Accessibility

Imperial College Orientation Program, Bargarh

Sailesh Patnaik — 2017-04-16T19:51:29Z

An Odia Wikipedia workshop was conducted at Imperial College, Bargarh on 12 February, 2017.

An Odia Wikipedia orientation workshop was conducted at Imperial College, an affiliate of Sambalpur University, on 12 February 2017 for 60 undergraduate students of the College. The aim of the workshop was to introduce students to Odia Wikipedia while also giving them a broad overview of the global free knowledge movement. This workshop was conducted as part of CIS-A2K's ongoing efforts to expand the reach of Odia Wikipedia in Western Odisha in conjunction with the Odia Wikipedia community members.

The students were also introduced to the process of digitisation and how digitisation was fundamental to the preservation of language and local knowledge. The students also showed an interest in the digitisation sprint for the Dadhivamana Temple's Pothi digitisation project, an ongoing effort to digitise 250 ancient palm leaf manuscripts from the Dadhivamana Temple in Bargarh.

The meta page for this event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/imperial-college-orientation-program-bargarh

"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Vijayawada

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-16T10:38:22Z

"Free-license Wings To Your Books" event held at Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada

Over the course of the last one year, CIS-A2K, with the help of Telugu Wikipedia community members, has been regularly conducting re-licensing events, scan-a-thons and digitization activities in and around Guntur and Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh in order to raise awareness about free licensing books and content. Notable among these are the series of digitization and proofreading sprints conducted at Andhra Loyola College. The "Free-license Wings To Your Books" held on 8 February, 2017 was a culmination of these series of events in Vijayawada.

This event aimed to raise awareness about free-licensing in Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada. The awareness session was followed by community felicitations to writers Kanuri Badarinadh, Fr. Poodota Jojayya and Fr. Job Sudarsan who have released some their content into CC-BY-SA. Fr. Job Sudarsan announced at the event that all his works shall be re-licensed into CC-BY-SA. Later, certificates were distributed to student Wikipedians who contributed to the digitization of 3,500 pages in Wikisource by participating in the digitization sprint that took place at the event. Notable attendees at the event were Mandali Buddha Prasad, Deputy Speaker of Andhra Pradesh, Samala Ramesh Babu, Editor, Nadustunna Charitra and Fr. G.A.P. Kishore, Principal, Andhra Loyola.

The link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/free-license-wings-to-your-books-in-vijayawada

Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: February iteration

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-18T05:02:13Z

The February iteration of the Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise took place online.

The Google-translated Telugu articles prioritization is an online exercise intended to prioritize and improve over 1,900 machine-translated articles on Telugu Wikipedia. This project was initiated in 2009 when Google translation project took place on Telugu Wikipedia in several rounds. Jointly organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K, this exercise saw the participation of 2 Wikipedians.

47 out of 116 articles have been prioritised for further improvement. Says Telugu Wikipedian User:Meena gayathri.s, "I improved Machine translated articles earlier and my major problem is whether my contribution is being channelled properly or not. I always used to think if we can have a list of articles that separates articles that needed to be improved from that of deleted; it will help a lot in this heavy task. This exercise is helping in the same aspect and that is why I'm contributing to this in every iteration."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/google-translated-telugu-articles-prioritisation-exercise-february-iteration

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at 'Swa'-Roopwardhinee, Pune

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-04-16T14:31:46Z

A Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held at 'Swa'-Roopwardhinee, Pune on 7th February 2017

A Marathi Wikipedia edit-a-thon conducted by CIS-A2K in partnership with 'Swa'-Roopwardhinee, an organisation working in the field of education and social work was held on 7 February, 2017. The aim of the workshop was to train participants from 'Swa'-Roopwardhinee on the basics of Wikipedia editing. The theme of the edit-a-thon was to build resources on education and community development on Marathi Wikipedia. Six participants took part in the three hour workshop conducted at the 'Swa'-Roopwardhinee premises.

This edit-a-thon is part of CIS-A2K's ongoing effort to engage communities of interest to partner and collaborate on contributing to Wikipedia so as to utilize their domain knowledge on the free encyclopaedia. Five articles were created and edited by participants.

