Centre for Internet and Society

Infrastructural Needs of Indian Language Wikisource Projects

Puthiya Purayil Sneha — 2022-10-21T13:21:20Z

This is a short study on identifying the infrastructural gaps on Indian language Wikisource projects, and potential strategies to address the same. The study was undertaken by Jayantha Nath, Puthiya Purayil Sneha and Satdeep Gill, with writing and editorial oversight by Puthiya Purayil Sneha and an external review by Divyank Katira. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2021-22.

Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

This research project is an effort to understand some of the infrastructural needs of Wikisource platforms in India. With a focus on technological capacity, resources and training, this short pilot study collected baseline data from Indian language Wikisource communities to identify key knowledge gaps and areas of improvement. The final report here offers an overview of the current challenges in this space, and some learnings and recommendations on potential strategies to address these gaps, including through collaborative intervention and training.

Context

Wikisource projects have been an important part of the open knowledge movement in India, as it is a hub of out of copyright and freely licensed texts in a number of languages from across the world. With a focus on creating a ‘growing free content online library of source texts, as well as translations of source texts in any language', it functions as an important open knowledge repository that supports content development on various sister projects such as Wikipedia, Wikiquote etc. Wikisource projects in Indian languages have seen tremendous growth, especially over the last decade with increased efforts in content donation under free licences, digitization initiatives and availability of source texts. There have also been several advancements in Indic language computing and availability of digital infrastructure, such as more Indian language fonts, many with Unicode support, and increased flexibility in working with texts due to Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies. There has also been a general growth in awareness about the need for sourcing and making available more content in Indian languages, and better access to platforms like Wikisource has aided these efforts to a great extent.

However, several Indian language communities also continue to grapple with persistent challenges in this space, across diverse Wikimedia projects. Similarly, with Wikisource, there have been concerns about a lack of active participation and efforts towards bringing more content on the platform, including translations, and encouraging the use of source texts across projects among others. While a majority of the contributors are comfortable with transcribing texts, more technical tasks such as importing new books, creating Index pages and transcluding books are left to a very small number of contributors. These point to a lack of not just awareness and resources, but also a need for capacity-building efforts to address the skill gaps, improvements in digital infrastructures to resolve basic issues with platforms, and diversification of the scope of work undertaken. For instance, the most recent Community Wishlist Survey 2022 highlights some basic fixes that need attention− such as bugs with the search and replace function to improve search and mass uploads −to more advanced work such as expanding existing functionality in indexing, integrating structured data and translation tools and functionalities across Indian languages, to name a few.

A research needs assessment survey conducted by CIS-A2K last year also highlighted the need for better technological support for Wikimedia projects, and capacity-building in important areas of work in the Indian language communities. While this is not specific to Wikisource alone, observations by community members and active Wikisource contributors over the last few years illustrate that many of these concerns and knowledge gaps are prevalent in this community as well. This study was therefore an attempt to identify these challenges, by collecting baseline data on key areas of work in Indian language Wikisource projects, beginning with a focus on selected language communities, and areas of interest. The attempt was also to enable contributors to achieve a more detailed understanding of the requirements of communities, in the contexts of certain languages, and aid in developing potential strategies to address them.

Research objectives

The study had two areas of focus:

What are the key challenges with working on Indian language Wikisource projects currently? These may include anything from obstacles in Wikisource workflow, policies and open licences, to challenges such as quality of content and lack of community engagement?
What are gap areas and spaces for improvement in the infrastructure of these platforms, especially related to technological capacity, resources and training?

Research methods

The study adopted a mixed methods approach, comprising a survey and interviews with community members. The survey focussed on key areas of ongoing work, and potential challenges for Wikisource projects in India - including technological support, skill-building, policies on content donation and curation, and open access and licensing. The survey was opened to all Wikisource communities and publicised on relevant mailing lists and community platforms. Simultaneously, a detailed interview questionnaire was also prepared, along with the selection criteria for interviews with community members. The project team worked with one short-term research assistant over a 2–3-month period for the data collection through interviews and surveys. The research assistant also provided translation support as needed and worked closely in coordinating with community members.

The criteria considered for selection of the language communities for the study were language family and size, amount of content on Wikisource (according to bytes/number of proofread pages), recent activity and a good track record/sustained progress and challenges with the same over the last several years. External factors, such as visibility and prevalence of the languages on other online platforms, technical and cultural resources and complexities of working with certain languages etc. were also considered during the selection process. Keeping these in mind, the languages selected for this study were as follows:

Tamil Wikisource (One of the largest Wikisource communities in India, which has considerable content, is active and has seen steady growth over the last few years)
Assamese Wikisource (A growing Wikisource community, which has also seen a lot of activity in recent years)
Malayalam Wikisource (A large and active Wikisource community, which in recent years has some decline in engagement, despite good resources and activity on other Wiki platforms)

Using a purposive sampling technique, the team identified community members for interviews across these three languages and reached out over the course of six months in order to conduct semi-structured interviews. The criteria for selection of interviewees included a mix of senior/experienced and new contributors, those working across several projects and languages, those with expertise in specific/advanced technical areas of Wikisource, licensing and content donation efforts, and keeping in mind gender parity within the sample. There were however several challenges with this exercise, including basic barriers such as bad internet and phone connectivity, digital fatigue and unavailability of people due to the second wave of the pandemic, and limited time on Wikimedia projects. As a result, this method was unsuccessful, as it managed to gather very limited data for the study. The timeline of the survey was also extended as a result, and it received a total of 21 responses. The survey data offers several insights into some of these key areas of work and challenges, and the following is a report based on an analysis of this limited data set and observations on the same. Given the limited sample size and final dataset, it would be important to note that we may need several steps before the observations/findings may be considered to be representative at any scale.

Observations and Learnings

As mentioned earlier, the dataset comprised of 21 respondents on the survey, many of them contributors across diverse Wikimedia projects including English and Indian language Wikipedia projects, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons, software such as Media Wiki, and initiatives like Wikimedia in Education. The respondents ranged across nine languages (in alphabetical order) – Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil. Several of them are also part of user groups working in some of these languages. The experience of the contributors’ ranges from 6 months to 12 years. Almost all the respondents note that contributions towards proofreading, and bringing more content on the Wikisource projects (including work on related processes by the Volunteer Response Team, previously known as Open Source Ticket Request System, and OCR) have been key milestones in their work, either as individuals or communities. Some respondents have also pointed out some new work such as audio books, and working on technological aspects, especially with gadgets and best practices shared by other global communities. The data offers some key insights into the kinds of challenges currently faced by Indian language Wikisource contributors, and what could be potential areas of improvement. As noted in Fig.1, an overwhelming percentage of the respondents noted that ‘capacity-building and training’ (81%) is an area that needs the most improvement, followed closely by ‘community engagement’ (66%) and ‘technological infrastructure’ (57%). These are key areas that show repetitive patterns across the data set, in terms of recurring challenges as well. As noted by respondents, training in Wikisource workflows, procedure and guidance, learning to use advanced templates/techniques, recruiting new volunteers etc. have been key challenges. Community engagement has seen a dip, especially over last year with the pandemic and related decline in activity on projects, as well as events and therefore opportunities to meet. There is a need for more contributors and strategies to encourage work and retain them on the projects. Scanning and post-production processing of scans emerged as a significant challenge, given lack of resources and infrastructure, and related issues such as poor quality of scanned work and no uniformity in the book selection criteria. There are also some areas of technical support such as broken tools on Wikisource projects, missing symbols in some language tool bars, and an abundance of formatting tags which could present barriers for new contributors. The following are some of the responses and observations in specific areas mentioned above:

As mentioned earlier, the dataset comprised of 21 respondents on the survey, many of them contributors across diverse Wikimedia projects including English and Indian language Wikipedia projects, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons, software such as Media Wiki, and initiatives like Wikimedia in Education. The respondents ranged across nine languages (in alphabetical order) – Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil. Several of them are also part of user groups working in some of these languages. The experience of the contributors’ ranges from 6 months to 12 years.

Almost all the respondents note that contributions towards proofreading, and bringing more content on the Wikisource projects (including work on related processes by the Volunteer Response Team, previously known as Open Source Ticket Request System, and OCR) have been key milestones in their work, either as individuals or communities. Some respondents have also pointed out some new work such as audio books, and working on technological aspects, especially with gadgets and best practices shared by other global communities. The data offers some key insights into the kinds of challenges currently faced by Indian language Wikisource contributors, and what could be potential areas of improvement.

As noted in Fig.1, an overwhelming percentage of the respondents noted that ‘capacity-building and training’ (81%) is an area that needs the most improvement, followed closely by ‘community engagement’ (66%) and ‘technological infrastructure’ (57%). These are key areas that show repetitive patterns across the data set, in terms of recurring challenges as well. As noted by respondents, training in Wikisource workflows, procedure and guidance, learning to use advanced templates/techniques, recruiting new volunteers etc. have been key challenges. Community engagement has seen a dip, especially over last year with the pandemic and related decline in activity on projects, as well as events and therefore opportunities to meet. There is a need for more contributors and strategies to encourage work and retain them on the projects. Scanning and post-production processing of scans emerged as a significant challenge, given lack of resources and infrastructure, and related issues such as poor quality of scanned work and no uniformity in the book selection criteria. There are also some areas of technical support such as broken tools on Wikisource projects, missing symbols in some language tool bars, and an abundance of formatting tags which could present barriers for new contributors.

The following are some of the responses and observations in specific areas mentioned above:

Capacity-building and training

As most contributors would be well aware, capacity-building and technological infrastructure are two closely connected aspects of Wikimedia projects. The responses under this thematic reflect the same, in terms of a need for better training in optimising the use of available and advanced technical skills for Wikisource projects. This includes training on specific skills and processes such as scanning, text conversion, formatting, sourcing, transclusion, creating gadgets, writing bots. There is a need for better writing and spelling skills to improve the quality of content generated. The survey also suggested potential ways to address these skill gaps, all of which were seen as relevant by a majority of respondents (66.7%). [See Fig 2]

Community Engagement

Community engagement ranked second in terms of the challenges noted by respondents on the survey. The survey also looked at engagement in comparison with Wikipedia projects, as it has been observed that the latter see more active participation. This was confirmed by some of the responses as well. Some of the main reasons for lack of participation as noted by respondents is that Wikisource is a specialised project, that needs a specific skill-set and demands time and effort, hence may not appeal to all contributors. Also, it has lesser content and visibility compared to some of the Wikipedias or other projects which may be more easily updated. Thus, there is a need for actively recruiting new volunteers, and capacity-building to enable more contributions, as well as targeted outreach efforts in spaces related to literature and books to enhance discoverability. Some respondents also mentioned that a lack of awareness, coordination and interaction among contributors could be potential reasons. Finally, there are also external factors such as balancing volunteer work with other commitments such as family and financial problems, many contributors being students who move on to full-time careers, effects of the pandemic and paucity of time and interaction, and loss of interest over time in the projects.

Again, efforts to address community engagement need some strategic measures, including but not limited to community interaction, incentives and better visibility for work in, as noted in Fig.3.

Technological infrastructure

Technological infrastructure, which is one of the key areas of focus for this study, has also been a persistent challenge for Indian language communities, also given the resource-heavy work any form of computing with Indic languages entails. While some respondents did not notice any specific issues in their communities, there were some patterns or gaps that were reflected across communities. There is a need for basic hardware like scanners and good computers, or rather centralised facilities for scanning and good internet connectivity in order to cover more collections and regional areas. In addition to this, there is also a need for technical improvements such as easy-to-use widgets, gadgets and better tags to enhance formatting work as part of the transcription of texts, incorporating certain signs and symbols within toolbars, spell-checker, full list of syntaxes while proofreading, and stages for fixing mistakes and adding formatting tags. An important observation was that some language communities access and edit Wikisource on mobile phones, so there is a need for a mobile application that can provide a seamless editing experience, and connect more people with the projects. As mentioned earlier, there are also several technical fixes such as a number of pending bugs in projects. A related requirement therefore is for MediaWiki developers with good language skills to work on translation of interfaces. A few respondents also mentioned additional challenges such as improvement of new books, Graphical User Interface (GUI) and page layout, and the functionality to view Wikisource in other formats as well.

Some specific areas of improvement were also assessed on the survey, drawing upon a review of the community wishlists for the last few years. These included Optical Character Recognition (OCR), translation, visual editor, transclusion, user interface, search function and export of books. While all these functionalities did not receive responses from the entire set, many found these to be key challenges. OCR received the most responses (19), with 31.6% assessing this at 1 (needs minimal updates, functional with space for innovation). Translation received 18 responses, with 38.9% marking this at 4 (major challenges, requires focused work). Similarly, transclusion also received 18 responses with about 27.8% voting at 5 (significant challenges, requires long-term effort and resources). Visual editor, search function and export of books all received 17 responses each, with a majority in all three assessing these as 5. Of these search function had more people assessing the functionality at 5 (41.2%), followed closely by visual editor and export of books (35.3% each). User interface received 16 responses, with 31.3 % of respondents assessing it at 5 as well.

Open Access and Content Creation

In addition to the above, content curation and related aspects of open access and relicensing are also spaces with prevalent knowledge gaps in terms of protocols and best practices, which poses a challenge for content generation on Wikisource projects. Lack of awareness about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and relicensing in fact has been a significant impediment in content donation efforts, across projects. In this survey, a large number of respondents (42.6%) also said they were either unaware of these issues with Wikisource or about IPR itself, or mentioned that it was not applicable in this context. Among the challenges/issues mentioned, the need for simple, easily accessible advocacy material in print about open access was prominent, in order to encourage content creators/authors to share work on open licences. It was also noted that this process may be difficult for people who are not well-versed in the technical/legal aspects of the project, especially in terms of tracking down individual creators for consent to re-license and share their work. Respondents also noted that this work needs support from institutions to help set up collaborations, such as with educational organisations, publishing houses and authors, as also an understanding of official documentation and wider promotion etc. which may encourage more people to share content on open licences.

All of these aspects are further reflected in terms of strategies to address these issues as well, as observed in Fig. 4.

A similar disparity exists with content curation best practices as well, with a majority of respondents noting that their respective communities do not have clearly defined protocols for content curation. While such benchmarking is naturally difficult given several socio-cultural and linguistic subjectivities of each project, this also means that what makes it to Wikisource in a particular language can be defined by many factors, which also informs the quality, types and formats of content produced. Potential methods to address this include developing guidelines for content creation, and forms of review by experts as well as community members, all of which ranked high in the survey responses. ( See Fig 5)

As we did not receive enough responses on the interview questionnaires, there was not much additional qualitative data that could be gathered. There are however resonances with the survey responses, namely in terms of technical/hardware challenges such as poor quality of scanning, and the need for an app which is user-friendly and will further facilitate mobile editing, especially in areas with limited digital infrastructure and access. Some observations include the importance of the OTRS process in adding new content, and the need for better online and offline training, especially for new volunteers, in technical skills. Similarly, collaborations with educational institutions and local print media could be useful in creating more awareness, and therefore tapping into more content and resources in terms of new volunteers. Additionally, there are also some interesting observations on individual communities working on connecting work across projects, for example Wikisource and Wikiquote.

