Seminar on 'Looking Back and Moving Forward: Open Access Movement at the Crossroads'
On the eve of Ranganathan's birthday, TERI Library and Information Center organized a half-day interactive seminar titled 'Looking Back, Moving Forward: Open Access Movements at the Crossroads' at TERI, New Delhi. The aim of the seminar was to sensitize the research fraternity on the challenges and opportunities related to open access movements at the national level. The event focused on how researchers should get access to the scientific data and research publications in the open access domain.
The session started with opening remarks by Mr Prabir Sengupta, Distinguished Fellow and Director, Knowledge Management Division, TERI. This was followed by brief presentations by Dr P K Bhattacharya and Ms Shailly Kedia on TERI's Open Access Archive Initiatives (OAI) with the introduction and penetration in Open Access forum through the World Digital Libraries Journal and International Journal on Green Growth and Development. Dr Bhattacharya emphasized on new initiatives that have been introduced with the assistance of the Chief Editor Dr Michael Seadle and other eminent contributors from India and abroad.
The special address was delivered by Mr Denis Dambois, Head, Research and Innovation, European Union, India. Mr Denis highlighted the breakthroughs and initiatives of EU in the promotion of Open Access and Policy Implications in the European countries. Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Director, Sahapaedia talked about the initiatives taken for promoting the Indian culture and heritage. She also talked about the issues and concerns related to open access development. Dr T Madhan Mohan, Advisor to Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, the man who institutionalized the Open Access Policy in India, explained about the policy citing examples of DST and DBT and the initiatives taken by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India in this regard.
The panel discussion on 'Open Access at the Crossroads: Policies and Future Directions' took place after the refreshments. The setting of the theme was done by Dr Anindya Chatterjee, Regional Director, IDRC and was chaired by Dr Neeta Verma, Deputy Director General, NIC. She briefly explained about the role played by the National Informatics Centre in bringing the open access services to the forefront, so that each citizen gets benefited by the same. The panelist Uma Kanjilal, Professor and Head, School of Social Sciences, IGNOU gave a presentation on MOOCs and highlighted the steps taken by IGNOU to promote it. The other panelist Mr Andrew Telford, Research Council, UK talked about the open access policy of UK and the role played by RUCK in promoting open research, open data at the national and international level. From the publisher's point of view, Mr Sanjiv Goswami, Managing Director, Springer India talked about the open access initiatives of Springer highlighting the different models adopted for open access.
A total of 50 participants attended the seminar from different organizations and institutions.