Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons
One-day conference on Open Access
Background
Open-access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. OA removes price barriers (subscriptions, licensing fees, pay-per-view fees) and permission barriers (most copyright and licensing restrictions) and ensures free availability and unrestricted use.
In today’s knowledge-based society, the advent of the Internet and widespread and easy access to scientific information are facilitating research and innovation. Open Access is not only changing the nature of scholarly communication but even the way research is carried out. Indeed Open Access is the bedrock on which the emerging Global Research Library initiative is being built.
Scientists and scientific institutions in India - some of them, to be precise - have moved up in the value chain in that they access information and disseminate their findings often through barrier-free electronic channels. Out of about 3,900 open access journals, India accounts for 108 titles as seen from the Directory of Open Access Journals. The major Indian publishers of OA journals are Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, MedKnow Publications and National Informatics Centre. According to the Registry of Open Access Repositories there are 40 open access repositories in India including those at Indian Institute of Science, National Aerospace Laboratories, National Institute of Oceanography, Raman Research Institute, National Institute of Technology - Rourkela, and Indian Institutes of Technology. Prof. Samir Brahmachari, Director General of CSIR, has initiated the Open Source Drug Discovery programme as an alternative to the traditional patent-driven model of drug research. Recently CSIR has adopted an open access policy. Indian National Science Academy is one of the early signatories to the Berlin Declaration.
Thus Open Access - both for accessing worldwide information and for making our own research more visible - is not new to India. But one must admit that considering the size of India's research and higher education enterprise what we have achieved so far is utterly inadequate and incommensurate with our ambition to become a knowledge power. We have a long way to go. And the first step is to adopt open access nationwide.
This one-day “Conference on Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons” is organized to take stock of the current developments in Open Access and to highlight the issues that would need to be addressed to enable a wider access to scientific knowledge and to enhance the visibility of research performed in India.
Date and Time
26 March 2009; 9.30 am - 5.00 pm
Venue
S R Valluri Auditorium, National Aerospace Laboratories, (Old) Airport Road, Bangalore
Speakers
Speakers at the event include:
Prof Leslie Chan, University of Toronto and Bioline International http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~chan/Prof John Willinsky, Stanford University and Public Knowledge Project http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Willinsky
Please see the programme below for names of the other speakers.
Contact
Dr I R N Goudar
Scientist ‘G’ and Head, ICAST
National Aerospace Laboratories
Airport Road, Bangalore-560017
Telephone: (+91) 80 2508 6080
Fax: (+91) 80 2526 0862
Email: [email protected]
While you can register on the spot, we encourage you to kindly register through e-mail. Please provide name, designation, address, contact telephone number and e-mail address. Participants may make their own arrangements for travel and accommodation.
Programme
9.30 am-10.15 am -- Inaugural session
Welcome by Dr I R N Goudar
About the conference: Prof Subbiah Arunachalam
Talk by Prof D Balasubramanian
Remarks by Dr A R Upadhya
10.15 am-10.45 am -- Tea
10.45 am-11.35 am -- Prof Leslie Chan, University of Toronto and Bioline International
11.35 am-12.25 pm -- Prof John Willinsky, Stanford University and Public Knowledge Project
12.25 pm-1.15 pm -- Dr D K Sahu, MedKnow Publications
1.15 pm-2.15 pm -- Lunch
2.15 pm-2.45 pm -- Mr Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society
2.45 pm-4.15 pm -- Panel discussion
Moderator: Prof P Balaram
Panelists: Subbiah Arunachalam, Leslie Chan, N V Sathyanarayana, A R Upadhya, and John Willinsky
4.15 pm -- Tea
VIDEOS