Conclusions and Recommendations

While the scope of the study had to be reduced significantly given several methodological challenges and external factors as mentioned earlier, the analysis of data does offer some significant learnings on the current challenges prevalent across Indian language Wikisource projects. Needless to say, many of these are also fairly contextual and nuanced, depending on how well-resourced certain languages are, given factors such as basic internet connectivity and digital literacy. The following is a short summary of key recommendations from this exercise.

Technological Infrastructure: Across the board, gaps in development of technological infrastructure have been prominent, ranging from basic fixes to advanced tools and user-friendly apps that may help mitigate some of the issues related to access. It is also notable that early challenges such as OCR and translation do not present as significant obstacles here (but continue to remain areas of ongoing work); features such as the visual editor, search and export functionalities emerged as continual challenges. The need for a user-friendly mobile app is also an important observation here. Some of this work is also quite resource-intensive in terms of funding; it would be prudent to look at collaborations with related organisations and local fundraising efforts that may help facilitate the same.

Capacity-Building: Similarly, capacity-building efforts need to be strengthened within communities, given the nature of work which is specialised and often quite technical( for example the process of transclusion). In addition to bringing in new volunteers, and equipping them with the requisite skill-sets to contribute effectively, there is a need for contributors with advanced skill-sets who may be able to address more technical challenges. Efforts here could include reaching out to the wider free and open source communities for external expertise, and working on a collaborative model of workshopping around strategic issues, and developing relevant skill-sets. Community-engagement: As noted by many respondents, bringing in new volunteers and their retention on projects has been a continual challenge, also due to the factors mentioned above. Improvements in technical infrastructure and capacity-building would help address some of these challenges as well. In addition to this, as noted by respondents, developing proactive collaborations with diverse institutions and individuals (educational/media/creative practice) would help widen networks, hence creating better awareness and visibility for work, such as through social media content and may also foster better engagement.

Content Curation and Open Access: As is widely understood, discourse around open access and relicensing is layered, and the protocols often vary widely depending on linguistic factors and cultural context. Instead of developing benchmarks, it may be prudent therefore to develop accessible content on existing, global relicensing protocols, in translation across languages. These may be further used by communities to understand and engage better with efforts in content donation. Guidelines for content curation will again need to be similarly developed and modified, keeping in mind how policies also evolve and change. An important consideration here in addition to quality, is also that of ethics of access and use, especially by communities themselves.

This short study was an effort to map some of the prevalent infrastructural challenges that underlie work on Indian language Wikisource projects. The observations from this report may offer useful insights in thinking through and developing strategies to address these gaps, through collaborative efforts in training and building resources for projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-infrastructural-needs-of-indian-language-wikisource-projects

Exploring Knowledge Repositories on Water Resources in India

subodh — 2022-10-21T13:23:24Z

This research study explores knowledge repositories on water resources in India, with a focus on how the digital transition has impacted the process of creation & access to these resources and possible collaborations to build open digital repositories around water. The research was undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, with editorial inputs by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Chiara Furtado. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2021–2022.

Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

Water is the most precious natural resource for the existence of all living organisms on earth. As human beings have not treated it respectfully in recent years, there are increasing challenges with accessibility and availability of water across large parts of the world today. In India, the groundwater levels are depleting at an alarming rate due to over exploitation^.[1] The quality of surface water reserves is degenerating due to pollution caused by discharge of wastewater, sewage and untreated industrial effluents.^[2] The condition of rivers is getting worse due to illegal and unregulated use of these resources across India. Due to damming almost all the rivers flow for only 8-10 months in a year. Above all, the pollution caused due to solid wastes and effluents have destroyed living organisms and aquatic life. Therefore most of the rivers in India are called ‘dying rivers’.^[3] There have been several discussions and debates happening around this degradation of rivers, especially in the last decade.^[4]

Efforts by various organisations are afoot to document the state of affairs, spread awareness and undertake activities on the ground with community participation. Citizen-led efforts have also been instrumental in strengthening several water conservation efforts in India. It is seen that these peoples’ movements have been further strengthened due to empowerment through enhanced awareness of these issues around conservation, and better access to knowledge on the subject, especially through scientific studies.

CIS-A2K has initiated Project Jalbodh in 2017 in collaboration with a few organisations to generate water related content. During one of the ‘River dialogues’, a CIS-A2K member was invited to introduce Wikimedia projects to the organisations working on water resources. In the discussions, it was revealed that there is negligible content about rivers, water pollution, floods, irrigation system etc. in Wikimedia projects. Following this, an analysis of content on these subjects on Marathi, Hindi & English Wikipedia and media on Wikimedia Commons was undertaken. The need to develop structured categorisation of content was also felt. As the organisations are trying their best to disseminate knowledge about water issues, they realised the potential of Wikimedia projects due to the high level of searchable content available on these platforms which can be accessed by the general public. In keeping with these objectives, over the last two years, various workshops were conducted with organisations working at the grassroots to develop the structure of articles, categorisation and re-licensing of source material on these topics across various Wikimedia projects. Tarun Bharat Sangh is leading this process, and has uploaded 90 books & reports on Wikimedia Commons under free licences, and created articles on rivers in Marathi, Hindi and English Wikipedia projects.

During these content generation events it was realised that the organisations are working closely with communities which are conversant mostly with local or regional Indian languages only. The availability and access to water related resources in these languages is therefore an important issue. The communities are in need of simple, accessible and ready to use content in various forms. They also require a platform on which they can document/archive their water conservation efforts for other communities to take lessons and motivation from these projects.

Research Questions

This study was framed by the following questions:

How has the digital transition impacted the process of creation and access to water related resources in India.
What are possible collaborations and processes to build open digital repositories around water, with special reference to rivers.

Methods

The study adopted a qualitative approach, with the method comprising online/offline, semi-structured interviews with organisations working in the water resources sector. Based on desk research and conversations with existing partners in the sector, a long list of organisations was developed.(See Annexure I). Further, eight organisations were shortlisted for interviews based on their experience and impact of work in the water conservation sector. Due to various constraints, eventually interviews with three organisations were completed. The interview questionnaire focused on the nature, objective and scope of the offline and online resources available, human resources involved, language aspects, documentation practices, methods of dissemination, utility, accessibility, training value of the material, intellectual property rights (IPR) policies and public outreach efforts. These interviews were conducted online and in-person and recorded with consent from the participants, along with a clear explanation on the objectives of the study and the data collection. As mentioned above, there were a few constraints with the research process and methods adopted, as well as external factors. These included restrictions on travel and in-person meetings due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and challenges with online platforms. Some of the organisations were not comfortable with online or telephonic interviews and insisted upon physical interactions. The online interviews were less effective with the organisations as they were unaware about the free & open knowledge platforms like Wikimedia, Internet Archive etc. In addition to this, introductory sessions were conducted to give them a background to the work of the programme and context of the study. A general challenge here was also logistical issues related to scheduling conversations etc. given that personnel were located across different departments.

Description of Organisations Interviewed

Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management [ACWADAM]'

ACWADAM is an organisation dedicated to establish a groundwater management agenda in India. It is a premier education and action research institution engaged in developing and disseminating knowledge on groundwater management. It is also involved in facilitation of projects on groundwater management through action research programmes, training and policy advocacy, with a collaborative, participatory approach. ACWADAM's mission is to facilitate groundwater management programmes in partnership with various organisations spread across the country. Over the years, it has developed expertise on aquifer-based groundwater management based on the science of hydrogeology.

Action for Agricultural Renewal in Maharashtra [AFARM]

AFARM was founded in 1969 as an apex Institution to coordinate programmes of voluntary organisations engaged in providing drinking water and agricultural extension services to villages in drought affected Maharashtra. It is one of the pioneering networking organisations in the country working in the areas of sustainable agriculture, irrigation, disaster relief and drinking water resource management. It acts as a platform for several civil society organisations for the promotion of sustainable and equitable development. The emphasis is on capacity building of organisations through action research, advocacy and field projects at grassroots. AFARM is providing support and consultancy at the policy level.

BAIF Development Research Foundation [BAIF]

BAIF was established on the strong foundation of Gandhian values with the aim to improve quality of life through development research and capacity building. BAIF’s vision is to build a self-reliant rural society assured of food security, safe drinking water, good health, gender equity, low child mortality, literacy, high moral values and clean environment. It is striving towards the mission to create opportunities of gainful self-employment for the rural and tribal families with a focus on disadvantaged sections, ensuring sustainable livelihood, healthy environment, better quality of life and good human values. BAIF believes in field research, effective use of local resources, extension of appropriate technologies and upgradation of skills and capabilities with community participation.

Observations

Availability of digital datasets on water resource projects: Many organisations in the sector rely on online information and databases on sites such as – Census of India, IMD, Google Earth, Bhuvan, CGWB, GSDA, MRSAC, Bhumi Abhilekh, Survey of India, India Water Portal, Agriculture Department, Irrigation Department, Forest Department, Maharain etc. Many of the global datasets on water resources and related topics such as agriculture, population, topography, forestry, climate change etc. are also in the public domain. However, the updating of data is not done regularly. For example, we have to refer to census data for 2011 even in 2022. Many of the datasets are also at a macro level, providing very little granular data. The water resource projects mostly need micro level data which is collected through on-ground surveys.

Effectiveness of digital platforms, and challenges with internet coverage: Organisations have found the use of digital platforms and tools effective for quick exchange of common training modules, process videos, drawings and manuals, as part of their water resource projects. The digital format has also been very effective for dissemination of advisories, alerts etc. through smartphones, which have enabled better access to information on gadgets quickly. However, two-way communication is necessary when timely solutions to queries of the farmers are to be provided, and that has been difficult to set up in a sustained manner through a digital format.
Many organisations in the sector also engage in capacity-building efforts for staff, volunteers and communities. When building these communities and mobilising them for action, the process needs spontaneous feedback, live conversations, reading the expressions and actual interactions with each other. All these things are completely missing from virtual interactions. These organisational processes and capacity-building efforts were grossly hampered during the pandemic due to a reliance on online meetings alone.
There are still challenges of internet connectivity in rural and remote areas where the communities are involved in water management projects. The consistency of bandwidth is a major issue when it comes to streaming of audio-visual content, uploading of content, online workshops, etc.

Lack of documentation skills, and challenges with language: Most of the documents used in water resources related projects are technical in nature. The technical team invests more time in the implementation, hence the time and skills required for documentation are limited. This gap between technical skills and documentation skills is challenging. There are ample structures, technological methods, apps etc. for collecting the data but at the same time, the resources for data collection or structured data development are not sufficiently provided. There are also several language-related challenges at the field level. Crucial parts of the training and awareness material need to be translated in the local languages as well.

Mobilisation and motivation for communities and wider public: The offline and online content is not very effective to mobilise or motivate the people involved in action at the field level in water conservation efforts. The organisers are exploring all the modes of communication and content available, but there is no alternative for human leadership.
Some organisations like Paani Foundation have beautifully captured the success stories of these efforts in dramatic short films. These films inspire the public temporarily, but the content can not be used often. Also, the production costs of such content are high resulting in very few options for wider outreach to engage a general audience.

Negligible content about water sector in public domain or Wikimedia projects in local languages: All the organisations agree upon the lack of searchable content on water related topics on the internet and in the public domain through projects like Wikimedia. The activists looking for solutions on some technical issues, the community searching for good projects in other parts of India or the planners looking for some structured databases on impact of projects, all of them get very little content on the internet. The local language content on water resources has almost negligible presence.

Need for a comprehensive portal giving information to stakeholders at different levels: The different stakeholders concerned with water resources seek information and data on various levels and diverse formats according to application and purpose. As of now, no such comprehensive platform in multiple languages exists which caters to these needs. The requirements include a wide range like, sample design of water conservation structures, contour maps of region, rainfall data, estimates of raw material, ground water aquifer maps, water pollution parameters, operation of dams, irrigation systems, water policies, water treaties, government notifications, etc. A well structured and categorised knowledge repository and database on water resources is the need of the hour. Such a knowledge base would strongly support the actions on the ground.

Recommendations

Developing a Process Documentation Strategy: The continuous changes in knowledge resources and data regarding various topics related to water resources need to be documented from time to time. The dynamic nature of water related issues requires a proactive process documentation strategy for the organisation as well as the citizen science groups in the society. The ideal example is the trajectory of the monsoon season in India every year and the rainfall in various agro-climatic regions. The watershed conservation projects, river rejuvenation programs, pollution control projects are long term processes with long term impacts. The journey of several years is painstaking, needs patience and struggles on the ground with constant motivational efforts. The persons directly engaged in these efforts may not be able to spend time on documentation of the many resources that are a result of these efforts. Hence, a solid process documentation strategy is required. The process documentation is also crucial for assessment of project impact on environment, livelihoods, economy, geography and people. There are also citizen movements which have been active for a long time, which are instrumental in giving birth to new laws, rules, guidelines, notifications, etc. The different milestones and turning points in these processes are to be documented in time. This documentation can guide the larger citizens’ movements to design their strategies and to resolve issues arising during the course of this work, and across different thematic areas as well.

Accessible datasets open for all in the public domain: There is an important need to compile the datasets on water resources developed by different agencies with people’s participation and government funding for the planning of public works or schemes. The open access to such reliable and factual datasets in the public domain serves the purpose of transparency and accountability of public infrastructure programmes. This facility for society would provide impetus to rigorous analysis, studies, research and innovative designing of public infrastructure. The processing and presentation of data in visual formats, including infographics can boost understanding, awareness, and logical thinking processes among enthusiasts who would like to engage with water conservation efforts. Different perspectives can emerge after relating and comparing datasets. The networking of agencies, organisations, experts and citizen forums would further develop complementary datasets. This synergy will definitely create a community data pool beneficial for everyone.

Digital and open access content development for capacity building of field level activists: Various organisations have developed training material for field level activists in different formats. Most of this is not online or digitised. Through networking efforts, the integration could be done to develop systematic modules for capacity building. The modules would be hosted as Open Educational Resources (OERs) on Wikimedia projects or other free knowledge platforms. The topic wise categories will make the selection easier. These categories can include local water source, rivers, waste water disposal, pollution, water based livelihoods, water conservation treatments etc. The format combining course work with some hands-on experiments is beneficial to facilitate the process of self-study, self-assessment and self-design. This online repository can be accessed by the field activists working on water resources anytime, anywhere when they need guidance to resolve issues or trouble-shooting on site.

Orientation of organisations towards free knowledge platforms and Wikimedia projects: Over the years, the organisations working in this sector have created valuable material for wider circulation to create awareness and empower communities. These resources have been used effectively and in a few locations for a certain period of time. The outreach and dissemination through integration of these resources will have more impact in the coming years if digital platforms are utilised efficiently. The basic orientation of the organisations regarding such free knowledge digital platforms, including copyright issues, Creative Commons licences, digitisation process and internet technologies is necessary to kick start this knowledge dissemination movement. Some pilot projects could be executed to demonstrate the potential of Wikimedia projects in database generation, documentation of case studies, audio-visual repositories and reference libraries.

References

"Groundwater". edugreen.teri.res.in. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
"‘Discharge of untreated industrial effluents, sewage major source of river pollution’". The Indian Express. 2018-12-21. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
Naresh Singaravelu & Harshita Mishra (6 June 2019). "Rivers in India: a reality check". https://www.thehindu.com/. The Hindu. Retrieved 28 Sep 2022.
"Living rivers, dying rivers: Everything you wanted to know about rivers in India | India Water Portal". www.indiawaterportal.org. Retrieved 2022-09-28.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-exploring-knowledge-repositories-on-water-resources-in-india

Software Freedom Pledge

pranesh — 2015-09-25T12:26:09Z

On September 19, 2015, celebrated globally as Software Freedom Day, a number of enthusiasts got together and collectively took a pledge.

