DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology

Mapping the Landscape of MOOCs Research

Poornima Devi — 2025-08-22

This study analysed the top 100 cited papers on MOOCs research to identify prolific contributors and factors influencing citation count. Bibliometric approach was employed to examine the objectives. Various aspects of the publications, such as publication year, accessibility, document type, research design, top contributors, collaboration patterns, and factors influencing citation count, were analysed. The study found that highly cited papers on MOOCs research from 2013 to 2016 consisted mainly of articles and conference papers. Open-access publications received more citations compared to subscription-based papers, and papers that applied a mixed method approach to research design received the highest average citation. The USA has produced the highest number of highly cited papers and R.F. Kizilcec, P.J. Guo, and J. Reich were the most prolific authors. This study aims to provide valuable insights to improve student engagement, retention rates, and access to education.

Assessment of Indian Open Access Social Science Publications through the Application of Growth Models

Alekha Karadia — 2025-08-22

The study aims to investigate and report on the growth of Open-Access (OA) social science scholarly publications in India from 2013 to 2022 by applying various growth models. During the study period, 13,378 records were extracted from the scopus database, and a dataset was created to enhance the effectiveness of statistical analysis using the “R” Open-Source software. It is found that the Exponential Growth Model, with a peak R-squared value of 0.9749, highlights a substantial Annual Growth Rate (AGR), reaching its highest in 2020 (94.43 %) and lowest in 2021 (7.14 %). The Mean Relative Growth Rate (0.42) signifies the average growth pace, and doubling time (average 1.81) indicates a notably rapid doubling rate in OA social science publications. India ranks 18th in open-access social science publications with 13,378 papers (1.31 %), reflecting a modest contribution compared to China (5.12 %) and Germany (3.78 %). A cross-disciplinary analysis highlights significant disparities, with medicine leading at 115,228 publications (17.67 %), while social sciences (2.05 %) and humanities contribute comparatively less (0.39 %). This emphasises the urgent need for substantial support from Indian social scientists to augment the OA movement in the field. Notably, 2021 witnessed a rise to 2.92 citations annually, contrasting sharply with 2022’s decline to 1.65, revealing dynamic trends in influence within Indian open-access social science papers.

Information Literacy Instructions in Higher Education Institutions

Zafar Imam Khan — 2025-08-22

The study explores the impact of Information Literacy (IL) programs on undergraduate students on their learning outcomes and performance in terms of research skills required for academic writing. The study also investigates the significant differences of learning outcomes in terms of gender, year of program and EFL/Non-EFL learners. Through systematic quantitative analysis involving 102 participants using stratified random sampling across multiple universities in the United Arab Emirates, this study seeks to validate assumptions regarding the correlation between information literacy and its significance in academic and research achievement. Findings revealed that there was moderate to higher level improvement in students’ critical thinking and overall research skills, with notable advances observed in academic integrity awareness, database searching techniques and source evaluations, whereas citation practices and advanced search strategies need more improvement. Some correlations were also found between IL program usefulness and improvement in academic performance, time utilisation and citation skills. The key findings of this study will underscore the transformative potential of information literacy programs and highlight the need to customize them as per the requirements in academic libraries as learning centers and their essential role in fostering student competencies that correspond with educational and professional success. Recommendations include targeted intervention, curriculum-integrated IL workshops and adoption of citation management tools.

WebQual and Webpage Performance on the Library Website of Universitas Sumatera Utara

Muhammad Rasyid Ridlo — 2025-08-22

Libraries are one of the measuring tools universities use to improve rankings in Webometrics; already, web-based libraries are an added value for universities. This study aims to determine the library Website’s impact on students’ satisfaction at USU and the Website’s performance. The methodology of the study is mixed. The sample determination used purposive sampling and obtained the results of 350 respondents who used the library website The findings show that usability, user, service, and interface quality positively affect user satisfaction. The research results passed the validity, reliability, and partial (t) tests. Next, the performance measurement results of the USU Library website are below the indicator. The study found a positive relationship between quality and user satisfaction, although the site’s performance could be improved.

Exploring the Need for Research Data Management Services

Alovi Zhimomi — 2025-08-22

The realisation of Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR) research data principles is contingent upon proper Research Data Management (RDM) practices by the researchers who generate data. Accordingly, it is pertinent to investigate how they manage their research data and gain insight into researchers’ need for RDM support service. This study explores the nature of research data generated by researchers, their perception of RDM and their needs for library services. An online survey comprising 48 questions was administered to researchers at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories, yielding 173 complete responses. The survey findings indicate that there are significant gaps in RDM awareness and practice: 97 % has limited knowledge of RDM, the majority are not aware of FAIR data principles (74 %) and 71 % lack knowledge of metadata. The results also reveal differences in research data across domains, indicating the need for tailored data management approaches. Despite the knowledge gaps, there is high level of willingness among researchers to share research data (86 %), keenness to receive training on research data management (98 %), and interest in availing research data services if offered by the library. This study concludes that researchers currently lack the necessary knowledge and skills for effective data management and there is a need for libraries to take a forefront role as facilitators of research data management services.

