----- Forwarded message from Sunil Abraham <sunil@xxxxxxxxxx> -----
Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 12:33:02 +0000<http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions&itemid=243
From: Sunil Abraham <sunil@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Commons-Law] Workshop on Open Access/E-Prints Software
To: Commons Law <commons-law@xxxxxxxxx>
X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.5
Dear friends:
Greetings from MSSRF, Chennai.
Here is an announcement about a workshop on Open Access to scientific
and scholarly literature and an application form. Please spread the
word. Preference will be givn to candidates from large universities,
INDEST institutions and government laboratories (CSIR, ICAR, ICMR, DAE,
DST, etc.).
Please forward this announcement to heads of institutions and heads of
libraries in all institutions in the areas of social sciences and
humanities.
They may send their nominations/ applications to Mr S Senthilkumaran,
Associate Director, Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113, before 10 April
2004. His email address: <senthil@xxxxxxxxxxxx>.
Look forward to hearing from you. Best wishes.
Subbiah Arunachalam
Distinguished Fellow, MSSRF
-------
Workshop on Open Access
Overview
All scientists, including social scientists, need to publish their
findings. Indeed, research is incomplete as long as it remains
unpublished. The last few years have witnessed the unprecedented rise in
the subscription costs of journals and even well-endowed institutions in
rich countries find it difficult to retain journal subscriptions. The
situation in developing countries like India is even worse. Besides,
others in the rest of the world do not really read much of the work that
we do in India. What is more, if our scientists publish their papers in
expensive journals, then even other Indian scientists do not read them,
as not many Indian institutions may subscribe to those journals. It is
for this reason that the open access (OA) movement is gaining ground
around the world - both in the advanced countries and in the developing
countries. Indeed, OA will be of much greater advantage to India than to
the western countries.
Physicists have been placing their preprints and postprints for well
over 13 years in a centralized archive called arXiv, which has more than
15 mirror sites including one located in India (Matscience, Chennai).
There are several other services such as Cogprints (for cognitive
sciences), CiteSeer (for computer science) and RePEc (for economics).
Currently, institutional archives are favoured, as they work to satisfy
the felt needs of both individual scientists and their institutions.
There are at least three sets of software available, all of them free,
to set up such interoperable institutional archives. This workshop aims
to help Indian scientists (representing general and agricultural
universities and government laboratories under the various councils and
departments) to acquire the skills necessary to be able to set up and
maintain institutional open archives. This workshop will provide
training in Eprints software developed at the University of Southampton
and the Open Archives Interoperability protocol.
There is great interest in open access around the world. In the USA,
Congressman Martin Sabo has introduced a bill suggesting that findings
of all publicly funded research must be made freely available to all. In
the UK, the Parliament has appointed a committee to inquire current and
potentially useful practices in science publishing. Several discussion
lists are actively promoting exchange of views on open access. The
Budapest Open Access Initiative is providing funds to promote open
access initiatives.
In India, INSA devoted a whole day for a seminar on open access at its
annual meeting held at NCL, Pune, in late December 2003. Indian Academy
of Sciences, Bangalore, held two workshops on open access journals in
March 2002.
The Workshop
On a suggestion from Prof. M S Valiathan, President of the Indian
National Science Academy, the Bioinformatics Centre of the M S
Swaminathan Research Foundation will be holding two identical three-day
workshops with a view to developing a cadre of open access experts in
Indian higher educational institutions and government laboratories. We
expect that before the end of the year at least a dozen institutions
will have their own institutional archives up and running. There will be
20-24 participants in each workshop. Each participant and the faculty
will have an Internet-connected computer on his/her desk.
Dates: 2-4 May 2004 and 6-8 May 2004
Venue: M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Sambasivan Auditorium
The Faculty: The workshop will be conducted by the following four
experts, known for their commitment to promoting this technology
worldwide: Prof. Leslie Chan of the University of Toronto and Bioline
International, Dr Leslie Carr of the University of Southampton, Dr D K
Sahu of MedKnow Publications, Mumbai, and Dr T B Rajashekar of the
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. All of them have considerable
hands-on experience in open access.
Participants: Higher educational institutions and government research
laboratories (under the different Councils and Departments) may nominate
candidates in the prescribed form. [Heads of these institutions may
kindly ensure that an institutional archive is set up within three
months after the conclusion of the workshop]. 4048 candidates will be
selected. Participants will either be scientists or be librarians. The
important thing is they should be computer savvy and committed to the
cause of open access and be able to persuade scientists (faculty and
students) in their respective institutions to place their research
papers in the archives.
Guest speakers: We are inviting Prof. M S Swaminathan, Prof. M S
Valiathan, Dr R A Mashelkar and Prof. P Balaram to give guest lectures
(on how they, as working scientists, view open access). Two of them will
address the participants of the first workshop and the other two the
second workshop.
Workshop Coordinator: Subbiah Arunachalam, Distinguished Fellow, MSSRF,
Chennai. His email address is <arun@xxxxxxxxxxxx>. Mr S Senthilkumaran
and colleagues from the Informatics Division and Ms R V Bhavani of MSSRF
will provide technical and managerial support for the event.
Nominations of participants may please be sent to Mr S Senthilkumaran,
Associate Director, Informatics, MSSRF, Chennai 600 113, India. His
email address is <senthil@xxxxxxxxxxxx>.
All participants will be provided guesthouse accommodation and all
meals. A few travel grants (First class or Second A/C class by Express
train) will be made available, depending on funds available.
Some Relevant Documents
The Bethesda Statement
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm>
Wellcome Trust, "Scientific Publishing: A Position Statement by the
Wellcome Trust in Support of Open Access Publishing,"
<http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html
<http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/1/awtvispolpub.html>
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and
Humanities
<http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html
<http://www.zim.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html>
Subbiah Arunachalam: India's march towards open access
http://www.scidev.net/Opinions/index.cfm?fuseaction=readOpinions
&language=1> &itemid=243&language=1>
---------
M S SWAMINATHAN RESEARCH FOUNDATION
Third Cross Street, Taramani Instituional Area, Chennai 600 113
Tel: 044 2254 1229, 2254 2791 Fax: 044 2254 1319
Workshop on Open Access
Nomination
Institution Name and Address:
No. of papers from the Institution annually:
Name of the candidate:
Designation
Date of birth:
Qualification:
Familiarity with Computers and Internet:
Membership in Discussion Groups:
Past experience in Electronic Publishing:
Familiarity with Open Access:
Preferred dates: 2-4 May (Workshop 1) / 6-8 May (Workshop 2)
Travel grant: Needed / Not needed
Date:
Signature of the recommending authority:
Signature of the candidate:
---------
Thanks,
--
Sunil Abraham, sunil@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.mahiti.org
MAHITI Infotech Pvt. Ltd.'Reducing the cost and complexity of ICTs'
314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA
Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mobile: +91 80 36701931
"If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples
then you and I will still each have one apple.
But if you have an idea and I have one idea and we exchange these
ideas,then each of us will have two ideas" George B. Shaw
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