Centre for Internet and Society

The Indian Council of Agricultural Research Adopts an Open Access Policy

nehaa — 2013-09-30T15:03:04Z

In this blogpost, Nehaa Chaudhari discusses the newly adopted Open Access Policy of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research.

Earlier this month, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) adopted an Open Access Policy. Inter alia, this policy requires each ICAR institute to set up an Open Access Institutional Repository (OAIR), with the ICAR to set up a central harvester to harvest the meta data and full text of all the records from the Open Access (OA) repositories so set up. What is interesting from the IPR perspective is that the meta-data and other information of these repositories is copyrighted with the ICAR and has been licensed for research and academic purposes, for using, re-using and sharing. Commercial and other reuse would require the written permission of the ICAR. In a nod to the increasing importance of social media, ICAR’s Open Access Policy encourages its institutes to share their works on public repositories and social networking sites, besides adopting the mandate to have all publications, including its journals placed under Open Access. What might be harder to realize, however, is the publication of their research by scientists and other researchers across ICAR institutes or elsewhere, with publishers that allow self archiving Open Access Institutional Repositories. The ICAR Open Access Policy is available here.

In May, earlier this year, the ICAR had released a draft version of this policy, inviting comments. CIS’ comments had lauded the Policy as being comprehensive, detailed, and as being a positive step in the right direction, and had suggested some possible changes to the same.

It is observed that the adopted Open Access Policy (OAP) differs from the Draft Policy (DP) in certain respects, some of which are a cause for concern, whereas a few others expand the scope of the OAP. First, while the OAP requires that Institutional Repositories be established; the requirement contained in the DP to use Free and Open Source Software which was OAI-MHP compliant has been removed. Given that this is an endeavour to foster openness, requiring the use of Open Source Software was definitely a welcome step sought to be adopted by the ICAR, and its elimination renders the OAP lacking in the spirit of openness to its greatest realizable extent. Further, compliance with OAI-MHP would have ensured interoperability, as noted by us in our comments to the DP, and a failure to utilize this would reduce the accessibility and impact of archived materials. Second, the OAP requires that authors of scholarly articles deposit both, preprints and post-prints of their papers accepted for publication in the OAIR. This is a departure from the position in the DP, which required only preprints be deposited. Given that there is likely to be a difference in content and form of the article between the preprints and post-prints (which are after peer review), the inclusion of both preprints and post-prints in the OAIR is seen to be a beneficial move. Third, the period of embargo while signing copyright agreements with publishers had been envisaged to be six months in the DP, whereas the OAP extends the same to twelve months. It is felt that scientific writing is likely to be time sensitive, and twelve months might be an inordinate delay for its availability in the public domain, possibly reducing its applicability and relevance. Therefore, it is suggested that the earlier embargo period of six months might be the better alternative between the two. Fourth, the OAP incorporates an End Note, that was absent in the DP, which stipulates the time period of three years for compliance with the Open Access initiative, and recognizes the OAP as the first stage of a larger process. Both, the time period for compliance, and the recognition that the adoption of the OAP is but the first stage, are appreciated.

In sum, the OAP of the ICAR, while addressing some of the issues associated openness does leave room for desirability. Besides the suggestions that we had made earlier, other concerns include those reflected in this blog post, particularly regarding the departure from the DP in certain specific instances. Nonetheless, the adoption of the OAP by the ICAR is a welcome move- one that would hopefully be followed by other Government agencies such as the Department of Atomic Energy, the University Grants Commission, the Department of Biotechnology, etc.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/icar-adopts-open-access-policy

Konkani Wikipedia in the making

praskrishna — 2013-09-30T09:11:09Z

Process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia will be completed in six months’ time.

This article by Prakash Kamat was published in the Hindu on September 29, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The Goa University has re-launched a four-volume Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopaedia) and announced its plan to upload the same on Wikipedia so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.

The project is seen as a major stride in Konkani learning, research and production of books. The project, which will involve 42 students of the Konkani Department of Goa University including four designated as Ambassadors of Konkani, will turn students into producers of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge. The University has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public,” said Satish Shetye, Vice-Chancellor of Goa University, speaking at the launch of the project.

Narrating how the project began, Registrar of Goa University V. P. Kamat explained that Mr. Satish Shetye, who took over as Vice-Chancellor over a year ago, happened to notice the huge piles of hardbound volumes of the Konkani encyclopaedia stacked in the Goa University library and wished to digitise the manuscripts and re-launch the encyclopaedia. The idea to upload the whole content on Wikipedia was thus born.

The work for the Konkani encyclopaedia project was commissioned during the tenure of the first Vice-Chancellor B. Sheik Ali. The project was seen as a historical step to document the identity of the State and its people and the history of Goa for posterity. University insiders, however, said that no serious efforts were made to take the invaluable research work undertaken beyond the University. Secondly, because of the lack of human resource and funds, no initiative was taken so far to update these volumes.