Empowering Women Library Professionals

Sunita — 2025-08-22

University libraries may improve their effectiveness, flexibility, and service quality by giving the same opportunities to women’s library professionals as men’s, which can be possible by decentralising authority & responsibility, leadership, and digital competency training. The previous research papers provide information on successful procedures and policies for empowering women in the changing academic library environment. The present study was conducted to know the workforce development, career opportunities & challenges of Women Library Professionals in selected central university libraries of Uttar Pradesh in the digital age. There are four selected central universities: Aligarh Muslim University, Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Banaras Hindu University, and the University of Allahabad. The study conducted a survey method by utilising Google Forms to make a structured questionnaire for data collection to fulfill the objectives of the study. The collected data were analysed based on the working experience, administration support, job satisfaction, and challenge. The gathered data was presented in the form of graphs, tables, and figures. The key findings of the study states that majority of the respondents believe they having satisfactory administration support. While most of the respondents are using digital tools for their professional work, some of the professionals face several challenges such as limited opportunities for career advancement and lack of new skills for their professional development.

Revisiting Fair Dealing and Copyright Infringement in India vis-à-vis Research and Education

Himanshi Tiwari — 2025-08-22

Copyright law grants authors and creators an “exclusive right” to their original works while allowing certain exceptions that enable individuals to use these works in ways that would typically infringe copyright. This exception is known as the “doctrine of fair use” in the United States and the “doctrine of fair dealing” in India. These doctrines encompass the ‘permitted acts’ or ‘defences’ recognised by copyright laws across various jurisdictions. ‘Fair dealing’ and copyright are intrinsically linked and cannot exist in isolation. In India, Section 52 of the Copyright Act of 1957 outlines the provisions associated with “fair dealing” and enumerates possible defences against copyright infringement claims. The primary objective of ‘fair dealing’ is to foster research and education; however, its overly restrictive nature has hindered the achievement of this goal. The limited scope of ‘fair dealing’ provision and judgments, which lack clarity and certainty, fail to address the challenges faced by developing nations like India, where access to information remains a significant barrier to progress. This paper intends to thoroughly examine the existing legal principles and jurisprudence surrounding this doctrine in the context of research and education in India, highlighting the challenges it faces and proposing potential reforms to revise copyright law to enhance both its flexibility and predictability within the context of India’s socio-economic landscape and to foster research and education.

AI System to Generate Context-Based Answers to Questions from Legal Bibliographic Text in Law Libraries

Vikas Bhushan — 2025-08-22

AI-based Question-Answering (QA) systems offer an efficient means of retrieving information from legal bibliographic datasets. This study proposes a content-based selector model that extracts minimal yet relevant contextual responses to user queries. By incorporating theories of reference service, particularly Bernard F. Vavrek’s holistic approach and S.R. Ranganathan’s principles, this research contextualises AI-driven solutions within traditional library services. The findings demonstrate the robustness of AI in enhancing reference services, supplementing but not replacing human librarians.

A Comparative Study of Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, and Hybrid Models for Academic Paper Acceptance Prediction

Chandra Shekhar Pandey — 2025-08-22

The exponential increase in submissions to top-tier conferences and journals has placed unprecedented strain on editorial systems. To address this challenge, the present study explores the potential of computational modelling for predicting paper acceptance decisions based on peer review content as textual input as well as confidence score and recommendation score as numerical input in the models. We utilised the PeerConf dataset by Hasan, et al. which contains 3,242 reviews across 1,236 papers. In the study we design and evaluate three modelling approaches, including traditional ML models, transformer-based and sentiment-integrated NLP models (BERT, DistilBERT), and a novel hybrid model incorporating structured features, textual inputs and sentiment within ML pipelines. We have used accuracy and F1 scores to capture and compare the predictive effectiveness of the models. Python 3.10 environment and scikit-learn library were used for machine learning models, and Hugging Face Transformers v4.x was used for transformer-based models. The study contributes to the understanding of how hybrid models compare with ML and NLP-based models and provide a viable solution to predict the paper acceptance decisions. All models were trained in a GPU-enabled environment using PyTorch and Scikit-learn. The study also suggests the viability of different approaches for designing editorial support systems. We found that hybrid models outperformed ML and sentiment-integrated NLP models with 83.51 % accuracy and an F1 score of 72.91 %.

Global Scientific Trends on Library Anxiety from 1927 to 2025

Pratiksha Bharti — 2025-08-22

This study examines the global scientific literature on library anxiety. This study employs bibliometric analysis using the Lens.org database. Using the lens.org database, 560 data points were extracted. The study examines author productivity, journal productivity, and the correlation between PlumX metrics. The study uses R Studio, SPSS, and Lens.org for performance and science mapping analysis. The finding reveals a significant growth in research on library anxiety literature, reflecting growing scholarly interest in this domain. Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie was the most prolific author, Nature was the most productive journal, while Springer Science and Business Media LLC was the leading publisher, with 156 articles. The PlumX metric analysis demonstrated a strong correlation between citation counts, captures, and mentions but no significant relationship with article usage or social media activity. The United States dominated library anxiety research, followed by Canada and Australia. This research offers a systematic bibliometric and altmetric analysis of library anxiety research. The research presents new information on research trends, influential authors, and usage patterns, which can guide subsequent studies and library management practices for improving the student experience.

Sustainable Development of Libraries Through Innovative Technologies

Maneesh Kumar Bajpai — 2025-08-22

Libraries are transforming themselves from print documents to digital and electronic platforms by maintaining cultural assets in a fast-moving Information technology environment. Since their inception, libraries have been more efficient stakeholders in protecting, preserving and disseminating knowledge. It tends to their ability to support the global goal of sustainability. The issue "Sustainable Development of Libraries through Innovative Technologies" emphasises the challenges encountered in modern-day technologies, especially in the Artificial Intelligence era.

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2025-08-22