Shodhganga Repository

a study with special reference to contribution by the open universities of India

Abstract

This study aims to analyse the contribution of India’s national and state-level open universities with respect to uploading Ph.D. theses into the Shodhganga platform. Open universities (OUs) play a key role in the higher education ecosystem of India, and provide
many opportunities for people limited by geographical, sociological, and financial constraints. This study analyses the contribution of OUs based on number of theses uploaded, subject area, year of uploading, year of publication and language. Information such as the growth of the OUs, courses offered, and the date of MoU signing is also represented in the study. This study also observes that most of the theses in regional languages are uploaded by state-level open universities, and an overwhelming majority of the theses were uploaded since 2016. This study is significant in its attempt to explore the role of OUs in contributing to the Shodhganga platform, on which no prior work has been conducted.