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: An Interview with Dr. Francis Jayakanth

India has been losing out its best talents to the West, however, this trend could be reversed if we create adequate number of world-class institutions and research facilities, and our scientific productivity and quality of research will improve significantly, says Dr. Francis Jayakanth in an email interview with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.; Summary of the Minutes of the Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics; Design!PubliC — Innovation and the Public Interest; More »

News & Media: Research papers will be available in public domain

IIT-Madras intends to make circle of knowledge complete, writes Vasudha Venugopal in this article published in the Hindu on 15 February 2012. Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam is quoted in the article.; Wikipedia turns 11 today; The Wikimedia India Program Trust; Western Ghats Portal: Workshop on Biodiversity Informatics; Can Innovation Solve the Grand Challenges of Indian Society?; More »

Events: Free Arduino Workshop (For Beginners)
Mar 03, 2012 11:00 AM to Mar 03, 2012 03:00 PM, at Centre for Internet and Society, No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur 2nd Stage, Bangalore, India

The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore invites you to a hands-on-free Arduino workshop in its office on 3 March 2012. The workshop will be held from 11.00 a.m. to 3 p.m.; 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.; More…