Centre for Internet and Society

Digital Empowerment Foundation--Internet Governance Forum Workshop, 5 December 2008, Hyderabad

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:16:28Z

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008.

CIS Director (Policy) Sunil Abraham will be a panelist at a workshop on Low Cost Sustainability Access to be held at the Internet Governance Forum 2008. The workshop is organised by the Digital Empowerment Foundation and the Internet and Mobile Association of India, in association with Internet Society and Intel. It will be held on December 5, 2008, from 14:30 – 16:00.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/digital-empowerment-foundation-internet-governance-forum-workshop-5-december-2008-hyderabad

Does India need its own Bayh-Dole?

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:58:46Z

Article by Pranesh Prakash, Programme Manager at Centre for Internet and Society in the Indian Express, 24 April 2009

Across the world battlelines are being drawn in the normally quiet areas of academia and research. The opposing sides: those in favour of open and collaborative research and development as a means to promote innovation, and those in favour of perpetuating the profits of big pharma companies and academic publishers. Currently before a Select Parliamentary Committee is a controversial law that will deny basic healthcare to millions by making medicines much more expensive, lock up academic knowledge, and help privatise publicly-funded research. The law titled the Protection and Utilisation of Public Funded Intellectual Property Bill 2008 (“PUPFIP Bill”, http://bit.ly/pupfip-bill) was tabled last December in the Rajya Sabha by the Minister for Science and Technology. It was created in utmost secrecy by the Department of Science and Technology, without so much as a draft version having been shared with the public for comments.

The PUPFIP Bill is an Indian version of a 1980 US legislation, the Bayh-Dole Act, and as per its statement of objects and reasons, it seeks to promote creativity and innovation to enable India “to compete globally and for the public good”. It aims to do so by ensuring the protection of all intellectual property (meaning copyright, patent, trade mark, design, plant variety, etc.) that is the outcome of government-funded research. The IP rights will be held by the grant recipient, or by the government if the recipient does not choose to protect the IP. This might seem like a good way to enable technology transfer from research institutes to the industry, but that would be a very myopic view, disregarding all evidence related to the failure of the Bayh-Dole Act. Last year Prof. Anthony So of Duke University co-authored an extensive analysis of the Bayh-Dole Act, and warned of the consequences of such legislation in developing countries.

First, such a law will shift the focus of research. Researchers will be inclined to to concentrate their efforts on issues of interest to industry, and which can have immediate benefit. This would force vital fundamental research into neglect since it cannot be commercialised with ease. Research by Saul Lach and Mark Schankerman shows that scientists are influenced by royalty rates, and will thus tend to work on industrial research rather than fundamental research. This creates, or at least exacerbates, what is popularly known as the “90/10 gap”: the fact that ninety per cent of medical research money goes into problems affecting ten per cent of the world’s population, since that ten per cent is richer.

Secondly, this law will have chilling effects on scholarly communications and promote secrecy. The Bill has requirements of non-disclosure by the grantee and the researcher to enable the commercialisation of the research, and requires researchers and institutions to inform the government before all publication of research. Such bureaucratisation of research publications will stultify intellectual pursuits. Such secrecy and permission-raj culture is anathema to intellectual and academic pursuits, where knowledge is sought to be freely disseminated, to be criticised and further revised by others. In South Africa, academics affected by the recent passage of a PUPFIP-type legislation there are questioning its constitutionality as it restrains freedom of speech.

Thirdly, this will lead to our pillars of learning and research becoming like businesses. US universities like Columbia and Duke have found themselves at the receiving end of criticism for their brazen commercialism, encouraged by the Bayh-Dole Act. Instead of promoting greater access to health for the poor, and spending money on research, the universities were spending money on patent litigation in court. The outcome of one of these cases was the rejection of Duke University’s research exemption defence (universities are generally not bound to observe patents when they wished to conduct research). The court held that the university had “business interests” which the research unmistakably furthered. This points at a fundamental divide between universities as places of learning and as places of profiteering. The Open Source Drug Discovery (OSSD) project that the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is currently pursuing is a good attempt at promoting a culture of openness and transparency and collaboration, and thus ensuring cheaper and more efficient drug discovery. Even the US government is currently seeking to clear the way for generic versions of biotech drugs. In such an environment, it is counter-intuitive to bring in a regressive law, and goes against innovative efforts such as the OSSD, and will harm the generics industry.

Fourthly, the Bill assumes — erroneously, as an ever-growing amount of research demonstrates (Boldrin & Levine, Bessen & Meurer, etc.) — that intellectual property is the best and only way to promote creativity and innovation. All forms of intellectual property are state-granted monopolistic rights. At a basic level, competition promotes innovations while monopoly retards it. Much of modern science developed without the privilege of patents. Surely, Darwin and Newton were not encouraged by patents. And even whole industries — like the software industry — flourish without patent protection in most of the world.

The commendable aim of ensuring knowledge transfer can be accomplished much better if we refrain from giving away to private corporations (whether pharmaceutical manufacturers or publishers) exclusive rights to the product of publicly-funded research. Scientists and researchers can be encouraged to be consultants to various industrial projects, thereby ensuring that their expertise is tapped. Importantly, open access publishing which helps to ensure wide distribution and dissemination of knowledge is surely more desirable. That is the trend being followed the world over currently. The US president recently signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Bill which makes permanent the National Institutes of Health’s open access policy. By doing so, he symbolically rejected calls (such as the much-criticised Conyers Bill) to privatise publicly funded research outputs. Thus, there are many ways by which the government can encourage innovation and creativity, and further public interest. The PUPFIP Bill, which will have deleterious unintended consequences if it is passed, is not one of them.

