Know your Users, Match their Needs!

As Free Access to Law initiatives in the Global South enter into a new stage of maturity, they must be certain not to lose sight of their users’ needs. The following post gives a summary of the “Good Practices Handbook”, a research output of the collaborative project Free Access to Law — Is it Here to Stay? undertaken by LexUM (Canada) and the South African Legal Institute in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society.

Openness

Innovation and creativity are fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of the Internet radically defined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. We have produced a report on open government data, a report on online video environment and a movie on oral citations on the Wikipedia.

Key Research

Publications

Opening Government: A Guide to Best Practice in Transparency, Accountability and Civic Engagement across the Public Sector, Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 21 July 2011.
Open Government Data in India (v2), Nisha Thompson, 19 August 2011.
Open Government Data Study, Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah, Transparency & Accountability Initiative, 20 May 2011
Critical Point of View: A Wikipedia Reader, Geert Lovink and Nathaniel Tkacz (eds), Institute of Network Cultures, 9 May 2011.
Open Access to Scholarly Literature in India: A Status Report: Call for Comments, Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam and Madhan Muthu, April 2011.
The Online Video Environment in India - A Survey Report, Siddharth Chadha, Benjamin Moskowitz and Pranesh Prakash, iCommons and the Open Video Alliance, October 2010.

Film

People are Knowledge – Experimenting with Oral Citations on Wikipedia, directed by Priya Sen and Zen Marie, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 July 2011.

Submission

CIS Comments on the Interoperability Framework for e-Governance (Phase I), submitted to the Department of Information & Technology, January 2011.

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Blogs: Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics

The Western Ghats Portal team had organized a one-day workshop to explore the contemporary state of biodiversity informatics as expressed in three spheres: technology behind biodiversity informatics, scientific commons and policy and biodiversity portals in India. It hoped to provide an opportunity to interact and learn from similar endeavors in this emerging discipline. The workshop was held at Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment (ATREE), Bangalore on 25 November 2011.; Design!PubliC — Innovation and the Public Interest; Know your Users, Match their Needs!; More »

News & Media: Wikipedia turns 11 today

The world's largest free encyclopaedia turns 11 on Sunday. To mark the occasion, the Wikipedia community will host events in seven cities across the country. The community is also celebrating the first anniversary of the Wikimedia India chapter.; The Wikimedia India Program Trust; Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics; Can Innovation Solve the Grand Challenges of Indian Society?; The Impact of Regulation: FOSS and Enterprise; More »

Events: Inaugural EPT Award for Dr. Francis Jayakanth
Feb 14, 2012 04:00 PM to Feb 14, 2012 04:45 PM, at

Electronic Publishing Trust for Development and the Centre for Internet and Society cordially invite you to the EPT Award Function when Prof. MS Swaminathan FRS will present the Inaugural EPT Award for Open Access in the Developing World to Dr. Francis Jayakanth from NCSI, Indian Institute of Science on 14 February 2012 at the Sambasivan Auditorium, M S Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai at 4.00 p.m.; Geekup on Open Data in Bangalore
Jan 25, 2012 06:00 PM to Jan 25, 2012 08:00 PM, at Centre for Internet and Society, 194, 2nd C Cross, Domlur II Stage, Domlur, Bengaluru, Karnataka

HasGeek in partnership with the Centre for Internet and Society invite you to a talk by Hapee de Groot on 25 January 2012 at CIS office in Bangalore.; Design!publiC - II
Oct 14, 2011 12:30 PM to Oct 14, 2011 08:00 PM, at National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore

The Centre for Internet and Society in partnership with the Center for Knowledge Societies, Venkataramanan Associates, Center for Law and Policy Research, Headstart Foundation, Chaia Innovation Accelerator, MXV Consulting, Mint Newspaper and Confederation of Indian Industry is organising the second edition of Design Public on October 14, 2011 at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Bangalore. There will be a series of pre-conference research outings on October 13, for which participants may register in advance.; More…