India's National Knowledge Commission, launched in June 2005, now has its own web site. The site has separate pages for each of the NKC's five "focus areas": access to knowledge, knowledge concepts, knowledge creation, knowledge application, and knowledge services. The access to knowledge page doesn't mention OA, but comes close in these statements of commitment:
Information networks and a culture of information-sharing are required in sectors like education, health, agriculture, business, R&D, food distribution, disaster management, security, etc....National web-based portals need to be established as one-stop comprehensive sources of information on issues like water, sanitation, health, education, housing, nutrition, employment, etc. Technology and the Internet also have an important role in making the recently legislated Right to Information Act more effective in its implementation.
Comment. I have a few recommendations for the NKC suggestion box: (1) support a network of OA institutional repositories at India's universities and research centers, (2) require recipients of publicly-funded research grants to deposit their peer-reviewed manuscripts in these repositories, and (3) encourage these institutions to adopt their own local policies requiring researchers to deposit their research output in them, whether it is publicly-funded or not.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/10/2006 01:35:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