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To read the article at the Indian Express website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/does-india-need-its-own-bayh-dole

Getting the net out of its web

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:11:22Z

Article by Malvika Tegta in Daily News and Analysis (DNA), 8 March 2009

Artists, academicians, tech heads and lawyers have come together to give the country a voice in technology, study, polity and discourse, says Malvika Tegta

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The Internet has changed lives in ways we haven't stopped to grasp — the real feeding into the virtual and the other way round. Also, how the Internet interacts with individuals varies across cultures and societies. Narratives on the medium originating in the West cannot size up the complexities of the developing world. In the absence of a voice from the "global south" in affecting the direction of the Internet, technologies continue to be designed for a certain kind of end user, with underlying assumptions. "That apart, as the Internet grows, it doesn't necessarily always grow for the better, with things like cyber terrorism, cyber bullying, pornography, identity theft, gambling, internet addiction, being the by-products of the information revolution," says Nishant Shah, director-research and one of the brains behind the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), initiated in August 2008, set up to take note of what we passively allow to direct our lives.

These are the issues that led Gibraltar-based Anurag Dikshit, co-founder of PartyGaming, parent company of online poker site PartyPoker.com, to think that "the time had come for India to have a voice in technology study, polity and discourse, as we quickly find ourselves becoming an Information Society". He, along with Alternative Law Forum's legal theorist Lawrence Liang, Shah and Sunil Abraham, brought CIS into being, pooling in the finest minds from the field of arts, academia, law and technology. CIS, since, has set out to produce local and contextual histories of the Internet to make voices "emerging out of Asia more visible in international dialogues around technology".

Their approach: research, awareness and advocacy. Their goal: to make sense of how the Internet is changing the world around us, with India at the heart.

CIS looks at, among other things, the way copyrights, closed standards and an absence of public policy in certain areas have affected access, innovation and kept the Internet from being less democratic and vibrant. "Copyright law is kind of a monolithic thing, like a 'one size fits all' kind of solution for encouraging creativity. It doesn't really work especially when you look at an equitable system of access," says programme manager Pranesh Prakash. He adds: "Copyright proves to be a huge barrier to promotion of accessibility, and in the Indian context needs some kind of relaxation." Programme manager at CIS, Nirmita puts this in perspective, in the particular case of internet access for the visually impaired and those with cognitive disabilities. "A blind person cannot read the written word, so you record an audio cassette or you have an e-version of it and a screen reader reads it for you. That inverts the conversion of a format, which is not permitted legally under the copyright law in India. Every time you want to convert it, you need to take permission of the copyright holder. So what that is essentially doing is depriving you of your right to read," she says. "Our country should have a law that is universal. We have signed United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that says that everything on the Internet should be in accessible formats, but it's not binding and we don't have a law on it."

In the area of science and academics, copyrights pose another challenge, that of impeding innovation by keeping from the taxpayer, results of at least the research that is funded by tax a notion CIS has been pushing for. "Scientific literature is propounded on the principles like everyone is allowed to review it and that knowledge spreads to a number of people," says Prakash. Both the scientist and the reader want that. But what we see today is that a few publishers control most of all scientific literary output, so most of it is not accessible because a month's subscription sometimes amounts to the entire library budget of an institution. That is especially a big problem for developing countries.

By the end of this year, CIS hopes that individual institutions take up open access policy. "It may not always have to be a top down approach," he says.

In the realm of governance, CIS identifies use of closed standards software as not only unwise strategy, but also socially and ethically a bad decision, and is looking at policy change in the area. Explains Sunil Abraham, director-policy, in his paper: "If I were to store data, information or knowledge in .doc, .xls or .ppt format, my ability to read my own files expires the moment the licence for my copy of Microsoft Office expires." He adds that governments have a responsibility to use open standards, especially for interactions with the public and where the data handled has a direct impact on democratic values. "In developing countries, governments have greater responsibility because most often they account for over 50% of the revenues of proprietary software vendors," he writes.

They are also exploring bridging digital divides without ignoring the "complex interplay, in the case of India for instance, of caste, language, affordability, education, literacy, and in some cases, even religion" and how the Internet is changing the landscape of higher education in India.
As Shah puts it: "Internet technologies are now becoming tools that we think with. We cannot write without the cursor blinking on an empty screen, we cannot talk in public without the aid of a digital presentation..."

It's about time, then, that we thought about the one thing that's becoming one of the bigger movers in our lives and build a discourse around it.

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To read the article in DNA's e-paper, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/getting-the-net-out-of-its-web

Government websites: Access denied to special users

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:17:22Z

Article by L. Subramani in the Deccan Herald, 8 December 2008

The homepages of 23 government agencies have been identified as inaccessible to special users, the city-based Centre for Internet and Society has found.

The organisation carried out an automated test using software tools, on websites of agencies like the National Informatics Centre, Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Ministry of HRD etc, the majority of which have failed to meet even the basic access criteria laid down in the guidelines of Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).

“Except for the Reserve Bank of India and CMC Vellore, all the sites don't even meet priority 1 of WCAG (W3C Access Guidelines), which would ensure availability of text for non-text elements (images) and other graphical contents that can't be read out by screen reader software,” said Nirmita Narasimhan, who carried out the tests at CIS. She mentioned that all of the websites failed in priority 2 and 3 of the guidelines.

“Despite being one of the most important sites for persons with disability, the homepage of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment - which contains documents and important government schemes for persons with disability - has completely failed to meet the accessibility criteria.

This is not only against the spirit of laws that guarantee freedom of information, but also contradicts the government's own policy of making websites accessible to persons with disability,” she added.

Handbook

Nirmita pointed out that the Right To Information handbook - an important reference for persons with disability, demanding information from government and private organisations - has been provided in an inaccessible document format.