We, who have gathered together for Software Freedom Day 2015, believe that software freedom is both a matter of ethical principle as well as a matter of pragmatism, and is necessary for a democratic, open society.

We believe that it is desirable that all people, but especially governments, use, contribute to, and spread open standards, free/libre/open source software, open APIs, openly-licensed content (including open data, open access, and open education resources), leading to a vibrant public domain, and ensure that all of the above are accessible for all, including persons with disabilities and other marginalised sections of society.

Given that, we pledge to:

use and spread free software amongst our family, friends, and neighbours, both in person and virtually.
demand that services we use in turn use open standards and open APIs, and thus be available for all using free/libre/open source software, without the payment of any royalties.
raise the issue of software freedom with our democratic representatives, to seek that they in turn respect and promote these principles.
as far as possible, making our own work openly available, and seek to convince our employers, publishers, producers, and other persons who might be in a position to restrict
work against any laws, policies — corporate or governmental — or technical restrictions that seek to prevent people from full exercise of their rights, and which are contrary to the above principles.

Signed by:

Abhaya Agarwal
Ananth Subray
Asutosha Sarangi
Chirag Sarthi J
Prakash Hebballi
Pranesh Prakash
Ralph Andrade
Subhashish Panigrahi
Tito Dutta
Veethika Mishra

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/software-freedom-pledge-2015

Should Indian Researchers Pay to Get their Work Published

Muthu Madhan, Siva Shankar Kimidi, Subbiah Gunasekaran and Subbiah Arunachalam — 2016-10-29T14:47:52Z

We raise the financial and ethical issue of paying for getting papers published in professional journals. Indian researchers have published more than 37,000 papers in over 880 open access journals from 61 countries in the five years 2010-14 as seen from Science Citation Index Expanded. This accounts for about 14.4% of India’s overall publication output, considerably higher than the 11.6% from the world. Indian authors have used 488 OA journals levying article processing charge (APC), ranging from INR 500 to US$5,000, in the five years to publish about 15,400 papers.

The research paper jointly authored by Muthu Madhan, Siva Shankar Kimidi, Subbiah Gunasekharan, and Subbiah Arunachalam was published in the Indian Institute of Science Repository on October 29, 2016.

More than half of these papers were published in just 13 journals. PLoS One and Current Science are the OA journals Indian researchers use most often. Most leading Indian journals are open access and they do not charge APC. Use of OA journals levying APC has increased over the four years from 242 journals and 2557 papers in 2010 to 328 journals and 3,634 papers in 2014. There has been an increase in the use of non-APC journals as well, but at a lower pace. About 27% of all Indian papers in OA journals are in ‘Clinical Medicine,’ and 11.7% in ‘Chemistry.’ Indian researchers have used nine mega journals to publish 3,100 papers. We estimate that India is potentially spending about US$2.4 million annually on APCs and suggest that it would be prudent for Indian authors to make their work freely available through interoperable repositories, a trend that is growing significantly in Latin America and China, especially when research is facing a funding crunch.

We further suggest bringing all Indian OA journals on to a single platform similar to SciELO, and all repositories be harvested by CSIR-URDIP which is already managing the OA repositories of the laboratories of CSIR, DBT and DST. Such resource sharing will not only result in enhanced efficiency and reduced overall costs but also facilitate use of standard metadata among repositories.

More than two decades ago Harnad posted his subversive proposal to a mailing list in which he called on researchers “to make copies of all the papers they published in scholarly journals freely available on the internet.”^1,2 Many researchers now make their papers freely available either by publishing them in open access (OA) journals or by placing them in repositories or websites. Indeed, a 2013 report asserted that by 2011 “free availability of a majority of papers has been reached in general science and technology, in biomedical research, biology, and mathematics, and statistics,” and that the number of open access papers has been growing by about 2% a year.³

Journals make papers open access in two ways: OA journals make all papers open access immediately on publication, and hybrid OA journals make selected papers open access. Most OA journals listed in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) do not charge to make a paper open access. Current Science is such a journal. Many OA journals – about 26% according to Solomon and Björk⁴ – and all hybrid OA journals levy an article processing charge (APC) to provide OA to a paper. However, according to Crotty,⁵the majority of OA papers are published by paying an APC. The APC levied by journals used by Indian researchers is in the range INR 500 (~US$8) - US$5,000.

OA journal publishing, particularly by commercial publishers and in the field of biomedicine, is growing rapidly. According to DOAJ there are 9,192 OA journals as of 2 September 2016 published from 130 countries and one can access more than 2.27 million articles. Currently, DOAJ is growing at the net rate of 6 titles per day.⁶ The Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources (ROAD) lists 14,031 OA journals published from some 140 countries.⁷

Repositories, where full texts of research publications are deposited and made available online, are of two kinds: central repositories, such as arXiv, and distributed (or institutional) repositories, such as the University of Southampton institutional research repository, <eprints.soton.ac.uk>, the first of its kind.

Here we are concerned only with the open access journals which make all content open access immediately on publication. Further, our interest is in papers from India that are published in journals levying APC. The question we are particularly interested in is, ‘is paid open access affordable for India?’ And, even if it is affordable, should we go for it?

We assessed the current status of the use of OA journals by Indian researchers using bibliometric analysis of data gathered from Web of Science – Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). We used this analysis to find out the number of papers Indian researchers have published in OA journals charging APC, leading to an estimate of the amount the country as a whole would potentially have spent on APC costs, and to see if publishing in paid OA journals led to higher levels of citations.

Methodology

We searched for articles, letters, proceedings papers and reviews from India in OA journals

indexed in SCIE in the five years 2010-2014. The search made on 11 January 2016 resulted in

37,122 papers. Of these, 44 papers resulting from five international collaborations (CMS,

ATLAS, ALICE, STAR and FAITH), and appearing in journals such as Physics Letters B, New Journal of Physics, Nuclear Physics B and BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders, had a very large number of authors (running to several hundreds). We removed them from the data set as they hindered processing the data. Thus we considered 37,078 papers. We downloaded full bibliographic data for all these and analysed the data using Visual FoxPro and found that Indian researchers have used 881 OA journals in which to publish these papers. We visited the web site of each of these journals during January- February 2016 to find out information on APCs levied by them. Also we classified the journals into 22 major field categories following the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) classification. This classification does not allocate journals to multiple fields. We identified papers in which at least one author was from a country other than India.

Using the same strategy as used for Indian publications, we recorded the number of papers published by 12 other countries and the proportion of OA papers (data gathered on 29 January 2016).

Results

We present here the key findings. Details of our bibliometric analysis are available from the

authors and will soon be presented in a report.

Use of OA journals by researchers – In the five years considered, SCIE had indexed 6,460,105 papers, of which 748,127 (or 11.58%) were in OA journals. In Fig. 1, we present the share of proportion of journal publications which have appeared in OA journals in 13 countries in the 5year period 2010-2014. Brazil has the highest proportion (close to one in three papers), with

India coming a distant second (one in seven papers). That Brazil leads is not surprising. Long before the OA movement began, the funding community led by the São Paulo Science

Foundation (FAPSEP) and the information community led by the Latin American and Caribbean

Center on Health Sciences Information recognized the need for strengthening the visibility of the Brazilian journals, and initiated the SciELO movement in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1997, which later spread to Chile and the rest of Ibero-America and South Africa.⁸ As Vessuri et al.⁹ have pointed out, a strong sense of public mission among Latin American universities, coupled with the realization that OA improves the presence and impact of Latin American research publications led Latin America to develop its own knowledge exchange mechanisms on its own terms.

Estimates of the proportion of open access papers vary widely depending on the source used and when the estimate was made. For example, by analysing journals indexed in Scopus we found that 4,231 of the 22,460 active titles (as of 6 February 2016) were OA (as seen from DOAJ on September 2015) and were listed in either or both of DOAJ and ROAD.¹⁰ Of the more than

12,000 journals covered by Web of Science, 1,313 journals are OA as of October 2015 as listed

by DOAJ.¹¹ Analyzing data from Google Scholar, Jamali and Nabavi showed that more than 61% of papers were accessible in full text.¹²

Use of journals charging APC - In 2010, Indian researchers had published their work in 479 OA journals, of which 237 did not charge APC. The number of OA journals used by Indian researchers to publish their work is increasing (Table 1). It has risen from 445 in 2009¹³ to 611 in 2014. More than half of the 611 journals levy APC.

Not all journals charging APC have a fixed APC. There are many models. Of the 881 SCIEindexed OA journals which Indian researchers have used, 488 charge a fee: 437 charge a fixed APC, 49 levy page charges, and two charge a non-refundable submission fee. Contrary to

Crotty’s observation that the majority of OA papers are published by paying an APC,⁵ Indian authors publish a larger number of papers in non-APC journals. However, papers published in journals levying APC are cited a larger number of times on average.

The APC OA journal used most often by Indian researchers in the five-year period is PLoS One with a total publication count of 2,404 and average cites per paper (CPP) of 7.32. Starting with 78 papers in 2009,¹³ the number increased to 724 papers from India in 2014. Indeed, Current Science, which comes next in the list with 2,334 papers with a CPP of 1.74, was the leader until 2011.

Overseas collaboration - All authors are from India in 30,152 of the 37,078 papers published by Indian researchers in the 881 OA journals; this includes papers in which all authors are from the same institution as well as papers with authors from more than one Indian institution. These papers have been cited 78,722 times for a CPP of 2.61. There are 6,926 papers with at least one author from an address outside India, and these have been cited 39,031 times for a CPP of 5.63.

Indian researchers have collaborated with authors from some 115 countries. Collaborators are mainly from USA (2,191 papers), UK (815 papers) and Germany (708 papers).

Country of journal publication - Indian authors have published in OA journals from 61 countries. More than half (18,781) were published in 48 Indian journals, six of which charge APC. As one would expect, US and UK journals followed Indian journals in the number of papers published: 7,647 papers were published in 149 US journals of which 107 charge APC, and 2,834 papers were published in 172 UK journals of which 162 charge APC. Indian researchers have published

675 papers in 54 Brazilian OA journals of which nine levy APC, 229 papers in 9 Chilean OA journals of which two levy APC, 231 papers in 14 journals published from China of which five charge APC in the five yeras. In these five years Indian authors have published 652 papers in seven Nigerian APC journals. Of these, all but one were delisted from Web of Science after a few years of coverage. Such delisting is all too common. Of the 881 journals studied here, only 263 have been used by Indian researchers in all five years.

Citations to papers published in journals levying APC – Number of papers by Indian researchers in 57 journals charging APC and publishing at least 10 papers from India and has a CPP of not less than 10 are listed in Table 2. Table 3 lists the 10 journals that do not levy APC and have been cited at least 10 times on average in the five years. Three journals, viz. Nucleic Acids Research, PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases, and BMC Genomics, all of which charge an APC of well over US$2,000, have published more than 100 papers from India. In all three journals, CPP of Indian papers are less than CPP of the journal as a whole, and there is a big difference between the CPP of papers written solely by Indian authors and that of those written in collaboration with foreign authors. For example, Nucleic Acids Research has published 138 papers from India (CPP 14.09) out of a total of 6,614. The journal’s average CPP for the 5-year period is 25.29 as against India’s CPP of 14.09. The 80 papers entirely written by Indian researchers has a CPP of less than 10, and the CPP of the 58 papers with foreign collaborators is more than 22.

As many as 92 papers have appeared in 10 OA journals which do not charge APC, none of which are from India, and these have been cited more than 15 times on average. Of the 92 papers, 41 were published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization at a CPP of about 12.5. In contrast, the CPP of the 478 papers published in the journal during the five years is above 15.

Use of mega journals- Indian authors have published 3,100 papers in nine mega journals where the papers are accepted without applying the usual standards of strict peer review if they are perceived to be technically sound (Table 4).

Papers classified by field - It is in Clinical Medicine that Indian researchers have published in the largest number of OA journals (208) as well as contributing the largest number of papers (10,036). They have published in 88 journals in the field of Plant and Animal Science, but have published a much larger number of papers in both Chemistry and Biology & Biochemistry in a smaller number of journals.

Discussion

Over 14.4% of the 37,122 papers from India as seen from SCIE have been published in OA journals. The actual number of OA papers from India will be much larger since, for example,

Scopus is likely to have indexed a larger number of such papers. Additionally, there are papers published in hybrid OA journals and papers published in non-OA journals that are made open access by placing them in institutional or central repositories or freely available through author websites, which indicates that there is a welcome growing awareness of the need for making one’s work OA. Our earlier study¹³ has revealed that some 16% of Indian papers were pulished in OA journals indexed in SCIE 2009, but in that study we had considered all categories of papers from OA journals collected comprehensively from various sources.

Potential spend on APC seen in perspective

We estimated the total APC for all 14,293 papers published by Indian authors in OA journals charging a fixed APC (leaving out 7% of all OA papers charging variable APC). We found there is an average cost of ~ US$1,173 per paper. We compared this figure with the costs on APCs incurred by institutions elsewhere.

From a survey of a large sample of journals listed in DOAJ carried out in 2014, Morrison et al.

reported an average APC of US$964.¹⁴

The Wellcome Trust, which supports payment of charges incurred by their grantees, reported a total spend of about £4.7 million paid for 2,556 papers, published in OA or hybrid journals, in 2013-14 at an average APC of £1,837. Close to 60% of these papers were published in the journals of the five leading publishers, and of these 68% were in hybrid journals. In 2014-15, the

Charity Open Access Fund, comprising the Trust and five other funders, had paid more than £5.6 million towards APCs for 2,942 papers at an average cost of £1,914.¹⁵

In its report dated March 2015, RCUK indicated an average APC of £1,600, based on APC paid for 6,504 papers from 55 universities during the two years 2013-14 and 2014-15. The average APC paid varies from university to university, from £778 for the School of Oriental & African

Studies to £2,248 for Durham University.¹⁶ Over the 15-month period April 2013 – July 2014,

Leeds University alone had paid publishers a little over £270,000, of which about £10,000 was for colour and page charges. For the 166 RCUK funded papers for which APCs were paid during the review period, the average cost of APC was £1,626.74.¹⁷University of Cambridge spent

£936,000 towards APC in 2014. For the 495 RCUK funded papers the average cost was £1,891.¹⁸ Besides this, the university has also supported payment of page and colour charges and has paid for researchers to join memberships that offer a discount for APCs out of the RCUK fund. There is a growing concern in the university if they should be spending so much money on

APCs.¹⁸

Björk and Solomon, in their report submitted to a consortium of European funding agencies in March 2014, had estimated the average APC from a study of journals indexed in Scopus for at least two years to be US$ 1,418.¹⁹

Gerritsma reported that in 2013, the Netherlands had spent €4 million towards 3,314 papers published in OA journals charging APC and in hybrid journals, and indexed in SCIE, at an average APC of €1,220.²⁰

In 2015, the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) spent over €418,000 on APCs for 288 papers in Gold OA journals (average €2,376) and €2.38 million on APCs for 913 papers (average €1,453). In addition FWF incurred an expenditure of €273,600 on other costs.²¹

The variation is to be expected, as the sampled journals vary and in the case of India a substantial number of low-APC journals would have been used. Wang et al. have found that the level of APCs varies with the region. European and North American APC OA journals have average

APC of more than US$2000, while Asian, African and South American APC OA journals have average APC of less than US$1000.²²

If we assume that APC was paid in full for all the 14,297 papers (4,775 with foreign collaborators and 9,522 by exclusively Indian authors) published by Indian authors in OA journals charging APC, the total expenditure would be around US$16.75 million. This figure does not include the APC for the other 7% of papers published in journals charging APC on the basis of number of pages, submission fee, and so on. Nor does it include the expenditure on OA papers published in hybrid journals. These journals usually charge much more than journals with fixed APC. According to Björk and Solomon (2014), the average APC for publication charged by hybrid journals published by subscription publishers (such as Elsevier and Wiley) is US$

2,727, almost double that chaged by fully OA journals published by non-subscription publishers (such as PLoS), US$ 1,418.¹⁹ It is possible that APCs for many papers jointly authored with foreign collaborators might have been paid by the other party. Also, in some cases authors might have been granted either a fee waiver or a discount. Allowing for these possibilities, we may assume that the sum spent would still be very high, more than ~US$12 million, or an average of US$2.4 million a year. This amount is in addition to the national expenditure on its academic and research library budget. Data releaesed early this year as part of the Natioanl Institutional Ranking Framework (https://www.nirfindia.org/Ranking) exercise reveal that the academic and library budget is by no means small.

