Openness Blog
Google Policy Fellowship Programme: Call for Applications
The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is inviting applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Google is providing a USD 7,500 stipend to the India Fellow, who will be selected by August 15, 2012.
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It has been a slow but steady move to make scholarship freely available, writes Prof. Arunachalam in an article published by the Indian Express on May 8, 2012.
Arduino Introductory Workshop at CIS
The Centre for Internet & Society organised a hands-on-free Arduino workshop in its office on March 3, 2012. Video is now online!
Open DataCamp — 2012
A one-day unconference for people working with data from various sectors to come together and share their projects and ideas was organised in Bangalore on March 24, 2012. It was organised by the DataMeet group. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.
Francis Bags EPT Award for Open Access in Developing World
The Electronic Publishing Trust recently announced a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developed countries who have made significant contribution for the cause of open access and free exchange of research findings. There were 30 nominations from 17 countries around the world and Dr. Francis Jayakanth from the National Centre of Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore was selected for the inaugural EPT Award for Open Access in the Developing World by a committee that went through all the nominations.
Comments on Technical Standards for Interoperability Framework for E-Governance in India (Phase II)
The e-Governance Standards Division has called for public comments on the draft of the Technical Standards IFEG Phase II. We from the Centre for Internet and Society have given our comments.
An Interview with Dr. Francis Jayakanth
India has been losing out its best talents to the West, however, this trend could be reversed if we create adequate number of world-class institutions and research facilities, and our scientific productivity and quality of research will improve significantly, says Dr. Francis Jayakanth in an email interview with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.
Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics
The Western Ghats Portal team had organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: technology behind biodiversity informatics, scientific commons and policy and biodiversity portals in India. It hoped to provide an opportunity to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this emerging discipline. The workshop was held at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore on 25 November 2011.
Design!PubliC — Innovation and the Public Interest
On the 14th of October, 2011, the Center for Knowledge Societies organized the second edition of the Design Public Conclave, a conversation on how innovation can serve the Public Interest. The conclave was held at the lovely premises of the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bangalore.
Know your Users, Match their Needs!
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.
Open Access Week ― A Lecture at NAL
We are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the Open Access week from 24 to 30 October 2011 all over the world. In India, Prof. P. Balaram, Director, Indian Institute of Science and Technology and Dr. L. Venkatakrishnan, Head, Experimental Aerodynamics Division, CSIR-NAL gave a lecture on Monday, 24 October 2011 at the KTMD Seminar Hall in National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), Bangalore. The lecture was organised by NAL. Tom Dane from the Centre for Internet & Society participated in the event held in the afternoon from 1.30 p.m. to 3.30 p.m. About 100 participants came over for the event.
Open Government Data in India (v2)
The first draft of the second version of the Open Government Data Report is now online. Nisha Thompson worked on updating the first version of the report. This updated version of the report on open government data in India includes additional case studies as well as a potential policy (National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy) that would create a central government data portal. The report was distributed for peer review and public feedback.
Open Access to Scholarly Literature in India: A Status Report: Call for Comments
The Centre for Internet and Society welcomes comments on the first draft of "Open Access to Scholarly Literature in India: A Status Report". This report, on open access to scholarly literature, with a special focus on scientific literature, has been written by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam and Madhan Muthu. The report surveys the field of scholarly and scientific publication in India and provides a detailed history of the open access movement in India.
People are Knowledge – Experimenting with Oral Citations on Wikipedia
The Centre for Internet and Society in association with the Wikimedia Foundation has produced a documentary film "People are Knowledge". The film evolved out of a project on Oral Citations in India and South Africa funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, and undertaken by Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board Member Achal Prabhala as a short-term fellowship, to help overcome a lack of published materials in emerging languages on Wikipedia. New Delhi-based filmmaker Priya Sen has directed the film, with additional assistance from Zen Marie who handled the shooting in South Africa. The film explores how alternate methods of citation could be employed on Wikipedia, documenting a series of specific situations with regards to published knowledge, and subsequently, with oral citations.
Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector
The Transparency & Accountability Initiative has published a book called “Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector”. We at the Centre for Internet & Society contributed the section on Open Government Data.
Comments on the draft National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy
A draft of the 'National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy', which some hope will be the open data policy of India, was made available for public comments in early May. This is what the Centre for Internet and Society submitted.
Open Government Data Study
CIS produced a report on the state of open government data in India—looking at policy, infrastructure, and particular case studies—as well as emerging concerns, future strategies and recommendations. The Transparency and Accountability Initiative provided generous funding for this report.
Comments on Draft National Policy on ICT in School Education
The Department of School Education & Literacy under the Ministry of Human Resources Development invited comments on its latest draft of the National Policy on ICT in School Education. CIS' comments are listed in this post.
Engaging on the Digital Commons
We at the Centre for Internet and Society are very glad to be able to participate in the 13th Biennial Conference of the International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC). Our interest in the conference arises mainly from our work in the areas of intellectual property rights reform and promotion of different forms of ‘opennesses’ that have cropped up as a response to perceived problems with our present-day regime of intellectual property rights, including open content, open standards, free and open source software, open government data, open access to scholarly research and data, open access to law, etc., our emerging work on telecom policy with respect to open/shared spectrum, and the very important questions around Internet governance. The article by Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash was published in the journal Common Voices, Issue 4.
CIS Comments on the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (Phase I)
In November 2010, the Central Government released the Draft 0.6 of the Technical Standards for the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (Phase I), requesting comments by January 27, 2011. Here are the comments that CIS submitted.