Frederick_Noronha on Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:37:26 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> INDIACOMMONS... some links from, about, on India |
********************************************************* INDIACOMMONS... some links from, about, on India ********************************************************* ********************************************************* ********** part of the attempt to map the commons in asia ********************************************************* OpenMED: OpenMED Archive [http://openmed.nic.in] was launched in 2005 and since then they have over 1100 registered members and it is being used by medical professionals to archive their publications. It claims to be the only archive in the world in the area of medical/biomedical sciences and the only one that uses Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) for keywords. The Indian Journal of Tuberculosis is available from December 1953 and again this is the first archive that has publications from 1952! Says those involved with the archive, "Please feel free to browse through the contents and add your publications in the archive to enable access to health information to all." Source: Naina Pandita, National Informatics Centre, New Delhi Email: mint1_us@yahoo.com Received via: oadl@yahoogroups.com * * * MEDKNOW: Medknow Publications calls itself "the largest publisher in India for academic and scientific biomedical journals." It says it is a publishing house committed to the improving the visibility and accessibility of the science from the developing world. Medknow also says it "pioneers in 'fee-less-free' model of open access publishing and provides immediate free access to the electronic editions of the journals without charging the author or author's institution for submission, processing or publication of the articles." Currently Medknow, with over 40 print + online journals, is "probably the largest open access publisher of print journals in the world which does not charge author or author institution for submission, processing or publication of articles." Each journal published by Medknow has its independent website. The websites use the OpenURL standard, making it easy for libraries to link users as directly as possible from citation to the full text of the article. The open access policy has resulted in more than a half a million article downloads in a month all the journals, according to Medknow. Medknow has successfully put in place an original electronic manuscript submission and peer review system [http://www.journalonweb.com] for the first time in India. This system has been in use since 2001 by authors and peers across the globe and over 15,000 manuscripts have been processed through it. Eliminating use of postal or hard copy submissions, this online submission and processing of articles has resulted in considerable decrease in the submission to decision (turnaround) time. Most of the journals published by Medknow are archived at multiple places included OAI-compliant e-print repositories [http://bioline.utsc.utoronto.ca/] and sites such as Bioline International [http://www.bioline.org.br], thus, ensuring the long term archiving and accessibility of the published content. http://www.medknow.com/ * * * CREATIVE COMMONS INDIA SHORT FILM CONTEST: On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of India's independence, Creative Commons India organised a short film contest, on 'Better governance through Right To Information'. http://cc-india.org/index.php?q=node/27 * * * ON OPEN ACCESS: Subbiah (Arun) Arunachalam subbiah.arunachalam@gmail.com is one of the most prominent campaigners for Open Access in India. He outlines the strengths, for journals: Many leading journals published in India are already open access. These include the journals published by the Indian Academy of Sciences [http://www.ias.ac.in/], the Indian National Science Academy [http://www.insa.ac.in/], Indian Council of Medical Research [http://www.icmr.nic.in/] and the Calicut Medical College [http://www.cmc.edu.in/]. Besides, both National Informatics Centre [http://home.nic.in] and MedKnow [http://www.medknow.com/] publish open access journals on behalf of about 75 societies. Says he: "Thus India publishes about 100 OA journals. Actually these are hybrid journals (print + electronic, with the print version sold against a subscription). No Indian journal charges a fee from the authors for publishing papers. MedKnow [http://www.medknow.com/] model is win-win all the way." At the level of repositories: About thirty institutions have set up their own interoperable institutional open access repositories using open source software such as EPrints [http://www.eprints.org/] and DSpace [http://www.dspace.org/]. Indian Institute of Science [http://www.iisc.ernet.in/] was the first to set up and the IISc EPrints archive [http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/] has over 8000 records. NIT Rourkela [http://www.nitrkl.ac.in/] is the only Indian institution to have mandated open access for all faculty and student research publications. There are three subject-based central repositories one each for library and information science (DRTC http://drtc.isibang.ac.in/), medicine (NIC http://openmed.nic.in/) and catalysis (IIT Madras, http://www.iitm.ac.in/). At the level of course ware: The NPTEL programme (National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning, http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/), jointly mounted by IITs and IISc is a world class open course ware programme. IIT and IISc faculty prepare the course material and these are recorded in real life teaching situations for transmission over the web or as a video film or as both. The National Knowledge Commission [http://knowledgecommission.gov.in] has recommended mandating open access to all publicly funded research and the recommendation is now with the Prime Minister. The topic was discussed both in the Libraries Working Group and in the Open and Distance Education Working Group of NKC [http://knowledgecommission.gov.in/downloads/documents/wg_ode.pdf] Says Arunachalam: "Before laying down office of President, INSA (Indian National Science Academy http://www.insaindia.org), Dr R A Mashelkar, invited me to address the Council of INSA on the pros and cons of open access. My