Author pays model has failed

In the initial years of the ‘author pays’ OA journals, the hope was that OA publishing would be cheaper than subscription publishing. Eisen claimed that APC would go down “and will continue to do so, asymptotically approaching zero.”²³ What we see in reality, however, is that the APC charged by PLoS One has gone up from US$1,250 when it was founded in December 2006 to US$1,450 now. The APC charged by PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine has increased from

US$1,500 at launch in 2003 to US$2,900 in 2012, a rise of 93% in nine years.²³ The situation at

BioMed Central is no different. Comparing the APC levied by the 165 BMC titles between 2010 and 2016, Wheatly has shown that for many titles there has been a substantial rise.²⁴ Neylon, a former employee of PLoS had recently conceded that “no functional market is emerging and it

(APC model) might be the wrong economic model.”²⁵

When the high energy physics community and librarians from more than 20 countries negotiated with publishers to make key journals OA, it resulted in a contract with 11 publishers that would ensure they could make 10 journals OA immediately on publication and, in return, continue to make the profits they were making earlier with the subscription model. From its inception in

January 2014, SCOAP³ is making papers available on an OA basis and it charges an average

APC of US$1,165.²⁶ According to Morrison,⁶ “SCOAP ³ nearly doubled in size this past year

(87% annual growth) for a total of 4,690 documents,” and “the Electronic Journals Library added 3,612 journals that can be read free-of-charge in the past year, for a total of 52,000 journals, a

7% growth rate.”

As early as 1999, Rosenzweig²⁷ pointed out that the world of knowledge was being “kidnapped and held for ransom” by commercial publishers who have “turned renegade, exiling themselves from the academic enterprise, and focusing entirely on making the most money for their stockholders” and in the process “restricting the flow of knowledge.” Laakso and Björk have pointed out that today commercial publishers are the most common publisher of OA papers and the number of papers published by them jumped from 13,400 in 2005 to 119,900 in 2011.²⁸ Björk and Solomon¹⁹ have shown that “among the established OA publishers with journals listed in Scopus, the average APC grew by about 5% a year over the two years 2012 – 2013.” Taking such increases into account, India’s APC bill is bound to grow far beyond the US$2.4 million in the future. These cost increases are unpredictable, making it difficult for organizations willing to pay APC to make appropriate provisions in their budgets.

_{Affordable OA publishing}

Concerned about the high subscription costs and audience-limiting access rules of many traditional journals and the high levels of APCs charged by OA journals, many editorial boards broke away from publishers of such journals ‘in order to launch a comparable journal with a friendlier publisher or less-restrictive access policy.’²⁹ The most recent example is the en masse resignation of Rooryck and the other members of the editorial board of Lingua to start Glossa.³⁰ An early example was the resignation of the editor of Evolutionary Ecology along with many members of the editorial board to start Evolutionary Ecology Research in 1998.²⁹Suber maintains a list of such ‘Journal declarations of independence.’²⁹ Gowers, a strong opponent of publishers making tall claims about the value they add to publications and the huge subscription prices they charge, has launched an arXiv overlay journal called Discreet Analysis, owned by a group of researchers, in which the overall cost per article will be well below $30.³¹ His idea is to demonstrate that “in the internet age, and in particular in an age when it is becoming routine for mathematicians to deposit their articles on the arXiv before they submit them to journals, the only important function left for journals is organizing peer review.”³¹ How will these journals survive? Initially, the Association of Dutch Universities and The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research will fund Glossa so it can be completely free for both authors and readers, and the Open Libraries of the Humanities will take over the funding after five years.³²Seed money from the University of Cambridge will see through Discreet Analysis in the first five years.³¹

"It’s important [that these alternative models] acquire a reputation and prestige that people can feel it’s okay to submit to them — rather than the more established traditional journals — without damaging their careers," Gowers says.³² "We need an alternative, cheap system sitting there — at which point the commercial publishers will become redundant."³³

Should Indian researchers spend a large sum on APCs?

Why do authors choose to publish in certain journals? Scientists want their work not only to be seen and read but also to be appreciated and cited. For them publications are the culmination of their research and a means of achieving prestige and visibility. Moreover, the journals in which authors publish play an important role in the way the global community of scientists and funding agencies evaluate a scientist. Authors choose journals that would bring them maximum visibility, prestige and citations. Although there have been many discssions in recent times about the place of citations in scholarly communication and the undue importance paid to journal impact factors,³⁴ scientists of all age groups look forward to their papers being cited repeatedly and quickly, and journals proudly advertise their impact factors on their cover pages. Scientists do not really care if a journal is OA or if it charges APC (as long as their institution or funder is ready to cover the costs), nor surprisingly are they chary of surrendering all rights to their paper to the publisher. Many journals charging APC satisfy authors’expectations to a lesser or greater extent and authors are able to find the ones that would accept their papers. In addition, many of the journals run by major commercial publishers are run professionally and their unified graphical appearance gives them an identity. As scholarly communication moves from print to online, these publishers take advantage of emerging technological tools and standards to offer the research community ever better ways of presenting their content and they also energetically market their journals. PLoS, which was started with a view to fighting the commercial publishers, has spent US$3 million on software development in 2013-14 and more than US$413,000 on marketing and advertising in addition to expenses on promotion.³⁵

The question, from the point ofview of authors, is, “is it all right to spend huge sums for getting papers published in OA journals?” No, says Balaram, former director of Indian Institute of Science. He believes that Indian researchers should not use government funds – money given for research - to subsidize non-Indian journals, and that the money spent on APCs could be better spent on research per se or on libraries.³⁶ Williams-Jones and colleagues belive that “for many sectors of academe, ‘paying to publish’ is ethically suspicious.³⁷Such an ethical concern has also been raised by Wilson and Golonka.³⁸ There are other voices from the global South opposed to OA through APC. Babini of the Latin American Social Science Council asserts that paying huge sums as APC could increase the overall costs of research and financially undermine a nation’s research and scientific publishing ecosystem.³⁹ Nilsen says paying to publish represents a new apartheid system, and that “we need to move away from a system where someone decides who should have access to what.”⁴⁰For the sake of the global public good, Nilsen recommends that we should abandon the discriminative APC-based publishing practice and adopt open access through repositories.

The APC model of OA is not serving the true purpose of OA, which aims to create a level playing field for access to research. The APC levied by PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine is roughly equal to half of a month’s salary for an assistant professor in the United States, but more than two months of salary for an assistant professor in India.

Moreover, at a time when science is facing a funding crunch, it would be prudent for Indian researchers and research institutions to refrain from paying APCs to journals. A few months ago, both Rao and Swaminathan lamented the shortage of funds for research,^41,42 and more recently the Ministry of Human Resource Development announced some budgetary cuts for Indian Institutes of Technology⁴³ and the Ministry of Science & Technlogy has told the CSIR laboratories to fund reseach by themselves and to convert ongoing projects into for-profit ventures.⁴⁴

What is the alternative model for making research OA?

What is the alternative to publishing in paid OA journals? Balaram suggests that the authors could publish their papers without paying APC and still make them open through interoperable institutional repositories.^36,45 Joshi has explained the advantages of depositing one’s papers in such repositories.⁴⁶ Authors may wonder if making a paper available through such a repository is equivalent to publishing in an OA or hybrid OA journal. The answer is yes, very nearly. Journals may insist on an embargo and they may let the author deposit only the author postprint (the refereed version). Experts such as Harnad would recommend the adoption of OA through repositories worldwide so that institutions could cancel subscriptions and use the savings to pay for the much lower-priced, affordable, sustainable OA journals.⁴⁷ Use of repositories is picking up around the world. According to Morrison,⁶ “Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) repositories collectively added more than 4.7 million documents this quarter for a total of just under 89 million documents,” and “the number of journals actively participating in PubMed Central, making all content immediately freely accessible, and making all content open access, continues to grow.” arXiv grew by over 107,000 documents to over 1.1 million documents during the last year.⁶

What is happening in India?

There are many OA journals in India, and 337 have been listed in DOAJ (as on 3 September 2016). These include journals published by leading Academies, societies and government organizations such as CSIR-NISCAIR, DESIDOC, ICMR, and ICAR, and these are free to authors and readers. MedKnow, although part of a private publishing group, publishes a large number of OA titles, most of which again are free to both authors and readers. But not all Indian OA journals are on a single platform like SciELO. Apart from a few exceptions like MedKnow journals, others do not offer all the web features and metrics that leading publishers offer, which is surprising considering the wealth of technological skills available in the country.

Another platform specifically designed to provide open access to journals published in developing countries is Bioline International, a not-for-profit partnership committed to providing open access to quality research journals and reducing the South to North knowledge gap. Bioline currently supports 36 journals from 16 countries. The download statistics of Bioline journals (http://www.bioline.org.br/stats) are very impressive. Kirsop, a founding member of

Bioline International, told us “Within a single month in 2016, some 1.5 million full text articles were downloaded – equivalent to approximately 18 million per annum – showing the value attached to publications resulting from research carried out in regions of the global south, often referred to as ‘the missing science’, but nevertheless essential to achieve a global understanding in such areas as health and the environment.” (Personal communication, 13 April 2016).

Organizations such as CSIR, DBT and DST have already adopted a policy of making research produced in their own laboratories, as well as research they support in other institutions, open access through placing the accepted papers in institutional open access repositories.^48,49CSIR-

URDIP, Pune, has set up a central platform for OA repositories and harvesting from all three organizations and these could be accessed at http://www.csircentral.net/ and http://sciencecentral.in/. Unfortunately, many laboratories under these apex bodies have not taken the OA policy seriously, nor there seems to be any will on the part of the apex bodies to implement the policy forcefully.These repositories are interoperable and have adopted the best international practices. ICAR also has an open access policy, but it does not seem to have much traction.⁵⁰ There are also many institutional repositories (listed in http://roar.eprints.org/), some of them well populated, but others are languishing, largely due to the indifference of scientists.

By contrast, China seems to have made considerable progress. It was only in 2014 that the

Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China

(NSFC) issued open access policies.⁵¹ By mid-March 2016 , the Open Repository of the

NSFC included 135,000 research papers published between 1998 and 2015 by authors from 1,305 institutions. These research papers have already been downloaded more than 669,000 times. CAS now has two OA portals, namely the Institutional Repository Grid of Chinese Academy of Sciences, with content from 102 repositories, and the China Open Access Journal Portal, with content from hundreds of journals.⁵²

Latin America has witnessed the emergence of strong cooperative scholarly publishing ventures, such as SciELO (www.scielo.org) which hosts about 1,250 journals, and Redalyc

(www.redalyc.org) which hosts, 1,095 journals. Of these more than 2,300 journals, 1,300 do not charge APC and others charge only a modest fee.⁵³ A SPARC report says, “SciELO and Redalyc do raise the visibility and accessibility of the journals they host, particularly with their local communities. These types of networked meta-publishers allow for central governance of policies, procedures and controls, but are intentionally decentralized to support the development of local capacity and infrastructure ensuring greater sustainability and alignment with local policies and priorities.”⁵⁴With these efforts, Latin America has become a model for affordable OA journal publishing.

Even so, researchers in Latin America continue to publish a very large proportion of their papers in non-OA journals. For example, as shown in Table 1, in the five years 2010-14, more than 65% of papers from Brazil were published in non-OA journals. The simplest way to make the large volume of non-OA papers freely available is to set up many institutional repositories and populate them quickly. Efforts are already under way in several countries and indeed a network of repositories from nine countries is coordinated by La Referencia

(http://lareferencia.redclara.net/rfr/), and there are legislations in place in Argentina, Mexico and

Peru to make publicly funded research freely available through repositories.⁵⁵

What needs to be done?

Compared with developments in Latin America and China, India is clearly lagging behind in making her research freely accessible. How can this be changed? We believe that making all research freely accessible through interoperable OA repositories is the ideal solution. According to Houghton and Swan,⁵⁶ till the time we reach an all Gold OA (OA through journals) world, Green OA (OA through repositories) may well be the most immediate and cost-effective way to support knowledge transfer and enable innovation across the economy. We suggest the following actions.

Populate OA repositories that are already there, as empty and sparsely populated repositories will not reflect well on the research community.
Set up repositories in institutions where one does not exist. Academic and research librarians can play an important role in setting up and populating repositories.
Academic and research organizations (at the state and central levels, as well as apex bodies), which do not have an OA policy, should adopt a policy similar to those of DBT, DST and CSIR and implement the same.
As part of the implementation, funding agencies and heads of organizations should have a compliance monitoring mechanism that would reward those who deposit their papers, and persuade those who do not.
If the policies of all agencies are aligned, it would bring about many advantages such as ease of compliance, optimization of workflow, and sharing of data and best practices.⁵⁷
All organizations may join the CSIR-URDIP effort so that a nation wide platform could emerge for OA repositories. Such resource sharing will not only result in enhanced efficiency and reduced overall costs but also, as demonstrated by HAL, France, facilitate “coherent meta-data description, connection to national authority files, quicker take up of new technologies (e.g. visualisation and data mining) and better connection with international initiatives.”⁵⁸
Funding agencies and research organizations that are so far unconcerned about their funds being used to meet APCs should stop supporting this practice.
A cadre of scholarly communication workforce should be developed for building institutional repositories and persuading researchers to upload materials.

Conclusion

If India and China follow the Latin American model of hosting all or most of their journals on a single decentralized platform and make as many journals as possible OA, and if India, China and Latin America vigorously promote a culture of OA repositories and encourage researchers to self-archive their publications, that would have a great impact on making science and scholarship open, not only in these regions but around the world. All of this can happen only with the willing participation of the scientific community. As Harnad would say, ‘Self-archive unto others as you would have them self-archive unto you’.⁵⁹

If, instead, researchers continue to pay publishers exorbitant APCs, as Poynder points out, there will soon be a crisis over the cost of APCs, which would hit research the world over, but research in the developing world will be hit harder.⁶⁰ As long as we continue to use APC based journals, we cannot expect to make access to research affordable to all.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful to Peter Suber and Ms Barbara Kirsop for their valuable comments.

