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Open Access Day celebrated in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-access-day-celebrated-in-india
<b>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.</b>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/dsc_0395.jpg/image_mini" alt="Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam" class="image-left" title="Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam" />Speaking at Tagore Hall at Jamia Millia
Islamia, Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, pointed out that “there are
over 25,000 scientific journals published in the world today but even
the richest university in India cannot afford to subscribe to more
than 1,200 journals. It is as though, Indian scientists and students
are competing in a race with their legs bound.” Prof. Arunachalam
called upon the student community to lobby for Open Access mandates
for research outputs funded by tax-payers.Open Access is the principle that
publicly funded research should be freely accessible online,
immediately after publication. October 14, 2008 was the world’s
first Open Access Day. The founding partners for this Day are SPARC
(Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition), Students for
FreeCulture, and the Public Library of Science, USA. According to the
Directory of Open Access Journals – India publishes 105 Open Access
journals.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/dsc_0388.jpg/image_mini" alt="Dr. Zakir Thomas" class="image-left" title="Dr. Zakir Thomas" />Speaking at the celebrations at Jamia, Dr. Zakir Thomas of
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) traced the
limited historical role that IPR has played in the development for
drugs for Tuberculosis. Dr. Thomas is the project director of Open
Source Drug Discovery (OSDD), a project of CSIR. The government of
India has already committed Rs. 150 crores to the OSDD project which
is targeting neglected diseases from developing countries. Dr. Thomas
also introduced the OSDD project and spoke about alternative systems
of incentives that are more appropriate in the academic community
such as attribution, citation and collaboration – all closely
linked career growth in an academic or university context.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/dsc_0384.jpg/image_mini" alt="Dr. Andrew Lynn" class="image-left" title="Dr. Andrew Lynn" />Dr. Lynn, a professor at the Department
of Bio-informatics at JNU and Dr. Bhardwaj Scientist CSIR introduced
the OSDD web platform and pointed out to various improvements over
existing methods of research. While in peer-reviewed papers readers
are only provided with reference number when experiments are
discussed – on the OSDD platform readers can access the complete
experiment details, including data even for failed experiments. This
is critical in reducing wastage of valuable resources and efforts in
attempting to re-invent the wheel.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/dsc_0393.jpg/image_mini" alt="Dr. Anshu Bharadwaj" class="image-left" title="Dr. Anshu Bharadwaj" />Dr. Bhardwaj pointed out that she
was already collaborating with students from the Jamia Millia Islamia
campus on her projects hosted on OSDD. She said that the open access
and open source models gives rise to many new collaborations both at
the local and international level. Dr. Bhardwaj also announced that
two CSIR open access journals were being launched by Dr. Samir
Brahmachari - Director General on the occasion of World Open Access
day.</p>
<p>Prof. Arif Ali, Head Dept. of
Bio-Technology, Jamia Milia Islamia who presided over the meeting
spoke of the challenges faced by faculty and students in the Indian
context. Some international journals demand Rs. 40,000 from the
authors in spite of assigning copyright. He predicted that the open
access movement will lead to more Indian authors being published and
cited. He also hoped that open access would become a norm instead of
a novelty.</p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/open-access-day/open%20access%20day%20flyer.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Open Access Day Flyer">Download Open Access Flyer</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-access-day-celebrated-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-access-day-celebrated-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersunilOpen Access2011-08-18T05:06:01ZBlog EntryOdia Language Classics could Now be Read from Phones, Tablets and of course from Computers!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/orissadiary-october-25-2015-odia-language-classics-could-now-be-read-from-phones-tablets-and-computers
<b>Odia Wikisource, a sister project of Odia Wikipedia and a free online Odia-language library is celebrating its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar tomorrow. Available online at or.wikisource.org, the project finally went live in last year on October 20 after being incubated over two years. In a nutshell, it not just provides free and open access to readers to access text that are out of copyright or available under free license, but also allows them to contribute in either digitizing copyright-free text or correcting mistakes made by others. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The article <a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissadiary.com/CurrentNews.asp?id=62374">published by Orissadairy</a> on October 25, 2015 quotes Subhashish Panigrahi.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">All the contributors to the project are volunteers and are fondly called “uikiali” in Odia. These volunteers follow certain guidelines to check through the content digitized by others to make sure there is no copyrighted text posing copyright violation, correct typos and other grammatical mistakes and incorrect attribution.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Authors and copyright holders are also encouraged to provide permission in re-licensing their work under free licenses like CC-BY/CC-by-SA licenses so that some of their content becomes available online and fill the large gap of the Odia books online to some extent. “Last year, the Wikimedia community in Odisha did a remarkable job in bringing as many as 141 books from multiple authors relicensed under the above mentioned licenses” said the Centre for Internet and Society's Programme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi. “Where we, as an institution, could play a role in reaching out to many authors and convincing them for a small contribution to the society” added Panigrahi.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Pankajmala Sarangi, the most active contributor to the project elaborated saying, there is a great dearth of Odia books online. I try to buy some time from personal and office time to continue my contribution. Afterall, I started from an all time Odia classic “Cha'mana Athaguntha” by Fakir Mohan Senapati”. Many important books that are out of copyright are making their appearance on the Odia Wikisource. “Wikisource is different than Wikipedia as the former is published writing reublished online where on Wikipedia it is more of aggregating information published elsewhere in an encyclopaedic manner”, says Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, a long time Wikimedian.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Odia Wikisource's administrator Mrutyunjaya Kar welcomes everyone taking interest in Odia library movement in particular and Odia language in general to join this event that is being held at the Institute on Management of Agricultural Extension (IMAGE), Siripura, Bhubaneswar at 5 pm tomorrow.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/orissadiary-october-25-2015-odia-language-classics-could-now-be-read-from-phones-tablets-and-computers'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/orissadiary-october-25-2015-odia-language-classics-could-now-be-read-from-phones-tablets-and-computers</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOdia WikisourceAccess to KnowledgeOpen Access2015-12-15T08:12:54ZNews ItemMinistry of Science makes open access to research mandatory
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/down-to-earth-july-16-2014-aparajita-singh-ministry-of-science-makes-open-access-to-research-mandatory
<b>Researchers who fail to meet the requirements would not considered for promotions, fellowships, future grants or appointments.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Aprajita Singh was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.downtoearth.org.in/content/two-departments-ministry-science-make-open-access-research-mandatory#.U81zNRm3TqA">published in Down to Earth</a> magazine on July 16, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre has made it mandatory for the researchers who receive funds from the Centre to submit a copy of their final research papers to open access journals or online open access repositories.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Stating this, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST), both under the Ministry of Science, recently released a draft of their Open Access policy. The departments have also invited comments and suggestions on the same. The document is open for comments till July 25th.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the draft, DBT and DST have stated that since this research is funded by the public, it is necessary that the knowledge be made accessible to the public as soon as possible, so that it can be read and built upon. This will promote research culture in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the past, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) have also released similar open access policies that encourage authors to make their work easily available to the public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Traditional journals such as Nature impose a heavy subscription fee for access to their articles, thus limiting the viewers that these papers can reach. In some cases, authors may also be required to sign over their copyright of the paper to the publisher. Scientists consider it to be a matter of prestige to publish their research in these journals as it is believed that the quality of papers published here is superior to that of papers in open access journals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But the trend slowly changing. According to T Vishnu Vardhan of Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, “For open access journals like PLoS ONE, a scientist or an author has to pay less than one-third of the cost of publishing that he would pay to traditional models. The publishers have for long been holding forth on the editorial quality that their commercial operations assure, which no more holds ground as the open access journals have historically demonstrated same level of efficiency.” He adds that this is primarily because most of the peer reviewing of scientific scholarly publication is done for free.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The policy proposes that a copy of the paper be submitted to the repository within a week of being accepted by a journal. If the journal imposes an embargo, the paper will remain in the repository, but be made open access only once the embargo ends. Journals can thus charge a subscription fee for the duration of the embargo period. However, the policy asks the authors to suggest that the embargo period be no longer than year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The departments maintain that while they do expect the authors to publish their work in quality, peer-reviewed journals, the research work done by them should be judged on the basis of the merit of the work and not the journal it is published in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It also states that authors must submit the deposit ID of the work in question along with the final work, and also while applying for any future funding, or their proposals will not be considered. For authors of research conducted in institutions that come under the control of DBT/DST which do not carry the deposit ID, the penalty proposed is severe. These authors will not be eligible for promotions, fellowships, future grants or appointments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The policy also provides a copyright addendum which states that the author retains all rights to reproduce and distribute the article, as long as it is not done for monetary purposes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is hoped that this policy will encourage other departments to make open access research mandatory too. Senior scientist at ICAR Research Centre for Eastern Region and a member of Open Access India, Sridhar Gutam says that there is a lack of clarity amongst researchers in India over open access policies. He hopes that now that CSIR, ICAR, DBT and DST have rolled out open access policies, this will encourage discussion on the issue and once this policy is finalized, other departments and institutes of higher education and research will follow suit and introduce their own policies.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/down-to-earth-july-16-2014-aparajita-singh-ministry-of-science-makes-open-access-to-research-mandatory'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/down-to-earth-july-16-2014-aparajita-singh-ministry-of-science-makes-open-access-to-research-mandatory</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2014-07-28T09:12:49ZNews ItemLetter on South Africa's IPRs from Publicly Financed R&D Regulations