The link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-swa-roopwardhinee-pune

"Free-license Wings To Your Books" in Guntur

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-16T10:53:51Z

"Free-license Wings To Your Books" event held at Annamayya Library, Guntur

The "Free-license Wings To Your Books" ("Pustakaniki Rekkalu Swecha Nakalu Hakkulu" in Telugu) event, an event aimed to bring more books and content onto Telugu Wikisource was conducted by CIS-A2K with support from Annamayya Library, Guntur on 5 February, 2017. The event was primarily intended to raise awareness about free-licensing among Telugu writers and involve them in content donation on Telugu Wikisource. Telugu Wikipedia community member, User:Nrgullapalli commented on the aptness of the event saying, "this is the right event in present situation."

As part of the event, Writer Bhusurapalli Venkateswarlu, who had previously released his book into CC-BY-SA license and writer Peddi Sambashivarao, who supported content donation drive by encouraging fellow writers, were felicitated. The first ever Telugu book released in print directly under CC-BY-SA license - Kodihalli Murali Mohan's "Andhra Sahityamulo Biruda Namamulu" was launched at the event. CIS-A2K Community Advocate Pavan Santhosh conducted a session on the importance of free-licenses as a better alternative in current Telugu publications. The writers engaged in a discussion on the same topic. However, the event lacked female participation.

The link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/free-license-wings-to-your-books-in-guntur

Odia Wikipedia Workshop in IIMC, Dhenkanal

Sailesh Patnaik — 2017-04-17T06:31:41Z

An Odia Wikipedia Workshop was conducted at IIMC, Dhenkanal on 31 January, 2017

Since 2013, the Odia Wikipedia community has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal for enabling students of the institution to partake in and contribute to the Wikimedia movement. An Odia Wikipedia workshop was conducted for the students of the institution on 31 January, 2017. The students were given an orientation on the basics of editing Wikipedia on the web and on their smart phones in addition to an explanation of Wikipedia policies, history of Wikipedia and Wiki News.

The 45 English and Odia language students with a male: female ratio of 60: 40, who took part were given a live demonstration of these topics. Along with the help of supportive faculty members, the students were exposed to Commons and Incubator as well. Overall, the event saw the creation of 20 new editors on Odia Wikipedia. A follow-up workshop is also being planned for the students in the coming months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iimc-dhenkanal

CBGA - Consultation on Opening Up Access to Budget Data in India (Delhi, January 27)

sumandro — 2017-01-27T05:45:30Z

Open Budgets India, a comprehensive and user-friendly open data portal to provide free, easy, and timely access to relevant data on budgets, has been developed by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability (CBGA) in collaboration with a number of other organisations. CBGA is organising a Consultation on “Opening Up the Access to Budget Data in India” on Friday, January 27, 2017, to launch the beta version of the portal. Sumandro Chattapadhyay will be a speaker in the panel discussion that will follow the launch.

Venue and time: Juniper Hall, India Habitat Centre (IHC), Lodhi Road, New Delhi, 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm

Event details: Link (External)

Event agenda: Download (PDF)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cbga-consultation-on-opening-up-access-to-budget-data-in-india-delhi-jan-27-2017

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College, Kolhapur

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-04-16T14:15:43Z

A Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was conducted at Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College, Kolhapur on 23 January, 2017.

A Marathi Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted at Shivaji's University's affiliate Rajarshi Chhatrapati Shahu College in Kolhapur on 23 January, 2017. The edit-a-thon aimed to introduce Wikipedia to the students of the College and teach them basic editing skills. The students were trained in categorisation and translation from other language Wikipedias. In addition, the students were taught smart editing on their mobile phones using the Wikipedia app.

The theme of the edit-a-thon was to build resources on Marathi Wikipedia in the field of commerce, so as to keep it relevant to the students who study related subjects at the college. The three-hour-long edit-a-thon conducted at the Computer Lab of the college, involved 50 participants, a mix of male and female students.

The link to the event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-rajarshi-chhatrapati-shahu-college-kolhapur

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Shivaji University, Kolhapur

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-04-16T13:47:44Z

A Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held at Shivaji University, Kolhapur on 19 January, 2017

A Marathi Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted by CIS-A2K in collaboration with Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha at Shivaji Univeristy, Kolhapur on 19 January, 2017. This was similar in nature to the Wikipedia edit-a-thon conducted at Willingdon College in Sangli. The aim of the edit-a-thon was to introduce Wikipedia to the research and post-graduate students of the University.

