondents reported never paying any APCs. The survey shows that for some reasons, the authors are publishing in Open Access pledging their own funds for APCs. Though the funders mandate of DBT/DST[8] and the Open Access policy of ICAR[9] & CSIR[10] mandates deposition of post-prints in the institutional repositories (Green Route to Open Access), what was the reason to publish in Open Access? Is it because of JIF and speedy publication? It is to be noted that 27.24% of the respondents ranked JIF as the most important factor while choosing a suitable journal for publication. As per the Registry of Open Access Repositories[11] (ROAR), India has 135 repositories. However, it is noticed that these repositories are not populated as they should have been with the institutional or funders mandate. Respondents expressed mixed opinions on the pros and cons of APCs. Some had suggested that APCs should not be levied, as they only benefit questionable or predatory journals, while others believed that if APCs were to be levied, they should be reasonable and funded by institutions or funders, not authors. As per the DOAJ statistics, about 68% of the journals indexed does not charge any APCs.

Preprints

The survey respondents (222) reported that they share their first draft of manuscripts with their peers or colleagues for feedback and comments (Table. 8). Among the respondents, 46.85% stated that they always share the drafts, 37.39% said that they share sometimes, and only 15.77% reported that they never share their drafts with others. In other words, about 84% of respondents shared or shared their preliminary drafts with their peers. These respondents now should not be hesitant to share their drafts (preprints) publicly on web by depositing in preprint repositories. However, when it comes to preprints, 27.03% of the 222 survey respondents stated that they are not familiar with the concept, while 11.26% stated they never read preprints. About 60% of the respondents reported that they do read preprints (Table. 9). The lens.org website data shows that publication of preprints and it started with the year 2012 with peak deposits in 2020 following the COVID19 pandemic which had created the awareness and need for sharing the preprints. During the period of 1980 to 2023 (till date), Indian researchers had published 8,095 preprints which includes 3,869 preprints from agriculture and allied sciences. The Open Access India had launched agriXiv (which is now agriRxiv[12] hosted by CABI[13]) and IndiaRxiv[14], two preprints repository for hosting global agricultural sciences articles and India’s multi-disciplinary articles. However, they are showing very low rate of deposits. While the initial repository IndiaRxi.org has 128 records, the re-launched current repository has only few deposits. The agriRxiv.org has 256 preprint deposits during the period 2017-2023.

In terms of credibility, 64.42% of all the respondents expressed trust in preprints (Table 10.). And regarding the preferred preprint repositories, the survey respondents ranked institutional repositories as the top choice, followed by personal websites, subject-specific repositories, and lastly, multi-disciplinary repositories (Table. 11). Most respondents ranked "belief in open access" (39.91%) as the most important factor in choosing a preprint repository, followed by "rapid feedback" (23.53%) and "timely sharing of results" (21.72%). However, about half of respondents believed that "peer pressure" was a low factor in their decision (Table. 12). If they were to share a preprint, they would first share it in their institutional repositories. Survey respondents were asked about their motivation for sharing preprints (Table. 13). The two main motivators were indexing, citation and visibility (30.18%) and taking preprints into account in the assessment and evaluation (22.52%). The least motivated was "acceptance of negative results" (40.99%).

In terms of citing preprints (Table. 14 & 15), 60.36% of respondents said they never quote preprints, while 29.73% said they do occasionally. Only 9.91% of respondents said they frequently cite preprints. Among respondents, 79.73% reported that their preprints had never been cited. Citation, indexing, and visibility are important drivers for authors to share preprints, and consideration of preprints in the evaluation would further encourage authors to share preprints. The survey indicated that 60.36% of respondents had never cited a preprint and 79.73% of respondents had never cited a preprint. This shows that still authors and readers are not convinced about the preprints. We may expect to see the change in this regard with more readership and citation of preprints when all the publishers and the research assessment boards adopts the preprint policy put forth by the Indian National Science Academy in the "Dissemination and Evaluation of Research Output in India" (Chaddah and Lakhotia, 2018). While the international publishers do encourage authors to share their manuscripts as preprints, the societies and other publishers based in India are yet to adopt such policies.