She echoed the common contention that persons with disability are deprived of one of the most important aspects of modern technology, despite being empowered by technologies like screen readers and speech recognition software.

The information, coming soon after the International Day for Persons with Disabilities was observed, raises question marks over the government's commitment to break barriers, and its genuineness in creating an accessible society as per the Persons with Disability act (1995) and the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disability, to which it has been one of the early signatories.

Ganesh Prasad, Director (Systems and Process) at Samarthanam Trust for the Disabled described the test results as ‘not surprising, but certainly disappointing.’

“Given the urban conditions, visiting a place in person has become one of the most difficult things for persons with disability,” Prasad said.

Priority 1 of the guidelines calls for text descriptions of images or alternative pages with text contents, while priority 2 asks for the turning off of auto refresh and other deprecated features of W3C technologies, and recommends semantic information of the page for persons with disability to instantly know the contents.

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Read the article on the Deccan Herald website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/government-websites-access-denied-to-special-users

International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies'

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:56:35Z

Sunil Abraham, Director-Policy, CIS, is to take part in a panel discussion on 'Media, Technology, and Governance' at the International Communication Association Pre-Conference on 'India and Communication Studies' on 21 May 2009, 1.00-2.15 pm.

PRECONFERENCE #2

Sponsored by the Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University for Pennsylvania, and Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi

Title: India and Communication Studies

Time: Wednesday, May 20, 13:00 – 19:00 and
Thursday, May 21, 8:00 – 17:00

Limit: 50 persons

Cost: $100.00USD (Includes refreshment breaks, lunch and reception)
$50.00USD Students

Organizers:

• Monroe Price, Director, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Biswajit Das, Director, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
• Aswin Punathambekar, Assistant Professor, Communication Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
• Radhika Parameswaran, Associate Professor, School of Journalism, Indiana University, Bloomington

Overview:

India plays an increasingly important role in the processes of globalization, including the global production of culture and the communications technology industry. At the same time, the field of communication studies in India is expanding. Yet there is no Indian Communications Association and little in the way of considered and formal review of contributions to the field.

This pre-conference is an effort to create a new coherence and a new salience for this subject by mapping the area of communication and culture studies in India; to strengthen ties among leading and emerging scholars and institutions in India and elsewhere; to develop and cultivate a research agenda for the field; and to explore the creation of an Indian Communication Studies Association.

The pre-conference will take place over 2 days. The first day will be dedicated to paper presentations from emerging scholars on a diverse range of issues, including media and cultural representations, gender, minorities, issues of nationalism and culture, and structural questions of governance.

The second day will be centered around three panels, which will address the development of communication studies in India; issues of technology, governance and development; and a discussion of scholarship about India. The organized panels will draw from academia, business, civil society, and government/policy-making circles.
Schedule for India and Communication Studies ICA Pre-Conference:

May 20 (Day One):

13.00 – 13.15 Opening Remarks, Monroe Price and organizers
13.15 – 14.30 Paper presentations: Session 1
14.30 – 15.45 Paper presentations: Session 2
15.45 – 16.00 Break
16.00 – 17.15 Paper presentations: Session 3

Moderators for paper sessions: TBC

17.30 – 19.00 Reception for pre-conference participants and guests

May 21 (Day Two):

8.00 – 9.00: Breakfast for pre-conference participants

9.00 – 10.15 Opening Keynote Discussion -- India and Cultural Pathways: Reflections on Identity, History and Scholarship:

The opening keynote will address the history of communications/media studies in and about India, placing it in the broader context of global communication studies and globalization and international relations.

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Radhika Gajjala, Bowling Green University
• Sevanti Ninan, Honorary Secretary, The Media Foundation (TBC)
• Arvind Singhal, University of Texas (TBC)
• Daya Thussu, University of Westminster

Moderator: Monroe Price, Center for Global Communication Studies, Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania

10.15 – 10.30 – Coffee Break

10.30 -- 11.45 Panel One: The Complex Challenge of Developing Communications Studies in India

This panel will seek to begin mapping the intellectual network of scholars that has informed communications scholarship in and about India. Panelists will discuss the history and development of "Indian" communication studies, including the approaches taken towards this subject; the competition between production and commercial goals and theoretical study; and the institutional and other pressures and challenges encountered by emerging programs..

• Biswajit Das, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University
• Vinod Pavarala, University of Hyderabad
• Anjali Monteiro, Tata Institute of Social Sciences
• Atul Tandon, MICA
• Peng Hwa Ang, MICORE

Moderator: Noshir Contractor, Northwestern University

11.45 – 13.00 –Lunch

13.00 – 14.15 Panel Two: "Media, Technology & Governance"

This panel will be approached through cases as presented by the panelists. It seeks to (a) open the door to the growing work on the IT industry and ICT for Development; and (b) outline a tighter set of analytics to encourage a stronger connection between academic research & public policy in India.

• David Page or William Crawley (TBC), Media South Asia Project, Institute of Development Studies, Sussex University, UK
• Victoria Farmer, Department of Political Science and International Relations SUNY-Geneseo
• Steve McDowell, Department of Communication, Florida State University
• Sunil Abraham, Director (Policy), Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore

Moderator: Vibodh Parthasarathi, Associate Professor, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University

14.15 – 14.30 Coffee Break

14.30 – 15.45 Panel Three: Nodes of Contact: How to Map Scholarship about India

This panel aims to map the intellectual patterns and trajectories in media and communications scholarship on India. Panelists will address specific areas within communications research--gender and interdisciplinarity, new media, diaspora, television, and media production and reception--to chart and analyze the theoretical and empirical terrain that scholars have covered, and to suggest new and productive directions for future research.

