STIP2020 Online Panel Discussion on "Access to Knowledge and Resources": A Report
On 26th June 2020, an
Virtual Panel Discussion on "Access to Knowledge and Resources" was organized by the STIP2020 Secretariat, in association with the Science Policy Forum. This was the third-panel discussion in the thematic panel series "Across the Table" as part of the extended public and expert consultations to formulate India's new Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). The panel was live-streamed on YouTube to discuss the issues, challenges, and opportunities in facilitating access to knowledge and resources in India's science, technology and innovation ecosystem. At the same time, different stakeholders were engaged and interacted with the panelists using social media channels with hashtag ASKSTIP2020Access. Moderator Dr. Moumita Koley of the STIP 2020 Secretariat introduced the panelists and theme of this panel discussion. Dr. B Chagun Basha of STIP2020 Secretariat introduced the STIP2020 public and expert consultation processes and how different online panels are planned to engage with the country's stakeholders. The second moderator,
Dr. Anup Kumar Das of Jawaharlal Nehru University, asked the panelists how the upcoming STIP can improve the country's accessibility of knowledge and resources.
The panel discussion began with Professor Rahul Siddharthan of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, who introduced how the scientific researchers in the country got engaged with access to knowledge and resources. He introduced his personal research journey; how he became familiar with open science and open access to scholarly research. He identified how open science practices began by establishing the Arxiv.org in 1991 and subsequent preprints servers in different disciplines. He also highlighted the present debates on open access (OA), e.g., predatory journals, unaffordable article processing charges (APCs), and other challenges in OA publishing. He also took instances of the free software movement that paved the way to open access movement across the world.
The next panelist was Dr. Arul George Scaria, an Associate Professor in National Law University Delhi and the Co-Director of the Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property and Competition (CIIPC). In his opening remarks, he identified two characteristics of innovations, namely cumulative and collaborative. He opined that we need to initiate more discussions on access to knowledge and resources, then knowledge sharing is enabled.
On a question to understand the management of resource sharing at the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), Dr. Alka Suri, Director of DESIDOC in DRDO, explained various resources available for the DRDO scientists such as a resourceful DESIDOC Central Library, and a network of libraries connecting 52 DRDO laboratories through an e-library system. She also highlighted that DRDO has developed many solutions for COVID19. She emphasized the sharing of technologies and resources whenever required.
On a question to understand how STIP2020 can help the community libraries and similar initiatives, Ms. Purnima Rao of the Community Library Project introduced the concept of free libraries that are accessible to people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. She felt that enriching community libraries' potentials and a need to achieve more freedom to create, collaborate, and become conducive for innovators and startup entrepreneurs. With enhanced ICT infrastructure, free libraries can lend their spaces to nurture the potential of young individuals. She felt that awareness, though, is low, it is much needed to attract new users in community libraries.
In his opening remarks, emeritus Professor S.A. Shivashankar of IISc Bangalore and the Adviser, iSTEM portal, introduced
iSTEM.gov.in portal and how the idea came about. It is created to make public-funded scientific resources accessible at one portal, e.g., about 18226 equipment located in 440 institutions are mapped for enhancing their access to the scientific researchers in India who belong to the public and private R&D centres. This portal facilitates access to state of the art S&T facilities, a culture of collaboration, and the optimal use of S&T resources. He highlighted a further plan to open up the portal to everyone – including the industries, and institutions in remote areas, etc. He felt that the portal has the potential to go a long way, and he hoped to make it a huge success.
On a question to revamp the OA in India, Rahul Siddharthan asked three pertaining questions to the policymakers that need to be deliberated, viz., (i) how many papers published by Indian scientists are NOT open access? (ii) How many articles are NOT available on DBT/DST repositories despite the OA mandates? and (iii) The necessity of Indian portals when there are global portals available. He felt that a national OA framework needs to be developed and modified, and OA solutions need to be considered.
On a question on the legalities of OA, Arul Scaria explained that sharing and intellectual property (IP) can co-exist. Patents can be worked out with sharing too. We need to rethink what drives innovation. He felt that sharing still has reluctance by the researchers. Thus, the country needs a national OA mandate for sharing, and there is a need for fine-tuning the Copyright system in the country while researchers need to be aware of IP laws and their rights.
On a question of how STIP2020 can play a role in enhancing the sharing of research facilities and building open research communities, especially at the national level, Shivashankar recounted the small-scale experiments going on at IISc Bangalore. He felt that the public facilities are meant to be shared, which is known but not practiced earlier. Listing all equipment and facilities leads to the reduction of duplication of resources, and maintenance becomes possible through proper use of revenues. He also felt that transparency would lead to more productivity, sharing, and collaboration. He further hoped that more avenues apart from the current ones will be created for successful R&D developments in the country by boosting researchers' confidence.
Moumita picked up two audience questions on motivating more for OA research and improving existing OA frameworks and mandates. Rahul explained that funding agencies could only enforce existing mandates. One option can be discussed: Can the NIRF rankings only consider the papers deposited in the funding agency's repositories? He felt that awareness needs to be grown about OA publishing and IP rights. However, we need to be careful of dubious journals and conferences. He further stated that many things need to be done, working on them in various ways.