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Figure 1. Share of papers published by different countries in open access journals indexed in SCIE, 2010-2014.* Data gathered on 29 February 2016. Great Britain includes England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

*Only articles, letters, proceedings papers, and reviews are considered.

Table 1. Distribution of research papers published by Indian scientists in open access journals by publishing year

[Data gathered on 11 January 2016]

Year	OA journals (APC)			OA journals (non-APC)			All OA journals
Year	No. of journals	No. of papers	Sum of citations	No. of journals	No. of papers	Sum of citations	No. of journals	No. of papers	Sum of citations
2010	242	2557	17550	237	4131	16301	479	6688	33851
2011	263	3067	17367	244	4280	12645	507	7347	30012
2012	308	2800	15715	251	4157	9276	559	6957	24991
2013	326	3335	12635	268	4457	6257	594	7792	18892
2014	328	3634	6950	283	4660	3057	611	8294	10007
Total		15393	70217		21685	47536		37078	117753

Table 2. OA journals charging APC in which Indian authors have published at least 10 papers that have been cited not less than 10 times on average in the five years

Journal	Publishing country^*	No. of papers	Sum of citations	CPP	APC
Nucleic Acids Research	GB	138	1945	14.09	$2,770
PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases	US	126	1409	11.18	$2,250
BMC Genomics	GB	123	1330	10.81	$2,145
International Journal of Nanomedicine	NZ	94	1555	16.54	€1,843
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics	DE	65	1116	17.17	€25^#
BMC Plant Biology	GB	44	579	13.16	$2,145
PLoS Pathogens	US	42	781	18.60	$2,250
Molecular Cancer	GB	34	540	15.88	$2,145
International Journal of Molecular Sciences	CH	28	298	10.64	CHF1,600
Molecules	CH	28	300	10.71	CHF1,800
PLoS Computational Biology	US	25	342	13.68	$2,250
PLoS Medicine	US	25	721	28.84	$2,900
DNA Research	GB	24	542	22.58	$750
PLoS Genetics	US	24	354	14.75	$2,250
Biogeosciences	DE	23	294	12.78	€25^#
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health	CH	22	278	12.64	CHF1,600
Journal of Translational Medicine	GB	15	238	15.87	$2,145
Marine Drugs	CH	14	256	18.29	CHF1,800
Journal of Neuroinflammation	GB	12	179	14.92	$450
Science and Technology of Advanced Materials	GB	12	181	15.08	$1,600
BMC Medicine	GB	11	374	34.00	$2,785
Remote Sensing	CH	11	125	11.36	CHF1,600
Cryosphere	DE	10	112	11.20	€25^#
Progress in Electromagnetics Research-PIER	US	10	128	12.80	$200
Articles in 33 other journals with CPP > 10		117	1930	16.50
Total		1077	15907

ISO 3166 country code

^#Page charges

Table 3. Non-APC journals in which Indian authors have published their papers that have been cited not less than 10 times on average in the five years

Journal	Publishing country^*	No. of papers	Sum of citations	CPP
Bulletin of The World Health Organization	CH	41	515	12.56
Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences	CA	14	173	12.36
Environmental Health Perspectives	US	10	188	18.80
Journal of Machine Learning Research	US	10	118	11.80
Materials Today	GB	4	81	20.25
Earth System Science Data	DE	3	88	29.33
Revista Mexicana de Astronomia Y Astrofisica	MX	3	181	60.33
Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Geologicas	MX	3	41	13.67
Folia Neuropathologica	PL	2	23	11.50
Upsala Journal of Medical Sciences	GB	2	20	10.00

ISO 3166 country code

Table 4. Mega journals used by Indian researchers

Journal	Publishing country^*	No. of papers	Sum of citations	CPP	APC
PLoS One	US	2404	17587	7.32	$1,495
Scientific Reports	GB	222	1523	6.86	£990
AIP Advances	US	196	645	3.29	$1,350
Springer Plus	CH	170	235	1.38	$1,290
BMJ Open	GB	56	148	2.64	£1,350
FEBS Open Bio	GB	21	86	4.10	$1350
PeerJ	GB	13	33	2.54	$695
Biology Open	GB	9	9	1.00	$1,495
G3 - Genes Genomes Genetics	US	9	83	9.22	$1,950
		3100	20349	6.56

ISO 3166 country code

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/eprints-iisc-ernet-october-29-2016-muthu-madhan-siva-shankar-kimidi-subbiah-gunasekaran-subbiah-arunachalam-should-indian-researchers-pay-to-get-their-work-published

Bangalore Meet-up for the Open Government Partnership Brasilia

praskrishna — 2012-04-12T13:18:28Z

The international Open Government Partnership (OGP) is holding its first annual meeting on April 17 and 18, 2012. Representatives from over 50 member countries will gather in Brasilia to celebrate the progress that has been made to date, to exchange best practices, and to grow and strengthen the global collaborative network of open government leaders. Bangalore meet-up at CIS on April 17, 2012 from 5.30 p.m to 7.30 p.m.

Those who work on open government initiatives but unable to attend in person, can still participate remotely. OGP has tied-up with a number of external partners to make arrangements for people to participate in the event online. There will be live webcasts, interviews and chats. Viewers will be able to pose questions to those being interviewed and will be polled in real-time to see who is watching, where they are, what their interests are and what are their thoughts on the programme.

The two day meeting offers an opportunity for open government advocates throughout the world to connect with local civic activists and public officials as well as those working on similar problems in other countries.

The Centre for Internet & Society is hosting the Bangalore meet-up on April 17 and 18, 2012. Get together to watch the live video stream, engage in conversations via live chat, or on Twitter and Facebook for discussing plans to move open government forward in your region.

Click for the full list of countries participating in the event.

8:30-9:30 am Registration & Coffee

9:15-9:30 am Official photo of OGP Member Government Heads of Delegation and Steering Committee Members

9:30-10:15 am Opening Remarks and Welcome

The Honorable Dilma Rousseff, President of the Federative Republic of Brazil
The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of State of the United States of America
The Honorable Jakaya Kikwete, President of the United Republic of Tanzania
The Honorable Nika Gilauri, Prime Minister of Georgia

10:15-10:45 am Setting the Stage for the Age of Open: OGP 2012

Minister Jorge Hage, Brazil
Under Secretary of State María Otero, United States
Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership

10:45-11:15 am Coffee and Networking

11:15-12:30pm Plenary: Using Transparency to Transform Lives Online and Offline

Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar, United States
Gautam John, Akshara Foundation and TED Fellow, India
Elisabeth Ungar Bleier, Transparency International, Colombia
Juliana Rotich, Co-Founder of Ushahidi, Kenya

Moderated by Samantha Power, The White House, United States

12:30-1:30 pm Innovation Village of Regional Government, Private Sector, and Civil Society organizations advancing Open Government

1:30-2:45 pm Lunch and Networking.

Lunch will be provided onsite at the conference center.

2:45-5:30 pm Open Government on the Move: The OGP Country Action Plans in Two Parts

In Part I and Part II of regional breakout sessions, government ministers and leading civil society activists will discuss country action plans and how to promote a race to the top on open government in each region. Highlights from each panel will be transcribed. Moderators will encourage discussion with the audience following comments from panelists. Governments not presenting in Part I will present in Part II of the regional sessions, from 4:30 to 5:45pm. Participants presenting in Part II are encouraged to attend the session of their choice during Part I and vice versa.

2:45-4:00pm Country Action Plans PART I

South America, I

Government of Chile
Government of Colombia
Government of Uruguay
Government of Brazil
Maria Ferrari Fontecilla, Participa, Chile
Edison Lanza, CAInfo, Uruguay

Moderated by Juan Pardinas, IMCO, Mexico

Central America and Caribbean

Government of Honduras
Government of Guatemala
Government of El Salvador
Government of Dominican Republic
Jose Ricardo Barrientos Quezada, ICEFI, Guatemala
Carlos Hernandez, Asociación para una Sociedad más Justa, Honduras

Moderated by Vonda Brown, Open Society Foundation, United States

Africa, I

Government of Liberia
Government of Ghana
Government of South Africa
Alison Tilley, Open Democracy Advice Center, South Africa
Vitus Azeem, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Ghana

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Asia

Government of Mongolia
Government of the Republic of Korea
Government of Indonesia
Government of Philippines
Dorjdari Namkhaijantsan, Open Society Foundation, Mongolia
Vincent Lazatin, Transparency and Accountability Network, Philippines

Moderated by Suneeta Kaimal, Revenue Watch Institute

Central Europe

Government of Romania
Government of Bulgaria
Government of the Slovak Republic
Government of Czech Republic
Gergana Jouleva, Access to Information Program Foundation, Bulgaria
Andra Teodora, Fundatia Soros Romania

Moderated by Martin Tisne, Omidyar Network, United Kingdom

Western Europe, I

Government of Norway
Government of Sweden
Government of Denmark
CSO Representative TBD
CSO Representative TBD

Moderated by Tim Kelsey, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom

Southern Europe, I

Government of Albania
Government of Montenegro
Government of Croatia
Government of Macedonia
Katarina Ott, Institute of Public Finance, Croatia
Vuk Maras, MANS, Montenegro

Moderated by Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership

Baltics

Government of Latvia
Government of Lithuania
Government of Estonia
Rura Mrazauskaite, Transparency International, Lithuania
Linda Austere, Center for Public Policy, Latvia

Moderated by Liia Hanni, E-Governance Academy, Estonia

4:00-4:30 pm Coffee and Networking

4:30-5:45 pm Country action plans PART II

South America, II

Government of Peru
Government of Paraguay
Government of Mexico
Miguel Pulido, Fundar, Mexico
Samuel Rotta, Proetica, Peru

Moderator TBD

North America

Government of Canada
Government of the United States
Patrice McDermott, Openthegovernment.org Coalition, United States
Toby Mendel, Center on Law and Democracy, Canada

Moderated by Tara Hidayat, Government of Indonesia

Africa, II

Government of Tanzania
Government of Kenya
John Ulanga, The Foundation for Civil Society, Tanzania
George Kegoro, International Commission of Jurists, Kenya

Moderated by Zohra Dawood, Open Society Foundation South Africa

Middle East

Government of Israel
Government of Jordan
Professor Tamar Hermann, Israeli Democracy Institute, Israel
CSO representative TBD

Moderated by Anthony Richter, Transparency and Accountability Initiative

Northeastern Europe

Government of Ukraine
Government of Moldova
Serghei Ostaf, National NGO Council, Moldova
Khmara Oleksii, Civic Partnership for Supporting OGP in Ukraine

Moderated by Tom Blanton, National Security Archive, United States

Western Europe, II

Government of the United Kingdom
Government of the Netherlands
Government of Spain
Government of Italy
Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation, United Kingdom
Marjan Besuijen, Hivos, Netherlands

Moderated by Alan Hudson, ONE Campaign

Southern Europe, II

Government of Greece
Government of Malta
Government of Turkey
CSO representative TBD
CSO representative TBD

Moderated by Håkon Arald Gulbrandsen, Government of Norway

South Caucasus

Government of Armenia
Government of Georgia
Government of Azerbaijan
Eka Gigauri, Transparency International Georgia
Galib Abbaszade, National Budget Group, Azerbaijan
Liana Doydoyan, FOI Centre, Armenia

Moderated by Jonas Moberg, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Norway

5:45-6:30 pm First Day Closing Remarks

7:00-9:30 pm Celebrating Open Government: A Reception hosted by the Government of Brazil and Omidyar Network.

The reception is onsite at the Convention Center.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

9:00-10:00 am OPENING Plenary: Responsibility and Challenges that Come with Openness

Walid al-Saqaf, YemenPortal.net & Alkasir, Yemen
Minister Francis Maude, United Kingdom
Secretary of State Ben Abbes, Tunisia
Fernando Rodrigues, Folha de São Paulo, Brazil

Moderated by Alex Howard, O’Reilly Media, United States

10:00-10:30 am Coffee and Networking

10:30-12:30 pm Thematic Breakout Sessions: Paths to Openness

Participants choose one of five breakout sessions to attend in the morning block of thematic discussions. Follow Sessions 1 or 2 in the morning and afternoon blocks for in-depth discussions on one topic, explored from three perspectives: government, civil society, and the private sector.

Access to Information: Government Perspectives

Vania Vieira, CGU, Government of Brazil
Dr. Ali M. Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies, Government of Azerbaijan
Government of Liberia
Pierre Boucher, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Government of Canada

Moderated by Laura Neuman, The Carter Center, United States

Lessons Learned in Service Delivery: Government Perspectives

Minister Mathias Chikawe, Government of Tanzania
Ms. Marie Munk, Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Economy and the Interior, Government of Denmark
Government of Estonia (invited)
Permanent Secretary Dr. Bitange Ndemo, Government of Kenya

Moderated by Mark Robinson, DFID/Transparency and Accountability Initiative, UK

Networking Mechanism Affinity Group: Open Data Portals

Steve Davenport, AidDATA, United States
Tim Kelsey, Director of Transparency & Open Data, Cabinet Office, United Kingdom
Marko Rakar, Windmill, Croatia
Eric Gunderson, Development Seed, United States

Moderated by Abhinav Bahl, Global Integrity/OGP Networking Mechanism

Networking Mechanism Affinity Group: Public Finance Management and Fiscal Transparency

Iara Pietricovsky, INESC, Brazil
Secretary Butch Abad, Government of Philippines
Dr. Brian Wrampler, Boise State University, United States

Moderated by Nicole Anand, Global Integrity/OGPNetworking Mechanism

Advancing Open Government through Knowledge Exchange

Roberto Perez, IACC, Latin America, invited
Ms. Stela Mocan, Director e- Government Center, Government of Moldova
Miguel Pulido, Fundar, Mexico
Prayoga Wiradisuria, President's Delivery Unit, Government of Indonesia
Eric Braverman, McKinsey, United States

Moderated by Han Fraeters, World Bank Institute

12:30-2:00 pm Lunch and Networking.

Lunch will be provided onsite at the conference center.

2:00-4:00 pm Thematic Breakout Sessions: More Paths to Openness

Participants choose one of five breakout sessions to attend in the afternoon block of thematic discussions.

