Centre for Internet & Society

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of September 2013:

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0
Goa University re-released Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) organised an event on September 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Goa University Conference Hall. Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume encyclopedia published by Goa University. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc. By releasing Vishwakosh under Creative Commons license, Goa University is making it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. For more on Konkani Vishwakosh re-release see

Announcements

  • CIS  Signs MoU with Goa University: The A2K team at CIS has signed an MoU with the Goa University to digitize the “Konkani Vishwakosh” under the Creative Commons license and build a digital knowledge partnership to enhance digital literacy in Konkani language.

Video

  • Wikipedians Speak: Piotr Konieczny: This episode brings you a conversation with Piotr Konieczny, a veteran Wikipedian from Poland. He has contributed to over 514 DYK articles on Wikipedia.

Columns and Blog Entries

Events Organised

Events Co-organised

Events Participated In

  • Workshop on e-Content Development (organised by Centre for Staff Training and Development, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 4 – 6, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan gave guest lectures on Open Source to Open Knowledge; Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet; e-Content in Indian languages – History, Challenges and Opportunities; Wikipedia Users to Wikipedia Authors – Exploring Wikipedia as an OER Tool; and e-Content, e-Student, e-Faculty – Reimagining classroom in the digital Age.
  • Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire, September 15, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
  • T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet (organised by Jadavpur University, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, and Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University on September 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/163oEpz.
  • Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (organised by St. Aloysius College, AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore, September 13, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
  • Indian Languages Mela (organised by Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, TISS, Mumbai, September 20-21, 2013). Tejaswini Niranjana, T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in this event.
  • 'Digital Humanities and Higher Education' (organised by School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, September 2013). Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana gave a talk.

Media Coverage

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

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Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at [email protected] or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at [email protected]. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at [email protected]

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.