Initiative

Prof. Shetye took a proactive initiative and tied up with Access to Knowledge Programme of the CIS. The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopaedia are being released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access.

Programme Director at CIS’s Access to Knowledge Programme Vishnu Vardhan said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopa edia on Wikipedia would be completed in six months’ time. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in the encyclopaedia so as to make the content more relevant.

Students of the University involved in digitisation work and rewriting the content see this as an opportunity to learn about digitisation and to write Konkani of global standard, said Madhavi Sardesai, Professor, Department of Konkani at the University. Mr. Vardhan also disclosed plans for a relevant training programme specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the University to put up the content on Wikipedia.

He said that the Goa University is the first in the country to re-license copyright of its content and hailed the initiative towards open knowledge. Though the MoU signed last month would be initially valid for three years, Mr. Vardhan is optimistic that it would go beyond the launch of the Vishwakosh volumes.

Mr. Halarnkar, associated with the Konkani literary movement, who was present at the launch as the editor of the original volumes, welcomed the process of digitisation as relevant, historical and need of the hour. However, he stressed on supervision over the accuracy and accountability while digitising original data and regular updating of the content in the context of the Konkani language, its history and movement.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-september-29-2013-prakash-kamat-konkani-wikipedia-in-the-making

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — September 2013

praskrishna — 2013-12-09T06:37:43Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of September 2013:

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0
Goa University re-released Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) organised an event on September 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Goa University Conference Hall. Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume encyclopedia published by Goa University. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc. By releasing Vishwakosh under Creative Commons license, Goa University is making it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. For more on Konkani Vishwakosh re-release see

Announcements

CIS Signs MoU with Goa University: The A2K team at CIS has signed an MoU with the Goa University to digitize the “Konkani Vishwakosh” under the Creative Commons license and build a digital knowledge partnership to enhance digital literacy in Konkani language.

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project: The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the University of Goa is doing a two-month project on digitization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Video

Wikipedians Speak: Piotr Konieczny: This episode brings you a conversation with Piotr Konieczny, a veteran Wikipedian from Poland. He has contributed to over 514 DYK articles on Wikipedia.

Columns and Blog Entries

Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).

Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K (by Nitika Tandon, September 10, 2013).

Wikipedia reaches Classrooms in Hyderabad (by Syed Muzammiluddin, September 20, 2013).

Events Organised

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mysore (University of Mysore, August 6, 2013): This is a report of the workshop conducted last month. Dr. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Indian Language Wikipedia Training Workshop (TISS, Mumbai, August 16, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop. This workshop was organized as part of the CIS-A2K MoU with TISS. This is also part of the Indian Language Mela being organized by Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, TISS.
Indian Language Wikipedia Training Workshop (TISS, Tuljapur, August 24, 2013). Abhishek Suryavanshi was the trainer for this workshop.
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Goa, September 28, 2013). Nitika Tandon conducted this workshop. The details will be posted soon.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 3 – 6, 2013).

Events Co-organised

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and CILHE, TISS on September 13, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan curated and conducted this day-long event for M.Phil and Ph.D students of the EFL University.
Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh & Building Konkani Wikipedia (organised by CIS-A2K and the University of Goa, Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao, September 26, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and wikipedians John Noronha and Supriya Kankumbikar, September 27, 2013). Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop.
Odisha: Wikipedia workshop at IIMC, Dhenkanal (co-organised by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia community, September 30, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi coordinated the entire event along with members of Odia Wikipedia, Dr Subas Chandra Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar and Sasanka Sekhar Das. This was covered by Odisha Diary (http://bit.ly/1bna9zd), and eOdisha Samachar (http://bit.ly/1aNJvv4).

Events Participated In

Workshop on e-Content Development (organised by Centre for Staff Training and Development, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 4 – 6, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan gave guest lectures on Open Source to Open Knowledge; Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet; e-Content in Indian languages – History, Challenges and Opportunities; Wikipedia Users to Wikipedia Authors – Exploring Wikipedia as an OER Tool; and e-Content, e-Student, e-Faculty – Reimagining classroom in the digital Age.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire, September 15, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet (organised by Jadavpur University, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, and Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University on September 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/163oEpz.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (organised by St. Aloysius College, AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore, September 13, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
Indian Languages Mela (organised by Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, TISS, Mumbai, September 20-21, 2013). Tejaswini Niranjana, T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in this event.
'Digital Humanities and Higher Education' (organised by School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, September 2013). Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana gave a talk.

