Focus Areas
Open Source Software Division (OSSD) currently focuses on four main areas: Accessibility, Health Care, Localisation and E-learning. OSSD carries out research and development in these areas. The team is, however, not constrained by these areas and are open to looking at generic open source projects and projects in other areas too.
Accessibility
Accessibility in other words is availability. Some of the synonyms of word Accessibility are availability, reachability, approachability etc. It is a general term used to describe the degree to which a system/service/facility/resource is usable/accessible by different categories of people, irrespective of their abilities/disabilities.
Accessibility is also a general term used to refer to applications, tools and/or services, which provide support/services to disabled (differently abled), to overcome their (particular) disability and perform (some) task at hand in a normal environment, efficiently, to compete on a level playing field with their non-disabled peers.
Some facts about Accessibility:
- Also means removing barriers that prevent disabled(differently abled) people from participating in substantial life activities, including the use of services, products & information.
- A category of Usability
- Necessarily defined relative to user/persons, task, requirements & needs at hand.
Software Accessibility
Software Accessibility refers to software based applications, tools and/or Services, which provide support/services to disabled (differently abled), to overcome their (particular) disability and perform (some) task at hand in a normal environment, efficiently to compete on a level playing field with their non-disabled peers .
This definition can be interpreted in two ways:
- Use of software applications/tools to perceive and communicate information using ICT devices.
- Use of software applications/tools, in aggregation to other hardware devices to help achieve other tasks at hand in a normal way.
We at C-DAC Mumbai are currently focussing on software accessibility.
Our work in this area
The following is a list of ongoing/completed projects in this area:
Speech Interface to software
Anumaan-Predictive text entry system
Events
The team members deliver talks/seminars at various events on invitation. More details on the talks/seminars by team members is available on the Events section of this page.
HealthCare
e-Health is an important field of IT today and we have more and more medical institutions and medical organisations, in India, moving into the IT space. However, most of the software applications used by these insitutions are properietary and the Open Source contributions, to suit the Indian context, has just started emerging. OSSD is focussing on developing high-quality Open Source solutions in various streams of HealthCare, to cater to the Indian scenario.
Our work in this area
The following is the list of ongoing/completed projects in this area:
e-Svaasthya – An Open Source Hospital Information System for India
Drishti-An EMR Solution for Ophthalmology
Events
- Recently the team organised a discussion meet for An Affordable Hospital Information System – e-Svaasthya. The meet was attended by doctors and medical practioners from India who gave their valuable feedback on the system and on the path ahead.
- The team started of its activity in this area by organising a HealthCare Workshop which included participants from the medical fraternity all over India.
After the successful organisation of an open source Heathcare Workshop and completion of Drishti OSSD is exploring the possibility to develop more Healthcare/EMR projects based on Open Source and Open Standards involving the FOSS community.
Localisation
One of the focus areas of OSSD division is localisation. Localisation is the process of adapting software applications to the local market. In contrast to the scenario outside India, localisation is still at an infant satge here. However, more and more people are now realising the need to have softaware applications in the local language of the people, thus briding the digital divide.
The team has done a lot of work in the area of localisation. Its focus includes developing tools to aid the localisation process and also impart knowledge about the area. The following is a list of ongoing/completed projects in this area:
Ongoing
SuTra – An Intelligent Suggestive Translator for Localisation
TechLink
Completed
Events
The team members deliver talks/seminars at various events on invitation. More details on the talks/seminars by team members is available on the Events section of this page.
e-Learning
The OSSD team in collaboration with the ETU team is developing Open Source applications to aid e-learning. The following is a list of ongoing/completed projects in this area:
Ongoing
Subjective Evaluation Framework
Completed