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/letter-on-south-africas-iprs-from-publicly-financed-r-d-regulations
<b>Being interested in legislations in developing nations styled after the United States' Bayh-Dole Act, CIS responded to the call issued by the South African Department of Science and Technology for comments to the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Regulations.</b>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/letter-on-south-africas-iprs-from-publicly-financed-r-d-regulations'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/letter-on-south-africas-iprs-from-publicly-financed-r-d-regulations</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshOpen StandardsBayh-DoleIntellectual Property RightsOpen AccessOpen Innovation2011-08-04T04:42:15ZBlog EntryLecture on Open Access and Open Content Licensing at ICAR (short course)
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/lecture-on-open-access-and-open-content-licensing-at-icar-short-course
<b>The ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research (IIHR) a constituent establishment of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) organised a short course on 'ICTs for Improving Efficiency and Effectiveness in Agricultural Research, Education and Extension of NARES' during November 13-22, 2018 in Bangalore. Anubha Sinha delivered a lecture to the participants.</b>
<p>Read for <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/files/invitation-for-delivering-lecture-in-icar/view">more information about the programme</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/lecture-on-open-access-and-open-content-licensing-at-icar-short-course'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/lecture-on-open-access-and-open-content-licensing-at-icar-short-course</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminOpennessOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2018-12-05T16:19:56ZNews ItemKnow your Users, Match their Needs!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/know-your-users
<b>As Free Access to Law initiatives in the Global South enter into a new stage of maturity, they must be certain not to lose sight of their users’ needs. The following post gives a summary of the “Good Practices Handbook”, a research output of the collaborative project Free Access to Law — Is it Here to Stay? undertaken by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society.</b>
<p></p>
<p>Almost ten years have passed since the Montreal Declaration on
Free Access to Law (FAL) was signed by eight legal information institutes and other
FAL initiatives. Today, the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) is growing with over 30 initiatives having signed onto the Declaration and providing free, online
access to legal information. While the movement continues to gain momentum, the
big question no longer remains <em>why</em> we need
free access to law, but instead <em>how</em> FAL initiatives can continue to do so sustainably in the long-term. The principles of access
and justice underpinning the FALM have been well-argued and few would dispute the
notion that citizens ought to have access to the laws under which they are
governed. As the Montreal Declaration states: "Public legal information from
all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of
humanity…Maximizing access to his information promotes justice and the rule of
law" (2002).</p>
<p>Regardless of legal system or political context, the
importance of securing free online access to the law has been recognized from a
variety of perspectives. Whether FAL is considered a critical democratic
function or simply an essential efficiency within any legal system, it is
difficult to contest that the internet has increased the accessibility of and
ease with which legal information is being published and shared online. Setting
the ideological and practical foundations of the movement aside, effectively
demonstrating the impact of FAL initiatives and to secure their sustainability in
the long-term remains the next big challenge for the FALM. Today, there is a
growing necessity for grounded and realistic indicators that can validate some
of the long-held assumptions around the impacts and outcomes of FAL initiatives.
Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, there is also a need for a more
nuanced understanding of the factors that influence the sustainability of FAL
initiatives— particularly in resource-scarce and often nebulous legal systems of
the Global South.</p>
<p>This blog post provides some insight into the questions
above through a brief summary of the results of the study <a class="external-link" href="http://crdi.org/ar/ev-139395-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html">Free Access to Law—Is
it Here to Stay?</a> This global comparative study was carried out by LexUM (Canada)
and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for
Internet and Society. The project set out to begin providing answers to some of
these critical questions around the impacts and sustainability of the FALM. It
was initially hypothesized in the study that the sustainability of a FAL
initiative rests upon a particular string of contingent factors. To begin, a particular
condition would incentivize the creation of the FAL initiative — more often than
not meeting the unmet needs of those requiring access to legal information. Next, if the FAL initiative is able to provide
the service within a favourable context, it was suspected that it would produce
favourable outcomes for both users and society at large. In turn, if the FAL
initiative was able to provide benefits to users, it was theorized that these benefits
would then stimulate reinvestment into the FAL initiative — forming a positive
and sustainable feedback loop. </p>
<p>As the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/docs/a2k/Best%20Practices%20Hand%20Book_03sept11.pdf">Good Practices Handbook</a> highlights, the research
hypothesis provided an accurate reading of what the sustainability chain of a
FAL initiative might look like in<em> practice</em>.
If unable to keep up with the evolving information requirements of their users,
this study suggests that FAL initiatives run the risk of FAL becoming outdated
and even outperformed by either government-based or private sector
initiatives. This is why FAL initiatives
must continue to be innovative and find new ways to meet users’ needs. Approaches take my include keeping their
collections up to date, fine-tuning their services or even reinventing
themselves through the provision of value-added services. Gathered from the
experiences of the eleven countries across Africa and Asia examined in this
study, the following is a brief summary of the nine “Good Practices” that emerging
FAL initiatives can consider:</p>
<ol><li><strong>The FAL initiative
should establish clear objectives</strong>: Before doing anything, the FAL initiative
should decide what exactly it’s setting out to do…critical components such as
content selection, targeted audience, expected reach, search functionalities
and other website features help determine priorities and evaluate capacity to
achieve these objectives.</li><li><strong>How to be small and
do big things</strong>: Most of the FAL initiatives studied as part of this project
were formed of small teams (often less than five individuals). Initially, this may
appear to pose a risk for sustainability. However, we saw a number of ways in
which small teams have proven to be innovative, flexible, and able to thrive in
environments of scarcity. However, as much as small teams can be seen as a
source of innovation, they may also pose a risk in the medium to long-term. </li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
require expertise in both IT and legal information</strong>: Legal information management
experts understand how the law is applied, how different texts and parts of
texts speak to one another, and how these documents are used. IT experts can
imagine a variety of ways to address these needs. If both forms of expertise is
not available within the team of a FAL initiative, institutional partnerships
provide promising sites for collaborative support. For example, the FALM
constitutes a rich source of expertise and has proven to be a site of
collaboration between established and emerging FAL initiatives. Further,
universities have proven to be a significant source of human and financial
resources for several FAL initiatives.</li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
should look to where they are headed (but not too far ahead)</strong>: Because the
purpose of a FAL initiative is to provide free online access to the law, it
must secure access to this data for regular publication. How will legal
information be received and organized by the initiative? In what format will it
be published in? Early on, FAL initiatives need to develop both internal and
external workflow processes to ensure that the initiative is able to provide regular
access to updated information. Furthermore, an important finding of the study
suggests that context plays a much larger role in a project’s sustainability. Consideration
should be given to a country’s ICT infrastructure, the transparency of a
government and their access to information regimes, and the nature of the legal
information market when designing the workflows of an FAL initiative.</li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
should work with the ICT infrastructure in place</strong>: The quality and
consistency of internet access varies across countries in the Global South. FAL
initiatives should remain aware of how stakeholders and users are accessing the
internet and develop their service accordingly. Considering the often
intermittent nature of internet connectivity in the Global South, providing
users with offline access to databases is a practical alternative.</li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
should use Free and Open Source Software</strong>: FAL initiatives should maximise
their use of FLOSS. All FAL initiatives use FLOSS to some extent and without
these flexible and cost-effective alternatives, it would be safe to infer that
the FALM would have grown as quickly as it has.</li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
should be sensitive to culture</strong>: FAL initiatives rely on stakeholders and
communities of users. Staying mindful of the professional and organizational
cultures within a country may provide the initiative with a source of community
support which may become a sustainability strategy. Further, integrated or parallel social
networking platforms can play an essential role in community-building around
the FAL initiatives and can also serve as another source of content in
resource-scarce environments.</li><li><strong>Find your users,
match their needs</strong>: Project goals and appropriate strategies should be based
on an in-depth understanding of the needs of those using the FAL initiative. As
the sustainability chain suggests, when FAL initiatives produce positive
outputs and outcomes, stakeholders will reinvest in the initiative to ensure
its sustainability. If a user’s needs are effectively met by an FAL initiative,
this group can provide either the resources or impetus for its continued
success. Identifying who your users are and staying aware of their needs is a
good way to secure reinvestment into the project.</li><li><strong>FAL initiatives
should diversify funding sources</strong>: This may be easier said than
done — reinvestment can be the most challenging aspect of sustaining a FAL
initiative. Early on, initiatives that receive donor-based funding benefit
substantially upon investment. However, these initiatives are put at
significant risk once initial seed funding has been depleted. Similarly, FAL
initiatives that partnerships with other during their start up phase face
similar fates as securing long-term service delivery can become a challenge.
