A national seminar on electronic publications was organized by the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Research and Social Action (MGNIRSA) at Hyderabad on March 23rd and 24th, 2006. Click here for a report.
The Inaugural Session - Salient Points Covered by the Speakers
Dr. D. Swaminadhan
Founder, Swaminadhan Research Foundation, Hyderabad
Dr Swaminadhan pointed to the fact that the biggest users of e publications in India are those in higher education and that as a developing country we need to effectively use technology for development. He informed the audience about the importance of INFLIBNET, (www.inflibnet.ac.in) a gateway to India’s academic and research community, which provides opportunities to share resources, and also about the Planning Commission of India taking up a Technology Project in Mission Mode. (http://planningcommission.nic.in/).
Professor K. C. Reddy
Chairman, The State Council of Higher Education, Andhra Pradesh.
Prof. Reddy emphasized on the necessity to stretch the reach of e publications to rural India, focusing on the fact that information and quality content needs to be made economically accessible. He spoke about how the Government of Andhra Pradesh is developing four-dimensional learning modules – to implement ‘read’, ‘write’, ‘listen’ and ‘speak’. http://www.aponline.gov.in/apportal/index.asp.
Dr Murthy highlighted the services offered by Inflibnet and touched upon how the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research of India (CSIR) http://www.csir.res.in/ and the Government of Kerala http://www.kerala.gov.in/ are working on plans to distribute e text books.
Technical Sessions - Highlights of Select Presentations:
Electronic Publishing
Dr N.V. Satyanarayana, Director, Informatics, Bangalore
Remarks as Chairperson, Technical session on Electronic Publishing
Electronics has brought about a paradigm shift in the 300-year-old publishing industry;
There is a vast potential for e book publishing, as only 20 – 30 % of printed books are available as e-books;
E journals constitute a majority of e publications;
The research community benefits by going electronic; nearly 50 Elsevier articles are downloaded per second;
Elsevier publishes over a million articles per annum;
In a decade from 1995, Elsevier moved from delivering content on tapes, then CDs and finally started science direct;
E publishing is capital intensive and technology driven. For example. Elsevier has invested $15 million for the author gateway and editorial system and $40 million for archiving servers;
The price per article has fallen from $ 6.95 ( 2001) per article to $2 (2005);
Of the total Elsevier downloads, India downloads only 6% compared to 34% by China;
Popular subjects include Material Sciences, Engineering and Chemistry.
Medknow Publications: a case study Dr. D K Sahu.
Medknow publishes over 30 medical journals using an open access software through which online submission, peer review etc. is made really simple;
Presently the website has over 3,500 visitors everyday and nearly 10,000 downloads a month;
The publishing cycle has reduced to less than a month after adapting the online submission mode. They are receiving many more submissions too;
All their journals are available in print too. They are looking at good quality online. Orders have increased for the printed version as well;
E Books and Digital Rights management Dr. Satyanarayana, Director of Informatics, Bangalore
E books and e journals have different publishing models:
- the former is bought and the latter is subscribed to;
- markets for journals are driven by libraries and those for books by individuals dominantly;
Printed books, even today, command a bigger market. 90% of the journals are available online and yet demand for printed journals has not reduced;
In 2005, e-book sales were estimated to be $ 300 million, whereas during the same year the revenue from the sale of printed books was a whopping $45 billion!
People can browse through printed books in libraries or shops before buying them. This is not possible in eBooks;
Text is the primary component of eBooks and is also copyrightable work;
Piracy is an issue;
In electronic publications we need to ensure that people cannot copy. Digital Rights Management (DRM) becomes a technology policeman – especially in music and video, where it first took shape.
The new copyright millennium act http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf prohibits writing/sharing copyrighted content. Issues like authors’ assigning rights to publishers, multiple distribution/publishing rights etc. arise.
The success of DRM and eBooks are fairly interlinked. DRM becomes a critical requirement to track users and is still in the initial stages. Technologies and applications for encrypting, marking, water marking etc are still developing or are in test phase.
E learning Through Media Network: The Indian Scenario V. Rama Rao, MANA TV.
E learning and e publishing will emerge as twin dominant occupations of the future;
Chronological milestones in development of e learning infrastructure in India:
1982: The Andhra Pradesh Government Open University was set up;
1985: Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) started operations along with several state open universities;
1991: Training & Development Communication Channel (TDCC) started ‘one way video and two way audio’ interactivity;
2000 – Gyan Darshan, an educational broadcasting channel, launched;
Tamil Virtual University set up, based on the Internet;
APNET Project launched using the KU band transponder from ISRO, which was until then used only for telecommunication; APNET has 5 TV channels and 1 data channel; provides audio/video interactivity; has over 2000 receiver terminals in Andhra Pradesh; plans to provide 8000 schools with connectivity shortly;
Gyan Vani, a FM Station for education was launched. Presently, there are 17 such stations, which is to be increased to 40 – one in every major town and city.
2004 -EDUSAT started by the Govt. of India with an exclusive satellite for education. 6 extended C band transponders and 6 Ku band transponders set up to ensure regional and nation wide coverage. Select features of this network: IP based, to support e learning; facilitates video multicasting, video conferencing, asynchronous learning, web browsing. Organizations using national EDUSAT network include NCERT, IGNOU, UGC, and DST. States in India using the regional networks are Andhra Pradhesh, Orissa, Kerala,Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Other States are in the preparatory stages.
Issues to be addressed:
Intellectual Property rights;
Quality and authenticity of content;
Hardware and software devices;
Standards.