Media Coverage

'Help Konkani Wikipedia come out of incubation' (Deccan Herald, September 13, 2013): The article talks about the relative lack of content in Konkani Wikipedia. “To get it out of incubation, many should write Konkani articles for Wikipedia,” Dr. Pavanaja was quoted as having said.
Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow (The Hindu, September 26, 2013). A coverage of the re-release of the Konkani encyclopaedia under Creative Commons license.
Goa University re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26 (The Times of India, September 24, 2013): Goa University and CIS-A2K re-released the four volume 3632 page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) in Goa.
Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia (Navhind Times, September 27, 2013).
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months (The Times of India, September 27, 2013): Goa University becomes the first varsity in India to allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university to be used by internet users. Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided, says Vishnu Vardhan.
Konkani Wikipedia in the making (by Prakash Kamat, The Hindu, September 29, 2013): Goa University re-launched a four-volume Konkani encyclopaedia and will upload it on Wikipedia. The process will be completed in six months times, says Vishnu Vardhan.
For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language (by Joanna Lobo, DNA, September 29, 2013): Konkani has 24 lakh speakers as per the Census Department of India 2001 but online documentation is limited. CIS-A2K wants to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia, says Nitika Tandon.
Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months (by Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013).
Goa University Partners CIS India to Build Konkani Wikipedia (by Apurva Chaudhary, Medianama, September 30, 2013).

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

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Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-september-2013

For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language

praskrishna — 2013-09-30T05:13:34Z

With many local dialects on the brink of extinction, Joanna Lobo meets the language conservationists who have taken it upon themselves to preserve Goa's official language.

The article by Joanna Lobo was published in DNA on September 29, 2013. Nitika Tandon is quoted.

Social networking site Orkut may have lost its lustre but digging through its remnants throws up a group called Aamchigele Bindaas Community (ABC). It was started to bring together Konkani-speaking people across the world.

The group is now active on Facebook under the name Broad Minded Konkanis (BMK), where people post queries about Konkani words and phrases. "This group has helped members understand the language to a great extent,” says Rajanikanth Shenoy Kudpi, founder and one of the administrators of the 160-member group. BMK has members from Saraswat, Catholic Christian, Bunt, Navayat Muslim, Jain and other communities, who speak Konkani.

“Konkani as a language will definitely be rejuvenated if contemporaries and scholars put in consistent efforts,” says Kudpi.

One such effort was a recent four-day workshop organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Access to Knowledge (A2K) for the students of Goa University and St.Xavier’s College. “We want to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia,” says Nitika Tandon, programme manager, CIS-A2K.

Tandon quotes the Census Department of India 2001 figures that puts Konkani speakers at 24 lakh but adds that limited documentation is available online.

However, opinion is divided over the language's fate. “I don’t think it's dying,” says Roshan Pai, founder, savemylanguage.org. Pai started the website, a Konkani dictionary that documents the language spoken by the GSB community in and around Mangalore, in 2005.

The site is dependent on volunteer contributions — people send in meanings of various words that are validated by others, who also put in different uses or meanings of the words. All the 17,528 words collected (belonging to GSB dialects in Mangalore, Goa, Kerala and Cochin) are stored online.

One of the major factors behind people talking about saving a language has to do with its links to culture. “It is the essence of life and contains a lot of information that has been passed on through the generations,” says Gurudath Baliga, assistant director at World Konkani Centre, Mangalore.

The centre works towards preserving the language by empowering the community that speaks it through tech-related grassroot activities, documenting folklore, appointing teachers in different schools and publishing books. The centre is now working on Konkanverter.com, an in, catholic Christian, ter script translator, and World Konkani Archives, that will serve as a repository for all data and text. With such initiatives, the language is in safe hands.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dnaindia-september-29-2013-joanna-lobo-for-the-love-of-konkani

Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T09:14:55Z

The Goa University, on Thursday, re-launched the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopedia), and announced its ambitious plan to upload the same on Wikipedia – a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software – so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.

This article was published in Navhind Times on September 27, 2013. T.Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The university has entered into a 3-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.

Vice Chancellor of Goa University Dr Satish Shetye, speaking during the event held at the university said that Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public.

“This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.”

Dr Shetye, who incidentally noticed large number of volumes of the Konkani encyclopedia stacked in the Goa University premises, decided to take them to maximum people through their re-launch and upload on the Wikipedia.

The work for the Konkani encyclopedia project was commissioned during the tenure of vice chancellor Prof B Sheik Ali, and was carried out by various people from Dr Manoharrai Sardesai to Dr Tanaji Halarnakar, with the aid of the Konkani department at the university.

The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopedia are being re-released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access. The programme director for the Access to Knowledge Programme of the Centre for Internet and Society, Vishnu Vardhan, speaking on the occasion said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia on the Wikipedia would be complete in six months time, and includes processes like scanning, digitisation and creating articles as per the requirement of Wikipedia. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in Konkani encyclopedia so as to contemporarise their contents.

Vardhan also informed that relevant training programme would be specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the university to put up the content on the Wikipedia.