The three-hour-long edit-a-thon conducted at the University's Marathi Language Computer Lab also focused on building resources in the field of linguistics on Marathi Wikipedia. In addition to equipping the participants with editing and categorisation skills, the workshop encouraged them to contribute to linguistics-related articles and biography articles of Marathi authors and litterateurs. With 50 participants overall, the event increased the reach of Marathi Wikipedia, introducing it to those previously unaware of its existence.

The link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-shivaji-university-kolhapur

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Sangli, Maharashtra

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-04-16T13:22:39Z

A Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was conducted at Willingdon College, Sangli on 18 January, 2017

A Marathi Wikipedia edit-a-thon was conducted in collaboration with Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha at Willingdon College on 18 January, 2017. The goal of the workshop was to begin the building of resources in the field of linguistics on Marathi Wikipedia. To begin with, the edit-a-thon introduced the participants to editing Wikipedia and contributing to Wiki projects. With about 50 participants(of which around 6 were female), the three-hour-long edit-a-thon involved the post-graduate and research students of the Willingdon College.

The edit-a-thon conducted at the Marathi Language Computer Lab of the College also focused on creating/editing Wikipedia pages related to Marathi literature and language. Extensive discussion on these issues was also conducted to develop the concept and theme of the edit-a-thon. While participants were taught basic Wikipedia editing, they were also trained in searching for relevant articles, categorisation and translation from other language Wikipedias.

The workshop received local media coverage by Sakal, a Marathi daily. You can read the article here.

Link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-sangli-maharashtra

Telugu Wikipedia stall at Vijayawada Book Festival

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-15T16:23:32Z

The Telugu Wikipedia community put up a stall at the Vijayawada Book Festival in January, in order to increase reach of the regional language encyclopaedia.

Last in a series of book stalls set up across the Telugu-speaking region, the Telugu community set up shop at the 27th Vijayawada Book Festival from 3 to 11 January 2017 at the PWD Grounds. The community had previously set up similar book stalls in Rajahmundry and Hyderabad. Considered one of the largest book festivals in India with deep-rooted cultural significance in the Telugu literary circles, the Telugu community aims to increase the reach and visibility of Telugu Wikipedia through the setting up of this stall.

The book festival, open for the public from 11 am to 11 pm, was inaugurated by Kendra Sahitya Akademi winner Rachapalem Chandrasekhar Reddy, with a collection of 235 stalls to browse from. The festival was organised in partnership with the Andhra Pradesh Department of Language and Culture and NTR Trust. The stall was set up by Telugu Wikipedia community members with support from CIS-A2K and NTR Trust.

More than 150 individuals were engaged through this event. Interested members of public would receive follow-up through "Know-How" videos of Telugu Wikipedia. This provides basic information regarding editing and contributing to Wikipedia and its sister projects. They would also receive invitations to offline events taking place in Vijayawada in the future.

Telugu Wikipedia editor User:Pranayraj1985 said of his experience in talking to the public about Telugu Wikipedia, "I learnt a lot about what people know about Wikipedia and what they didn't know. In general, many of the visitors exclaim when they [come to] know, there is Wikipedia in Telugu language. But, in contrast, here in Vijayawada, we could at least find handful of people who knew there is something called Telugu Wikipedia.

The link to the events page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/telugu-wikipedia-stall-at-vijayawada-book-festival

Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise: January iteration

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-15T17:47:50Z

The January iteration of the Google-translated Telugu articles prioritisation exercise took place online.

The Google-translated Telugu articles prioritization is an online exercise intended to prioritize and improve over 1,900 machine-translated articles on Telugu Wikipedia. This project began from 2009- 2011 when Google translation project took place on Telugu Wikipedia in several rounds. Jointly organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K, this exercise saw the participation of 1 female Wikipedian and 4 male Wikipedians.

12 machine translated articles were improved and 39 have been deleted due to their poor quality. In addition to this, 42 articles have been prioritised for further improvement. Says Telugu Wikipedian User:Meena gayathri.s, "people who wanted to improve Google-translated article waited [for a] long time to get a priority list of articles to be improved and in that aspect, this exercise is very useful."

Several such iterations are planned for the coming months. The meta page for the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/google-translated-telugu-articles-prioritisation-exercise-january-iteration

Mini TTT and MWT held in Kolkata

tito — 2017-06-28T09:53:55Z

A regional version of Train The Trainer and MediaWiki Training was recently conducted in Kolkata.

