Press Release January 1st 2012
INAUGURAL EPT AWARD for OPEN ACCESS
The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the
winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing
countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the
cause of open access and the free exchange of research findings.
We received 30 proposals from organisations in 17 developing countries on four
continents, naming individuals who have worked hard to promote Open Access and
who have achieved substantial progress. The selection of a single winner was
extremely difficult as we received nominations for so many individuals who have
made impressive strides by any or all of the following means:-Â
* establishing OA institutional repositories;setting up or encouraging
conversion to OA journals;
* achieving establishment of OA mandates requiring research to be OA onÂ
publication, or other policy developments;
* advocating OA via seminars, publications, workshops, videos;
* training others in the technology of setting up IRs;
* Â preparing and establishing e-learning projects;
* working towards the acceptance of Creative Commons licensing arrangements
for research publications;
* developing software for use in OA practices.
Because of the high standard of the applicants, we have decided to name a single
winner, but also to recognise three other individuals who were very close
runners-up. All will receive a certificate and the winner will receive in
addition an engraved plaque in the next few weeks.
We are very happy to announce that the winner of the inaugural award is Dr
Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Scientific Information, Indian
Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. Dr Jayakanth played a significant role
in the establishment of India?s first institutional repository (IR)
(http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in). He now manages the IR and has provided technical
support for establishing IRs in many other universities and institutes in India.
He has been the key resource person at many events to train people in setting up
IRs and OA journals. He has delivered presentations on IRs, OA journals, the OAI
protocol, OAI compliance, the benefits of OA to authors and institutions and the
role of libraries. He has developed a free and open source software tool
(CDSOAI), which is widely used.Â
The Indian Institute of Science is the most prestigious institute in India and
its IR now holds >31,400 records, making the century-old institute's research
far more globally visible than before. The University Grants Commission in India
has been impressed by the IISC?s IR and has directed all universities in India
to
replicate this effort.
Francis Jayakanth can indeed be considered an OA ?renaissance man?, an advocate
and
technical expert in all aspect of Open Access development and an inspiration to
all, both at the research and policy level.
The EPT is proud to congratulate Dr Jayakanth as our first Award winner. We
believe this Award and the example of our first winner will inspire many others
and lead to similarly impressive nominations in 2012.
The runners-up for this award were (in alphabetical order):Â
 - Ina Smith, University of Stellenbosch, South Africa;
 - Tatyan Zayseva, Khazar University, Azerbaijan;
 - Xiaolin Zhang, National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Science.
The EPT wishes to congratulate them and all who have been proposed, since
without exception they have made a significant personal contribution to the
sharing of research findings across the world. We will be sharing some of
their
stories and successes on our blog over the next few weeks.
Electronic Publishing Trust for Development
Web site http://www.epublishingtrust.org
Ept Blog http://www.epublishingtrust.blogspot.com
[ Part 2: "Attached Text" ]
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