Goa University is the first university in the country to re-license copyright of its content, and hence can be termed as the ‘Champion of open knowledge’, he observed. Registrar Prof V P Kamat and head of Konkani department Priyadarshini Tadkodkar were also present on the occasion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/navhindtimes-goa-news-september-27-2013-goa-university-announces-plan-to-upload-konkani-encyclopedia-on-wikipedia

Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months

praskrishna — 2013-09-27T11:53:51Z

Piles of the thick four volumes of Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia waiting to be picked up by users at the Goa University (GU) will now attain a modern avatar.

The article was published in the Times of India on September 27, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The volumes, work on which was first started by renowned Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessai at GU, will not only be available in digitized format, but will form the base for a Konkani Wikipedia.

Goa University has become the first varsity in the country to enter into a creative commons licence that will allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university available to internet users and open to modification, making GU a champion of sorts of free knowledge. The Konkani Wikipedia is expected to be ready for use within six months, officials said.

The university has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme, which represents Wikipedia in India, for the Konkani Wikipedia project.

"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," Vishnu Vardhan of the centre said.

The Wikipedia is the fourth most used property on the internet after Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which acts as an internet based encyclopedia where any of the users can upload new information or update or modify an existing chapter. The Konkani Wikipedia too will offer similar privileges to users and GU's Konkani department and the centre will oversee the process from the university campus.

"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.

Shetye said that GU is glad to associate with Wikipedia which has become a global phenomenon and broken the monopoly of publishers and converted distribution of knowledge into a democratic process.

"At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet," GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat said. tnn

The Konkani vishwakosh was created over a period of 14 years.

Edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai and later Tanaji Halarnkar. GU staffers Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to the compilation process.

Contains four large volumes of 3,632 of total pages.

Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia encompasses world information in a nutshell with special emphasis on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc.

Wikipedia is available in 20 Indian languages including Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in Konkani so far.

Students, professors and anyone interested in contributing to the project can do so by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh before October 5.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-september-27-2013-konkani-wikipedia-from-goa-university-in-six-months

Open Access: An Opportunity for Scientists around the Globe

subbiah — 2013-09-26T06:00:48Z

Researchers face two problems related to information access: making their own research more visible to researchers elsewhere and making worldwide research readily available to them. Open access (OA) can solve both of them.

This article by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam was published in Euro Scientist on September 25, 2013.

Open access is particularly important in developing countries, where the research and higher education budgets are nowhere near those in advanced countries. For example, libraries in most universities in sub-Saharan Africa subscribe at best to only a few journals, and are thus forced to do research literally in a literature vacuum.

Elsewhere like in India, some institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, subscribe to a few thousand journals. But many of them go unused. Thus this approach results in non-productive investment of scarce resources. In addition, when developing country scientists publish their work in expensive journals, then all too often it goes unnoticed by other researchers in their own country.

To make OA more widespread, there are two possible routes: OA journals and OA archives. OA journals and archives help to integrate the work of scientists everywhere into the global knowledge base, reduce the isolation of researchers, and improve opportunities for funding and international collaboration. OA, if adopted widely, can raise the profile of an entire nation’s research output.

OA journals

For now, there are already many successful OA journals initiatives in the developing world. Bioline International , for example, hosts electronic OA versions of more than 35 peer reviewed bioscience journals from 17 developing countries. It is backed, among others, by the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development (EPT), established in 1996. EPT promotes open access to the world’s scholarly literature, and provides an annual award for the best contribution to the advancement of OA in the developing world.

Other worldwide OA initiatives include the African Journals Online (AJOL), which provides free online access to 462 African journals. Latin American initiatives– some of which have overlapping content—include SciELO with 1,013 Iberoamerican OA journals, RedALyC , which supports 809 OA journals and Latindex, with more than 4,600 OA journals. In parallel, India alone publishes more than 400 OA journals. For example, the ten journals of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the 17 journals published by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research are OA.

With the emergence of OA, many new commercial publishers have sprouted recently. They are publishing OA journals largely to earn through Article Processing Charges (APC). So much so India is considered a leader in publishing predatory OA journals.

Not all commercial publishers are predatory, though. For example,Medknow Publications, a commercial publishing company founded by a paediatrician based in Mumbai, has helped more than 100 OA medical journals make the transition from print to electronic open access. In doing so, they realised that most of them are now doing much better than before in terms of readership, print subscription, quality of editing and production, and as a result a major multinational STM publishing company acquired the company from the founder a few years ago.

OA archives

The trouble is that a lot remains to be done in extending open access. Indeed, there are about a hundred functioning academic papers repositories in India. However, only two of them are backed by a mandate. The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), for example, recently came up with an OA mandate for research performed in its own research institutions and for research it funds, but its implementation may take a while. The Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, has a repository for all papers by all its Fellows, both living and deceased. This is the only science academy in the world to have such a repository. The Academy was also the first in India to adopt OA for its journals. For instance, its physics journal, Pramana, became OA as far back as 1998.

To extend open access further, the archives route appears to be particularly appealing in developing countries. Setting up institutional archives does not cost much. The software needed is absolutely free and the technological infrastructure, such as the server and the internet connectivity, is already available in most institutions.