• Radha Hegde, Department of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University
• Shanti Kumar, Department of Radio-Television-Film, The University of Texas at Austin
• William Mazzarella, University of Chicago
• Ananda Mitra, Department of Communication, Wake Forest University
• Hemant Shah, School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Moderator: Radhika Parameswaran, School of Journalism, Indiana University

15.45 – 16.15 Concluding Remarks and Wrap-up

This last part of the ICA Pre-Conference Program will feature open discussion and commentary from the organizers and audience.

For more information about this pre-conference, please contact Susan Abbott, Associate Director, Center for Global Communication Studies: sabbott@asc.upenn.edu

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Click here to read this information on the ICA website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ica-preconference

Presentation at IDRC: ‘Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons -- A Southern Perspective’

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:59:03Z

Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, CIS Distinguished Fellow, will give a talk titled 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons -- A Southern Perspective' at IDRC, Ottawa, Canada, on 13 July 2009.

Brown Bag Presentation: ‘Scholarly communication in the age of the commons - A southern perspective’ by Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India

Date: July 13, 2009

Time: 1400 hr

Location: IDRC

150 Kent Street

Ottawa, ON, Canada

Room 950

RSVP: Nicole Leguerrier nleguerrier@idrc.ca

The toll-access journal system that was set up some 350 years ago and which has served well till a few decades ago evolved, for historical reasons, largely to serve the needs of North-North knowledge exchange and has failed to take cognizance of the aspirations of the South. The need for science to be performed everywhere and take roots in all countries is now well recognized. If OA is so very important to the South, why is the progress slow? While computers, internet access and bandwidths continue to pose problems in a number of southern countries, in general the situation is improving. The more important factor is scientists' apathy. Scientists in the South, by and large, do not exercise their rights to the full; often they give away on a platter copyright to their research papers to journal publishers. The publishers themselves indulge in practices that would entice publishing scientists and librarians to act in ways that would benefit the publishers. Funding agencies and governments of southern countries are not as proactive as they should be.

Focused advocacy on the advantages of the public commons approach can bring about some revolutionary changes. Such advocacy should be aimed at all levels of stakeholders. Some examples of what is being done in India will be presented.

Biography

Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun) is a Distinguished Fellow with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, a research and advocacy organization that was founded in August 2008. Before then, he was a volunteer for 12 years with the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, a Chennai-based NGO, promoting the use of information and communication technologies to empower the poor and the marginalized and bring about holistic rural development.

Arun is an advocate of open access to scientific and scholarly literature and has conducted several workshops on knowledge management, electronic publishing, open access archiving, science communication, and South-South Exchange for sharing knowledge among development workers from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Arun has been a Visiting Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Chennai, University of Calcutta, Annamalai University, National Institute of Advanced Study, Bangalore, and Asian Collegeof Journalism, Chennai. Immediately after returning to India Arun will join the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, as a visiting scientist. Arun has been a member of the Executive Committee of Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP) for two terms, and is currently a member of the International Advisory Board of IICD, The Hague, and a Trustee of both the Voicing the Voiceless Foundation, New Delhi, and the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, UK.

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Causerie-midi: La communication scientifique à l’ère des biens communs – perspectives du Sud, par Subbiah Arunachalam, chercheur associé de marque au Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore (Inde)

Date: le 13 juillet 2009

Heure: 14 h

Lieu: CRDI

150, rue Kent

Ottawa (Ont.) Canada

pièce 950

RSVP: Nicole Leguerrier (nleguerrier@idrc.ca)

Pour des raisons historiques, le système des publications scientifiques payantes mis en place il y a trois siècles et demi et qui a produit des résultats satisfaisants jusqu’aux dernières décennies sert maintenant, en grande partie, l’échange de connaissances Nord-Nord et ne prend pas en compte les aspirations du Sud. La nécessité de favoriser partout l’activité scientifique et de conforter son enracinement dans tous les pays est aujourd’hui généralement admise. Si le libre accès revêt une telle importance pour le Sud, pourquoi les progrès sont-ils si lents ? Bien que les ordinateurs, l’accès Internet et la bande passante continuent de poser problème dans un grand nombre de pays du Sud, la situation a somme toute tendance à s’améliorer. Le facteur qui joue le plus est dès lors l’apathie des chercheurs. De façon générale, les scientifiques du Sud n’exercent pas pleinement leurs droits : ils cèdent les droits d’auteur sur leur article à l’éditeur de la revue. Et les éditeurs se livrent à des pratiques qui incitent les auteurs et les bibliothécaires à agir à leur avantage. Les bailleurs de fonds et les gouvernements des pays du Sud, quant à eux, ne sont pas aussi proactifs qu’ils le devraient.

Un plaidoyer axé sur les avantages des biens communs pourrait produire des changements révolutionnaires. Ce plaidoyer doit viser toutes les parties prenantes. M. Subbiah Arunachalam livrera des exemples d’initiatives en cours en Inde.

Notice biographique

Subbiah Arunachalam (Arun) est chercheur associé de marque au Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) de Bangalore, un organisme de recherche et de plaidoyer fondé en août 2008. Il a été auparavant bénévole, pendant 12 ans, à la Fondation de recherche M.S.Swaminathan, une ONG de Chennai ayant pour vocation d’encourager le recours aux technologies de l’information et de la communication afin de rendre les populations pauvres et marginalisées plus autonomes et de favoriser un développement rural global.