Possible funding sources included throughout the study include, among others:
government, international development agencies or NGOs, the judiciary, law
societies and the sale of value-added services.</li></ol>
<p> </p>
<p>In addition to these good practices, this study has emphasized
the role the that the FALM has played in helping redefine online legal information as a public good. Each
of the case studies demonstrates in a unique way the value openness plays in a
legal information ecosystem, and how a robust digital legal information commons can be of
benefit to users. Traditionally, the legal information market has been dominated by a select
number of commercial players. In response, the FALM has created an important
transnational space within which conversations around the provision of and
access to legal information as a political right <em>rather</em> than a commodity to be bought and sold
can take place. Encouragingly, governments in the Global South are catching and FAL initiatives from the South have proven to be immense sources of innovation in their own right. In Indonesia, for example, FAL initiatives have laid the
groundwork for emerging government initiatives that are now prioritizing the provision of free, online access to legal and other government information. Today, I believe that we are witnessing an important paradigm
shift as governments are beginning to recognize that “access” to legal information is a
right to be held by the public.</p>
<p>Despite such headway, it is needless to say that FAL initiatives in the Global South
continue to face immense sustainability challenges. However, it is hoped that this
study can provide some practical insights for emerging initiatives
and partnerships. However, as more FAL initiatives begin entering into the next
stage of maturity and growth, it is more important than ever that they are
able to adapt to adverse environmental changes and form
long-lasting partnerships with information sources within government. Most
importantly, FAL initiatives must remain dynamic and responsive to users’
needs. To do so, they must be able to tailor and expand their services, offerings
and user-base. To secure their sustainability and relevance in the long term, they must also be continuously strengthening their ties and maintain open communication flows with
users. If FAL initiatives are able to successfully make the
transition from being supply side initiatives to becoming demand driven services,
the FALM will be well-positioned for another decade of sustainable growth. </p>
<p>Download the collection below:</p>
<p><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/Links%20in%20the%20Chain%20-%20Volume%20I%20issue%20I.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Links in The Chain - Volume I"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/pdf.png" title="Know your Users, Match their Needs!" height="16" width="16" alt="" class="subMenuTitle" /></a><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/good-practices.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Good Practices Handbook">Good Practices
Handbook </a>(426 kb)<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/Links%20in%20the%20Chain%20-%20Volume%20I%20issue%20I.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Links in The Chain - Volume I"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/pdf.png" title="Know your Users, Match their Needs!" height="16" width="16" alt="" class="subMenuTitle" /></a><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/environmental-scan.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Environmental Scan Report">Environmental Scan Report</a> (860 kb)<br /><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/digital-natives/publications/Links%20in%20the%20Chain%20-%20Volume%20I%20issue%20I.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Links in The Chain - Volume I"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/pdf.png" title="Know your Users, Match their Needs!" height="16" width="16" alt="" class="subMenuTitle" /></a><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/local-researchers-methodology-guide.pdf" class="internal-link" title="Local Researcher's Methodology Guide">Local Researcher's Methodology Guide</a> (1225 kb)</p>
<p>The full collection of case studies and the Good Practices
Handbook was originally published on the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/cij/acces-libre-au-droit/resultats">Project Website</a>. The Centre for Internet and Society oversaw the following case studies: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/docs/a2k/resultats/indiafinaljul11.pdf">India</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/docs/a2k/resultats/hongkongfinaljul11.pdf">Hong Kong</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/docs/a2k/resultats/indonesiafinaljul11.pdf">Indonesia</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://www.informationjuridique.ca/docs/a2k/resultats/Berne_Final_2011_July.pdf">Philippines</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/know-your-users'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/know-your-users</a>
</p>
No publisherrebeccaResearchFeaturedOpen AccessOpennessPublications2012-02-27T15:06:14ZBlog EntryJournals, Open Access, Copyright, Repositories
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/journals-open-access-copyright-repositories
<b>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'. </b>
<p>On 26 March 2009, the Indian Academy of Sciences and the National Aeronautical Laboratories, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, organised a day-long conference on 'Scholarly Communications in the Age of the Commons', as a way to highlight the need for Open Access in Indian academia and research. The speakers and panellists included Prof N. Mukunda of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Prof John Willinsky of Stanford University, Dr D.K. Sahu, MD and CEO of Medknow Publications, Prof Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto, Prof Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow with CIS, Dr A.R. Upadhya, Director of NAL, Mr N.V. Sathyanarayana, CMD. of Informatics, and Mr Sunil Abraham, Director of Policy at CIS.</p>
<p>Prof N. Mukunda gave the keynote address, which is reproduced below.</p>
<p> </p>
<div align="center"><strong>“Journals, Open Access, Copyright, Repositories – Some Viewpoints from an Academy”</strong></div>
<p><br /><em>Invited key note address at the Conference on ‘Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons (Open Access)’ on 26 March 2009, National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore</em></p>
<p><em><strong>N. Mukunda, Editor of Publications, Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore</strong></em></p>
<p>1) Dr. Upadhya, Dr. Goudar, Prof. Arunachalam, Dr. Poornima Narayana, Prof. Chan, Prof. Willinsky, Prakash, Chandramohan from the Academy, distinguished invitees, ladies and gentlemen, may I on behalf of the Indian Academy of Sciences express a warm welcome to all of you to this one day Conference on ‘Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons’. This is the Academy’s Platinum Jubilee Year, and for NAL it is the Golden Jubilee; and it is a pleasure for the Academy to join NAL and the ‘Centre for Internet & Society’ in hosting this meeting. Thanks also to Dr. Goudar and Prof. Arunachalam for their initiatives in organizing this event. I am here substituting for Prof. D. Balasubramanian, President of the Academy, as he has to be at a meeting at Chennai today. If only the fanciful Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics were correct, the world could have split into two copies, and Prof. Balasubramanian also into two copies, one in Chennai and one here; and he could have spoken in both places simultaneously! In the tea break, I can tell you more about this interpretation of quantum mechanics, if any of you are interested.</p>
<p>I am used to giving seminars and colloquiua, on subjects of my research, but never have I given a key note address or an Executive Summary. These are new to me. Also, as you all know, President Obama always needs a teleprompter while giving his fine speeches. Similarly, I cannot speak without a written text in front of me, so please permit me this luxury. Let me also add that I believe in the well-known saying — levity is the soul of wit.</p>
<p>2) The Academy’s efforts in the Open Access direction go back to 1998. It was then that the journal Pramana was made available on the Academy website completely free for all to read. Thereafter all the other Academy journals have also been made freely available online, so now all ten Academy journals are available. Quite recently the speed of access has been considerably improved. In 2006 the Academy entered into an agreement with Springer to co-publish the international online and print editions of the ten journals, but with the proviso that world-wide open access on the Academy website would continue. So now there is the version on the Academy site, which is accessible world-wide and free, and also the value-added SpringerLink version available to paid subscribers. This arrangement is working quite well. The download figures from both sites are quite encouraging, and in any case the visibility of the journals world-wide is much better than it used to be. INSA by the way has signed the Berlin Open Access Declaration and its journals are also freely accessible.</p>
<p>3) Two important things happened in April 2008, just about a year ago. INSA arranged a meeting on Open Access and Copyright issues on 26th April, 2008, again thanks to Prof. Arunachalam’s initiative; and Prof. Balaram wrote an editorial in Current Science on 10th April 2008 on the subject ‘Science Journals: Issues of Access’. I must confess I am completely ignorant and totally naive in all these matters, so whenever necessary I turn to one of Prof. Balaram’s numerous beautiful editorials – and get educated about the finer points of English literature at the same time – I also read some of the steady stream of emails from Prof. Arunachalam which arrive each day. He is constantly exhorting us to do various things – like Mr. This or Mr. That we should give him the honorary title “Mr. Open Access”, it is a onepoint agenda with him. So I learn a lot from both these sources which are at least openly accessible to me. Incidentally a collection of Prof. Balaram’s editorials is likely to be published soon, and several of us have been asked to write editorials to introduce his editorials on various subjects. Science journals are proliferating in number and spiraling in costs. So these raise difficult problems of affordability for libraries and institutions. There are also issues of judging quality, and looking at the economics of the entire process, the whole information chain – overall costs of dissemination of research results, journal publishing and production, refereeing, circulation… who pays for what, who profits, is it reasonable or exorbitant? There is the impact of technologies on all this – these are times of extremely rapid changes, with new undreamt of opportunities appearing all the time. These are true of other arenas of life as well – in education, governance, entertainment, in news communication and so on. As a physicist I cannot help remembering that all this began in 1948 with Claude Shannon’s Classical Theory of Information – a major conceptual revolution which showed that information could be measured, and so could its transmission and fidelity and so on. Such a beautiful set of ideas – a fascinating mathematical structure embedded within the classical theory of probability. And this was accompanied and later followed by technical advances, transistors (1947), semiconductors and so on. Balaram’s view is that Institutional Repositories are more easily achievable than Open Access. This may greatly change the structure and traditional roles of libraries as we know them, at least as far as the sciences are concerned. He mentioned the recent much-heralded Harvard University faculty decision which ‘authorizes Harvard to place a faculty member’s work in a repository that will be available to all at no cost’. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has taken a similar even wider step very recently, on the 18th of this month.</p>