About a decade ago, I thought that the scarcity of computers and high bandwidth access in many developing countries would put them at a disadvantage. But now prices are falling and the situation has improved. Thus, OA archiving is even more promising than OA journals. It is less expensive, allows faster turnaround, and is compatible with publishing in conventional journals.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/euroscience-september-25-2013-subbiah-arunachalam-open-access-an-opportunity-for-scientists-around-the-globe

CIS Signs MoU with Goa University

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T10:57:46Z

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has signed a MOU with the Goa University.

As part of this MoU, Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to digitize “Konkani Vishwakosh” under Creative Common license and build a Digital Knowledge Partnership in order to enhance digital literacy in the Konkani language and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and disseminate the same free of cost through Kokani Wikipedia (currently under incubation). Goa University and CIS-A2K will co-design and jointly implement relevant training programmes to achieve this objective.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-signs-mou-with-goa-university

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project

nitika — 2013-10-01T12:23:33Z

The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the University of Goa invite you to a two-month project on digitization of Konkani Vishwakosh. Please send in your applications by October 5, 2013.

Click to download the event brochure here

Konkani Vishwakosh

Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume encyclopedia published by Goa University. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc.

Goa University has generously approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era.

Digitization Project

Goa University in collaboration with the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. This is a 2 month project where we will work with group of individuals who will help digitize the encyclopedia in a time bound manner.

We’re calling out for students, professors, faculty, professionals or anyone who is interested to preserve Konkani language and culture!

Help preserve Konkani language
Help preserve Konkani culture
Enroll in the program today and make a difference!

What will you gain out of it?

Learn typing skills: CIS-A2K will organize typing workshops for those who are not comfortable typing in Devanagari. This will be a two-day workshop organized in Panjim, Goa. Brilliant opportunity for you to learn a new skill!
Learn about Konkani Wikipedia: The program will also introduce you to Konkani Wikipedia, how does it work, who edits it, how can you edit etc.
Improve your writing, critical thinking, and research skills: Yes, there is so much that you can learn in our workshop. These skills will help you in personal and professional development.
Help preserve your language and culture: Out of 780 spoken Indian languages, 250 died out in last 50 years. Take the first step to save your language.
Go global: Showcase your work, Konkani language and culture on a global platform. That’s the power of digital era!
Earn while you learn: 30 final selected candidates will be remunerated for their work.

Deliverables

Selected 30 candidates will be assigned 100 pages each of Konkani Vishwakosh that needs to be digitized over a span of 2 months (Oct & Nov 2013). Typing 50 pages a month is surely a cakewalk!

Enroll Today!

Please fill the Application Form latest by October 5, 2013.

Contact Us

If you have any further questions please
Mail us at: nitika@cis-india.org
Twitter: @CISA2K
Visit us at: bitly.com/cis-a2k

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-vishwakosh-digitization-project

Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T05:59:07Z

The Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Societie's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) is re-releasing its four volume 3632 page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia).

Click to read the original published in the Times of India on September 24, 2013.

This is being done under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access, an official statement said.

The function will be held on September 26, at 10am in the conference hall of the administrative building of the Goa university.

The re-releasing of the Konkani Vishwakosh is an initiative by the Goa University to strengthen the Konkani community and language, the statement said adding that the information from the Vishwakosh will be used to write the articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-september-24-2013-vijay-desouza-goa-university-re-releasing-konkani-encyclopaedia-on-september-26

Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T05:53:33Z

The Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Societies Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) will relaunch its four-volume 3,632-page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. to support the movement of open knowledge and open access on Thursday at 10 a.m. at a function at the conference hall of its administrative building at Taleigao plateau.

The re-release is an initiative by the Goa University to strengthen the Konkani community and language. Information from the Vishwakosh will be used to write the articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

This was originally published in the Hindu on September 25, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-september-25-2013-konkani-vishwakosh-relaunch-tomorrow

Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh & Building Konkani Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-09-25T05:48:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) in partnership with the University of Goa invites you to this event on Thursday, September 26, 2013, 10.00 a.m. The one-hour event will be followed by a press conference.

This was originally published in the Wikipedia page here.

Upon CIS-A2K's explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC‐BY‐SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This encyclopaedia will also serve as one of the main sources of building and writing articles on Konkani Wikipedia (which is currently under incubation).

We'd like you to be a part of this event and help showcase Konkani community and language on a global digital platform such as Konkani Wikipedia.

Please click to see the invite. We look forward to seeing you at the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/re-releasing-konkani-vishwakosh-and-building-konkani-wikipedia

Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet

praskrishna — 2013-10-14T01:44:56Z

T.Vishnu Vardhan delivered a lecture at the School of Cultural Texts and Records in the Digital Humanities class to students of Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University on September 23, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/building-knowledge-bases-and-platforms

Wikipedia reaches Classrooms in Hyderabad

syed — 2013-09-20T07:20:54Z

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Hyderabad organised a one-day workshop on editing Wikipedia in Indian languages. It was attended by participants who formed a small but proactive group of students who eagerly tried to register the first edits on four different Indian language wikipedias.