Arun est partisan du libre accès aux publications scientifiques et savantes et a animé plusieurs ateliers sur la gestion des connaissances, l’édition électronique, l’auto-archivage, les communications scientifiques et les échanges Sud-Sud afin de favoriser la mise en commun des connaissances parmi les professionnels du développement d’Asie, d’Afrique et d’Amérique latine. Il a été professeur invité à l’Institut indien de technologie de Chennai, à l’Université de Calcutta, à l’Université Annamalai et au National Institute of Advanced Studies de Bangalore. Il a siégé au comité exécutif de l’Alliance mondiale pour le savoir (GKP) pendant deux mandats et siège actuellement au comité consultatif international de l’Institut international pour la communication et le développement (IICD), à La Haye, ainsi qu’aux conseils d’administration de la fondation Voicing the Voiceless de New Delhi et de l’Electronic Publishing Trust for Development, au Royaume-Uni.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/idrc-scholarly-communication

International School at the Digital Media program of the University of Texas at Austin - Portugal Collaboratory (CoLab)

sachia — 2009-03-27T09:55:53Z

Applications are now open for the first International School on Digital Transformation, to be held July 19-24, 2009, at the University of Porto in Porto, Portugal. The School is accepting applications from advanced students and recent graduates from around the world with an interest in how digital technologies are changing societies and the world as a whole.

The International School on Digital Transformation will be an intensive six-day residential program, conducted in English and bringing together emerging and established scholars and professionals from around the world. During the week-long session, innovators in digital communications will serve as teachers and mentors, presenting their current projects and research and participating in discussions with advanced students and professionals beginning careers in the field. Presenters and students will be regarded as peers during the School.

The School will focus on these themes:

• Democratic transformations of society through digital media
• Innovations in transparency and political participation using new online tools
• Grassroots civic activities using digital technologies
• Building effective communities with the Internet
• Reaching out to new users with mobile and online technologies
• Prospects for digital communication in developing regions
• Digital arts and culture in a globalized, online world

The goals of the International School include:

Combining lectures on current research and innovation with practical experience, using accessible, low-cost digital technologies
Providing an informal venue for sharing expertise, perspectives, and best practices and for mentoring advanced students
Fostering a sustainable network of scholars and activists in the field of digital technology, communication and social change

Program

The basic daily schedule will consist of one 90-minute session of lecture and discussion in the morning: free time for teachers and students to interact, converse and explore the city in the afternoon; and two more 90-minute lecture and discussion sessions in the evening, folowed by a communal meal.

The confirmed speakers for the International School on Digital Transformation include:

Sunil Abraham
Director of Policy at the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India; and current board member of Mahiti Infotech
Patricia Aufderheide
Professor, School of Communication, American University; director,
Center for Social Media at American University
Warigia Bowman
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Policy Leadership,
University of Mississippi
Fiorella De Cindio
Associate Professor, Computer and Information Science Department,
University of Milan
Martha Fuentes-Bautista
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst
Stephanie Hankey/Marek Tuszynski (tentative)
Co-founders and directors, Tactical Technology Collective
Lisa Nakamura (associate faculty)
Professor, Institute of Communication Research; Director, Asian
American Studies Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tapan Parikh
Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of California
at Berkeley
Tiago Peixoto
Researcher, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
Alison Powell
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Andrew Rasiej
Founder of Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident
Nicholas Reville
Executive director, Participatory Culture Foundation
Scott Robinson
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Jorge Martins Rosa
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences; Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon
Christian Sandvig
Associate Professor, Department of Communication; faculty member,
Project on Public Policy and Advanced Communication Technology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Doug Schuler
Program Director, Public Sphere Project, an initiative of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility
Leslie Regan Shade
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
Maripaz Silva (associate faculty)
Laura Stein
Assistant Professor, Radio-Television-Film Department, University of
Texas at Austin
Siva Vaidhyanathan
Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Media Studies and Law;
Fellow, Institute for the Future of the Book
Katrin Verclas
Co-founder and editor of Mobileactive.org

The International School on Digital Transformation is a program of the University of Texas Austin-Portugal Colaboratory, or CoLab. The co-directors of the School are Drs. Sharon Strover and Karen Gustafson, and Gary Chapman, of the University of Texas at Austin.

The School will be held at the Rectory, a building of the University of Porto in the center of the city. Student housing will consist of nearby hotels, and the cost of the School will include a shared hotel room, two meals per day (breakfast and dinner) and the program itself. The week will also include a cultural activity offered to all School participants.

The estimated cost of the International School on Digital Transformation will be between €300 and €400. Travel to Porto, Portugal, is not supported; students must find and pay for their own travel to Porto.

The student application, and more specific information for students, are available at this link.

Porto, Portugal

Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996, Porto is known for its spectacular architecture and medieval alleyways, and it is also compact, allowing visitors to easily explore the central city on foot. Porto is on the Douro River and also near the Atlantic Ocean. It is famous for its port wine from the inland Portuguese wine region along the Douro River valley.

During the free afternoons, students and teachers may explore the sidewalk café culture on Santa Catarina Street, a nearby pedestrian shopping area, or walk across the Dom Luís I Bridge spanning the Douro River to the promenade, restaurants, and port houses in Vila Nova de Gaia, directly opposite central Porto. Short river cruises may be taken in barcos rabelos, flat-bottomed boats traditionally used to ferry shipments of port wine.

While Porto is famous for its ancient Roman ramparts and Gothic churches, it is also home to the Casa da Música concert hall, a superb example of modern architecture, finished in 2005, that has become an icon of the city. The Serralves Museum is a major cultural institution which hosts rotating exhibitions of contemporary art and which features a world-class garden.

In the late evenings, Porto hosts a thriving clubbing culture, and the city’s nightspots attract DJs from around the world.

Porto has an international airport and is also served by trains from Lisbon and from Spain. By train, Porto is approximately three and a half hours north of Lisbon.