<p>There is also discussion of who pays – or should pay – for the costs of publishing research results – a shift from the traditional ‘researcher pays’ era through ever increasing subscription costs to a new ‘author pays’ arrangement. The idea is that agencies that fund research – whether private or public – should include costs of publication in their support. Balaram mentions that for some high impact journals, the cost to the author for one paper can be as much as Rs. 2.5 lakhs! When I saw this, I could not help wondering – what would someone like Albert Einstein do in such a situation? He was working in a Patent Office in Berne as an assistant third class about a hundred years ago, and of course he had no research funding of any kind; but in his spare time he wrote papers that revolutionized physics! His papers were all published, he even received free reprints – but how would he fare today? One gets the impression that subscription costs for well-known journals in those days were quite reasonable; and in historical accounts one reads that people like Julius Springer were in frequent contact with figures like Arnold Sommerfeld and others in a mutually beneficial and enlightened atmosphere.<br />It seems we have to accept and acknowledge that the methods of doing science, the costs, the sociology of the scientific enterprise, have all changed enormously. It has become intensely competitive, one can even say that cut-throat methods are common, it seems the scientific enterprise is no longer the domain of scholars alone. Claims for priority are severe. In a piece that appeared on 9th February 2009 in the New York Times, celebrating the 200th birth anniversary of Charles Darwin, the writer said:</p>
<p><em>“One of Darwin’s advantages was that he did not have to write grant proposals or publish 15 articles a year. He thought deeply about every detail of his theory for more than 20 years before publishing ‘The Origin of Species’ in 1859; and for 12 years more before its sequel, ‘The Descent of Man’, which explored how his theory applied to people.”</em></p>
<p>The old times are gone forever, the times of Darwin and Einstein. The game has become a game, with new rules of play. The new patterns and methods however seem more natural for the younger generation to adjust to, but some of us of an older generation cannot forget the past so easily.</p>
<p>4) The INSA meeting discussed many aspects including the need to educate working scientists about their rights with respect to copyright. There is a recent email from Arunachalam on this from Amsterdam. Again I think younger scientists are aware of their rights more than old fogeys like me, we are the ones needing education. There is a need for change in Copyright patterns, especially for books out of print, to decide when something should move into the Public Domain, and so on. Some of the major INSA recommendations are to granting agencies to mandate Open Access for results of publicly funded research, and to scientists to publish in Open Access journals by choice.</p>
<p>Some tasks are set for the Academies too, such as setting up Institutional Repositories, and to work toward Open Access in all possible ways. In this context, it is possible that the three national Science Academies of India – IASc, INSA and NASI – may try to cooperate in these matters, as they have been doing in the case of science education recently.</p>
<p>5) From its inception, publication of journals has been a major effort of the Indian Academy of Sciences. There has always been a striving to maintain standards. Today we can say about our ten journals, they are reasonably good, about the best from India. The main concerns – in these times of very rapid change and impact of new technologies – are: how do we maintain refereeing and review standards, how to tackle increasing cases of plagiarism, and while coping with all these how do we move in the Open Access direction? Quality of journals is most precious for the Academy, this is hard to achieve and to maintain, the whole enterprise seems to be under pressure.</p>
<p>6) Let me end by returning to Balaram and INSA and mention a recent initiative of the Academy. With generous help from the Indian Institute of Science, we are trying and hoping to set up an Institutional Repository covering all publications of all Fellows past and present. Starting since 1934 – the total number of Fellows is about 1500, 900 present and 600 past. And the total number of research publications may be around 60,000 or 75,000. The hope is that in this Platinum Jubilee year this effort should get started and make some progress. We should try to get a substantial number of entries into the Repository within this year, catch up as soon as possible, then make it an ongoing automatic process. Otherwise many of us here today will also become past Fellows before the job is done. Getting titles and abstracts seems easy, with full text there may be problems, but here Arunachalam tells us authors have more rights than they realize. Let us see what we can do. It seems about 50 institutions in India already have set up such repositories, but we have miles to go before we sleep!</p>
<p>I am happy to have given the first key note address of my life today – I am sure the day’s discussions will be full of ideas and fruitful. It has been a pleasure to have been here, my thanks to Dr. Goudar and Prof. Arunachalam for inviting me, and most of all to Prof. Balasubramanian for asking me to be here in his place.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/journals-open-access-copyright-repositories'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/journals-open-access-copyright-repositories</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaOpen Access2011-08-18T05:01:28ZBlog EntryInternational Repository Infrastructure Workshop, Amsterdam, 16-17 March 2009: A Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/international-repository-infrastructure-workshop-amsterdam-16-17-march-2009-a-report
<b>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. </b>
<p align="left"></p>
<div align="left"> </div>
<p align="left">I was in Amsterdam
for the International Repository Infrastructure Workshop, with Prof. Subbiah
Arunachalam of <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/../">CIS</a> and other participants
from UK, USA, Japan,
and Australia. The workshop was funded by <a href="http://www.jisc.ac.uk/">JISC</a>, <a href="http://www.surffoundation.nl/en">SURF</a> and <a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/">DRIVER</a> Project. The aim of the workshop was to draft plans for
the future course of international repositories’ action.</p>
<p align="left">The workshop started with a keynote speech by Norbert Lossau of the DRIVER project. Much of his talk focused on
DRIVER experience. Beyond individual repositories and related services, he
explained the need for an internationally coordinated repositories
infrastructure. Soon after the keynote,
participants were divided into four breakout groups to enage in parallel discussion and to
draft action plans on the following topics:</p>
<div align="left">
<ul type="disc"><li>International Organization</li><li>Identifier Infrastructure</li><li>Citation Services </li><li>Repositories Handshake <br /></li></ul>
</div>
<p align="left">I participated in the Repositories ‘handshake’
group. The handshake group, which consisted of
mostly repository practitioners and service providers, was moderated by Peter
Burnhill of <a href="http://edina.ac.uk/">EDINA</a>, University of Edinburgh. Initially, there was a bit of effort in reaching
the definition of ‘repositories handshake’ and what it was actually
intended for. After deliberations on service requirements, ingest support
services, machine interoperability and workflow enhancement, the group settled
on 'deposit opportunities' as its focus. Two-side handshakes were considered:
one with authors, where the handshake action naturally twisted to a ‘begging’ action (in the present global repository scenario) and on the other side, handshakes
with service developers by ensuring (minimally sufficient) quality metadata and
interoperability.</p>
<p align="left">On the
second day, our group continued its discussions on creating conducive 'deposit
opportunities' on the principles of <em>more</em>
(content), <em>better</em> (quality metadata),
<em>easy</em> (uploading) and <em>rewarding</em> (for depositor). The group agreed upon eight purposeful handshake
use cases and multiphase action plan. There was a consensus on a first phase work
plan which would achieve, in six months' time, at least a few key use
cases like:</p>
<div align="left">
<ul type="disc"><li>Easy deposit method for multi-authored papers, with different
affiliations from different countries, in multiple repositories</li><li>Communication between institutional, subject and funding
repositories</li><li>Publisher deposits in repositories (IR/SR)</li><li>Institute induced deposits</li></ul>
</div>
<p align="left">We had two breakout group presentations
during the course of the workshop, in which moderators discussed the progress made
by each group. This helped members of the groups to understand what the other groups were doing.</p>
<p align="left">Finally, all participants assembled at
the plenary session of the workshop, at which moderators of each breakout group presented the product
of the one and a half day deliberations. In my view, there was considerable progress made by the Citation
Services group. Leslie Carr, who was the
