Centre for Internet and Society

Professor P Balaram from the IISc

thomas — 2011-11-15T07:26:25Z

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Professor Balaram talks Open Access

thomas — 2012-08-03T23:10:10Z

Last week Tom Dane spoke with Professor P Balaram, Director of the Indian Institute of Science, about his thoughts on the Open Access movement. A podcast of the interview is available for download in the audio player within this post.

Professor P Balaram has been speaking on the Open Access movement for many years, and his position is nuanced. In this interview Balaram talks about the reasons he holds more hope currently for open-access archives over open-access journals, the importance of understanding the motivations of academics, and an idea for making institutional repositories more exciting.

~ 0:20 - Some of Balaram's views: the difficulty of the 'author pays' model for open-access journals, but our ability to separate this from the project of open-access institutional repositories.

~3:00 - clarifying the misleading idea that Indian scientists 'support' closed -access journals.

~4:30 - on the origins of the Open Access movement: not as an enabler of the developing world, but as an effort by libraries to counteract rising journal costs.

Professor Balaram on Open Access by CIS_India

~5:40 - on the future of the Open Access movement.

~6:00 - comparing open-access to the internet itself.

~6:50 - the importance of the community in expanding open-access, and the task of convincing more academics to support it.

~7:20 - how to make institutional repositories like vibrant and social parks.

~8:10 - the benefit of making repositories professionally competitive

~9:00 - the performance of the repositories at the Indian Institute of Science

~9:30 - the reasons why academics are currently slow to deposit papers, and how technology is making this easier.

~10:00 - the idea of changing the law in India to maintain the copyright of publicly funded work.

~10:50 - on how to make repositories more engaging: with websites, blogs, statistics, and rewards. More marketed, more dynamic, and the importance of imagination.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/professor-balaram-talks-open-access

The campus of the Indian Institute of Science

thomas — 2011-11-11T09:47:28Z

The campus of the Indian Institute of Science

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Report on the 'Open Access to Academic Knowledge' workshop

thomas — 2012-01-08T10:57:30Z

On Wednesday the 2nd of November, during Open Access Week, the Indian Institute of Science in conjunction with the Centre for Internet and Society held a workshop on Open Access at the National Centre for Science Information, in Bangalore.

The purpose of the event was to discuss open-access (OA) among research institutions in Bangalore. A great mixture of institutions were represented - some which already had OA archives, and others which did not. The hope was to have an unstructured and open dialogue about various open-access questions, and to loosely follow an open-space technology format.

Copyright and plagiarism
Before the meeting had officially started, a debate began on the question of whether OA increases plagiarism. There were some first-hand accounts of work being made OA and then copied by third-parties, in some cases for commercial purposes. This seemed like a concern for those thinking about setting up a repository, but the counter-point was offered that plagiarism might be reduced with OA because the work is more visible, and thus copying is more visible also.

A speech by Francis Jayakanth
Then we introduced ourselves and had a speech from Dr Francis Jayakanth (recent recipient of the EPT Award) on some Open Access ideas. Afterwards we opened for group discussion. Various attendants mentioned the importance Dr Jayakanth's speech for understanding the issues.

The benefit of Open Access is increased recognition
Several participants noted that most academic literature is available via inter-library loan (albeit more slowly than OA). The real benefit was seen to be not getting literature and ideas into the institution, but increasing the visibility of the institution to those outside.

The problem of motivating academics
Another common theme was a reluctance from academics to upload work once a repository was established. It was said that OA journals need to increase their impact factor in order to encourage usage, and that academics need to be more aware of all the resources available and the personal career benefits of using OA repositories.

Topics of discussion for next time
After the event there was an opportunity to describe some of things that we might discuss next time. One participant suggested we talk more about the National Open Access Policy and its future. Another suggested topic was more explanation from institutions which do have repositories on the best way to establish one, and what issues to expect. A final point that may be included next time is preservation - how to make sure that OA repositories are backwards compatible and equipped to store information over the long term.

Conclusions
Attendance was fantastic, and we must thank Sridhar Gutam for his help. At the end of the meeting one of the attendants declared they would establish a repository within six months. Those who came were:

Indian Institute of Horticulture Research
Dr. Leela Sahijram
Dr. Dr. Akella Vani
Mr. S Thippeswamy
Dr. Chithiraichelvan

National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences
Dr. HS Siddamallaiah

Raman Research Institute
Dr. BM Meera
Ms. Vrinda J Benegal

Indian Institute of Astrophysics
Dr. Christina Birdie

National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects
Dr. Kumud Tyagi
Dr. Ankita Gupta
Mrs. M Pratheepa

National Aerospace Laboratories
Dr. Poornima Narayana
Ms. V Indrani
Mr. BS Shivaram

National Institute of Animal Nutrition and Physiology
Mr. Sivasankaramakrishnan

Indian Institute of Science
Ms. Maheswari
Dr. Francis Jayakanth

Centre for Internet and Society
Mr. Royson Velankanni
Mr. Tom Dane
also attending was Mr Giridhar Khasnis, a freelance writer.

The meeting was held within the Indian Institute of Science, in Bangalore.

We recorded the meeting, and you can listen to it here:

Open Access workshop at the Indian Institute of Science by Cis_India on Mixcloud

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/report-on-the-open-access-to-academic-knowledge-workshop

The meeting at the NCSI

thomas — 2011-11-11T09:29:52Z

The meeting at the NCSI

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The campus of the Indian Institute of Science

thomas — 2011-11-11T09:17:18Z

The campus of the Indian Institute of Science

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Open Access to Academic Knowledge

thomas — 2011-11-03T05:40:09Z

The Indian Institute of Science and the Centre for Internet and Society are holding a workshop on 'Open Access to Academic Knowledge' on Wednesday 2nd November from 14:30 to 17:00

The workshop will involve an introductory presentation by Dr Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Science Information, followed by an interactive discussion of Open Access issues and ideas. This is a free event.

The workshop will take place in the Seminar Hall of the National Centre for Science Information, within the Indian Institute of Science from 14:30 to 17:00. For a map to this event click here.

For more information and to confirm attendance please contact Tom Dane (tom at cis-india dot org) or on +91 7829 451 902.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/open-access-to-academic-knowledge-at-the-iisc

OA Week Day 2 - An Interview with Professor Arunachalam

thomas — 2011-11-15T06:04:53Z

Professor Subbiah Arunachalam has been called "India's and the Developing World's great advocate for Open Access". He has worked in the field for over ten years, holding workshops, trainings, and political and policy initiatives.

In this interview we talk about how to improve the current state of Open Access, what the Indian Open Access experience might teach the rest of the world, and Arunachalam's view on the future of the Open Access movement.

Open Access Interviews - Professor Arunachalam by CIS_India

0:18 - 0:47 A brief summary of Professor Arunachalam's work

0:51 - 2:15 How to expand Open Access in India

2:25 - 4:15 What other countries might learn from India

4:25 - 5:40 The future of Open Access in India

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/oa-week-day-2-an-interview-with-prof.-arunachalam

Open Access Logo 2

thomas — 2011-10-24T17:11:27Z

The Open Access Logo

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Open Access Logo 2

thomas — 2011-11-15T07:43:32Z

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Open Access Logo

thomas — 2011-10-24T14:44:20Z

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