A Mela for a Mélange of Learners

As a run-up to the TISS Indian Languages Mela (scheduled for September 20 – 21, 2013), the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education on August 24 conducted a workshop in Hyderabad. CIS-A2K in collaboration with the Wikipedia Hyderabad community had organized this workshop. The objective of the workshop was to inform and educate students on creating articles in any of the Indian languages on Wikipedia. Participants were encouraged to edit in Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, and Marathi, Kannada or any other language of their choice.

A Weekend for the Cause of Knowledge

A total of 20 participants came over for the weekend workshop. Nine participants had Malayalam as their native language. Five people had Telugu as their mother tongue. Four participants were Maharashtrians, and the remaining two were Kannadigas.

Two Sessions

The workshop was divided in two sessions. In the introductory session, participants were introduced to Wikipedia and its unique nature as an editable online encyclopaedia. Participants learnt about adding, modifying and deleting content on the Wikipedia, the various styles of formatting the content including creation of the heading level, sub-headings, etc. In the hands-on-session the participants were exposed to a hands-on practice about the editing features of Wikipedia, Wikimedia syntax, quality articles, new article creation, and Wikipedia’s transliteration tools for Indian languages.

End of the Day Gains

The students got a first-hand exposure to Indian languages wiki editing. Many students were thrilled at the novelty of the universal licensing system application and how it could switch between English and Indian languages. The use of shift key and multiple keys for certain consonants, diphthongs and special characters were particularly quite exciting for students. Students were eager to explore more about creating headings, sub-headings, bold, italics, underlining, bullet formats on Wikipedia. They also tested the online appearance of the Wikipedia code.

The participants were all thrilled on attending this workshop. Anand Kumar said that he was happy to get exposure about Wikipedia. Manomi Nair said that she was glad to be part of this workshop. Haseeb said it was very educative, and finally to sum up in the words of Dheeraj Kumar, an enthusiastic participant from the workshop, “this was an exciting way to explore a new world of knowledge.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-classrooms-hyderabad

e - DIRAP Google+ Hangout: Open Government

Christine Apikul — 2013-09-18T10:43:30Z

The e-DIRAP Hangout on Open Government was held on Thursday, 25 July 2013. It brought together nine professionals from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines to discuss the wide spectrum of issues surrounding open government.

See the original published in Digital Review Asia here

The idea of open government has been around for hundreds of years but the contemporary use of the term is influenced by the rapid advancement of ICTs and by the open source movement. "Just as open source software allows users to change and contribute to the source code of their software, open government now means government where citizens not only have access to information, documents and proceedings, but can also become participants in a meaningful way."[1] There is now increasing pressure for governments to be more open with their digital documents and processes, and to interact with citizens.

To assess whether your government is open, a good starting point is the Open Government Partnership minimum eligibility criteria that has four key areas:[2]

Fiscal transparency related to open budget system
Access to information, e.g. an access to information law that guarantees the public’s right to information and access to government data.
Disclosures related to elected or senior public officials, e.g. public disclosure of their income and assets.
Citizen engagement.

The panelists discussed open government initiatives in their respective countries, the challenges they face, and open source tools for open government.

Open Government Initiatives

India
The Government of India has decided to use royalty free open standards for all e-government data. The government has also shortlisted a number of open standards. India’s data portal, data.gov.in was recently launched and the number of datasets has been increasing. In January 2013 there were 89 datasets and in half a year,this has increased to over 3,000 datasets. Forty-five government departments are involved in this initiative and six apps have been created. The Planning Commission recently had a hackathon participated by about 1,900 people.

Indonesia
Indonesia is one of the founding governments of the Open Government Partnership.[3] along with the Philippines and six other countries. The emphasis of open government in Indonesia is not only the "supply side" (i.e. government providing access to data and information). It is also looking at generating demand for open government by empowering citizens to access and analyse data and information, voice their concerns and advocate for openness in government. To empower citizens, the Government of Indonesia has a number of projects such as "Satu Layanan"[4] or "One Service", a web portal where citizens can find government information and services; “One Map”, to promote collaboration between different government ministries and agencies, and also civil society in integrating datasets; and "Lapor"[5] that allow citizens to report wrongdoings in public services using SMS, Twitter or through the website.

According to a research study conducted by the World Wide Web Foundation,[6] the Government of Indonesia is working on making public data available. Public data includes social - economic data, development data and census data held by the National Statistic Bureau, as well as information on how the data is obtained and measured.

The research report also found that that there is a low demand from civil society and citizens for open government and open data. Moreover, cooperation between civil society and government in the implementation of open government is not strong enough. Several donors in Indonesia have provided support to develop the capacity of civil society groups that are part of the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership. Hivos’ Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative[7] is working with both civil society and government in Indonesia and the Philippines to promote transparency and accountability in public institutions.