Access to Information: Civil Society and Private Sector Perspectives

Panel I: Civil Society Perspectives

Karin Lissakers, Revenue Watch Institute
Alison Tilley, Open Democracy Advice Center, South Africa
Ivan Pavlov, Freedom of Information Foundation, Russia
Karina Banfi, Alianza Regional Por La Libre Expresion e Informacion, Latin America

Moderated by Helen Darbishire, AccessInfo Europe, Spain

Panel II: Private Sector Perspectives

Alexandre Gomes, SEA Technologia, Brazil
Chris Taggart, Open Corporates, United Kingdom
Jose Francisco Compagno, Ernst and Young
Ginny Hunt, Google, United States

Moderated by Rufus Pollock, Open Knowledge Foundation, United Kingdom

Lessons Learned in Service Delivery: Civil Society and Private Sector Perspectives

Part I: Civil Society Perspectives

Jose Ricardo Barrientos Quezada, ICEFI, Guatemala
Felipe Heusser, Ciudadano Inteligente, Chile
Nikhil Dey, MKSS, India
Harvey Lowe, Canadian Council on Social Development, Canada

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Part II: Private Sector Perspectives

Philip Ashlock, OpenPlans/Open311, United States
Jorge Soto, Citivox, Mexico
Tom Steinberg, MySociety, United Kingdom, invited
Michael Gurstein, Center for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada

Moderated by Rakesh Rajani, Twaweza, Tanzania

Open Government and Legislatures

Part I: Legislative Perspectives

Representative Paulo Pimenta, Brazil
Denis Russo,Votenaweb, Brazil
Laura Alonso, Legislature of City of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cristiano Ferri Soares de Faria, e-Democracy Program Director, Brazilian House of Representatives, Brazil

Moderated by Gherardo Casini, Head of Global Center for ICT in Parliaments, United Nations

Part II: Civil Society Perspectives

Andrew Mandelbaum, National Democratic Institute, United States
John Wonderlich, Sunlight Foundation, United States
Danardono Siradjudin, Indonesian Parliamentary Center, Indonesia
Melissa Ortiz Masso, Latin American Network on Legislative Transparency, Latin America

Moderated by Tiago Peixoto, World Bank Open Government Specialist

Measuring for Impact: How to build the case for Open Government

Rolf Alter, OECD, France
Nikos Passas, Northeastern University, United States/Greece
Jorge Garcia-Gonzalez, Director of Technical Secretariat of MESICIC, Organization of American States, Latin America
Harlan Yu, Princeton University, United States

Moderated by Martin Tisne, Omidyar Network, United Kingdom

Learning from Country Consultations to Date: New Strategies for Public Engagement

Samuel Rotta, Proetica, Peru
Chris Vein, The White House, United States
Khmara Oleksii, Civic Partnership for Supporting OGP in Ukraine
Government of Philippines, invited

Moderated by Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership, United States

4:00-4:30 pm Coffee and Networking

4:30-5:00 pm Report from Working Group on Meeting Outcomes

5:00-6:00 pm OGP at Home: Closing Remarks with OGP Leadership

Vice-Minister Luiz Navarro, Brazil
Samantha Power, White House, United States
Warren Krafchik, International Budget Partnership
Tim Kelsey, Director of Transparency and Open Data, Cabinet Office United Kingdom

Note: Brazil's local time is approximately eight and half hours behind us. The welcome address on April 17th starts at 9:30 A.M (B.R.T) which is approximately 5:00 P.M (I.S.T).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/open-government-partnership-brasilia-bangalore-meetup

Open access to government data on the cards

praskrishna — 2012-03-26T07:31:48Z

The way has been cleared for public access to the data collected by Union government ministries and departments, with official approval being accorded to the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP). T Ramachandran's article was published in the Hindu on March 25, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

Following its recent approval by the Union Cabinet, the policy has been notified and is in the process of being gazetted, said R. Siva Kumar, CEO of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure, and head of the Natural Resources Data Management System, Department of Science and Technology.

The use of open data as a tool for promoting governmental transparency and efficiency has been gaining ground in some parts of the world. An Open Government Partnership was launched last year by the United States and seven other governments. Forty-three other governments have joined the partnership, which has endorsed an Open Government Declaration, expressing a commitment to better “efforts to systematically collect and publish data on government spending and performance for essential public services and activities.” It acknowledges the ‘right' of citizens to seek information on governmental activities.

India has not joined the partnership, but is collaborating with the U.S. in developing an open source version of software for a data portal.

The NDSAP states that at least five ‘high value' data sets should be uploaded to a newly created portal, data.gov.in, in three months of the notification of the policy. Uploading of the remaining data sets should be completed within a year.

The Department of Science and Technology will co-ordinate the effort and create the portal through the National Informatics Centre. The Department of Information Technology will work out the implementation guidelines, including those related to technology and data standards.

Welcoming the approval for the NDSAP, Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based NGO, said the removal of “a few good aspects” in an earlier draft of the policy — such as linkage with Sections 8 and 9 of the Right to Information Act that specify the kinds of information exempt from disclosure by the authorities — had weakened it “even further.” “None of the criticisms the CIS had sent in as part of the feedback requested on the draft have been addressed,” he said.

The NDSAP seeks “to provide an enabling provision and platform for providing proactive and open access to the data generated through public funds available with various departments/organisations of the government of India.”

However, the Ministries and Departments can draw up, within six months of the notification of the policy, a negative list of data-sets that will not be shared, subject to periodic review by an ‘oversight committee.'

The policy envisages three types of access to data: open, registered and restricted. Access to data in the open category will be “easy, timely, user-friendly and web-based without any process of registration/authorisation.” But data in the registered access category will be accessible “only through a prescribed process of registration/authorisation by respective departments/organisations” and available to “recognised institutions/organisations/public users, through defined procedures.” Data categorised as restricted will be made available only “through and under authorisation.”

The policy also provides for pricing, with the Ministries and Departments being asked to formulate their norms for data in the registered and restricted access categories within three months of the notification of the policy.

Read the original published in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-access-to-govt-data

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data

praskrishna — 2013-10-22T11:02:49Z

Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist at the International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data, 2013, held on October 07, 2013 at the Indian Statistical Institute. She gave a presentation on "Government Copyright and the Open Access Conundrum"

Parts of this presentation draw from Pranesh Prakash's views on Government Copyright. Special thanks to Bhairav Acharya for his valuable inputs and feedback.

Documentation Research and Training Centre, Indian Statistical Institute along with Creative Commons USA held this workshop. The main objective of this workshop was to bring together international experts, practitioners and advocates of Open Access to information to discuss and contemplate on key issues contributing to Open Science. The workshop also aimed to serve as a platform for institutions, academicians, scientists and researchers interested in Open Science to exchange thoughts and processes 'How To' create Open content within legal framework.

Key Speakers

Puneet Kishor (Policy Coordinator for Science and Data, Creative Commons)
ARD Prasad (DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, India)
Devika P. Madalli (DRTC, Indian Statistical Institute, India)
Giridhar Manepalli (CNRI, USA)
Usha Munshi (Indian Institute of Public Administartion, India)
Subbiah Arunachalam (Information Scientist, India)
Sridhar Parishetty (Centre for Inclusive Governance, Bangalore)
Nehaa Chaudhari (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore)
R. Prabhakar (India Biodiversity Portal, Bangalore)
Nisha Thompson (Arghyam)
Yashas Shetty (Srishti, Centre For Experimental Media Arts, Bangalore)

Read the agenda here
Download Nehaa's presentation titled Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/international-workshop-open-science-and-open-data

Mapping Content on Gender and Sexuality in Indian Languages

Yashashwini Srinivas — 2022-10-21T13:03:20Z

This research study explores content production processes on gender and sexuality in Indian languages, its digital documentation and factors that affect its availability and use on open access platforms. The research was undertaken by Yashashwini Srinivas, with editorial inputs by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Torsha Sarkar. This research was part of short-term studies undertaken at the CIS-A2K programme 2021-22.

Read the report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

Mapping Content on Gender and Sexuality in Indian languages is a research project that studies the content production process on gender and sexuality in Indian languages and challenges it with its digital documentation. It examines the diverse nature of content creation on these topics, processes of its digitalisation and related challenges that contribute to the disparity in its availability and use on open knowledge platforms such as Wikimedia projects, and potential strategies to address the same.

Through conversations with individuals and institutions working on gender, sexuality and allied topics like feminism, with a focus on women, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ related content, the study explores various aspects of content creation across multiple Indian languages, its access and use. Based on analysing this data and drawing on ongoing work within the mainstream discourse on gender and sexuality, the report offers a set of observations on ways to address challenges related to the gender gap in the content creation process on open knowledge platforms.

Context and Methods

Collaborative knowledge production platforms such as Wikimedia projects have recognised the existence of a gender gap and bias across its projects, understood largely as disparities in participation by and content related to women and, by extension, individuals across diverse gender and sexual identities. As observed in global literature as well as by work done by Indian language communities (with a focus largely on women Wikimedians), the gap is a result of various infrastructural and socio-cultural factors, including limited access to devices and the internet; balancing professional, domestic and volunteer work; lack of technical capacity-building and communication skills; limited presence in leadership positions, and the need for safe and healthy working environments among others. Several efforts have been made globally and in Indian language communities to address these challenges.

The issue of the gender gap, or indeed the challenges identified, are not unique to Wikimedia projects alone but are reflective of gender disparities in the public sphere and across the internet more broadly. Key learning from previous work in this space has been the need to connect these conversations and efforts to bridge the gender gap with the wider public discourse related to content creation on gender and sexuality online and in Indian languages. This study aimed to map such content with perspectives drawn from diverse gender and sexual identities. Importantly, it sought to understand better some of the infrastructural and cultural factors that shape creating such content and making it publicly available in diverse languages.

This study was done across four Indian languages - Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu (while English remained inevitable), focusing on content under two sub-themes– a. Cultural History and b. Feminist Production/Publication. The respondents in the study included organisations and individuals working in the areas of gender, sexuality and allied areas like feminist interventions and publishing, with a focus on writers, translators, artists, and multi-format content creators and curators. The study adopted a qualitative approach and comprised 19 semi-structured interviews (including four focused group discussions with organisations). Owing to the pandemic, all interactions for this study were done through telephonic conversation, email and virtual conferencing. These interactions have helped us understand the process of content creation in these areas. These problems manifest as gendered disparities in engagement with online platforms and potential solutions to address the same.

Key Research Areas

The three major thematic areas this research study focused on are as follows.

Nature of the Knowledge Produced
Content production on gender and sexuality in Indian languages spans several areas, including education, activism, advocacy and rights and justice, to name a few, given the location of much early writing in this space within the women’s rights and several other social movements in India. Important observations on the nature of this content by respondents include the emergence of a feminist critique across fields and disciplines, active interventions in the public discourse around gender and sexuality and the need for an intersectional approach to the process of content production. The growth of content in Indian languages and their increased availability on online platforms is also an important step towards addressing the predominance of Anglocentric and academic perspectives in these areas of research and work.

Digital Spaces, and movement of Content from Paper to Pixel
The cohort of the participants of this study has pointed out the evolution of the internet and digital tools from a luxury to a necessity but also acknowledged the widespread disparity in their access and use. However, the interesting outcome of this has been the transformation of traditional publishing methods and the emergence of cost-efficient space to produce content in various formats (like on social media) which fosters wider dissemination and engagement. However, increasing digital content production also comes with the need for advancements in digital literacy, resources and infrastructure. Digitalisation and open access to content on gender and sexuality in Indian languages is, therefore, a resource-intensive process, with related challenges such as copyright restrictions and technical limitations to access and use of Indian language content etc.

Indian Languages
The content creation process on gender and sexuality in Indian languages is complex given the country's diversity. Still, socio-cultural factors continue to determine the growth and use of languages, often resulting from asymmetries of power amongst diverse communities. This includes the marginalisation of certain forms of language use and content production processes that are not seen as within the ambit of dominant languages. Further, the lack of a gender-neutral vocabulary across many Indian languages and the significant challenges in the translation are important issues that emerged in this space. While the translation of content on gender and sexuality into Indian languages from English and other foreign languages is challenging due to the lack of a gender-neutral and conceptual vocabulary, as noted earlier; the lack of reverse translations and limitations within publishing and wider circulation of content are some of the factors that continue to affect work in this space.

Learnings

The learnings from this study outline the many challenges in content production on gender and sexuality, especially in Indian languages and its availability in digital spaces. These include the need to recognise that gendered disparities result from asymmetries of power, thus calling for a more critical outlook and intersectional approach towards the processes of content production (and related work such as translation, digitisation and archiving). They also offer several strategies and best practices drawn from observations by the respondents to address some of these gaps in content creation and circulation to ensure sustainable knowledge production ecosystems.

These include the dire need to bridge technical and infrastructural gaps, facilitate visibility and engagement with content through collaborations with key institutions and individuals in this space, and capacity-building through developing pedagogy and tools. Further, there is a need to diversify the approach towards creating and sourcing content and creating safe working environments by developing redressal mechanisms for marginalised and vulnerable communities. As Wikimedia projects constitute a major part of the digital knowledge ecosystem and have been working towards more diversity and inclusion across their projects, a sustained approach to bridge these gaps may be adopted in the Indian context. This would contribute immensely to efforts to bridge the gender gap across Wikimedia projects and in the larger digital public sphere.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-mapping-content-on-gender-and-sexuality-in-indian-languages

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

subodh — 2022-10-11T13:11:15Z

It all started like this. During the Wikimedia session at Goa University in October 2021, it was realised that there is very little documentation about the ‘Goa Liberation Struggle’ on Wikimedia projects. So, in the meeting Prof. Vinay Madgaonkar from the Marathi language department took the lead to develop a project around this theme.

Context

The exhaustive list of freedom fighters, major incidents in history, the places related with struggle, monuments and memorials was prepared. The next day, to have a glimpse of the situation on ground, we toured a few places and monuments in South Goa. As we were shocked to see the sorry state of the memorials, we came across a monument of Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai known as Bharatkar (an editor of O Bharat), in a lush green forest near Quepem village. Being curious to know about the history of O Bharat publication, Prof. Vinay introduced us to the grandson of Bharatkar, Adv. Khagendra Desai who founded Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust, non-profit organisation in Goa to archive the works of Bharatkar.

As both of us share the same vision, CIS-A2K partnered with Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust, to relicense and digitise freedom fighter Bharatkar’s ‘O Bharat,’ a Marathi-Portuguese bilingual weekly, currently housed at Goa Central Public Library.

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Freedom fighter, social reformer and journalist 'Bharat'kar Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai, (7th Nov 1885 - 15th Aug 1949), started 'O Bharat' (in Portuguese) or 'Bharat' (in Marathi) on 6th November 1912. For 36 years thereafter, Bharatkar courageously protested the Portuguese occupation, relentlessly advocated radical and progressive social reforms and doggedly championed the cause of an independent and sovereign Indian Goa.

Partnerships

The partnerships with various stakeholders were developed after a series of discussions and official communications. The Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust obtained official permissions from the State Government departments for the access of O Bharat volumes in the library. Goa Central Public Library provided access to the bound volumes of O Bharat and permission to scan them. Another local organisation, Bhakti Dnyan Marg Sanstha in association with Goa University Marathi Department identified few students for the digitisation.

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

The trustees of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust relicensed the two volumes of selected editorials published in 2018 and the whole O Bharat issues into CC-BY-SA 4.0. We conducted digitisation training with Prof. Vinay Madgaonkar and students, Shravani Parab and Shridhar Raut, from Goa University to scan 12000 pages in 8 days. The officials of Goa Central Public Library cooperated in access to original volumes and in the process of digitisation. The Chief Minister of Goa inaugurated the project on Wikimedia Commons on India’s 75th Independence day, 15 August 2022. The year wise volumes of ‘O Bharat’ are now freely accessible to anyone in the world at any time anywhere. The uploading of the volumes is in progress.

Media links

The event of launching digitised content on Wikimedia was very well received by the people in Goa. The researchers, students, readers and journalists will have this reference value content while exploring the history of Goa. Various national and local media published the news covering all the aspects of this archive. The links are given below -

This was originally published on Wikimedia Blog in September 2022

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-o-bharat

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

subodh — 2022-10-11T14:53:58Z

The digitization project of O Bharat, a historic biweekly published between 1912 to 1949 in Goa was completed through collaboration of different organizations. The trustees of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust initiated the project in collaboration with Marathi department of Goa University, Bhakti Dnyan Marg Sanstha and Goa Central Library. The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme facilitated the project with technical and financial assistance. Two local students scanned 12000 pages in 8 days. The year wise volumes of O Bharat are now freely available on Wikimedia Commons in the form of archive.