Please direct questions regarding the program to Karen Gustafson, at kegustafson@mail.utexas.edu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/international-school-at-the-digital-media-program-of-the-university-of-texas-at-austin-portugal-collaboratory-colab

International School at the Digital Media program of the University of Texas at Austin - Portugal Collaboratory (CoLab)

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:08:59Z

The School will focus on these themes:

The goals of the International School include:

Combining lectures on current research and innovation with practical experience, using accessible, low-cost digital technologies
Providing an informal venue for sharing expertise, perspectives, and best practices and for mentoring advanced students
Fostering a sustainable network of scholars and activists in the field of digital technology, communication and social change

Program

The confirmed speakers for the International School on Digital Transformation include:

Sunil Abraham
Director of Policy at the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India; and current board member of Mahiti Infotech
Patricia Aufderheide
Professor, School of Communication, American University; director,
Center for Social Media at American University
Warigia Bowman
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Policy Leadership,
University of Mississippi
Fiorella De Cindio
Associate Professor, Computer and Information Science Department,
University of Milan
Martha Fuentes-Bautista
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst
Stephanie Hankey/Marek Tuszynski (tentative)
Co-founders and directors, Tactical Technology Collective
Lisa Nakamura (associate faculty)
Professor, Institute of Communication Research; Director, Asian
American Studies Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tapan Parikh
Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of California
at Berkeley
Tiago Peixoto
Researcher, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
Alison Powell
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Andrew Rasiej
Founder of Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident
Nicholas Reville
Executive director, Participatory Culture Foundation
Scott Robinson
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Jorge Martins Rosa
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences; Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon
Christian Sandvig
Associate Professor, Department of Communication; faculty member,
Project on Public Policy and Advanced Communication Technology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Doug Schuler
Program Director, Public Sphere Project, an initiative of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility
Leslie Regan Shade
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
Maripaz Silva (associate faculty)
Laura Stein
Assistant Professor, Radio-Television-Film Department, University of
Texas at Austin
Siva Vaidhyanathan
Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Media Studies and Law;
Fellow, Institute for the Future of the Book
Katrin Verclas
Co-founder and editor of Mobileactive.org

The student application, and more specific information for students, are available at this link.

Porto, Portugal

In the late evenings, Porto hosts a thriving clubbing culture, and the city’s nightspots attract DJs from around the world.

Porto has an international airport and is also served by trains from Lisbon and from Spain. By train, Porto is approximately three and a half hours north of Lisbon.

Please direct questions regarding the program to Karen Gustafson, at kegustafson@mail.utexas.edu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/international-school-at-the-digital-media-program-of-the-university-of-texas-at-austin-portugal-collaboratory-colab-1

Is NASSCOM anti-Open Standards?

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:43:31Z

Article by Shalini Singh on techgoss.com, 10 July 2009

NASSCOM has been set up to consolidate and promote the interests of the booming IT-BPO industries in India. NASSCOM members account for 95 percent of the industry revenues in India and employ more than 2.5 million professionals. While NASSCOM is credited for doing a great job for the Indian IT-BPO sector, some of its actions are hard to understand.

While most are in agreement that Open Standards are good for the world and especially developing countries like India, NASSCOM has been quite half hearted in supporting it.

Bangalore-based The Centre for Internet and Society is dedicated to ensuring digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices in India and the region. This public interest organization is staffed by many highly qualified, idealistic people who have given up lucrative careers in the private sector to work for the betterment of society.

When the Indian Government proposed a draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance, most key players in India sent in their views. These would be multi-billion dollars contracts and would affect the lives of hundreds of millions of Indians.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is pushing for more open standards. It is an accepted fact that such a system ensures lower cost and higher quality. On the other hand, you have large software companies who want to lock in Indians into proprietary software.

NASSCOM has succumbed to the lobbying of some tech companies, and has become reluctant to whole heartedly support Open Standards.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has told the public:

“Second Response to Draft National Policy on Open Standards for e-Governance
By Pranesh Prakash

The government is in the process of drafting a national policy on open standards for e-governance. The National Informatics Centre recently released draft version 2 of the policy, and CIS sent in its comments on the draft.

CIS has been following the drafting of the national policy on open standards for e-governance with much interest. Last year, we offered our comments on the first draft of the policy. The policy has since gone through two more iterations (copies of which are kept on the Fosscomm site), labelled versions 1.15 and 2, and we have again offered comments on the latest version. The evolution the draft policy has been mired in controversy, as documented by Venkatesh Hariharan of Red Hat. It seems that the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has been trying to nullify the effect of the policy by pushing for recognition of proprietary standards within the policy, and that too without consultation with its members.

We believe that proprietary standards go against the interests the government, which as the primary consumer of the standards would have to pay royalties and would face vendor lock-in, of small and medium enterprises, which provide direct and indirect services to the government, since they would be required to invest in those closed standards to service the government, and most of all, of the citizens of India."

Techgoss had learnt that the NASSCOM committee which drafted their opinion did not consult IBM India, Sun and Red Hat - all of whom are strong proponents of Open Standards.

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To read the original article at the techgoss.com website, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/is-nasscom-anti-open-standards

Measuring the effectiveness of online activism

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:56:15Z

Article by Sruthi Krishnan in The Hindu, 21 June 2009

There are forms of social activism, which are not looked upon favourably

After the Iran elections, social networking sites are used by supporters of Opposition candidate

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts

CHENNAI: Sit-ins and police arrests. Placards hoisted high and slogans rippling through the crowds. Pamphlets distributed at the dead of night. It was called activism and is still called that — just that the cat and mouse game with the Big Brother has a binary code underlying it.

