PPT Open Access to Knowledge Resources Evaluative Examination of Major Indian Initiatives

Open Access to Knowledge Resources: Evaluative Examination of Major Indian

Initiatives

Vijay Srinath Mohan KanchiLibrarian,

Moolji Jaitha College, Jalgaon - 425002, [email protected]

Realizing the potential of open access in alleviating poverty and

augmenting societal development, the government of India

launched several initiatives to provide universal and open access

to digital content to each and everyone with an internet connection.

These initiatives are broadly channelized to make educational

resources, research outcomes and cultural heritage material

digitally accessible openly and freely to one and all

Abstract

Introduction

Realizing the potential of open access knowledge content in

transforming the Indian society and preserving its rich cultural

heritage, the government of India initiated several digital projects in

the last two decades. They can be broadly classified as open

access initiatives for 1.Educational resources 2.Research

outcomes and 3.Cultural legacy.

Open Educational Resource Initiatives

Digital eLibrary

This is a mobile digital library established by Center for

Developing Advanced Computing (CDAC, Noida) that aims

to bring over one million books available with the digital

library of India to the door steps of the common citizens.


Vigyan Prasar Digital Library

Instituted in 1989 by the Department of Science and Technology, to inculcate scientific temperament among youth and school children, Vigyan Prasar is an autonomous organization that produces many popular science kits, books as well as a well acclaimed periodical titled ‘Dream 2047’.VIPNET, a network of science clubs are established by Vigyan Prasar across India to imbibe scientific attitude among youth through various programs. Vigyan Prasar Science Portal, is aimed at providing updated scientific information from India on virtually every subject.

(INDEST)Indian National Digital Library In

Engineering Science and Technology


INDEST was setup in 2003 with IIT Delhi as its headquarters. The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) joined hands with INDEST consortium. AICTE enrolls its approved engineering colleges and technological institutions as INDEST members and subscribes to electronic resources at discounted rates of subscription and under favorable terms and conditions.

National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning

(NPTEL)NPTEL is a joint innitative of the IIT (Indian Inistitute of Techonology) with Indian Institute of Science (IISC) Banglore. Apart from offering a rich collection of resources NPTL also offers about 45 online courses of 4 to 12 weeks durations relating to science and technology. It has video lectures of top academicians on various subjects and topics and is focused to be a platform for online techonological education.


e-Gyankosh


E-Gyankosh is a knowledge portal hosted by the

prestigious Indra Gandhi National Open University. It is

an open educational resource that acts almost like a

virtual university and is aimed to aid and assist Massive

Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and has Pan Asian

Africian and American audiance.

Open access initiativesfor research outcomes

The university Grant Comission of India (UGC) came out with a

draft National policy framework in 2005 mandating the doctoral

thesis submission in electronic format by the research scholors

to their respective alma maters. It also envisaged creation of

Indian National Thesis Database (INTED).

CSIR Explorations This is an open access digital repository of Indian theses established and maintained by Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It hosts theses produced by various Indian scientific organizations working under various major research establishments.

Though CSIR is the premier research funding agency of government of India there are hardly about 1000 theses contribution to this digital contributory. It is a pity that only one contribution is made from the 30 institutions funded by ICMR to this repository


VIDYANIDHI Aimed at enhancing visibility of Indian doctoral research through

archiving and disseminating, Vidyanidhi was the first ETD of India

started by the University of Mysore through partnership with major

universities of India. A member of NDLTD, Vidyanidhi maintains both

full text as well as bibliographic databases along with a database of

subject experts of various universities, providing a wide variety of

search options.


SHODHGANGAShodhganga is a reservoir of Indian electronic theses and dessertations. It was inistitutionalised by information Library networks (Inflibnet) an atnomous agency to provide a platform for research students to deposit their Phd theses and make them available to the entire scholarly community in poen access by UGC notification issued in 2009 regulating the award of Mphil and Phd degrees by the Universities mandates submission of electronic version of theses and dissertations by the researchers in Universities to fecilitates their world wide open access.


SHODHGANGOTRI

Shodhgangotri is an offshoot of shodhganga that hosts the outlines

submitted by the research scholars to various universities. As on

date about 245 universities have signed memorandum of

understanding with inflibnet center of which 231 universities have

contributed over 64000 full text theses and over 2100 synopsis


Open access initiatives for preservation of cultural heritage

The initatives in this regard for the cultural preservation by the govt of

India also received International acclemation for projects such as

digital library of India (DLI). Other notable efforts include Traditional

Knowledge Digital Liberary (TKDL), Kala Sampada digital liberary-

resource for Indian Cultural heritage(DL-Rich), Mukta bodha digital

liberary Cultural Heritage Digital library in Hindi,. The National

Manuscript mission (NaMaMi) setup by the govt of india in 2002 is

also doing examplary service in this direction.

Cultural Heritage Digital Library(With special focus on Hindi speaking regions)


Established and run by Cultural and Informatics laboratory of Indira Gandhi National Center for Arts (IGNCA) New Delhi, this cultural repository is meant for the preservation and dissemination of information on traditional knowledge related to Traditional literature, Oral Epics, Folk Literature and many audio video archives of illustrious personalities

Digital Library of India (DLI)

Digital library of India is the ambitious project of Indian institute of science, Bengaluru carried out in association with 21 major participating centers and Carnegie Mellon university, international institute of information technology, Hyderabad, National Science Foundation (NSF) Education Research Networks (ERNET) and Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY)


Traditional Knowledge Digital Library

(TKDL)The TKDL is a representative Database of 1200

Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha formulations that provides

access to .25 million medicinal formulations to patent

offices through its access agreement.

The medicinal formulations are selected ffrom various

classical texts of Indian medicine which make use of

about 291 plant material as ingredients, besides

ingredients of animal or mineral origin


KALASAMPADA digital library-resource for Indian Cultural heritage (DL-Rich)


Established and run by Indhira Gandhi National Center for the Arts (IGNCA) and reckoned as the pionering digital tressure of arts, Kalasampada received golden icon award for exemplary implimentation of E-governance iniciatives under best document, knoledge and case study category by the dept. of administrative reforms and Public Griveances , govt of India.

Conclusion

The open access initiatives of government of India are

helping in the wide dissemination of knowledge

resources, preservation of cultural heritage of the

country and contributing to the research scholarship.

Documents

PPT Open Access to Knowledge Resources Evaluative Examination of Major Indian Initiatives