Above: Front page of O Bharat in Portuguese	Above: Front page of O Bharat in Marathi

Context

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Partnerships

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

Media links

This was originally published on Wikimedia Blog in September 2022

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-of-o-bharat

Wiki Academy

radha — 2011-08-18T05:01:57Z

An article by Hari Prasad Nadig on Wiki Academy, a workshop based on usage of Indian languages, editing and its applications in academics of Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia, was held at Eric Mathias hall in St Aloysius College in Mangalore on Saturday, August 22.

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free; - Rabindranath Tagore

ಜ್ಞಾನವೆಂಬುದು ಯಾರೊಬ್ಬರ ಸೊತ್ತಲ್ಲ. ಅದು ಎಲ್ಲರದೂ ಆಗಬೇಕು. ಮಾನವಕುಲದ ಒಟ್ಟು ಅರಿವು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬರಿಗೂ ಸಿಗಬೇಕು, ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ಮುಚ್ಚಿಟ್ಟು ಅಥವ ಹಿಡಿದಿಟ್ಟು ಪ್ರಯೋಜನವಿಲ್ಲ. ಹಂಚಿಕೊಂಡ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಬೆಳೆಯುತ್ತದೆ - ಇದು ಒಂದು ರೀತಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಹಿಂದಿರುವ ಸಿದ್ಧಾಂತ.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ತಮ್ಮ ಅರಿವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದಾದ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಯಾರೊಬ್ಬರೂ ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡಬಹುದಾದ ಪುಟಗಳ ಗುಚ್ಛ. ಇದನ್ನು ನಡೆಸುವುದು ಜಗತ್ತಿನಾದ್ಯಂತ ತಮಗರಿವಿರುವ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತ ತಾವೂ ಹೊಸ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಅರಿತುಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಉತ್ಸುಕರಾಗಿರುವ ಆಸಕ್ತರ ಸಮುದಾಯ. ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾದ ಕೆಲವೇ ವರ್ಷಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದ ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ವೆಬ್ಸೈಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದಾದ ಯೋಜನೆ ಇದು. ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ಇಂದು ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಬಳಕೆಯಾಗುವ ಮೊದಲ ಐದು ವೆಬ್ಸೈಟುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇದೂ ಒಂದು.

ನಾಲ್ಕಾರು ವರ್ಷಗಳೇ ಈ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಳೆದವರಿಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲರೊಡನೆ ಕುಳಿತು ಒಂದು ದಿನದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಬಹುದೊಡ್ಡ ಸವಾಲು. ಏಕೆಂದರೆ, ವಿಕಿ(ಪೀಡಿಯ) ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ನಮಲ್ಲಿರುವ ವಿಷಯಗಳು ನೂರಾರು. ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ರಾಜ್ಯಮಟ್ಟದ ಮೊಟ್ಟಮೊದಲ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ಆಯೋಜಿಸಿದಾಗ ನಮಗೆದುರಾದ ಸವಾಲು ಕೂಡ ಇದೇ. ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಅಂದು ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಇನ್ನೂರಕ್ಕೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಜನ ಆಸಕ್ತರ ಸಮೂಹ ನಮಗಿದ್ದ ಸವಾಲನ್ನು ಇಮ್ಮಡಿಗೊಳಿಸಿತ್ತು.

"ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ. ಅದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಲೇಖನ ಉಂಟೋ?" ಎಂದು ಸಭಿಕರೊಬ್ಬರು ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆ ಮುಂದಿಟ್ಟಾಗ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ನಮಗೂ ಕುತೂಹಲ. ಅಲ್ಲಿಯೇ ಆಂಗ್ಲ ವಿಕಿಯ 'ಮಂಗಳೂರು' ಪುಟ ತೆರೆದು ನೋಡಿದಾಗ ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿರುವ 'ಮಂಗಳೂರು' ಎಂಬ ಊರಿನ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಓದಿ ಹೇಳುವಾಗ ಎಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲದ ಖುಷಿ. ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ನಡುವೆ ಇರುವ ಮಾಹಿತಿಯ ತುಣುಕುಗಳು ಒಟ್ಟಾದಾಗ ಮಾತ್ರ ಹೀಗಾಗಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯ ಅಲ್ವ? ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೆ ವಿಕ್ಟೋರಿಯ, ಆಸ್ಟ್ರೇಲಿಯದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಮಂಗಳೂರಿಗೆ ಒಂದು ರೈಲ್ವೇ ಸ್ಟೇಶನ್ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ, ಒಂದು ಏರ್ಪೋರ್ಟ್ ಕೂಡ ಇದೆ ಎಂಬುದಿರಲಿ, ಮತ್ತೊಂದು ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಪರದೇಶವೊಂದರಲ್ಲಿದೆ ಎಂಬುದೂ ತಿಳಿದುಬರದು.

ಇದೇ ರೀತಿಯ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳು ಉತ್ಸಾಹದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವನ್ನಾಗಿಸಿತು ಆ ದಿನ. ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಮನಸ್ಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಅಚ್ಚುಳಿಯುವಷ್ಟು.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂದರೇನು, ಅದರ ಸಿದ್ಧಾಂತ ಏನು, ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು, ಹೇಗೆ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಬಹುದು? ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಬೇಕಾದದ್ದು ಏನು? ಇದೇ ಮೊದಲಾದ ವಿಷಯಗಳೊಂದಿಗೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಿದೆವು. ಸೇಂಟ್ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಆಸಕ್ತರು ನೆರೆದ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಒಡ್ಡಿದ ಸವಾಲು ನಮಗೆ ಅಷ್ಟೇ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ ಮೂಡಿಸಿದ್ದು ಹೌದು. ಬಿಳಿಗಿರಿರಂಗನ ಬೆಟ್ಟವನ್ನು ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ಷೇತ್ರವಾಗಿ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಡಾಕ್ಟರರಾದ ಪ್ರಶಾಂತ್ ಎನ್ ಎಸ್ ನನ್ನ ಜೊತೆ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ನಡೆಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟವರು. ಇವರ ನಿತ್ಯದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಡಿಟ್ಸ್ ನೋಡಿದರೆ ಅದಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಅವರಿಗಿರುವ ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸದೇ ಇರದು.

ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಜನಪ್ರಿಯತೆಗೆ ಕಾರಣವೇನು? ಇದು ಹೇಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟು ದೊಡ್ಡದಾಗಿ ಬೆಳದದ್ದು? ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಂಬುದೊಂದು ಇಷ್ಟು ಅದ್ಭುತವಾದ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾದದ್ದು ಹೇಗೆ - ಮುಂತಾದ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಾವು ಬೆಳಕು ಚೆಲ್ಲುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಸಹಯೋಗದಲ್ಲಿ (Collaboration) ಮಾಡಿದ ಕೆಲಸ ಹೇಗೆ ಜಗತ್ ಸ್ವರೂಪ ಪಡೆದು ಉತ್ತಮವಾಗುತ್ತ ಹೋಗುತ್ತದೆ ಹಾಗು ವಿಶ್ವ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಇದು ಹೇಗೆ ಕಾಣುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂಬುದರ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾತಾನಾಡಲು ಪ್ರಯತ್ನಿಸಿದೆವು. ರಾಜ್ಯಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸುವಾಗ ನಮ್ಮ ಭಾಷೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ನಾಲ್ಕು ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆಯೇ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾಗಿರುವ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಆವೃತ್ತಿ ಮರೆಯಲಾಗದು, ಅದರ ಕುರಿತು ಕೂಡ ಚರ್ಚೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಹುಭಾಷಾ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ್ವವಾಗಿ ರೂಪುಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿರುವ ಕುರಿತು, ಅದರ ಪ್ರಾಮುಖ್ಯತೆ ಕುರಿತು ಕೂಡ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದೆವು.

ಮಧ್ಯಾಹ್ನ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಸುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ, ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳುವುದು ಹೇಗೆ ಎಂಬುದರ ಕುರಿತು ಕಾರ್ಯಾಗಾರವಿತ್ತು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಂಡವರು ಸ್ವತಃ ಮುಂದೆ ಬಂದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ತಾವೂ ಒಂದು ಅಕೌಂಟು ತೆರೆದು ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಇದು ಸಭೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆರೆದಿದ್ದ ಹಲವರಿಗೆ ಬಹಳ ಖುಷಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ವಿಷಯವೆಂದು ಈಗ ನಾನು ಹೇಳಬಲ್ಲೆ. ಏಕೆಂದರೆ ಯಾವುದೇ ಯೋಜನೆಯಾಗಲಿ, ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನವಾಗಲಿ - ಅದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಕೇಳುವುದು ಸುಲಭ, ಆದರೆ ಬಳಸಿ ನೋಡುವಾಗ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆ ಎದುರಾದಾಗ ಕಷ್ಟ! ನೇರ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಂಡವರನ್ನೇ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲು ಕೇಳುತ್ತ ಅವರ ಕೈಯಲ್ಲೇ ಅಕೌಂಟು ತೆರೆಯುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು, ಪುಟವೊಂದನ್ನು ಎಡಿಟ್ ಮಾಡುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡುವುದು - ಸಭಿಕರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳ ಸರಮಾಲೆಯನ್ನೇ ಹುಟ್ಟುಹಾಕಿತು! ನಮಗೂ ಅದೇ ಬೇಕಿದ್ದದ್ದು. ಎಲ್ಲರ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗಳಿಗೆ ನಮಗೆ ತಿಳಿದ ಉತ್ತರ ನೀಡುತ್ತ ಅವರಿಗೆ ಎದುರಾದ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಹರಿಸುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡಿದೆವು. ಒಟ್ಟಾರೆ, ನಮಗದು ಬಹಳ ಖುಷಿಕೊಟ್ಟ ಕಾರ್ಯಾಗಾರ!

ದಿನದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಮುಗಿದ ಮೇಲೆ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು, ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕರು, ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತರು - ಎಲ್ಲ ನಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿ ಬಂದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದೊಂದಿಗೆ ಅವರ ಅನುಭವ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತ ಕಳೆದ ಸಮಯವಂತೂ ಮರೆಯಲಾಗದ್ದು. ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞರಾಗಿ ನಾವು ಕಾಣುವ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ತನ್ನದೇ ಮುಖವನ್ನು ಕಾಣಿಸುತ್ತದೆಂಬ ಅರಿವು ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಸಮಗ್ರತೆಯ ಪರಿಚಯ ಹೆಚ್ಚಿಸಿತು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಹತ್ತಿರವಾಯಿತು.

[ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿಯನ್ನು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಗಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವ ಸೆಂಟರ್ ಫಾರ್ ಇಂಟರ್ನೆಟ್ ಎಂಡ್ ಸೊಸೈಟಿಯವರಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಪರವಾಗಿ ಅಭಿನಂದನೆಗಳು. ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನದೇನೂ ಅಪೇಕ್ಷೆಯಿಲ್ಲದೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಸ್ವಯಂಸೇವಕರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರೋತ್ಸಾಹ ನೀಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ವಿಕಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನದಲ್ಲಿ ಇವರ ಪಾತ್ರ, ಕೊಡುಗೆ ಗಣನೀಯವಾದದ್ದು.

ಮಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಆವೃತ್ತಿಯನ್ನು ಆಯೋಜಿಸುವಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಪಾತ್ರವಹಿಸಿದ ಮಂಗಳೂರು ಆಕಾಶವಾಣಿಯ ಸಾತ್ವಿಕ್, ಸೇಂಟ್ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಉತ್ಸುಕ ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸಕರೂ, ಸರಳ ಜೀವಿಯೂ ಆದ ರೆವರೆಂಡ್ ಫಾದರ್ ರಿಚರ್ಡ್ ರೆಗೋ ಇವರಿಬ್ಬರಿಗೂ ನಮ್ಮೆಲ್ಲರ ಪರವಾಗಿ ಹೃತ್ಪೂರ್ವಕ ಅಭಿನಂದನೆಗಳು.

ಇದೆಲ್ಲದರ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ವಿಕಿ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿಯನ್ನು ಕುತೂಹಲದಿಂದ, ವಿಶ್ವಾಸದಿಂದ ನೋಡುತ್ತ ವಿಕಿ ಕುರಿತು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವಲ್ಲಿ ತಮ್ಮದೂ ಒಂದು ಪಾತ್ರವಿದೆ ಎಂಬಂತೆ ನಡೆದ ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತ ಸ್ನೇಹಿತರಿಗೆ ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಕೃತಜ್ಞರು. ಇವರಿಲ್ಲದೆ ನಾವು ಕೈಗೆತ್ತಿಕೊಂಡಿರುವ ಅರಿವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಅಭಿಯಾನ ಅಪೂರ್ಣ.

More information available here

Seminar held at Managlore - slides available here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-academy

Open Video Summit

radha — 2011-08-18T05:08:54Z

The Open Video Summit: A one-day workshop to explore issues of intellectual property and telecom policy for video is being organized by The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), iCommons, Open Video Alliance and Magic Lantern on December 15, 2009 at TERI, Bangalore, from 9am to 6pm.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), iCommons, Open Video Alliance and Magic Lantern are organizing a workshop on December 15, 2009.

This workshop in Bangalore—modelled after a similar meeting in October 2008 at Yale University—draws together experts from tech, art, film, NGOs and business to explore the future of online video.

When: December 15th, 2009

Where: The Energy and Resources Institute- Southern Regional Centre

(TERI-SRC)
4th Main, 2nd Cross, Domlur II Stage
Bangalore- 560071

What: The Open Video Summit is a one-day workshop to explore issues of intellectual property and telecom policy for video. By inviting experts from different fields to participate in the workshop, we aim to create a framework for open video in India and to better understand how the online video medium is developing. We also hope to expand the network of researchers who have open video on the radar and to foster international collaborations. We expect between 30-40 participants to attend.

Participants should bring some specialized knowledge or insight about the state of online video to the event. The workshop is highly interactive and its success will depend on the quality and dynamism of our discussions. This workshop will in turn direct iCommons research efforts in the area of online video policy.

Why: We’re now surrounded by cameras in cellphones, laptops, and everywhere else. Software and storage advances have made video remix an emergent art form. For the first time, huge numbers of people are communicating through video. Video is almost like a new language, a new toolkit for self-expression. This has some pretty profound implications.

But while sites like YouTube have enabled millions of people to broadcast themselves, it offers just a glimpse into the future of the online video medium. Heading into this future, the tools for creating, manipulating, and sharing video must be available to everyone. And while having community-developed, open source versions of these tools is a critical charge, it’s only one part of a larger puzzle. Open video requires that networks and technical, legal and business structures support the ability of huge numbers of individuals to use video in ways that go beyond just watching.

The Open Video Alliance was created to support industry coordination toward an open video ecosystem. OVA members develop free and open source software and conduct policy research to support a more participatory video medium. The OVA also coordinates the Open Video Conference, a multi-day summit of thought leaders in business, academia, art, and activism to explore the future of online video. The first OVC was host to over 800 guests, including 150 workshop leaders, panelists and speakers. Over 8,000 viewers tuned in from home to watch the live broadcast.

