CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore
The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Christ University in Bangalore. As part of this MoU Christ University and CIS-A2K will work together to introduce "Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classroom" at Christ University.
The broad objective of this program is to instil the following skills in the undergraduate student using Indian language Wikipedias as part of the Christ University pedagogy:
- Writing Skills (ability to write in an objective fashion/NPOV);
- Digital information literacy skills;
- Ability to critically engage with a concept/theme; and
- Language proficiency skills
CIS-A2K will be doing a one hour orientation on Wikipedia and the program to almost 1,600 students. As part of the orientation we will reach out to about 800 students who have Hindi as a second language, 600 students who have chosen Kannada as a second language, 150 Sanskrit students and about 40 Tamil students and 10 Urdu students. Post the orientation the students will be given an option to do one out of the three continuous internal assignments, as a group assignment, on an Indian language Wikipedia.
We are currently working on the design of this program and will soon share a detailed FAQ for your feedback and inputs.
Christ University and CIS-A2K have also agreed to license all material developed and produced under this partnership under CC-BY-SA 3.0. We would also like to thank Dr. Anil Pinto (Registrar, Christ University) and faculty of Christ University, who has shown great leadership in building this partnership, and Vikram Vincent, a PhD student in the Educational Technology inter-disciplinary program at Indian Institute of Technology - Bombay.
The announcement was made on the Wikimedia mailing list on November 10.
Author
T. Vishnu Vardhan
T. Vishnu Vardhan is the Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS.