moderator of the group, talked about the plan of setting up a repository based
citation test bed and developing a competitive text mining algorithm to cull
references from a document in repositories.</p>
<p align="left">The next impressive development came from the
Repository Identifiers group. The
moderator of the group talked about strategies of using existing resources to
build identifiers for people, repositories, organisations and objects (see presentation <a class="external-link" href="http://prezi.com/17905/view/#56">here)</a>. Dale Peters acknowledged the contribution of Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam at
the ‘International Organisation’ group’s final presentation.</p>
<p align="left">Clifford Lynch of <a href="http://www.cni.org/">CNI</a> summed up of the outcomes of
the break out groups in his closing remarks.
He envisioned repositories as a component of a larger
knowledge sharing infrastructure rather than as mere archives of institutional outputs. He also prioritised 'Identifier
Infrastructure' as the need of the moment and asked for a quick action on
it. </p>
<p align="left">There was a funders' meeting after
the workshop, the outcomes of which are yet to surface. With pre-workshop wiki discussions on
repository use cases and tweets (Twitter messages) during the program, the very form of the workshop was different from anything I had previously experienced.</p>
<p align="left">During the workshop, I met a few key
people involved in the <a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/">DRIVER</a> project,
particularly Dr Paolo Manghi from <a href="http://www.isti.cnr.it/">ISTI-CNR</a>,
Italy, an organisation that takes care of repository validation. I learned a little about <a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/">DRIVER</a>, which has come up with a set
of crisp metadata and interoperability guidelines to ensure smooth exchange
of data between European repositories and service providers. The guidelines
have been translated into three other languages, showing their international
acceptance. To streamline repository
developments in India, the time is right (since the number of repositories are small) to start a <a href="http://www.driver-repository.eu/">DRIVER</a>-like initiative to ensure metadata
uniformity in Indian repositories for easy exchange.</p>
<p align="left">-----<img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/uploads/madhan.jpg/image_preview" alt="Madhan Muthu" class="image-right" title="Madhan Muthu" /></p>
<p align="left">Guest blogger Madhan Muthu has a Masters in Library and Information Science, and has worked at the National Institute of Technology as an Assistant Librarian since March 2004. He is heavily involved as a volunteer in India's open access movement. Presently, he is
coordinating the Oriya Books Digitisation project in partnership with other
libraries. Prior to NIT, he was at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation
(MSSRF), Chennai, for about six years.</p>
<div align="left"> </div>
<p align="left"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/international-repository-infrastructure-workshop-amsterdam-16-17-march-2009-a-report'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/international-repository-infrastructure-workshop-amsterdam-16-17-march-2009-a-report</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaOpen Access2011-08-18T05:01:34ZBlog EntryIndo - French Perspectives on Digital Studies
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/indo-french-perspectives-on-digital-studies
<b>Anubha Sinha was a speaker at the Indo-French workshop on Open Access at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on March 15, 2017. The event was organized by the Digital Studies Group. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anubha Sinha broadly spoke on the state of open access in India, the features of the DBT-DST policy, ICAR policy, how to shape the future of open access movement in India and what are the obstacles in the same.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/files/talk-by-anubha-sinha-on-open-access-in-jnu">See the workshop schedule here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/indo-french-perspectives-on-digital-studies'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/indo-french-perspectives-on-digital-studies</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessOpen Access2017-03-29T05:17:33ZNews ItemIndian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works
<b>Sunil Abraham gave his inputs to the blog entry published in Medianama on July 23, 2014.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science and Technology recently <a href="http://dbtindia.nic.in/docs/DST-DBT_Draft.pdf">released</a> (pdf) the draft of what is termed as Open Access Policy and has invited comments from the public until July 25, reports <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/India-to-create-free-access-to-scientific-work-online/articleshow/38818160.cms">The Times of India</a>. Comments can be submitted to madhan@dbt.nic.in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objective of this policy is to provide unrestricted access to research work funded by the departments. The draft states that since all funds disbursed by DBT and DST are public funds, it is important that the information and knowledge generated through the use of these funds are made publicly available as soon as possible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As per the draft, DBT/DST will be creating a central repository wherein grantees can either publish their papers in an open-access journal or post the final accepted manuscript to an online repository. This includes papers funded by the two departments in 2012-13 as well as review articles invited by DBT/DST or author initiated that received funding from these departments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The draft suggests that the full text of the research paper and metadata of all research projects fully or partially funded by DBT/DST or the projects that utilised infrastructure built with the support of DBT/DST will have to be made publicly available, failing which they wouldn’t be considered for future grants or fellowship opportunities among others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The department believes that providing free access to these publications through gratis open access repository will enable increasing the distribution of these publications and will ensure that these research can be read and built upon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Copyright of research papers</b>: The draft also sheds light on copyright issues. It states that research work produced by a scientist as an employee of a government body or private institution the copyright would remain with the respective government body or private institution. However, following the final acceptance of the paper by any journal, it has to be deposited in an open access repository within a period of one week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The author of the research paper will retain the right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display the article in any medium for non-commercial purposes. They can also prepare derivative works from the article, and authorise others to make any non-commercial use of the article with credit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Implications</b>: This is a godsend for students, teachers and institutions that don’t have the means to purchase expensive academic journals. Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) told TOI that the idea is that taxpayers shouldn’t pay twice to access research funded by taxpayers’ money.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Earlier developments in Open Data</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In August 2013 the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2013/08/223-indian-govt-launches-open-repository-for-school-education/">launched an initiative</a> called <a href="http://nroer.in/home/">National Repository of Open Educational Resources</a> (NROER). The objective was to provide free educational resources to school students under the Creative Common license.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Union Cabinet had <a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=80197">cleared</a> the DST formulated <a href="http://www.dst.gov.in/NDSAP.pdf">National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy</a> (NPDSA) back in February 2012. <a href="http://dst.gov.in/nsdi.html">NPDSA</a> was supposed to increase accessibility and ease sharing of non-sensitive data amongst the registered users and their availability for scientific, economic and social developmental purposes. However, very little has been reported on how NPDSA was utilised since then.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the article <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2014/07/223-government-open-access-policy/">published in Medianama here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2014-07-28T05:34:37ZNews ItemIndia’s top science institution is trying hard to fix its “manel” problem
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/quartz-india-august-16-2019-india-s-top-science-institution-is-trying-hard-to-fix-its-manel-problem
<b>B Chagun Basha is a science, technology and innovation policy fellow at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) Centre for Policy Research established by the department of science & technology (DST-CPR).</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post was published in <a class="external-link" href="https://qz.com/india/1687242/no-manels-at-iisc-bengaluru-women-mandatory-in-panel-discussions/">Quartz India</a> on August 16, 2019. Sunil Abraham was quoted. <em>This piece was originally published on <a class="m_-1130724999584095261OWAAutoLink" href="https://connect.iisc.ac.in/2019/06/we-learned-the-hard-way-not-to-have-manels/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Connect</a> under the headline, “We Learned (The Hard Way) Not to Have Manels.”</em></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While organising an event at IISc, he and his colleagues realised they hadn’t paid much thought to gender inclusivity until it was explicitly pointed out to them that there were no women in their event. That sparked some introspection, as well as actions to ensure that this wasn’t repeated. In this interview, he talks about the incident and important lessons from it.</p>
