Dear Professional Colleagues, DON'T MISS THIS GOOD OPPORTUNITY TO LISTEN TO WORLD CLASS EXPERTS ON OA AND PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION. NAL in collaboration with IASc and CIS has organised compact one day conference on "Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons(Open Access)" on 26 March 2009 at NAL, Bangalore. Apart from Prof. Balaram Director, IISc a galaxy of academicians/scientists/editors/ information scientists like Prof. N. Mukunda, VP, IASc; Prof. Johm Willinsky, Stanford University; Prof Leslie Chan, Univ of Toronto; Dr. AR Uapdhya, Director, NAL; Dr. Sunil Abraham Director-Policy, CIS; Dr. DK Sahu, Medknow Publications; Prof Subbaiah Arunachalam; and Mr NV Sathyanarayana, MD, Informatics India will be delivering talks/ participating in Panel Discussion on " "Scholarly Communication and Openness: Emerging Trends". The registration is free and open to all. I request you to kindly inform about this event to your colleagues. Details are given below. Dr. I.R.N. Goudar ----------- One Day Open Conference( NO REGISTRATION FEE) on Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons(Open Access) 26th March, 2009: 9.30AM - 4.15PM Venue: S.R. Valluri Auditorium National Aerospace Laboratories, Bangalore-560017 --------------- ORGANIZERS: National Aerospace Laboratories (as part of its Golden Jubilee Celebrations) Indian Academy of Sciences Centre for Internet and Society PARTICIPANTS: Welcome to Policy makers, Academicians, Scientists, Editors, Publishers, Media persons, Librarians, etc. TOPICS COVERED: Scholarly Communication, Research Publication Issues, Copyrights of Publishing Authors, Publishers Attitude, Open Access (OA) Movement, OA Scenario in the World and India OA Declarations, OA Channels: OA Journals, Repositories, OA Policy: National and Institutional Level, OA Challenges: Economic, Societal Impact of OA on Science Communication INAUGURAL KEYNOTE: Prof. HS Mukunda, Vice President, Indian Academy of Sciences SPEAKERS: Prof. John Willinsky, Stanford University Prof. Leslie Chan, University of Toronto Dr D K Sahu, MedKnow Publications Dr. Sunil Abraham, Director, Centre for Internet and Society PANEL DISCUSSION: 2.45 - 4.15 pm "Scholarly Communication and Openness: Emerging Trends" Prof. P Balaram, Director, IISc & Editor, Curr. Sci. CHAIRMAN Prof. John Willinsky, Stanford University Panelist Prof. Leslie Chan, University of Toronto Panelist Dr. A.R. Upadhya, Director, NAL Panelist Mr. N.V. Sathyanarayana, MD,Informatics India Panelist Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, Centre for Internet and Soc. Panelist BACKGROUND: Open Access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers, including price barrier, for accessing scholarly work. In today's knowledge based society the advent of Internet and widespread and easy access to scientific information are facilitating research and innovation. Open Access is not only changing the nature of scholarly communication but even the way research is carried out. Indeed open access is the bedrock on which the emerging global research library initiative is being built. Scientists and scientific institutions in India - some of them to be precise - have moved up in the value chain in that they access information and disseminate their findings often through barrier-free electronic channels. Out of about 4500 open access journals (OAJ) world over, India accounts for 150 titles. The major Indian contributors for OAJ include Indian Academy of Sciences, Indian National Science Academy, MedKnow Publications and NISCAIR. About 50 institutes have set up their institutional open access repositories including IISc, NAL, NIO, RRI, IIAP, IITs, etc. Prof. Samir Brahmachari, Director General of CSIR, came up with the Open Source Drug Discovery programme as an alternative to the traditional patent-driven model of drug research. Recently CSIR has adopted open access policy as recommended by its Group of Open Access Science Publications. Thus open access - both for accessing worldwide information and for making our own research more visible - is not new to India. But one must admit that considering the size of India's research and higher education enterprise what we have achieved so far is utterly inadequate to commensurate with our ambition to become a knowledge power. We have a long way to go. And the first step is to adopt open access nationwide. This one day conference on "Conference on Scholarly Communication in India in the Age of the Commons" is organized to take stock of the current developments in Open Access and to highlight the issues that would need to be addressed to enable a wider access to scientific knowledge and to enhance the visibility of research performed in India. PS: While spot registration is allowed, we request you to kindly register through e-mail along with name, designation, address, contact telephone and e-mail. We have not made any arrangements for accommodation. Conference Site: http://www.icast.org.in/events/OA-Conf.html For more information please contact: Dr.(Mrs) Poornima Narayana Deputy Head, ICAST National Aerospace Laboratories Airport Road, BANGALORE-560017 Tel:080-25086083 Fax:25260862 Email: poornima@nal.res.in -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. I.R.N. Goudar Tel: 91-80-25086081 Sci G & Head, Information Centre for 91-80-25235315 Aerospace Science and Technology Fax: 91-80-25268072 National Aerospace Laboratories E-mail:goudar@css.nal.res.in Airport Road, BANGALORE-560 017 India http://www.icast.org.in/staff/goudar.html -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.