Openness Main
After 15 Years, Is Free Access to Law Here to Stay?
CIS, in collaboration with partners LexUM and SAFLII, is undertaking a Global Free Access to Law Study. Being the first of its kind within the Free Access to Law Movement, this comparative study will examine what free access to law initiatives do, evaluate their core benefits and identify factors determining of their sustainability. In the end, the free access to law study will provide future initiatives and existing LII networks with proven and adoptable best practices which will support the continued growth of the legal information commons.
Wiki Academy
An article by Hari Prasad Nadig on Wiki Academy, a workshop based on usage of Indian languages, editing and its applications in academics of Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia, was held at Eric Mathias hall in St Aloysius College in Mangalore on Saturday, August 22.
Second Response to Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance
The government is in the process of drafting a national policy on open standards for e-governance. The National Informatics Centre recently released draft version 2 of the policy, and CIS sent in its comments on the draft.
Letter to Education Secretary, Government of Karnataka, Advocating Adoption of FOSS in State IT Academies
The Centre for Internet and Society is a signatory to a letter being sent to the Education Secretary, Government of Karnataka, advocating the adoption of FOSS at state IT academies.
An Interview With Arjen Kamphuis
In an email interview with the Centre for Internet and Society, Dutch open source activist Arjen Kamphuis discussed his experience of successfully working with the government for a policy mandating open standards for all government IT in the Netherlands.
International Repository Infrastructure Workshop, Amsterdam, 16-17 March 2009: A Report
Open Access activist Madhan Muthu recently attended the International Repository Infrastructure Workshop, held in Amsterdam, 16-17 March 2009, in company with CIS Distinguished Fellow Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam. In this entry, as a guest blogger for CIS, he files a report on the proceedings at the workshop.
Journals, Open Access, Copyright, Repositories
Prof N. Mukunda, Editor of Publications, The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, discusses open access in his keynote address at the 26 March 2009 one-day conference on 'Scholarly Communications in the Age of the Commons'.
RTI Application to Visvesvaraya Technological University
The Centre for Internet and Society filed an RTI application to Visvesvaraya Technological University asking it to provide details about its curriculum design, and its tie-ups with various software vendors.
Department of Information Technology Meeting on a National Policy on E-Accessibility
On 30 January 2009, the Department of Information Technology hosted a meeting in New Delhi bringing together important stakeholders to discuss the issue of electronic accessibility for the disabled and persons with special needs in India.
Updated List of Signatories for Letter Supporting WIPO Treaty for the Reading Disabled
The list of signatories to a letter in support of the WIPO Treat for the Reading Disabled has been updated.
Workshop on Reforming the International ICT Standardization System
On Day 4, the last day, of the Internet Governance Forum, a workshop was conducted by the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards on the reforming the international ICT standardisation system. The panellists were Bob Jolliffe of Freedom to Innovate South Africa, Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, Ashish Gautam of IBM India, and Aslam Raffee, Chairperson of the Government IT Officers' Council, OSS Working Group, Republic of South Africa, who moderated the session.
Report on Open Standards for GISW2008
In this report, Sunil Abraham lays out the importance and the policy implications of Open Standards.
DCOS Agreement on Procurement
On December 6, 2008, at the closing of the third Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India, the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS), of which the Centre for Internet and Society is a member, released an agreement entitled the "Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS) Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards".
Open Access Day celebrated in India
The Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and the Centre for Culture, Media and Governance co-organised joint celebrations of Open Access Day in Jamia Millia Islamia campus on the 14th of October 2008. Around 50 people attended the event from different departments in Jamia there were also some participants from the Indian Linux Users Group. CIS also published an Open Access flyer on this day featuring quotations from Sam Pitroda, MS Swaminathan, Peter Suber, Alma Swan, Frederick Noronha, Barbara Kirsop and Samir Brahmachari.
The National Public Meeting on Software Patents
On Saturday, October 4, 2008, the Centre for Internet and Society, with the support of eighteen other organization, held a meeting on the National Public Meeting on Software Patents in the United Theological College campus. The aim of the event was to explore various issues surrounding software patents, especially from the perspective of the draft Patent Manual.
A2K3 Panel XI: Open Access to Science and Research
Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam participated in the third Access to Knowledge hosted by The Information Society Project (ISP) at Yale Law School between September 8-10, 2008, in Geneva, Switzerland. The conference held at the Geneva International Conference Centre brought together hundreds of decision-makers and experts on global knowledge to discuss the urgent need for policy reforms.
Essay Competition for Software Freedom Day
The Free Software Users Group of Bangalore and the Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration organise an essay competition for schools and colleges in Bangalore on the topic of "Software Freedom"
Reconceptualizing Privacy on Social Network(s) Sites
While “privacy” on social network sites remains a highly ambiguous notion, much debate surrounding the issue to date has focused on privacy as the nonpublic-ness of personal information. However, as these social platforms become sites for diverse forms of “networking”, privacy must also be popularly conceptualized as control over personal data flows.
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