[WSIS CS-Plenary] ITU and open access recommendations of WSIS

[Parminder]

Dear All,

As Rony Koven notes in a later mail, MIT is a private organisation and its
conduct cannot be taken as an illustration of

>>  how disorganized the WSIS Civil Society is,
that is not even able to follow the recommendations of
the Summit in favour of Open Access Publishing.>>

But the Geneva Plan of Action does call for 

>> Encourage initiatives to facilitate access, including free and affordable
access to open access journals and
books, and open archives for scientific information.>>

and academic organisations, often publicly funded in one way or the other,
must take note of this view and commitment of the world community.

However, a better indicator of how 'disorganised'(to use Francis's original
description) - and really unmindful of all the big commitments that get
inscribed in WSIS documents - practically everyone is in the WSIS process is
that ITU itself - which is not only the host and 'UN organising agency' for
WSIS but also positions itself as a candidate to kingpin some key and
substantial follow up processes to WSIS - still refuses open access to its
reports that are expressly scientific and development information.  

ITU calls itself ' the leading publisher of telecommunication technology,
regulatory and standard information.' All this information is of
scientific/technological nature or otherwise of public value. The above
recommendation of WSIS Geneva POA expressly applies to it, but ITU carries
on with a neat e-commerce shop on its website even for accessing all this
public-use information on a digital format.
(http://www.itu.int/publications/index.html).

Our organisation has actually found itself handicapped to seek needed
information from ITU site for its public purpose research. The prices for
buying the information from ITU are very stiff for an organisation operating
in a developing country.   

Regards to all

Parminder 



______________________________________
Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change, Bangalore
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities
www.ITforChange.net
Ph: 91 80 2665 4134
Mobile: 91 98 4594 9445
 

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf
Of Dr. Francis MUGUET
Sent: 06 April 2005 19:01
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] ITID's The World Summit in Reflection


English / Français

Hello

A very short instantaneous reaction to be completed later.
The /Information Technologies and International Development/
published by the MIT and self-proclaimed (sic) as
"the premier journal in its field, focusing on the intersection of 
information and
communication technologies (ICT) with international development."
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=7C409008-C83F-4C3F-A1F6
-D823D264A7D7&ttype=4&tid=59
is not freely available online except for a few articles,
glamourously advertised as "Free articles".
The MIT press can do what they want, but this
The World Summit in Reflection: A Deliberative Dialogue on the WSIS 
<http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?sid=7C409008-C83F-4C3F-A1F
6-D823D264A7D7&ttype=6&tid=15597>
is certainly not inclusive by nature,  and therefore
cannot certainly be recommended on this list, but denounced.

This issue illustrates how disorganized the WSIS Civil Society is,
that is not even able to follow the recommendations of
the Summit in favour of Open Access Publishing.
How the Civil Society might hope that governments
might follow the WSIS recommendations if the Civil Society
is not following them !

I urge all authors to demand from MIT press that
all their articles be freely accessible.

This underline again the need of a structured CS, the
necessity of a CTB, so that press releases, joint statement
and editorial policies be clearly defined and followed.

Best regards

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