Japan
In Japan, the major focus is in the creation and launch of the open data portal this year. How much impact it will make and how it can be measured is a concern, and this is a worldwide challenge.

Malaysia
The Sinar Project[8] in Malaysia promotes transparency, governance and citizen involvement, and uses open source technology to make information accessible to Malaysian citizens. The project has learned that for countries with poor democracy like Malaysia, basic information about government is available but not easily accessible to the public. The government is not familiar with interacting with citizens especially online. Unlike places with advanced statistics and open data, open government in Malaysia is at a nascent stage and is about having information about government representatives online and what bills are being passed in parliament.

Philippines
In the Philippines, President Aquino announced that the Freedom of Information Bill will be a priority bill for Congress this year, but citizens are cynical about the passing of this bill because it has been under consideration for three years. The Office of the President has received support from the World Bank last year for an Open Data Project using CKAN and the open data portal will be at http://data.gov.ph. The Philippine Government Interoperability Framework was convened last week.

PhilHealth or the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation[9] attempted to open up data, however even though there was political will to open up data, this was insufficient. A clear policy framework and change management (particularly, removing the fear of openness among employees) was needed.

Moreover, PhilHealth did not have the capacity and competency to ensure that the health data released, that includes diagnosis and treatment procedures, will not be reverse engineered to identify people. Health data is particularly sensitive due to the social stigma of certain health disorders, for example, those with tuberculosis may be assumed to have HIV/AIDS. When data is opened up, there are security and privacy implications. Developing countries need help and it is important to work together to come up with policies, protocols and algorithms to protect the health privacy of citizens.

Melbourne, Australia
In Melbourne, Australia, local government efforts to engage with citizens more fully through online and offline platforms include experimenting with wiki-based policy development, smart cities initiatives and digital strategies. Through conversations with policymakers, some key themes were identified. First, openness is not the same as participation, and encouraging effective participation is a challenge. Public spaces need to be “programmed” to support participation, and opening up data is not sufficient. It is necessary to develop strategies for outreach to a diverse group and encourage substantive participation particularly from those who are not online and not as competent in data management.

Secondly, because many telecommunications platforms that make data available are privately owned, there is a tension between commercial interest for secrecy and public demand to make data open. It is also a challenge for government to engage with citizens over an infrastructure that is privately owned, e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Google that place constraints on how citizens can be engaged.

Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand with high levels of digital broadband penetration and online users are not part of the Open Government Partnership despite the fact that most of the government departments and data are online. This is because these countries do not meet the minimum eligibility criteria for Open Government Partnership. For instance, they do not have freedom of the press and without it media and civil society cannot make use of the data for reporting for fear of prosecution.

There is also a lack of political will to disclose assets of public officials and procurement decisions.

Challenges
Open data is often associated with open government, but opening up data does not make a government open. Making data open has a set of challenges, but open government also has an important civil society component to create demand for open government and make meaningful use of the open data. There is also a private sector component that needs to be considered, particularly related to the mechanisms public participation over privately owned telecommunications infrastructure.

Challenges are faced at both the supply and demand sides. From the government side, many countries do not have the capacity to interact effectively with citizens. From the citizens’ side, many countries face the low demand for open government. Yet, in the case of Malaysia, even if public demand for open government is high, the missing component is a strong and large enough civil society base that can handle and analyse data independently and question policy. Dealing with the demand when data is open is another challenge. The challenges of opening up data If the original data is not digitized, how do we ensure that it becomes part of open data as defined by the Open Knowledge Foundation.[10] For countries such as Iraq that are simultaneously introducing e-government systems and open government, implementation is hampered by the lack of e-government data standards for specific domains such as human resources management or financial management.

Privacy

Privacy is one of the biggest concerns that the open data and open government movements faces.

Lack of exposure to privacy issues: Some open data activists are not aware that privacy should be an exception in disclosure requirement of government open data policies. If no public interest is served through disclosing personal information then there is no need to infringe upon the rights of individuals.

Privacy only for the individual: There is often a western notion of what constitutes privacy in which people worry about privacy infringement only at the level of the individual. But in India, if the open dataset showed HIV/AIDS prevalence at the village level that could result in stigma and discrimination of particular villages. The privacy problem exists not only at the individual level, but also at the level of family, community and geographical unit.

Underestimating re-identification research: Today we deal with the privacy challenge by using techniques like anonymization and obfuscation, but the problem is that re-identification research is getting more sophisticated and the more datasets that people have access to and are able to overlay upon one another, the more likely it is to re-identify anonymous or obfuscated data. This is an issue that the open data movement should take seriously.