[2] https://sfdora.org/read/

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/520429a

[4] https://thinkchecksubmit.org/

[5] https://doaj.org/

[6] https://v2.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/

[7] https://www.lens.org/

[8] https://dst.gov.in/sites/default/files/APPROVED%20OPEN%20ACCESS%20POLICY-DBT&DST(12.12.2014)_1.pdf

[9] https://icar.org.in/node/5542

[10] http://www.csircentral.net/mandate.pdf

[11] http://roar.eprints.org/

[12] https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/journal/agrirxiv

[13] https://www.cabi.org/

[14] https://ops.iihr.res.in/index.php/IndiaRxiv

The survey, which remained open for 45 days, received more than 300 responses, mainly from India, with very few responses from other South Asian countries. Therefore, the survey results can only be considered applicable to India, rather than all South Asia or SARRC. Survey results suggest that there is significant awareness of preprints and the publication process for preprints. Respondents expressed a desire to institutionalise preprints in scholarly communications, especially in terms of evaluation and funding opportunities. The Open Science Report published in 2018 based on a survey speaks that open science movement hasn’t gained due momentum in India as evident from the results that only 35.07% were sharing through open access repositories (Scaria & Ray, 2018). The survey also revealed some concerns about the confusion that may result from multiple versions of preprints and peer-reviewed articles. The version citation and guidelines issued by the National Institutes of Health may address this issue. It is worth noting that the lack of representation from other SAARC countries could not get a clear idea about the publication pattern and perceptions on preprints from the South Asian region. Interestingly, the results of this survey are concordant with that of ASAPbio #bioPreprints2020 survey published in July 2020 (ASAPbio 2020).

Encouraging the submission of preprints and incentivizing peer review of preprints can have the benefits like, timely dissemination of research findings, increasing transparency, and promoting collaboration. One way to incentivize preprint submission and peer review of the preprints is to incorporate them into research assessment practices. Currently, many institutions and funding agencies primarily rely on traditional metrics such as JIF and citation counts to evaluate research quality and productivity. However, incorporating preprints into these assessments can provide a more complete picture of an individual's contributions to their field.

In addition, funders and institutions can further encourage preprint submission by implementing the open access policies and providing resources and support for researchers to deposit their preprints in preprint repositories. This can help ensure that research findings are accessible to a wider audience and can be utilized by other researchers in a timely manner. Finally, awarding scores or other forms of recognition to researchers who deposit preprints or participate in peer review of preprints can also provide additional incentives to engage in these practices. This can help create a culture of open science and collaboration within the scientific community.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Sridhar Gutam and Susmita Das. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Sridhar Gutam and the co-author commented on previous versions of the manuscript. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors of the survey are associated with agriRxiv, a preprint repository for agriculture and allied sciences, as advisory board members. The senior author is also associated with IndiaRxiv, a preprint repository for India, as a steering committee member. This information should be considered when interpreting the results of the survey and the authors' perspectives on preprint repositories. Susmita Das and Sridhar Gutam are also associated with the Centre for Open Knowledge and Open Access India, respectively.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Richard Poynder for his insightful comments and suggestions on the survey questions and report. His contributions have greatly improved the quality of the survey. Authors acknowledge Subhash C. Lakhotia and Moumita Koley for their perceptive comments on the preprint and the anonymous peer-reviewers on the submitted manuscript.

ASAPbio 2020. Preprint authors optimistic about benefits: preliminary results from the #bioPreprints2020 survey. Available at https://asapbio.org/biopreprints2020-survey-initial-results (Access: 23rd March 2023).

Chaddah, P. & Lakhotia, S.C. (2018). A policy statement on “Dissemination and Evaluation of Research Output in India” by the Indian National Science Academy (New Delhi). Proc. Indian Natn. Sci Acad. 84(2):319-329. https://doi.org/10.16943/ptinsa/2018/49415

Fraser, N., Brierley, L., Dey, G., Polka, J. K., Pálfy, M., Nanni, F. & Coates, J. A. (2021). The evolving role of preprints in the dissemination of COVID-19 research and their impact on the science communication landscape. PLOS Biology 19(4): e3000959. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000959

Fry, N. K., Marshall, H., & Mellins-Cohen, T. (2019). In praise of preprints. Microb Genom. 5(4):e000259. https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000259.

