AWARENESS AND USE OF DIRECTORY OF OPEN ACCESS JOURNALS (DOAJ) AMONG THE FACULTIES OF ARTS AND SCIENCE COLLEGES IN PUDUCHERRY – A STUDY

The study explores the awareness and use of the journals covered in Directory of Open Access Journals for teaching-learning among the faculties working in arts and science colleges in Puducherry. A survey was conducted in ten such colleges to obtain the opinion of 143 faculties towards this direction through a structured questionnaire. The study revealed that that majority of the respondents were aware of DOAJ database and 50% to 85% of the faculties made use of the journals indexed in DOAJ database for various primary purposes like Preparing for seminars/ conferences, etc. (56.08%), Teaching (52.2%), conducting Research (49.49%), and Self-Learning (48.38%). Writing Journal Articles (44.07%), and Lecture Notes (38.52%) were found to be unexpectedly the secondary purposes. Frequency and time spent by the respondents towards the use of DOAJ database were found to be significant. It is quite encouraging that majority of the respondents were satisfied with the usage of DOAJ in terms of coverage and convenience. However, there are certain problems also identified, based on the opinion of the respondents, such as No Feedback Mechanism' and ‘Slow Speed'.