<h3 class="india a1dbe">How did you first hear of the term manel?</h3>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">It was when I was organising my first event of an academic nature. Every year, DST-CPR marks International Open Access Week by planning activities for the entire week, and having a panel discussion is a major part of it. We bring in experts to sensitise people about topics related to open access and how we can incorporate it in our institute through a bottom-up approach.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe">In October 2017, when International Open Access Week came round, we collaborated with six other groups to organise it. We had a poster competition, a panel discussion, and a few other activities like engaging with the student community about open access and how they could play a role in promoting it.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">A week before the panel discussion was scheduled, we had confirmed the participation of all our speakers—five male speakers and one female speaker. The female speaker had not been included out of a conscious effort to ensure gender diversity—she happened to be on the list of names we came up with, we had written to all of them, and they had agreed to come. But a few days before the panel discussion, we received an email from her saying that she would not be able to join us.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe">We didn’t think it was a big deal. Instead of six participants we would have five, one of whom would be the moderator. Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had already confirmed that he would be the moderator. He sent us an email asking for details of the panelists, so that he could communicate with them and plan and structure the discussion. But when we sent him the details, he immediately got back to us saying that he wouldn’t be able to participate in this panel discussion.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">I was a little shocked—you can replace a panelist at the last minute, but finding a new moderator to curate a discussion is harder as doing so requires in-depth knowledge of this space and familiarity with open access policies at different levels. I asked Sunil what had happened—why did he have to pull out? He said that CIS had a written policy that was followed strictly: members could not participate in “manels”—a word I was hearing for the very first time. I didn’t even catch it properly when we spoke on the phone. Then he explained to me that if there was a panel on which there were only men and no women panelists—which are called “manels”—then people from his organisation avoided them completely.</p>
<h3 class="india a1dbe">What happened next?</h3>
<blockquote class="pullquote">I realised that as an organiser of an event, I wasn’t even thinking about being inclusive.</blockquote>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">I realised that as an organiser of an event, I wasn’t even thinking about being inclusive. So we requested Sunil to suggest names of women speakers whom we could approach. I realise now that it was not a good thing to do—when somebody points out that there are no women on your panel, and for those reasons they are not going to participate, you should try harder to rectify this at your end, and not dump the responsibility for this on the person who pointed it out in the first place.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">We should have put in genuine effort from our end to learn more about other women in the field whom we could approach for the panel. But at the time Sunil generously agreed and gave us a list with 12 names. We contacted all of them: two people responded, one of whom—Padmini Ray Murray, who was a faculty member at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology—happened to be in Bengaluru and agreed to participate at short notice. We were really thankful for that.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">The panel discussion went off smoothly, and at the end we gave a vote of thanks, where we acknowledged our goof-up, thanked Sunil for bringing it to our notice, and we promised the audience sitting in Faculty Hall, which included the Director of NCBS and the Deputy Director of IISc, that we wouldn’t run any more manels. We said we would consciously include more women in all events we organised from then on—not just panel discussions but talks, workshops and so on. That’s more or less an official decision we took for CPR.</p>
<h3 class="india a1dbe">Did you feel like you were being put on the spot at the time?</h3>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">We would often ask our superiors to suggest names for events or scout for people on our own, but actively thinking about including people of all genders was something we never really did. Now it feels like something that is really important.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">And an interesting thing happened after the vote of thanks that year: other people who had been in the audience and worked in other institutes or other departments at IISc came up to talk to us during the tea break. Like us, previously they thought it wasn’t important to think about who was being invited as panelists, but they began to see it was important too.</p>
<h3 class="india a1dbe">Has that changed how you planned subsequent events?</h3>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">Two months after that panel discussion, we organised a workshop. On the final day of the workshop, we presented information on how many male and female participants applied, and how many of each we selected (women formed a little over 50% of those selected). That was our indirect way of letting people know that we took gender into consideration during our selection process.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">In October 2018, when International Open Access Week came around again, we organised a panel discussion as well as an event called the Global Equity Forum for librarians, because they play a key role in making open access a reality at the institutional level. We consciously included women for both events, and not just because they were women. We realised that if you put in a little effort, you can easily find competent people of all genders without having to select people only for representation’s sake.</p>
<h3 class="india a1dbe">What about the people you mentioned earlier, who came up after the panel to ask you about including more women—do you know if they ever followed up on it?</h3>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">Since the 2017 panel, others have made an effort to have equal numbers on men and women in panels too. It’s been like a chain reaction—some of those who attended our panel discussion took notice and kept it in mind when they organised events themselves. For now, though, ensuring gender diversity has depended on the efforts of the individual organisers. What happens when they leave and others take their place?</p>
<p class="india a1dbe">I think we need to put forth a policy at an IISc-wide level for events organised on campus so that we can ensure balanced representation of women—not just on stage, but among participants of events like seminars and workshops as well. Leaving it up to personal decisions means that it may not be a sustained process, and that’s why we need to work towards having it as a departmental policy or as an institutional policy. Of course we need to push for this as individuals, but we also need the leadership on board in order for this to materialise.</p>
<blockquote class="pullquote">Ensuring equal representation for men and women in public events may seem like a small issue, but it drives bigger issues.</blockquote>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">Ensuring equal representation for men and women in public events may seem like a small issue, but it drives bigger issues. Everybody is supportive of gender equality and inclusion of women at some abstract level, but if we really want that to happen, it has to start at small levels and at different stages. That’s a key thing we learned from organising the 2017 panel—that it had to start with us. Inclusion in panel discussions and events is just one of the stages at which it can happen.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">In an academic set-up, dialogue is one way of engaging with a larger audience. You also have events, exams, student participation, and many other such avenues at which it happens, right? We have to address inclusion at all levels. If we have a policy about gender inclusion in events on campus, it could pave the way for policies on gender inclusion in other areas like intake of students, picking members of faculty, picking members of decision-making committees, and so on.</p>
<p class="india a1dbe" style="text-align: justify; ">We have to start somewhere, and we can’t rely on easy excuses not to act. It’s a fundamental issue that really needs to be addressed—and maybe then it will become the norm, and open our eyes to the need for other kinds of inclusion as well.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/quartz-india-august-16-2019-india-s-top-science-institution-is-trying-hard-to-fix-its-manel-problem'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/quartz-india-august-16-2019-india-s-top-science-institution-is-trying-hard-to-fix-its-manel-problem</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminOpennessOpen Access2019-08-19T13:58:51ZNews ItemInaugural EPT Award for Open Access
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ept-award-for-open-access
<b>The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the cause of open access (OA) and the free exchange of research findings. </b>
<p>We received 30 proposals from organisations in 17 developing countries on four continents, naming individuals who have worked hard to promote OA and who have achieved substantial progress. The selection of a single winner was extremely difficult as we received nominations for so many individuals who have made impressive strides by any or all of the following means:</p>
<ul><li>establishing OA institutional repositories;</li></ul>
<ul><li>setting up or encouraging conversion to OA journals;</li><li>achieving establishment of OA mandates requiring research to be OA on publication, or other policy developments;</li><li>advocating OA via seminars, publications, workshops, videos;</li><li>training others in the technology of setting up IRs;</li><li>preparing and establishing e-learning projects;</li><li>working towards the acceptance of Creative Commons licensing arrangements for research publications;</li><li>developing software for use in OA practices.<br /></li></ul>
<p>Because of the high standard of the applicants, we have decided to name a single winner, but also to recognise three other individuals who were very close runners-up. All will receive a certificate and the winner will receive in addition an engraved plaque in the next few weeks.</p>