On a question about the creation and promotion of scientific databases in times of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat (Self-Sufficient India) campaign, Alka Suri explained Indian authors are publishing more in foreign journals rather than Indian ones due to factors like impact factor. It is time to switch to Indian scientific and bibliographic databases and promote Indian scientific journals to attract foreign researchers in the OA environment. The Indian government should take initiatives for the creation and promotion of such indigenous databases and scientific publications.
On an audience question on Indian researchers shying away from the use of Creative Commons license, Arul Scaria explained that researchers generally think of only the gold OA model on hearing open access. We need more awareness to dispel such notions and make aware of OA's shades, such as Green OA and Platinum OA. We need to communicate to researchers the benefits of open sharing.
On a question on how public library systems can be popularised by collating a database of the existing ones, Purnima explained we could create a searchable national database of public and community libraries and a union catalogue of holdings of Indian public libraries. She felt that the grassroots innovators, especially those who don't have access to knowledge and resources, need enhanced public library facilities. Instead of asking whether ICT facilities for public libraries are adequate, we need to ask ourselves whether public libraries are adequate or not, and whether they are supported with the right intention. She gave an example of a model framework of a public library system that exists in Kerala. She further commented that the National Mission on Libraries, initiated in 2012 by the Union Ministry of Culture, needs to push for a performance audit to know about the current status to dispel confusions. She also mentioned that the National Digital Library of India (NDLI,
NDL.iitkgp.ac.in) facilitates access to full-text resources from different Indian libraries. NDLI exists with excellent OA contents and databases. She felt that awareness for the public at large is needed to bring users. She recommended (i) enhancing ICT facilities for low-income regions, mainly for them to have proper access to information and knowledge resources; (ii) involving schools and colleges in free library movement so that existing libraries can be better utilized; and (iii) making state, central-run libraries free. She also focused on enhancing the training and development of library personnel.
On a question on a decentralized approach of the iSTEM portal for popularisation in every part of India, Shivashankar said that there is a lot of merit in having a centralized approach of iSTEM. Decentralization can bring in problems like only localized use that defeats the primary purpose. He felt that separate institutions and companies could come on board for accessibility to all. There is a plan to bring service providers too. He further emphasized that all domains should be well represented; however, physics and engineering are currently greater in number on the iSTEM portal.
On an audience question, can India adopt green OA as a national policy, Rahul explained India already is effectively having green OA through DBT-DST Open Access Policy of 2014.
The Delhi Declaration on Open Access of 2018 is also there. The idea is to expand it further to S&T institutions and universities. He felt that access to research data is critical, especially for the reproducibility of scientific experiments.
On an audience question on regulation of prices of high impact-factor scientific publications and increasing their accessibility to tier-2 and tier-3 cities across India, Arul felt that there is a need to have a relook on the importance of what/where is published. A radical change to convert from where to what is published is needed. On this note, he felt that there is also a need to find alternative non-APC OA journals, and collaborative publication approaches.
On a similar question, Rahul explained the best solution should be that the government steps in. He also suggested how the government can facilitate payments without researchers worrying about APCs. Once the OA paper is published, it can be invoiced directly to the government. He cited the instances of changing journals subscription policies in many developed nations, by boycotting certain commercial publishers charging exorbitant prices, and looking for the alternatives.
In her closing remarks, Purnima Rao explained we need to get back to social aspects of innovation for repurposing public libraries' spaces. She also emphasized the free libraries as spaces that foster the free exchange of ideas and offer knowledge resources to engage, collaborate, and innovate.
On an audience question on the data repository of research data generated by NGOs, Alka Suri recalled that no such repository exists now. However, we need to think about creating such a central database. She felt the importance to collate and create research datasets that should be accessible to the end researchers. Public funded research data should also be publicly accessible too. She further emphasized that Covid19 led many commercial publishers to open up their scholarly resources, leading to a record number of downloads. Such instances reinforce that the community can work and generate more research.
In his closing remarks, S.A. Shivashankar said that when small and big companies have access to S&T facilities available through public funding, that would lead to more growth of high-value products. Facilitating access to S&T resources through platforms like iSTEM can lead to more significant growth of innovations in our country.
In his closing remarks, Arul Scaria said if the number of publications is increased, we may see more retractions from India. In response to a question related to Sci-Hub, he said Sci-Hub might be infringing copyrights in many (not all) cases. Thus, lawfully dependence on it won't be, therefore, advised. He further said that Indian authors could use the exceptions under Indian Copyright Law while disseminating their preprint or post-print publications. He assured his assistance in developing authors' addendum for Indian researchers under the Indian Copyright Law.
In his closing remarks, Rahul Siddharthan ascertained that the world is moving more towards openness in terms of access to knowledge and resources. We should try to get things done to move ahead in this path!
The session was concluded with a vote of thanks presented by Anup. He thanked all the panelists, moderators, audiences, social media volunteers, and organizers for their views and recommendations for STIP2020. He also announced the forthcoming events of the STIP2020 in the thematic panel series "Across the Table".
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