Guterman, E. L. & Braunstein, L. Z. (2020). Preprints during the COVID-19 pandemic: Public Health Emergencies and Medical Literature. J. Hosp. Med. 15(10): 634-636. https://www.doi.org/10.12788/jhm.3491

Jennifer, L. (2018). Preprints growth rate ten times higher than journal articles. [Online]. Available at https://www.crossref.org/blog/preprints-growth-rate-ten-times-higher-than-journal-articles/ (Access: 6 February 2023)

Larivière, V. & Sugimoto, C. R. (2019). The Journal Impact Factor: A Brief History, Critique, and Discussion of Adverse Effects. In: Glänzel, W., Moed, H.F., Schmoch, U., Thelwall, M. (eds) Springer Handbook of Science and Technology Indicators. Springer Handbooks. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02511-3_1

Polka, J., & Penfold, N. C. (2020). Biomedical preprints per month, by source and as a fraction of total literature (Version 3.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3819276

Puebla, I., Jessica, P. & Oya, Y. R. (2022). Preprints: Their Evolving Role In Science Communication. E-book, Ann Arbor, MI: Against the Grain (Media), LLC, 2022, https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.12412508.

Scaria, A. G., & Ray, S. (2018). Open Science India Report. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/aj9gw

Table 1. Survey Respondents from various countries in SAARC Region

Sl. No.	Country	Count	Percent
1	Afghanistan	3	0.84%
2	Bangladesh	22	6.18%
3	Bhutan	5	1.40%
4	India	298	83.71%
5	Maldives	2	0.56%
6	Nepal	16	4.49%
7	Pakistan	3	0.84%
8	Sri Lanka	7	1.97%
Total		356	100%

Table 2. Profession of Survey Respondents

Sl. No.	Profession	Count	Percent
1	Early Career Researcher	132	37.08%
2	Scientist (Academia/Industry)	121	33.99%
3	Faculty (Academia)	84	23.60%
4	Librarian (Academia/Industry)	19	5.34%
Total		356	100%

Table 3. Subjects of Survey Respondents

Sl. No.	Subject	Count	Percent
1	Agriculture	193	54.21%
2	Arts and Humanities	10	2.81%
3	Education	8	2.25%
4	Engineering	9	2.53%
5	Law	3	0.84%
6	Life Sciences	58	16.29%
7	Medicine and Health Sciences	11	3.09%
8	Natural Sciences	9	2.53%
9	Physical Sciences and Mathematics	5	1.40%
10	Social and Behavioural Sciences	50	14.04%
Total		356	100%

Table 4. Respondent’s Ranking on the Importance of various Characters of Journals (n=323)

Sl. No.	Question	Rank #1	Rank #2	Rank #3	Rank #4	Rank #5	Rank #6	Rank #7	Rank #8	Rank #9	Rank #10
1	Ability for rapid publication	7.12%	8.36%	7.12%	7.12%	8.67%	10.84%	8.67%	9.60%	12.07%	20.43%
2	Aims & Scope of the journal	14.5%	9.29%	6.19%	9.60%	8.67%	9.60%	10.22%	10.22%	13.62%	8.05%
3	Journal is open access	7.12%	7.12%	11.15%	8.05%	7.12%	9.91%	15.79%	11.46%	10.84%	11.46%
4	Journal’s credibility/ reputation	9.91%	14.24%	7.74%	13.62%	13.62%	13.93%	8.98%	7.74%	5.88%	4.33%
5	Journal’s Impact Factor/ Ratings	27.24%	20.74%	12.07%	9.91%	9.29%	6.81%	3.41%	3.72%	3.41%	3.41%
6	Journal’s standards of peer review & publication ethics	8.36%	9.91%	12.69%	13.00%	13.00%	13.00%	12.69%	9.91%	4.33%	3.10%
7	Popular in your discipline	10.53%	13.62%	13.62%	13.31%	12.07%	10.22%	9.60%	6.50%	6.19%	4.33%
8	Quality of the articles published in the journal	4.95%	9.29%	17.34%	15.79%	13.62%	10.84%	9.29%	11.15%	5.26%	2.48%
9	Web of Science/ Scopus coverage	6.19%	3.72%	8.05%	4.33%	7.43%	7.74%	11.15%	16.10%	17.96%	17.34%
10	Wider readership	4.02%	3.72%	4.02%	5.26%	6.50%	7.12%	10.22%	13.62%	20.43%	25.08%

Table 5. Percentage of respondent’s publications in Open Access

Sl. No.	Question	Count	Percent
1	None have been published in Open Access	82	25.39%
2	Around or less than 25% have been published in Open Access	90	27.86%
3	About 50% have been published in Open Access	64	19.81%
4	Around or more than 75% have been published in Open Access	41	12.69%
5	All have been published in Open Access	46	14.24%
Total		323	100%

Table 6. Respondents who paid article submission/processing charges (APCs) to publish in open access