<p>We are very happy to announce that the winner of the inaugural award is Dr Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Dr Jayakanth played a significant role in the establishment of India’s first institutional repository (IR) (<a class="external-link" href="http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/">http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in</a>). He now manages the IR and has provided technical support for establishing IRs in many other universities and institutes in India. He has been the key resource person at many events to train people in setting up IRs and OA journals. He has delivered presentations on IRs, OA journals, the OAI protocol, OAI compliance, the benefits of OA to authors and institutions and the role of libraries. He has developed a free and open source software tool (CDSOAI), which is widely used.</p>
<p>The Indian Institute of Science is the most prestigious institute in India and its IR now holds >31,400 records, making the century-old institute's research far more globally visible than before. The University Grants Commission in India has been impressed by the IISC’s IR and has directed all universities in India to replicate this effort.</p>
<p>Dr Francis Jayakanth can indeed be considered an OA ‘renaissance man’, an advocate and technical expert in all aspect of Open Access development and an inspiration to all, both at the research and policy level. <br />The EPT is proud to congratulate Dr Jayakanth as our first Award winner. We believe this Award and the example of our first winner will inspire many others and lead to similarly impressive nominations in 2012.</p>
<p>The runners-up for this award were (in alphabetical order): </p>
<ul><li>Ina Smith, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa;</li><li>Tatyan Zayseva, Khazar University, Azerbaijan; </li><li>Xiaolin Zhang, National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences.</li></ul>
<p>The EPT wishes to congratulate them and all who have been proposed, since without exception they have made a significant personal contribution to the sharing of research findings across the world. We will be sharing some of their stories and successes on our blog over the next few weeks.</p>
<h3>Electronic Publishing Trust for Development</h3>
<p>Web site <a class="external-link" href="http://www.epublishingtrust.org">http://www.epublishingtrust.org</a><br />EPT Blog <a class="external-link" href="http://www.epublishingtrust.blogspot.com">http://www.epublishingtrust.blogspot.com<br /></a></p>
<h3>What is Open Access?</h3>
<p>Open Access provides the means to maximize the visibility, and thus the uptake and use, of research outputs. Open Access is the immediate (upon or before publication), online, free availability of research outputs without any of the restrictions on use commonly imposed by publisher copyright agreements. It is definitely not vanity publishing or self-publishing, nor about the literature that scholars might normally expect to be paid for, such as books for which they hope to earn royalty payments. It concerns the outputs that scholars normally give away free to be published – journal articles, conference papers and datasets of various kinds.</p>
<p>Not only scholars benefit from Open Access. They are the most obvious beneficiaries, perhaps, because their work gains instant worldwide visibility, and they also gain as readers if much more world research is available on an Open Access basis for them to access freely and read. But there are many other beneficiaries, too.</p>
<p>Research institutions benefit from having a management information tool that enables them to assess and monitor their research programmes, and they have a marketing tool that enables them to provide a shop window for their research efforts. The same advantages apply to external research funders who need to be able to access and keep track of outputs from their funding, and measure and assess how effectively their money has been spent. They also can ensure that the results of their spending have had the widest possible dissemination. </p>
<p>It is because Open Access is so much in the interest of research funders and employers that an increasing number of them around the world are introducing Open Access policies that require their funded researchers to provide Open Access to their work.</p>
<p>The advantages of Open Access for science and scholarship are, in brief:</p>
<ol><li>Open Access brings greater visibility and impact</li><li>Open Access moves research along faster</li><li>Open Access enables better management and assessment of research</li><li>Open Access provides the material on which the new semantic web tools for data-mining and text-mining can work, generating new knowledge from existing findings<br /></li></ol>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ept-award-for-open-access'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/ept-award-for-open-access</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpen Access2011-12-31T10:46:47ZNews ItemInaugural EPT Award for Dr. Francis Jayakanth
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/inaugural-ept-award-for-dr.-francis-jayakanth
<b></b>
<h2>Programme</h2>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>16.00</td>
<td>Welcome and introduction to the award<br /><strong>Subbiah Arunachalam</strong><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16.05</td>
<td>Presenting the award and felicitation<br /> <strong>Prof. M S Swaminathan</strong><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16.15</td>
<td>Acceptance speech<br /> <strong>Dr Francis Jayakanth</strong> <br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16.25</td>
<td>Felicitation by eminent scientists<br /><strong>Prof. G Baskaran</strong><br /><strong>Prof. K Mangala Sunder</strong><br /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16.35</td>
<td>Vote of thanks</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16.40</td>
<td>Tea</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Video
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLtr00A.html?p=1" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLtr00A" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/inaugural-ept-award-for-dr.-francis-jayakanth'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/inaugural-ept-award-for-dr.-francis-jayakanth</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessOpen Access2012-02-27T12:24:25ZEventHow Open Access Content helps Fuel Growth in Indian-language Wikipedias
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/opensource.com-subhashish-panigrahi-october-24-2016-open-access-growth-indian-language-wikipedias
<b>Mobile Internet connectivity is growing rapidly in rural India, and because most Internet users are more comfortable in their native languages, websites producing content in Indian languages are going to drive this growth. In a country like India in which only a handful of journals are available in Indian languages, open access to research and educational resources is hugely important for populating content for the various Indian language Wikipedias.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was published by <a class="external-link" href="https://opensource.com/life/16/10/open-access-growth-indian-language-wikipedias">Opensource.com</a> on October 24, 2016.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Indian-language Wikipedias and open access</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most commonly spoken Indian languages have had Wikipedia projects for almost a decade. Languages like <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/07/15/konkani-wikipedia-goes-live/" target="_blank">Konkani</a> and <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/08/24/digest-tulu-wikipedia/" target="_blank">Tulu</a> are new entrants in the Wikipedia family, and currently there are <a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/List_of_Indian_language_wiki_projects" target="_blank">23 Indian language Wikipedias</a>. One example of high-quality open access content is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Open_Textbook_of_Medicine" target="_blank">Open Textbook of Medicine</a>, an offline encyclopedia consisting of Wikipedia articles related to medicine, which was created by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Members" target="_blank">group of dedicated volunteer</a> medical professionals that happen to be Wikipedia editors. There is enormous potential to grow Wikipedia in multiple languages with high-quality, open content like this.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To help fuel the growth of Wikipedia and its various projects, such as the Indian-language Wikipedias, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_community" target="_blank">Wikipedia community</a> has created an ecosystem with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikimedia_chapters" target="_blank">Wikimedia chapters</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_movement_affiliates" target="_blank">other affiliates</a>, which are run by both volunteers and paid staff from the <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, an organization responsible for fundraising, technical, and community support. In India, <a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/" target="_blank">Wikimedia India</a>, the Centre for Internet and Society’s <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" target="_blank">Access to Knowledge program</a> (CIS-A2K), and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians" target="_blank">Punjabi Wikimedians</a> are three such official affiliates working on catalyzing the growth of the content and the communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Whereas Wikimedia India focuses on expanding all the Indian-languages content, Punjabi Wikimedians focus on Punjabi language content (in both Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi scripts), and CIS-A2K focuses on five languages: Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian-language Wikipedia projects can only grow with the help of volunteers editing their own language Wikipedias and adding missing information from a reliable sources, which is where open access content can help.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Open in action</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 2016 International Open Access Week will be held October 24-30, 2016. The theme this year is <a href="http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/theme-of-2016-international-open-access-week-to-be-open-in-action" target="_blank">Open in Action</a>. The announcement explains, "International Open Access Week has always been about action, and this year's theme encourages all stakeholders to take concrete steps to make their own work more openly available and encourage others to do the same. From posting preprints in a repository to supporting colleagues in making their work more accessible, this year’s Open Access Week will focus on moving from discussion to action in opening up our system for communicating research."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indian contributors show the spirit of Open in Action as they help add content to the various Indian-languages Wikipedias. They depend on open access to research and other publications to help millions of people, including those living in rural areas, who are joining us online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" rel="license"> </a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/opensource.com-subhashish-panigrahi-october-24-2016-open-access-growth-indian-language-wikipedias'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/opensource.com-subhashish-panigrahi-october-24-2016-open-access-growth-indian-language-wikipedias</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpen Access2016-10-25T01:39:42ZBlog EntryHelping Institutions Embrace Open Access