CIS-A2K’s widely well-regarded flagship skill building program was conducted in Kolkata between 7- 8 January 2017, in partnership with the West Bengal Wikimedians User Group. The two-day event was held at the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. There were 20 participants at the event, of which 18 were male and only two female.

There were three thematic sessions, each broadly dealing with: Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. The participants were taught article enrichment and how to upgrade articles into good category articles on Wikipedia. The participants learnt reference resources in detail in addition to discussing the different types of syntax required to apply the references meaningfully. The participants were also exposed to advanced search techniques on Google in order to gather relevant references.

During the Commons session, the participants were taught the basics of creating categories and subcategories in order to help narrow down searches and hence, image utility on Commons. Facilitating easy identification of an image helps enrich articles in need of descriptive photos. Additionally, participants were encouraged to give specific file names to their images along with a detailed description of the same. This was followed by a technical session on the following popular tools and gadgets that help frequent uploaders on Commons:

Cat-a-lot is a JavaScript gadget that helps with moving images (or subcategories) between categories or adding categories to search results
Google Images tab: On File pages, adds a new tab to easily search for similar images on the Internet using Google Images
OTRS is a tool used by the Wikimedia projects, including Commons, to manage and archive email conversations. The main use of OTRS in relation to Commons is to verify and archive licensing permissions.
Flickr2Commons - Tool to easily upload single and multiple files from Flickr to Commons. This tool uses OAuth to upload files to Commons.

In addition to these on-wiki discussions, a broader discussion took place on photography tips such as the rule of thirds which helps enhance the effect and purpose of the image.

The final thematic session was on Wikisource. Participants had a hands on lesson in proofreading methodology in addition to learning about image formatting, formatting table of contents, table access page break, text divider, and tools and script of Wikisource.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-ttt-and-mwt-held-in-kolkata

Adikavi Nannaya University Telugu Wikipedia Workshop

Pavan Santhosh — 2017-04-16T08:57:21Z

A Telugu Wikipedia introductory workshop was conducted for the students of Adikavi Nannaya University, Rajahmundry between 6- 7 January, 2017.

A two-day Telugu Wikipedia workshop was conducted for the students of Adikavi Nannaya University in Rajahmundry between 6- 7 January, 2017. The participants were post-graduate students of the Telugu Department of the University with a notable gender ratio of 13 male and 21 female participants.

The aim of the workshop was to introduce students to Wikipedia and contributing to Wikipedia projects. They were taught basic Wikipedia editing and the usage of Google's advanced tools. This would also help them create tertiary sources using primary and secondary sources. The students improved articles about their villages using references available on the Internet. The workshop, conducted jointly by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community members, was key to increasing the base of Telugu Wikipedia across the Telugu-speaking region, to cities like Rajahmundry. Says User:విశ్వనాధ్.బి.కె., "from initial days, Wikipedia offline activities development is Hyderabad-centric and Wikipedia activities should be done in all areas (of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh). As this event in Adikavi Nannaya University helps in that aspect, I would like to offer all of my effort to these kind of events."

Overall, the event saw the creation 32 new pages on Telugu Wikipedia by 33 newly registered users with 99118 bytes being deleted/ added.

The link to event page on meta can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/adikavi-nannaya-university-telugu-wikipedia-workshop-1

Orientation & Training session of Jalbiradari Activists

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-04-16T11:30:24Z

An Orientation & Training session of Jalbiradari Activists was held on 4 January, 2017

A Marathi Wikipedia orientation and training session was conducted for Jalbirdari activists on 4 January, 2017 at the Kokale District, Sangli, Cooperative Society Hall. The event was keeping in line with CIS-A2K's attempts at engaging with communities of interest. The Jalbiradari water conservationists were introduced to Wikipedia and its projects. They were given an orientation on Marathi Wikipedia as a knowledge resource and encouraged to write about their village, water and environmental issues on Marathi Wikipedia.

The participants were involved in an open interaction with the community on local issues and cultivation and preservation of local knowledge. With 30 members taking part in the three-hour-long event, four articles were created and edited on Marathi Wikipedia.

The meta page for the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/orientation-training-session-of-jalbiradari-activists