Sl. No.	Question	Count	Percent
1	Always	31	9.60%
2	Sometimes	180	55.73%
3	Never	112	34.67%
Total		323	100%

Table 7. Funding source for article submission/processing charges (APCs)

Sl. No.	Funding Source	Count	Percent
1	From project funds	53	16.41%
2	By means of institutional support	66	20.43%
3	Funder's’ support	12	3.72%
4	By pooling money with the other authors from personal funds	98	30.34%
5	Prefer not to say	94	29.10%
Total		323	100%

Table 8. Respondents sharing their first draft of articles with peers/colleagues to seek feedback

Sl. No.	Question	Count	Percent
1	Always	104	46.85%
2	Sometimes	83	37.39%
3	Never	35	15.77%
Total		222	100%

Table 9. Awareness of preprints/preprint servers

Sl. No.	State of Awareness	Count	Percent
1	I have not heard about them	60	27.03%
2	I regularly read them	37	16.67%
3	I sometimes read them	100	45.05%
4	I never read them	25	11.26%
Total		222	100%

Table 10. Credibility of preprints as per the respondents

Sl. No.	Level of Credibility	Count	Percent
1	I don’t read them	64	28.83%
2	I don’t really trust them	15	6.76%
3	I trust them somewhat	85	38.29%
4	I trust them	58	26.13%
Total		222	100%

Table 11. Ranking by preference for submission of preprints

Sl. No.	Repository	Rank #1	Rank #2	Rank #3	Rank #4
1	Institutional Repository	36.41%	23.96%	27.65%	11.98%
2	Personal Website	21.20%	14.75%	13.82%	50.23%
3	Public Multi-Disciplinary Preprint Repository	20.37%	26.39%	27.31%	25.93%
4	Public Subject Specific Preprint Repository	22.83%	34.70%	29.68%	12.79%

Table 12. Ranking order of the reasons why respondents post preprints?

Sl. No.	Question	Rank #1	Rank #2	Rank #3	Rank #4	Rank #5	Rank #6	Rank #7
1	Because I believe in open access	39.91%	7.80%	9.63%	14.22%	4.59%	7.80%	16.06%
2	Due to peer pressure (my colleagues always post their preprints)	3.65%	7.76%	4.57%	7.31%	9.13%	18.72%	48.86%
3	To comply with my funder’s OA policy	7.27%	10.45%	9.55%	12.73%	25.91%	28.64%	5.45%
4	To comply with my institute's OA policy	6.85%	10.50%	10.96%	18.72%	30.14%	17.81%	5.02%
5	To obtain rapid feedback on my work	20.81%	21.27%	20.36%	16.74%	12.22%	6.79%	1.81%
6	To seek priority	10.86%	23.53%	23.08%	17.19%	9.05%	11.76%	4.52%
7	To share my results in timely fashion	12.67%	17.19%	21.72%	14.03%	9.95%	8.60%	15.84%

Table 13. Parameters ranking to encourage researchers/scholars to post preprints?

Sl. No	Parameters	Rank #1	Rank #2	Rank #3	Rank #4	Rank #5	Rank #6
1	Acceptance of negative results	21.62%	6.31%	10.36%	12.16%	8.56%	40.99%
2	Increased indexing and citing of preprints so that their visibility is increased	30.18%	21.17%	14.86%	11.26%	15.77%	6.76%
3	Introducing an institutional policy requiring it	11.71%	16.67%	22.52%	18.02%	20.27%	10.81%
4	Introducing funder's’ Policies requiring it	4.05%	13.06%	18.47%	25.68%	24.77%	13.96%
5	Preprint friendly journal policies – i.e. not treating preprints as prior publications	11.71%	20.27%	22.52%	18.47%	17.12%	9.91%
6	Taking preprints into consideration when assessing & evaluating researchers	20.72%	22.52%	11.26%	14.41%	13.51%	17.57%

Table 14. Preprints citations in articles

Sl. No.	Level of citations	Count	Percent
1	Yes, often	22	9.91%
2	Occasionally	66	29.73%
3	Never	134	60.36%
Total		222	100%

Table 15. Preprints citations by articles

Sl. No.	Level of citations	Count	Percent
1	Yes, often	17	7.66%
2	Occasionally	28	12.61%
3	Never	177	79.73%
Total		222	100%

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An Overview of Publication Patterns in India's Agricultural Research Community: Journals, Open Access, and Preprints

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