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/manupriya-wire-november-17-2017-helping-institutions-embrace-open-access
<b>World over, a large number of universities and institutions are making way for open access repositories. Why have Indian researchers shied away from it?</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Manupriya was <a class="external-link" href="https://thewire.in/197872/helping-institutions-embrace-open-access/">published in the Wire</a> on November 17, 2017</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On October 28, 2017, a group of panelists in the faculty hall at <a href="https://indiabioscience.org/orgs/iisc" target="_blank" title="Indian Institute of Science (IISc),">Indian Institute of Science (IISc),</a> discussed the framework of policies that can help academic institutions embrace open access in letter, spirit and action. The discussion was a part of week-long activities organised by <span class="caps">DST </span>Centre for Policy Research (<span class="caps">DST</span>–<span class="caps">CPR</span>) at IISc to increase awareness and acceptability for open access publishing in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/OA.png/@@images/3939a474-dc8c-4f7b-b3ee-20b19b8f0e18.png" alt="OA" class="image-inline" title="OA" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The panel included Jayant Modak, deputy director, IISc, Satyajit Mayor, director of <a href="https://indiabioscience.org/orgs/ncbs" target="_blank" title="National Centre for Biological Sciences">National Centre for Biological Sciences</a> and <a href="https://indiabioscience.org/orgs/instem" target="_blank" title="inStem">inStem</a>, Padmini Ray Murray, vice-chair, <a href="http://www.globaloutlookdh.org/" target="_blank" title="Global Outlook: Digital Humanities">Global Outlook: Digital Humanities</a>, <span class="caps">N.V.</span> Sathyanarayana, chairman and managing director, <a href="http://www.informaticsglobal.com/" target="_blank" title="Informatics India Ltd">Informatics India Ltd</a> and Madan Muthu, visiting faculty at <a href="https://iiscdstcpr.wordpress.com/" target="_blank" title="DST-CPR at IISc."><span class="caps">DST</span>–<span class="caps">CPR</span> at IISc.</a> The discussion was anchored and moderated by Sunil Abraham, executive director, <a href="https://cis-india.org/" target="_blank" title="Centre for Internet and Society.">Centre for Internet and Society.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Open access is a form of publishing that makes the fruits of research, such as journal papers and other forms of data accessible to anyone interested in it, without a cost. World over, a large number of universities and institutions are beginning to give up the library subscription model of publishing to make way for open access, owing to the latter’s lower cost and higher visibility.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In India too, funding agencies like <span class="caps">DBT</span> and <span class="caps">DST</span> have laid out guidelines that require researchers to submit their research output in open access repositories. Ironically though, most researchers have shied away from submitting their work in the repositories. Which raises the question, why?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In fact, this was one of the first questions that the panelists debated upon. Abraham initiated the discussion by asking the panelists – What are the weaknesses of <span class="caps">DBT</span>–<span class="caps">DST</span> policy on open access? Why have a large number of scientists not followed the guidelines laid by the policy? Is it because the policy document does not talk about any punitive measures for scientists in the event of not depositing their work in the institutional repositories (IRs)? And, how can the policy be improved?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Modak opened the argument by saying that we as a nation are good at making provisions but bad with implementation. He agreed that scientists are yet to warm up to the idea of open access but was disinclined on using punitive measures to force scientists into submitting their work in IRs. Mayor, in agreement with Modak, said that the policy document is advisory in nature and sort of lacks ‘teeth’. However, he too was against the use of punitive measures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Murray, the third academician on the panel said that though the policy talks about staying away from publisher-based metrics like impact factor to assess a scientist’s work, it does not provide any information about what alternative metrics can be used to measure it. She suggested that the accessibility of a scientist’s work and how much effort she has put in to make it easily available to non-scientists could be used as a metrics for measurement. She also drew attention to the fact that the policy completely bypasses the requirements of independent scholars and those working in languages other than English. “Which institutional repository should they deposit their work in?”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sathyanarayana, the fourth panelist and a strong advocate of open access said, the policy document “lacks an aggressive strategy” to drive a disruptive and “fundamentally voluntary model” of adopting open access. He asked the other panelists and the audience, “why have repositories like ResearchGate become so successful and attractive for researchers? Why can’t open access IRs be modelled along the lines of such repositories? His argument was that the IRs can be fashioned in a way to make them a ‘convenient step in the process of research’”. One suggestion that he offered was that IRs can be structured as a paper submission platform. So that anybody who is interested in publishing their work first puts it up in the <span class="caps">IR</span> and only after that the process of going to a journal begins.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Muthu, the fourth panelist and a long-time crusader for open access in India said that scientists in India have stayed away from the open access publishing because they don’t fully realise that in traditional models of publishing, you surrender all copyrights of your work to the publisher. He added that more scientists can be encouraged to adopt the open access model of publishing by making IRs institute-managed, easier to use and as a mandatory step in the process of publishing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mayor added to this argument by saying that the idea of submitting (unpublished) work in an <span class="caps">IR</span> is quite similar to the concept of pre-print archives which are fast becoming a powerful way of sharing work. Almost all top journals accept work that has been published in a pre-print archive. In fact, in the physical sciences, people have been using pre-print archives for a long time and now slowly, even the biology community is warming up to it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Murray emphasised on the need to talk to students about open access and making them aware of the ways to design their metadata so that it is amenable to open access repositories.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the discussion inched closer to its final moments, it veered off towards the costs of open access publishing. Modak said that in the last year alone, the amount of money IISc has spent for publishing papers has doubled. If all researchers start opting for open access (<span class="caps">OA</span>) journals/hybrid-<span class="caps">OA</span> journals that charge the authors nearly double of what traditional journals do, then publishing papers will become unsustainable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To this, Sathyanarayana said, it may appear that the cost of publishing in <span class="caps">OA</span> journals is high, but on a macro-level, when you consider the cost of publishing and accessing all the papers published in a year, then the <span class="caps">OA</span> model costs much lesser. He added that scientific publishing is the only business in the world where authors (creators of proprietary material) give away all their rights to publishers.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Backing up the points made by Sathyanarayana, Murray said that in traditional models of publishing the publishers make close to 400% profits. We need to think about, “how much labour we as academics put in for publishers’ profits?”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is authors’ inertia that is stopping open access from becoming the obvious model of publishing, said, Muthu.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In conclusion, Abraham summed up the arguments and acknowledged that there are many dimensions to open access and an institutional policy on <span class="caps">OA</span> cannot be framed in a vacuum. Common people need to participate in the debate to shape the direction the policy takes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Apart from the panel discussion a poster competition and a quiz competition were organised as part of the <span class="caps">OA</span>-week activities. <span class="caps">DST</span>–<span class="caps">CPR</span> was joined by the student’s council at IISc, Centre for Contemporary Studies, <span class="caps">JRD</span> Tata Library and IndiaBioscience in organising the activities.</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>This article was originally published on </i><a href="https://indiabioscience.org/" target="_blank" title="IndiaBioscience">IndiaBioscience</a><i>. Read the original <a href="https://indiabioscience.org/news/2017/helping-institutions-embrace-open-access" target="_blank" title="here">here</a>. <br /></i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/manupriya-wire-november-17-2017-helping-institutions-embrace-open-access'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/manupriya-wire-november-17-2017-helping-institutions-embrace-open-access</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminOpennessOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2017-11-27T15:11:34ZNews Item