Conflict with the transparency movement: The open data movement has not fully adopted principles from the transparency movement. This can be clearly seen in some countries where freedom of information activists are being killed or assaulted, but open data activists are usually safe because they are focused on analyzing the data that the governments have opened up. The provision of large quantities of data by government may be a distraction strategy that takes away what is important for civil society and democracy. Moreover, open data should not be the means to legitimize and increase the levels of surveillance occurring at the bottom of the pyramid. Instead, we need to encourage more eyes to watch the top of the pyramid because single actions there can have dramatic consequences for public interest.

For public participation in local government, FixMyStreet[11] is an open source software first developed by MySociety in the UK that allows the public to report on issues on a map. MySociety has also developed a number of other tools to help with government’s engagement with citizens.

OpenSpending[12] is used to visualize budget data and how tax money is being spent. This is a useful tool for transparency developed by the Open Knowledge Foundation.

CKAN[13] is an open source data portal platform that many countries have used for their open data portal. This is also an Open Knowledge Foundation project.

The Sunlight Foundation[14] and Code for America[15] are organizations that develop a number of open source tools that can be re-used and adapted by countries in Asia and the Pacific.

A free de-identification software for automated location and removal of protected health information in free text from medical records has been developed by PhysioNet.[16]

The Strategic Alliance Against Impoverishment (SAPA) provides poverty data on their website and maps the location of their projects.[17]

Final Words for the Way Forward

Make open government an election issue and elect officials that are open.

Demands for engagement may conflict with political goals of representatives in terms of the election cycle. Perhaps these open government issues need a third space to insulate them from political forces.

For people interested in implementing technical solutions, it is important to also look into non-technical issues raised by the Open Government Partnership and the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness.[18]

Make data available based on the needs of citizens and provide a platform for citizens’ feedback to inform the kinds of data to open up.

Open government should be relevant to citizens and result in improving the welfare of citizens.

Improve citizens’ data literacy and use open data in decision-making.

Openness is only a means and in the end we need governments that are accountable, that protect the public interest, that protect the weakest members of society, and they are not automatically guaranteed through open government. We should not fetishize the means and forget the ends.

At the top we need political leadership with strong inclination and will, and on the ground we need close coordination between civil society and government so that government does understand what is needed and sense what impact they can make by opening themselves up to their society or to their own operations. In the long term the key is how much the government can transform itself in terms of its own operations, and how much data they can produce in a reusable format and how much data they can use from other agencies to improve their operations.

The core of open government is about partnership between government, civil society and the private sector, and this is not easy.

Panelists

Danny Butt, Research Fellow in Participatory Public Space, University of Melbourne, Australia
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, India
Venkatesh Hariharan, Director, Knowledge Commons, India (previously, Head of Public Policy at Google India)
Maryati Abdullah, National Coordinator, Publish What You Pay, Indonesia (also Steering Committee Member of Open Government Partnership)
Yanuar Nugroho, Director and Expert Adviser to the Head of the President's Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight (UKP4), Indonesia – to be confirmed
Tomoaki Watanabe, Executive Research Fellow, Centre for Global Communications, International University of Japan (also Executive Director of Common Sphere - the host of Creative Commons Japan, and Co-founder of Open Knowledge Foundation Japan)
Shita Laksmi, Program Manager, Southeast Asia Technology and Transparency Initiative, Hivos Regional Office Southeast Asia
Alvin B. Marcelo, Co-chair, Asia eHealth Information Network

Moderator: Khairil Yusof, Co-founder, Sinar Project, Malaysia (also e-DIRAP team member)

e-DIRAP Hangout Coordinator: Christine Apikul

[1]. See 20 Basics of Open Government, http://basics.open4m.org/

[2]. http://www.opengovpartnership.org/eligibility

[3]. http://www.opengovpartnership.org

[4]. http://satulayanan.net

[5]. http://lapor.ukp.go.id; See also http://www.techinasia.com/lapor-deeper-indonesias-newest-anticorruption-weapon/

[6]. “Even though the Law on Freedom of Information has been in place for five years and while some ministries and agencies have made data available online, it is often difficult to obtain and make use of the data due to bureaucratic procedures, charging requirements, copyright restrictions or a general reluctance to provide access to government data to external users.” World Wide Web Foundation, Open Government Data: Readiness Assessment Indonesia, 28 June 2013, http://www.webfoundation.org/2013/06/new-research-open-data-in-indonesia/

[7]. http://seatti.org

[8]. http://sinarproject.org

[9]. http://www.philhealth.gov.ph

[10]. http://okfn.org/opendata/

[11]. http://www.fixmystreet.com

[12]. http://openspending.org

[13]. http://ckan.org

[14]. http://sunlightfoundation.com/tools

[15]. http://codeforamerica.org/apps/

[16]. http://www.physionet.org/physiotools/deid/

[17]. http://www.sapa.or.id/

[18]. http://www.openingparliament.org/declaration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/digital-review-asia-pacific-christine-apikul-e-dirap-google-hangout-open-government