Why it is important?

Online discoverability of scientific documents is crucial for several reasons.

1. It increases the accessibility of research to a wider audience, including other researchers, students, and professionals in related fields. This leads to greater dissemination of knowledge and fosters collaboration and innovation.
2. Discoverability enhances the visibility and impact of research, allowing researchers to gain recognition for their work and attract potential collaborators or funding opportunities.
3. It promotes transparency and credibility in the scientific community by providing easy access to research findings, methodologies, and data.

With those role, online discoverability plays a vital role in advancing scientific knowledge and driving progress in various fields of study.

Situation in Indonesia

In Indonesia, as well as in other Southeast Asian countries, the current science policy primarily focuses on peer-reviewed papers, citation metrics, and other quantitative measures. However, there appears to be less emphasis on the research process itself, research integrity, and online discoverability. These aspects are crucial for fostering a thriving research environment, but policy makers may not sufficiently prioritize them.

Although in the Indonesian science community, the concept of Digital Object Identifier (DOI) has been known since 2005, when journal accreditation guidelines released by the government (called ARJUNA) mandated its use, but its use case was primarily for journals. Therefore many institutional repositories hosting theses in Indonesia do not have object identifiers, which leads to low discoverability.

Theses, which stored in institutional repositories, cover topics that mostly address local problems, related to geographical, cultural, and socio-economic aspects. These research works, in which to some considered as grey literature, should be discoverable at the same level as peer-reviewed articles. By making them accessible and visible online, the valuable insights and findings from theses can contribute to the advancement of knowledge and benefit both the academic community and society as a whole, especially the local community rather than the international community.

On the other hand, commercial social media platforms like ResearchGate that uses DOI, making it more popular among researchers compared to non-commercial technologies and practice, such as institutional repositories.