ShodhGangotri

ShodhGangotri: Indian Research in Progress

Shodhgangotri is a new initiative that compliments "ShodhGanga". While "ShodhGanga" is a repository of full-text theses submitted to universities in India, Shodhgangotri hosts synopsis of research topic submitted to the universities in India by research scholars for registering themselves for the Ph.D programme.

The word Shodh originates from Sanskrit and stands for research and discovery. Gangotri is one of the largest glacier in the Himalayas and source of origination of Ganges, the holiest, longest and largest of rivers in India. The Ganges is the symbol of age-long culture, civilization, ever-aging, ever-flowing, ever-loving and loved by its people.

Under the initiative called ShodhGangotri, research scholars / research supervisors in universities are requested to deposit electronic version of approved synopsis submitted by research scholars to the universities for registering themselves for the Ph.D programme. The repository on one hand, would reveal the trends and directions of research being conducted in Indian universities, on the other hand it would avoid duplication of research. Synopsis in ShodhGangotri would later be mapped to full-text theses in "ShodhGanga". As such, once the full-text thesis is submitted for a synopsis, a link to the full-text theses would be provided from ShodhGangotri to "ShodhGanga"

ShodhGangotriIndian Research in Progress repository at INFLIBNET replicates academic structure of each university in terms of Departments/ Centres and School each university has. This structure facilitates research scholars from universities to deposit their theses in the respective Department/ Centre.

Shodhganga

Shodhganga: a reservoir of Indian Theses

Theses and dissertations are known to be the rich and unique source of information, often the only source for research work that does not find its way into various publication channels. However, theses and dissertations remain an un-tapped and under-utilized asset, leading to unnecessary duplication and repetition that, in effect, is the antitheses of research and wastage of huge resources, both human and financial.

The UGC Notification (Minimum Standards & Procedure for Award of M.Phil./ Ph.D Degree, Regulation, 2009) dated 1st June 2009 provides for submission of electronic version of theses and dissertations with an aim to facilitate open access to Indian theses and dissertation to the academic community world-wide. Online availability of electronic theses through centrally-maintained digital repositories, will not only ensure easy access and archiving of Indian doctoral theses but will also help in raising the standard and quality of research. This would overcome serious problem of duplication of research and poor quality resulting from the "poor visibility" and the "unseen" factor in research output. As per the Regulation, the responsibility of hosting, maintaining and making the digital repository of Indian Electronic Theses and Dissertation (Shodhganga) accessible to all institutions and universities is assigned to the INFLIBNET Centre.

Shodhganga @ INFLIBNET

The Shodhganga@INFLIBNET is set-up using DSpace, an open source digital repository software developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in partnership between Hewlett-Packard (HP). The DSpace uses internationally recognized protocols and interoperability standards. TheShodhganga@INFLIBNET provides a platform for research students to deposit their Ph.D. theses and make it available to the entire scholarly community in open access. The repository has the ability to capture, index, store, disseminate and preserve ETDs submitted by the researchers.

DSpace supports "Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata Harvesting" (OAI-PMH) and uses a qualified version of the Dublin Core schema. The INFLIBNET Centre, promotes setting-up of institutional and ETD repositories in member universities using OAI-PMH complaint software. A number of member universities have already set-up their institutional and ETD repositories using either DSpace or other OAI-PMH compliant Institutional Repository software leading to a scenario wherein it would be possible for universities having sufficient network and computing infrastructure to maintain their own ETD repositories wherein their research scholars could deposit e-versions of their theses and dissertations, and INFLIBNET Centre, besides maintaining the Central ETD Repository (Shodhganga) would also deploy a central server to harvest the metadata from all such ETD repositories distributed in universities with an aim to provided unified access to theses and dissertations through its harvesting server.

Shodhganga Repository at INFLIBNET replicates academic structure of each university in terms of Departments/ Centres and School each university has. This structure facilitates research scholars from universities to deposit their theses in the respective Department/ Centre.

Orphan Work & Copyright Provision in India

Orphan Works

A work – such as a book, a piece of music, a painting or a film – in which copyright exists, but where the copyright owner is either unknown or cannot be located is referred to as an ‘orphan work’. Orphan works can be a real problem for users who want to make use of such work, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes. For example, a filmmaker who wants to include a piece of music protected by copyright in a documentary will be unable to do so if the owner of the copyright in the music is either unknown or cannot be identified. That is, if you do not know whom to ask for permission then, unless your use of the work is covered by an existing exception to copyright, you cannot make use of the work, at least not without infringing copyright.

Comparative Summary of Select Orphan Works (Individual or Case-by-Case Use) Provisions

Country or	Type	Eligible Users	Eligible Works	Permitted Uses	Search Standard	Registry, Database,	Rights of
Jurisdiction	or Archive for Recording Orphan Works	Re-Emerging Rightsholders
India	Centrally-granted license valid for a term specified in the license.27	Any person may apply for a license.28	Any unpublished work or any work published or communicated to the public where the work is withheld from the public in India, the author is dead, unknown, or cannot be traced, or the copyright owner cannot be found.29	Publish or communicate to the public the work or a translation thereof.30	Applicant must publish proposal for use of work in one issue of a daily English-language newspaper having circulation in the major part of India. Where application is for the publication of a translation, applicant must also publish proposal in one issue of a daily newspaper in that language. Applicant must submit newspapers with license application.31	Grants of licenses are published in Official Gazette and on the website of the Copyright Office and Copyright Board, and copies of the licenses are sent to all concerned parties.32	Copyright Board determines amount of royalty to be deposited by applicant. Board may consider prevailing standards for royalties with regard to such works and other matters considered relevant. Rightsholder may claim royalty at any time.33