Social activism in the world of Web 2.0 follows most of the rules of the real world. But the nature of the medium does have an impact on the message, and the jury is still out on how effective activism is online.

After the Iran elections, social networking sites are being used extensively by supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has challenged the validity of the elections. As the Iranian government has placed restrictions on the traditional media, the supporters have sought refuge in the electronic world.

If you search for #IranElection, which is the tag on Twitter, a messaging service, for any update related to the Iran elections, there are minute-by-minute posts by users around the globe. The effects of this decentralised campaign are manifold.

“This raises the awareness of the issues among the people who may not have been exposed to these issues because of the space constraints of traditional media,” says Sunil Abraham, director-policy, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “It encourages activists on the ground in Iran because it clearly demonstrates global solidarity.” The increased transparency also has a pre-emptive effect by making it more difficult for states and corporations to engage in repressive activities without attracting international condemnation.

But there are forms of social activism online, which are not looked upon favourably.

Campaigns urging you to ‘Click on this link and eradicate world hunger’ lead to an oxymoronic state of sedentary activism or ‘slacktivism.’ Evgeny Morozov, a fellow at the Open Society Institute at New York, has coined this term to describe “feel-good online activism” that has no political or social impact. On the one hand, it will be easy to dismiss the click-to-participate campaigns as being useless. But they could attract people who would have normally not bothered with the issue. Mr. Morozov concludes that the only way to resolve the debate is by surveying campaigns to analyse impact.

“As far as I know, there are no such studies. But there is anecdotal evidence that clicks on a Web 2.0 system can lead to deeper engagement with social campaigns,” says Mr. Abraham. He cites the example of Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa, who was able to get some members of the Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group (with over 90,000 members) to raise questions during open houses called by Canadian Members of Parliament. Thanks to this campaign, the government backed down from legislating anti-consumer intellectual property laws, he says.

For the success of an online campaign, the power of the message also counts. Here, Mr. Abraham refers to the Pink Chaddi campaign. “It did not directly respond to the arguments of the Ram Sene. It used humour to mock the fundamentalists into irrelevance.”

Though there is no clear path to an effective online campaign, the successes have demonstrated the potential of the medium that promises to connect millions with a click. But just as a message can grow stronger as it reaches more people, it can also be spread wafer-thin and lose significance.

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To read the original article on the website of The Hindu, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/measuring-the-effectiveness-of-online-activism

N.C.P.E.D.P. and BarrierBreak Technologies put forward National Policy on Electronic Accessibility

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:43:42Z

Article in Disability News and Information Service, 15 July 2009

D.N.I.S. News Network: National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (N.C.P.E.D.P.) in association with BarrierBreak Technologies has come up with a draft for a National Policy on Electronic Accessibility. The objective of the policy is to provide persons with disabilities equal access to electronic and information and communication technology and services. This policy expands on the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which India has ratified.

Shilpi Kapoor, Managing Director, BarrierBreak Technologies says, “Technology today is there in all aspects of life. Using electronic and information and communication technology, we can bridge the barriers that exist for persons with disabilities. Such a policy needs to be applicable across different ministries and departments.”

The National Policy on Electronic Accessibility emphasizes the importance of creating awareness on accessibility and universal design and creating and implementing standards and guidelines. It also aims at promoting research and development in the area of universal design and assistive technology and independent living aids and schemes in the area of accessible electronic and information and communication technology.

The policy also emphasizes the importance of building capacity to ensure that accessible products and services can be developed in India.

Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet and Society, feels positive about the draft. "Having a National Electronic Accessibility Policy would be an extremely positive move for India towards bridging the digital divide; it will serve as a leading example to other developing countries to take similar initiatives and create a truly inclusive and accessible world," she said.

The draft will be placed before N.C.P.E.D.P.’s Core Group on Communication and Information Technology in its meeting on July 23 and the National Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities on July 24. Once the policy is approved at these two forums, it will be placed before the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for their consideration.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/n.c.p.e.d.p.-and-barrierbreak-technologies-put-forward-national-policy-on-electronic-accessibility

Online Interest in Advani Rises

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:58:08Z

Article by Sruthi Krishnan in the Hindu, 15 May 2009, quoting CIS Research Director Nishant Shah

Online interest in BJP leader L.K. Advani reached its highest point in the last 12 months when a slipper was thrown at him. The data on Google Trends, an application that shows how often a search term has been sought for on Google over time, also shows that the interest in Mr. Advani’s name rose steadily as the general elections approached.

Contrary to what many consider as just another activity on the Internet, searching is the “backbone of cyberspace,” says Nishant Shah, Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. .

The search for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh shows a peak in July 2008 in the last 12 months, corresponding to the UPA Government winning the trust vote. That the interest in searching for public personalities closely mirrors news interest in the outside world is undeniable, says Mr. Shah. “The Internet is not as much a broadcast media as a search-and-find media.” Hence, in this context, the Internet acts as a “reference book” rather than a “best seller,” he says.

In the last 12 months, the political event that fired up Google in India was the launch of Praja Rajyam, coinciding with a spike in the search for actor Chiranjeevi’s name. This was the highest among the search history in the last 12 months of the ten most searched politicians in India on Google – a list released by Google recently.

The list includes Mr. Advani, Mr. Singh, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

However, Mr. Shah cautions that in an emerging information society like India, an increase in online search for a particular name or event may not imply that it is popular across the country. “Given the limited amount of internet access and the almost homogeneous user group that has interactive access to being online, it means that within that particular class-language group, a certain event or person is gaining popularity.”

The analysis by Google Trends also shows that most of the searches for Mr. Chiranjeevi were made in Telugu, compared to English.

While Hyderabad is where the actor’s name was searched the most number of times, the top 10 cities includes San Jose and Houston in the United States.