presentation was circulated to all Fellows of INSA, but I am yet to hear from INSA about their plan of action. Indian Academy of Sciences is planning to place all papers by all Fellows, past and present, on an open access archive." But, he concedes, they are going about it rather slowly. A number of workshops have been held on topics such as open access, EPrints, DSpace, Digital Libraries, Open Course Ware, etc. DSIR (Govt. of India's Department for Scientific & Industrial Research. http://www.dsir.nic.in) has supported some research and advocacy at IISc-NCSI. * * * In India scientists working in government laboratories and performing research with taxpayers' money gift copyright to their papers to (often) foreign journal publishers (e.g. Elsevier, American Chemical Society). There are ways by which authors could retain certain rights. All they have to do is to add an addendum (readily available from Association of Research Libraries, Creative Commons, Science Commons, etc.) when they sign the agreement with the journal publisher. --S.Arunachalam, prominent votary of Open Access, India. * * * India joins Creative Commons camp of building sharable knowledge: India's entry into the global Creative Commons network that works to expand the range of creative work available for others to build upon and share has been welcomed by Joichi Ito, chair of the non-profit organisation. Ito, chair of Creative Commons (CC), a 2001-founded non-profit organisation, told IANS: 'India was probably the most significant country we had left out (so far). It is important (for us) from an IT perspective and from a growth perspective. It is a large country, with a significant intellectual community, and a potential economic power.' http://www.nerve.in/news:25350031908 * * * Creative Commons India http://cc-india.org * * * Creative Commons-India's project head Shishir K Jha, assistant professor at the IIT's Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, said the [Creative Commons] project would focus on three specific areas in India. These are -- centres of higher education like the seven IITs, regional technology institutes and management and other institutions. "These are increasingly taking recourse to creating video and web-based courses such as the National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and distance education courses such as C-DEEP and eGURU. And all would benefit from keeping content sharable," Jha told IANS. Creative Commons-India also plans to focus on non-profit and non-governmental organisations and corporates keen on adopting easier-to-share licences for the dissemination of their documents. Jha said that there were many independent creative artistes working with film, documentary, music and text who would like to explore the possibilities of reaching out to a wider audience with the use of Creative Commons licences. http://www.zdnetindia.com/news/datamanagement/stories/168653.html * * * India At The Forefront Of Knowledge Commons Debate [3 September 2006] By Frederick Noronha for Intellectual Property Watch: NEW DELHI - What do seeds have in common with software? Or age-old medicines with copyright lawyers? And, what's the link between ayurvedic medicines and techies talking free software in Bangalore? Such issues are getting closely enmeshed in a deepening debate on how knowledge is shared or controlled in this new information-dominated century. This is a debate of vital relevance for a country that is making an increasingly visible global impact through its brain power, and yet has among the most impressive collections of traditional medicines and knowledge. Diverse views surface on how such issues should be tackled, as was strongly obvious at a 24-25 August 'knowledge symposiu' held at New Delhi. The invite-only meet was organised by the open source software firm Red Hat (India) and the Indian Institute of Technology New Delhi. The event brought these diverse strands together while focusing on what it said were alternative ways of looking at sharing knowledge and concepts like intellectual property. India has big stakes in this debate. It is home to vast amounts of traditional knowledge - traditional systems of medicine and healthcare, like Yoga, Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha (both systems of medicine), traditional agriculture, and more. But the planet's second-most populous country also faces the dilemma of getting global acceptability on intellectual property issues as it integrates growingly with the global economy. http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=389 * * * Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) Director Dr. V. K. Gupta said at the conference: "TKDL deals with traditional knowledge and the issue of patents. We're not focused on getting patents, but on preventing its misappropriation." "Knowledge from the fields of [Indian systems of medicine like] Ayurveda or Siddha are very well documented. But the problem is that of language. This knowledge is documented in languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Arabic, or Persian. Books about them are not available at international patent offices. So, there's no understanding [about how ancient this knowledge really is]," said Gupta. Gupta pointed out that if anything is pre-known, then existing intellectual property rights (IPR) laws do not allow it to be patented. "A majority of the patents [taken on Indian knowledge] is by expatriate Indians or multinational corporations. There are about 2,000 patents which have been wrongly issued, in our view. Each takes 11 years to fight. How do you resolve this problem?" he asked. So TKDL's approach is to document traditional knowledge. We've done it for around 70,000 formulations in Ayurveda, and some more in the Unani and Siddha," he added. TKD's team of a hundred persons have been working on this for the past five years. http://tkdl.res.in/ * * * India: 2,038,945 photos on Flickr.com http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=india&m=text * * * India travel guide - Wikitravel Open source travel guide to India, featuring up-to-date information on attractions, hotels, restaurants, nightlife, travel tips and more. http://wikitravel.org/en/India * * * Home - FOSS.IN/2007 One of the world's largest FOSS events, held annually in India. The event is highly focussed on FOSS development and contribution. http://foss.in/ * * * List of Indian mailing lists http://wikiwikiweb.de/MailingListsInIndia * * * List of Indian Free Software and Open Source groups http://wikiwikiweb.de/LugsList * * * ENVIS Wetland Ecosystems This work is licenced under Creative Commons Licence. http://www.wetlandsofindia.org/ * * * Google has been sending GPS kits to India that enable locals to make more detailed maps of their area. After the data has been uploaded and then verified against other participant's data it becomes a part of the map. The process is very reminiscent of what Open Street Map, the community map-building project, has been doing. The biggest difference is that the data (to my knowledge) is owned by Google and is not freely available back to the community like it is with OSM. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/08/google_uses_cro.html * * * Indian Journals.com says at [http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/05/why-india-needs-open-access.html] that it currently have five open access journals: * Anil Aggrawal's Internet Journal of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology (Professor Anil Aggrawal) B) Fire Engineer (Institution of Fire Engineers (India)) * Journal of Neonatology (National Neonatology Forum) * Journal of Research, SKUAST-J (Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology-Jammu) and * The Journal of Bombay Veterinary College (Bombay Veterinary College Alumni Association). There is also a sixth journal freely available from indianjournals.com today. The publishers have yet to decide definitively how they would like to proceed in the longer term, but currently their intention is to keep it under open access. The journal in question is * Indian Journal of Medical and Paediatric Oncology (Indian Society of Medical and Paediatric Oncology). * * * Sukhdev Singh says: "Many of the Indian journals provide Free Access to their online content. We also provide free access to 38 Indian Biomedical Journals - http://medind.nic.in However most of them do not differenciate between Free Access and Open Access. According to various definitions - Open Access goes beyond Free Access by also granting "distribution rights" to the end user. Those who understand the difference make it clear that they are Free Access only. Take for example -- "Open access: To be or not to be"? an Editorial in Indian Journal of Pharmacology - "IJP will continue to be a Free Access journal and insist on copyright transfer. Readers may make a few copies of any article for personal use and distribute a limited number of copies for non-profit, non-promotional academic activities (such as workshop or lectures) without prior permission." http://medind.nic.in/ibi/t05/i3/ibit05i3p139.pdf Sukhdev Singh of NIC is connected with http://indmed.nic.in and http://medind.nic.in and http://openmed.nic.in * * * Engineers India Org: Engineer Portal India's own Engineer Portal for engineers. Come write for us and get involved in the most ambitious online project ever in India! We will pay a token amount, though not much, but your involvement is appreciated. The articles of this weblog are licensed under a Creative Commons license. http://engineersindia.org/ * * * Jan Swasthya Abhiyan: People's Health Movement - India The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan is the Indian circle of the People's Health Movement, a worldwide movement to establish health and equitable development as top priorities through comprehensive primary health care and action on the social determinants of health. The Jan Swasthya Abhiyan coalition consists of over 20 networks and 1000 organisations as well as a large number of individuals that endorse the Indian People's Health Charter a consensus document that arose out of the Jan Swasthya Sabha held in December 2000 when concerned networks, organisations and individuals met to discuss the Health for All Challenge. This site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. http://phm-india.org/ * * * Portal:India - Wikinews, the free news source Location of Uttar Pradesh within India. Five bombs went off nearly simutaneously in three Indian cities in the state of Uttar Pradesh. ... http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/India * * * OPENITIS: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Minds. User-posted content, unless source quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License. http://www.openitis.com/openitis/index.php * * * Design for India: Design is a powerful force that shapes culture and it is a professional activity that is beneficial for both community and business alike. This blog is for all those who are interested in exploring these wider manifestations of design as a critical human activity and would like to shape its application across all human cultural and economic activities. India needs design today across all 230 sectors of our economy. This blog is a space to explore and articulate some of the issues and perspectives that can contribute to a better understanding of these opportunities. This blog is managed by Prof. M P Ranjan, NID, Ahmedabad. You are invited to also look at the design education blog called "Design Concepts and Concerns" here for a contemporaneous documentation of the DCC courses at the NID, Ahmedabad. http://design-for-india.blogspot.com/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License. * * * India-related hits on the PLOS-Medicine http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=advanced-search&row_start=1&limit=10&order=score&search_fulltext=1&issn=1549-1676&jrn_issn=1549-1676&anywhere_type=any&anywhere=India&x=0&y=0#results * * * India links on CreativeCommons search: http://search.creativecommons.org/?q=India&sourceid=Mozilla-search * * * 13,000 copyright-free (non-commercial) photos from western India and elsewhere. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/ ************************************************************* Compiled by FN/Frederick Noronha fred at bytesforall.org * Copyleft / CreativeCommons attribution ************************************************************* -- Frederick Noronha http://fn.goa-india.org Ph +91-832-2409490 The Goa books blog: http://goabooks.wordpress.com Goa1556 (alt.publishing.goa): http://goa1556.goa-india.org # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org