Meeting Organizers:

The Open Video Alliance is a coalition of organizations devoted to creating and promoting

free and open technologies, policies, and practices in online video. OVA founding members include Mozilla, the Participatory Culture Foundation, Kaltura, iCommons, and the Yale Information Society Project.

iCommons is a project-based incubator organization dedicated to promoting free culture and the global commons.

The Centre for Internet and Society critically engages with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South-South dialogues and exchange.

Magic Lantern Foundation is a non-profit group working with media and human rights.

This meeting made possible with the support of the Ford Foundation.

Working schedule:

Morning:

Keynote talk and brief discussion
Lightning presentations by selected participants
Breakout discussion groups

Afternoon:

Lunch
Breakout discussion groups
Plenary discussion to identify focus areas and summarize

Evening:

Film Screening

Space is limited. Please RSVP to conference@openvideoalliance.org, and feel free to contact us with any questions you may have. We look forward to meeting you in Bangalore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-video-summit

Openness, Videos, Impressions

nishant — 2011-09-22T12:23:13Z

The one day Open Video Summit organised by the Centre for Internet & Society, iCommons, Open Video Alliance, and Magic Lantern, to bring together a range of stakeholders to discuss the possibilities, potentials, mechanics and politics of Open Video. Nishant Shah, who participated in the conversations, was invited to summarise the impressions and ideas that ensued in the day.

The notion of free and open is under great debate even under that, and I think even when you side with a camp, there are going to be further splinters. There are many ways of defining the free and open, and I think that the tension, rather than being resolved, needs to be sustained and creatively perpetrated to keep an internal checks and balances on not getting carried away with it. All the groups did indeed circle around this in different, often tangential ways – that there is need to define, variously and almost endlessly, in defining the context of the free that we are dealing with.

Open video, in that matter, has gone through different iterations, and I think it is nice that different stakeholders have defined it variously, and also looked at the problems that it might lead to. However, for the sake of synthesis, I am going to let you have your own idea of free and open but instead look at five key words which have emerged, in my selective hearing, through the day: Access, Archive, Share, Remix, Repurpose. And it is these five that we need to now imbricate these concepts across different thematic that emerged in the groups today.

Access has been one primary question that almost everybody dealt with; Access has its legacies in the Open and Free culture movements, where technological access, dealing with questions of open standards and content, of bandwidth and infrastructure. More interestingly, in an emerging information society like India, there are other concerns of language, access, privilege, bandwidth, education etc. To contextualise access and to put it into different perspectives is something that different participants have voiced the need for.

Archive is a preoccupation with most people because archiving has close relationships with knowledge and subsequently retrieval and usage. If knowledge is being digitised so that it is made accessible to different people, there are older questions of representation, voice, empowerment, participation, ethics, privacy, ownership etc. Crop up. In education archiving has to do with the curricula building and knowledge production. In networking, collaboration and film making, it is the kind of issues that pad.ma is trying to tackle with. It also leads to notions of access, distribution etc.

Sharing is what is almost defining the spirit of the Open and Free culture movements. There is a need to understand and explore what sharing means. When does it infringe laws and what kind of regulation needs to be advocated so that sharing becomes possible. How does one overcome questions of piracy, stealing, IPR etc? More interestingly, what do we share and who do we share it with? Tools by which sharing leads to innovation? How does it lead to new participation and learning practices and pedagogies? What kind of open distribution models and networks can be built up?

Remix has been of great value because it means that you are being converted into some sort of a stakeholder or a contributor to the process. Networking and nodes, network-actor, collaborator , peer 2 peer – the possibility of looking at questions of internet and digital traces is interesting. Or imagine that the act of sharing is also a remix. Sometimes just putting it into new contexts, making it available to newer constituencies, etc. can also be looked upon as remixing. Remix as a knowledge production aesthetic and mechanics seems to have emerged.

Repurpose is my additional reading of something that perhaps needs no mention to this group, but nonetheless needs flagging. The fact remains, that the technology is not a solution in itself. It is a tool that enables the solutions which one is seeking for. The processes, paradigms, protocols and practices are indeed shaped and mediated by technologies and there are new solution possibilities which are produced. However, there still seem to be anxieties, concerns, questions and problems which are cropping up and need to be addressed outside of technology but within technology ecologies.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/OVSreport

Research Project on Open Video in India

pranesh — 2011-08-23T02:51:36Z

Open Video Alliance and the Centre for Internet and Society are calling for researchers for a project on open video in India, its potentials, limitations, and recommendations on policy interventions.

Project Timeline

From mid-April to mid-July.

Summary of Outputs

A 15-20 page paper surveying the online video environment in India and the opportunities it presents for creative expression, political participation, social justice, and other such concerns. The paper should deal with the structural limitations of the medium (e.g.: limited bandwidth, IP lobbies discourage re-appropriation of cultural materials, online video is inaccessible to the deaf, and so on) and how they can be addressed. Recommendations should be bold but in touch with the real policy and business frameworks of present-day India.
Several 1-2 page briefs on specific policy matters like: where is jurisdiction being exercised? what are the policy inflections? and, what interventions are needed to solve the structural limitations of the medium?

Survey Paper

The survey paper should describe the online video scenario in India, and three or more policy tensions. The paper should focus on areas of intellectual property rights, network issues, standards, device freedom and interoperability, accessibility, etc. The Open Video Alliance website[ova] for a complete list of relevant issues.

Overall, it should paint both a qualitative as well as a quantitative picture of online video in India, and in which structural improvements are needed (if any) to empower individuals.This paper should not be viewed as a recommendation to policymakers but instead as a general interest document which will inform and appeal to many audiences. While we expect the paper to span several distinct issues, there should be a prevailing narrative to weave them together.

Basic Assumptions

We want online video to be a participatory and collaborative social medium powered by open source. We also value the ability of individuals to express themselves using these tools, and the ability of new entrants to challenge incumbents and innovate on top of existing technologies. No time is needed to be spent establishing these values—instead, through this paper we try to identify structural improvements to the online video medium. How do we get from the status quo to the ideal open video environment? What investments must be made? What protections must be put into place for users, producers, etc.? Further, we should be able to make some broad recommendations to governments, foundations, and big institutions.

Because the network and IP enforcement environment in India are still malleable, we want to stress that there are many possible shapes that the online video medium could take. Our goal is to shine some light on how a medium that privileges the values outlined above could take shape.

Suggested Methodology

First, you would need to carry out a basic survey of the literature. Second, you should talk to various organizations using video, discover what they consider the structural limitations of online video, and what might be considered open video practices: some are legal, some are technical. You would use this data to direct original research and weave your findings into an engaging narrative.

Next Steps

You send 2 writing samples, a CV, and letter of recommendation;
We'll discuss the unifying themes and identify a more detailed timeline;
We produce a contract;
We Pick a regular time to meet every other week, to track progress.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-video-research

Open Government Platform: An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and Energizing Civic Engagement

Neeta Verma, Alka Mishra and D.P. Mishra — 2012-11-19T03:15:01Z

If government could release these datasets in open format for people to use & reuse, a whole lot of new innovative apps could be built around these datasets to provide better, customized services to citizens.

This article by Neeta Verma, Alka Mishra and D.P. Mishra was published as a lead story in the July 2012 edition of Informatics Magazine, printed by the National Informatics Centre.

Online publishing of Government data in open format shall play an important role in enhancing transparency and accountability of the government. It shall enable new forms of citizen engagement & innovation in citizen service delivery. More customized & personalized services could be offered to citizens. When implemented at large scale it shall bring a paradigm shift in development of e-governance applications. At NIC we have recently developed an Open Government Platform (OGPL) to enable government ministries & departments to launch their open data initiative.

Conceptual Overview

OGPL as a product caters to two sets of users - the government and the citizen/civil societies. It facilitates government departments to contribute their datasets, Apps, tools, documents, services etc., which gets validated and published, after passing through a predefined workflow to the citizen interfacing data portal. The single-point citizen interface is designed in such a way that catalogs can be searched with ease and datasets can be accessed/downloaded in various open formats. It also provides a platform for citizens and civil societies to engage with government on various aspects of socio economic development.

OGPL also facilitates building of subject specific communities through Citizen engagement modules. Communities shall discuss online the kind of datasets, government should release and also what kind of apps should be developed around these datasets. This shall provide first hand information to government as well as developer communities on public demand and prioritize their schedules accordingly.

OGPL Components

OGPL essentially consists of three major modules:

Dataset Management System
Data Portal
Monitoring and Management
Dashboard

Dataset Management System

Dataset Management system or DMS shall be used by all contributing ministries, departments as well as organisations using which, authorized officers of the departments can contribute datasets, documents, services, tools and apps which shall then be processed through a predefined workflow of moderation & approval to ensure that datasets being released in public domain are in compliance with existing acts & policies of the government
concerning privacy, security etc.

Through DMS each Ministry/Department can contribute their datasets in the form containing a set of Standard Metadata elements. After passing through various stages of moderation and approvals, these datasets gets published on the data portal viz. data.gov.in

Data Portal

Data Portal is the citizen facing frontend of the OGPL which shall provide single point access to all the datasets, apps as well as services. Portal has a strong component of search, discovery as well as citizen engagement. The development of the data portal is in compliance with the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW).

This Citizen interfacing Data Portal would also have a Communities component built into the system. This component facilitates Forums/Discussions around various datasets, apps available on the portal as well as platform to express and discuss the kind of datasets & apps they would like to have. This shall give first hand input to development community for building new components, apps. It shall also give input to departments as what kind of datasets are more useful and accordingly can raise the priority of their release.

Monitoring and Management Dashboard

Monitoring and management dashboard of OGPL helps government monitor & manage its Open Data Programme through three dimensions

Metrics, analytics & feedback from citizens: Metrics help understand amount of datasets uploaded, updated by different Departments. Frequency of upload is also available on a single dashboard.
Analytics module gives use perspective in terms of their usage of datasets, Number of downloads, aggregated ratings provided to datasets determine their value and to some extent quality of data released by government.
Feedback from citizens provide government with first hand input from citizens on quality, relevance of datasets, new datasets needed, kind of apps need to be developed, etc.

Open government platform can be used in multiple ways. One can directly publish their datasets after one time registration & authentication. Departments could build their subject specific catalogues through a cloud based services of OGPL. One can also ask for independent installation of OGPL with customized look & feel. OGPL can be used by any central or state government department, organisations as well as district and panchayat administrations. It can also be used by private organisations as well as non government organization and civil societies to bring in more
transparency in their functioning.

OGPL isn't simply about setting up a new web platform, moving to cloud computing or adopting open standards but it's about establishing a platform to enhance transparency, accountability & foster development of Innovative applications to better serve the citizens & other stakeholders. Open government data is gaining a lot of popularity & acceptance with governments across the world. Its led by government themselves, development communities, international organisations. OGPL is a perfect platform for them to launch their open data initiative.

Note by BK Gairola In India, National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP) has been recently notified by the Government. According to this policy, all government departments shall release their datasets in open format for citizens and other stakeholders to freely use & reuse. To make these datasets easily accessible by citizens, policy has also mandated NIC to provide technology solution for establishing an Open Data Portal (http://data.gov.in) for Departments, Subordinate Offices and Organizations. OGPL implementation in India is being executed by NIC, DeitY in close coordination with DST. OGPL is an open source product with generic architecture, which would easily facilitate other organizations and institutions to adopt for their open data initiatives. Communities could also contribute further by developing innovative apps around datasets and also enhancing the product in terms of features & functionalities. The purpose of the platform is to enhance access and use of government data to foster innovation, promote transparency, accountability and public participation. I am sure it shall go a long way in democratizing the government information.

Indo-US Collaboration Open Government Platform (OGPL) was developed jointly by India & US government as a result of announcement made by President Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the Indo-US Open Government Dialogue in 2010. OGPL leverages on the best practices & features of the India’s “India.gov.in” and the “Data.gov” of United States.National Informatics Centre (NIC) from Government of India and General Services Administration (GSA) of United States executed the development of OGPL. Open Government Platform, developed to promote access to government data and information and energize citizen engagement was launched by Hon’ble Minister of Communications & IT and HRD, Govt. of India during a press conference held on 30th March 2012 in New Delhi in presence of Dr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to Prime Minister of India. Secretary(DEITY), DG(NIC) & Joint Secretary, MEA also participated in the press conference, Senior officers from US Government & US Embassy were also present along with GSA team in India. CIO, US Government along with Deputy CTO also addressed the event over video conference.

OGPL - An Open Source Solution Open Government Platform is completely developed using Open Source Stack. In fact complete management of the collaborative development of OGPL by two teams stationed in two continents of the world was also handled using open source tools.It complies with the best practices of open source development, which helps in leveraging the strengths of future versions of the open source base products used in development of OGPL. OGPL being an open source initiative not only facilitates cost saving in terms of software and licenses but also facilitates community participation in terms of further development of product with additional components and innovative apps around the published datasets. This shall define a paradigm shift in the manner electronic government applications shall be developed in future. The entire source code is made available to public for review, feedback and participation for further development and enhancement.

Citizen Engagement OGPL has a strong component of Citizen engagement. Citizens can view, download datasets as well express their opinion on the quality of datasets, they can rate the datasets on a scale of 1 to 5. One can embed a dataset in their blog or web site as well as contact the owner of the datasets for any query or clarification. One can also publish or connect the datasets on their social media pages such as facebook, twitter etc. for wider reach. Ratings given by citizen are transparently shared on the portal in terms of number of views, current star rating which help new visitor understand quality of data sets, its popularity. Portal also enables visitors to submit their ideas, feedbacks and as well suggest datasets they would like government to release in open domain. These ideas are further rated by citizens to help government allocate priority in release of data sets.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/informatics-nic-in-neeta-verma-alka-mishra-d-p-mishra-july-2012-open-government-platform

Centre for Internet and Society

Infrastructural Needs of Indian Language Wikisource Projects

Introduction

Context

Research objectives

Research methods

Observations and Learnings

Capacity-building and training

Community Engagement

Technological infrastructure

Open Access and Content Creation

Conclusions and Recommendations

Exploring Knowledge Repositories on Water Resources in India

Introduction

Research Questions

Methods

Description of Organisations Interviewed

Observations

Recommendations

References

Software Freedom Pledge

Should Indian Researchers Pay to Get their Work Published

Methodology

Results

Discussion

Affordable OA publishing

Conclusion

References

Bangalore Meet-up for the Open Government Partnership Brasilia

Open access to government data on the cards

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data

Key Speakers

Mapping Content on Gender and Sexuality in Indian Languages

Introduction

Context and Methods

Key Research Areas

Learnings

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

Context

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Partnerships

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

Media links

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

Context

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Partnerships

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

Media links

Wiki Academy

Open Video Summit

Openness, Videos, Impressions

Research Project on Open Video in India

Project Timeline

Summary of Outputs

Survey Paper

Basic Assumptions

Suggested Methodology

Next Steps

Open Government Platform: An Open Source Solution to Democratizing Access to Information and Energizing Civic Engagement

Conceptual Overview

OGPL Components

Dataset Management System

Data Portal

Monitoring and Management Dashboard

Note by BK Gairola

Indo-US Collaboration

OGPL - An Open Source Solution

Citizen Engagement

_{Affordable OA publishing}