Interestingly, Sanjay Dutt, the other actor in the list, generated the highest volume of searches in Pakistan.

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Read the article at the Hindu website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/online-interest-in-advani-rises

Open access conference seeks to free research

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:10:58Z

Article by Amulya Gopalakrishnan in the Indian Express (New Delhi), 26 March 2009

When Newton famously remarked that if he had seen further than others, it was by “standing on the shoulders of giants”, he wasn’t just being modest. He was stating the simple fact that knowledge builds on previous knowledge, that the back and forth of ideas is vital for scientific achievement. Though the current proprietory publishing model is stacked against scholars, an emerging open access movement across the world aims to free scientific content - and India has big stakes in it.

A conference in New Delhi brought together open access evangelists including Prof. John Willinsky of Stanford University, Prof Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto, Prof Surendra Prasad of IIT Delhi, Dr D K Sahu of MedKnow Publications, and Narendra Kumar of CSIR.

Now, all research papers published from CSIR labs will be made open access, either by putting the full text on freely available institutional repositories or publishing directly in open access journals. Meanwhile, across the world, MIT has become the first university to throw open all its research papers through the online repository software DSpace.

Globally, academic tenure and promotion is traditionally linked to research published in reputed, peer-reviewed journals. These journals are owned by commercial behemoths like Springer and Reed Elsevier, who own stables of journals in various disciplines, and dictate terms to university libraries. But in recent years, journal prices have shot through the roof.

Now, after years of weary negotiation, and empowered by new digital infrastructure, universities are teaming up via free institutional repository systems, to pool and circulate their collective research. In India, institutes like NIT Rourkela have adopted super-archives like DSpace for another reason — to showcase their scientific output to global peers. “NIT doesn’t have the research legacy of IIT or IISC — they needed the visibility,” says NIT director Sunil Kumar Sarangi.

Such a knowledge commons is especially valuable to developing countries — for instance, in agricultural research or public health, it is inexcusable that countries which could benefit most from the scientific debate are left out of the loop, simply because of prohibitive pricing (some journals cost up to 20,000 dollars, annually). This only widens the gulf between the state of research here and the US or Europe.

Even research produced in India with our taxpayer money is sent to big-name commercial journals and all copyright signed away, putting it out of reach for the Indian scholarly community. But all that could change if open access journals become the norm. S K Sahu, who runs MedKnow publications (over 80 open access journals), also busted claims that content on such journals tends to vanish into the ether after a few years online.

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To read the article at the Indian Express website, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-access-conference-seeks-to-free-research

Presentation at TIFR: 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons'

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:42:49Z

CIS Distinguished Fellow Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam will give a talk titled 'Scholarly Communication in the Age of the Commons' at TIFR, Mumbai, on Friday, 24 July 2009.

Dr. Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Scholarly communication in the age of the commons, 24/07/09, 1600Hrs, AG-66

Abstract

Scholarly communication plays a central role in the creation and assimilation of new knowledge, especially in the sciences. In its turn scholarly communication depends on developments in technology. Unfortunately, scientists who do cutting edge science often follow communication practices of a bygone era and are therefore holding back the development of knowledge. In this talk we will look at state-of-the-art developments in scholarly communication and literature-based evaluation of science and see how we in India can benefit by adopting them.

About Dr.Subbiah Arunachalam

Subbiah Arunachalam is an information scientist. He has been an editor of scientific journals, teacher of information science, librarian, and a science writer. As Secretary and Editor of publications of the Indian Academy of Sciences, Bangalore, during 1973-75, he reorganised the publications of the Academy and helped enlarge its Fellowship. Currently he is actively promoting open access to science and scholarship. His interests include scientometrics, science journalism and ICT-enabled rural development.

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See the original posting at the TIFR website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/presentation-at-tifr-scholarly-communication-in-the-age-of-the-commons

Tactical Media 3.0--FOSS: The Dynamics of Freedom

sachia — 2011-04-02T15:42:29Z

CIS Executive Director Sunil Abraham will speak at 'Tactical Media 3.0--Foss: The Dynamics of Freedom', a workshop on techniques and philosophy of Free and Open Source Software, 27 July to 1 August, Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

The Media Lab, Jadavpur University presents Tactical Media 3.0--FOSS: The Dynamics of Freedom, a workshop on techniques and philosophy of Free and Open Source Software
July 27 – Aug 1, 2009, 3-30 to 7-30 pm, Vivekananda Hall

Free and Open Source software is one of the greatest tools in the hands of those who wish to challenge the notions of intellectual property (IP) and market-driven logics of human exchange. The Internet has opened up the space for a world-wide collective that believes in enriching each other’s lives through art and knowledge free from narrow conceptions of ownership and privilege. It has given rise to a new creativity on a global scale, from globally shared alternatives to profit-driven initiatives, towards a hope of re-inventing the commons in the 21st century.

Tactical Media 3.0 is the third chapter in the workshop series on Tactical Media. It will be dedicated to training in Linux-based tools and discussion on the philosophy, economics and politics of FOSS. The resource persons will be Prof. Nandinee Mukherjee and her colleagues from the (JU-FOSS Resource Centre), Jadavpur University, Sunil Abraham, (Director-Policy), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, and Sri Dipankar Das, (Senior Lecturer, Jaipuria College), University of Calcutta.

For participation please send a CV and covering letter by July 23 to:

The Media Lab office (ph: 033-2414-6222), Subarna Jayanti Bhavan,

Jadavpur University (main campus)

or email medialabju@gmail.com

Seats are limited. Selected candidates shall be charged a nominal fee of Rs. 300.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tactical-media-3.0-foss-the-dynamics-of-freedom