Centre for Internet and Society

Analysis on the strategies of Mozilla and Wiki communities on gender gap aspects

bhuvana — 2019-10-03T11:56:37Z

There is a need for research on how Open Source communities are trying to balance the gender ratio and how they provide the safe space environment to its contributors. With this in mind I have come up with this blog as I am an active contributor of Mozilla since 5 years and also got myself recently introduced to Wikimedia and its sister projects, have interacted with few Indian women contributors in both of these communities and came out with a few observations on how I see them in India and what could be improved in both communities.

Opening note

Wikipedia community

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of articles where many users can edit it freely and it has become so large that you run across it all the time in Google. It is so popular that it is now one of the Top 5 websites in the world! The reason behind the growth is because the articles are simple and useful.

Wikipedians are the contributors who do a communal work to improve the content by editing bits of text and cluster them to the large database. Beyond this there are other sister projects of Wikimedia which interest the audience on whichever they are expertise about. The main motivation for these contributors is their freedom to contribute in their own native language which they are more passionate about. This is a great social cause they are contributing towards.

Mozilla community

Mozilla makes browsers, apps, code and tools that put people before profit. In fact, there’s a non-profit Foundation at the heart of the enterprise.Their mission is to keep the internet open and accessible to all. Hope everyone uses or had at least at some point seen Firefox browser/logo, so this is the prime product of Mozilla. There are various projects to support the Firefox browser and they are mostly Open Source.

Mozillians are the volunteers who contribute in the improvement of these projects thus helping the world to access the internet and the Open web.Mozilla Volunteers are passionate to learn,collaborate and knowledge share among a large world-wide community and the crew is a mix of coder, non-coders, policy makers and anyone who supports Open Web. The point that drives everyone to contribute is that the community creates a vibe to contribute and to create a safe and better experience in accessing the digital world.

WikiProject Women

This a group of editors who aim to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women's topics. It brings Wikipedia users of all genders, sexual orientations, geographic locations, and personal backgrounds together to discuss and collaborate on coverage of women's content across Wikipedia.There are various streams in which women can be part of the larger mission for instance:

Art and Feminism

Women in Red

Wiki loves women

Womoz

Women & Mozilla ("WoMoz") a community composed of members from different Open Source projects.It is mainly dedicated to improving women's visibility and involvement in Free/Open Source and Mozilla, and to increase the number of women contributors. Anyone can participate in this project, regardless of sex, age, job, etc. We are united by the common goal of promoting women's visibility and involvement in open source communities. They also believe that the Internet, FLOSS projects and computing must remain open and participatory. This also means accessible in the same way to all - women and men alike.

It also believe solutions should continuously be proposed in order to improve the visibility of all minorities, who for various reasons might not have equal access to computers or the Internet. This project is an example of this, as it aims at ameliorating women's presence and participation in Mozilla and open source. But currently this group is not very active, except for a few regional contributors where they find massive necessity to focus on the women participation.

Overview of the strategies used for increasing women participation

Methodologies used

Both the communities are great supporters of the Free Softwares and licenses and so the methods that is used in addressing the gender gap issues is as follows:

Conduct gender neutral events like hack-a-thons/ edit-a-thons where the tutor is a woman or there is a large ratio of under represented community in the event.
Host monthly offline/online meetups.
Work on projects which are gender neutral based.
Following up special protocols like CoCs strictly at these events.
Days like “International Women’s Day” and on similar significant occasions some unique events will be hosted and contributors will be appreciated.

Impact on Indian communities

The WikiProject woman and WoMoz programs play a very important role among the Indian communities. Although I do not see a single or uniform progress there is always a good scale-up among the regional communities. For a country like India where there is still necessity for uplifting the presence and awareness of these type of FOSS programs I feel that most of these programs are extensively hosted in urban or developed phases of the country. Recently, the internet access has spread across but then the basic knowledge of contributing to Open Source is still abandoned. The end result and the what the contributors shall get on contributing to these communities must be emphasised more.

Closing note

My study and analysis on these two communities is drawn from personal interest and engagement with these communities since I have been contributing and interacting with the contributors for the last few years. The objective of this post is basically to bring about an awareness on the accessible resources on bridging the digital divide , and how these resources can be modified and taken further for a country like India. The efforts taken to improve the gender neutrality by the above communities is laudable but more light has to be thrown on improving the measures taken to sustain women contributors

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/

http://www.womoz.org/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/analysis-on-the-strategies-of-mozilla-and-wiki-communities-on-gender-gap-aspects-1

Mini MediaWiki Training Theni

Ananth — 2019-02-13T02:34:40Z

CIS-A2k is trying to strengthen the MediaWiki movement in India, and over the last six months, the team has collaborated with different Indian Wikimedians and started a project called Indic-TechCom.

Indic-TechCom provides technical support to the Indic Wikimedia community and as of now has supported community members in Indic OCR and Indic Wikisource stats.

To increase the awareness on MediaWiki, Indic TechCom members and CIS-A2K decided to reach out to students with the Computer science background and help them understand how to contribute on MediaWiki. As a pilot project, we reached out to Nadar Saraswathi College of Engineering and Technology and organised a two-day long Mini MediaWiki training for the students on 22nd and 23rd of January 2019.

As part of the training, On Day 1, students were explained about MediaWiki and were introduced to Git, GitHub, Phabricator and Gerrit. We helped them to install MediaWiki software on their system and also helped them to understand the structure of MediaWiki.

In the second day, students were introduced to the extensions and skins, understanding the structure of extension and special pages. We also taught them how to submit patches through Gerrit.

This training had a group of 20 students and 2 faculty members who were supporting the students and guiding them in their native language. The first day of the event started slowly as students were lacking in having the knowledge of Wikimedia and its structure. After setting up the relation of the Wikimedia platform the students were able to understand the use and benefits of MediaWiki. Then the installation of MediaWiki and hosting of own MediaWiki server was done. Seven students were successfully able to install and play with Localsettings.php to get the grip of their sites.

At the end of the sessions, two[1][2] students were able to submit the patch to Gerrit and it was approved by Volker_E (Sr. User Experience Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation).

[1]. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214470

[2]. https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214468

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-mediawiki-training-theni

Goa University students update ‘Goa’ Marathi articles on Wikipedia

Admin — 2019-02-22T02:27:14Z

Faculty and students of Goa University’s Marathi department have updated 164 Marathi articles on Wikipedia related to Goa recently.

The article was published in the Times of India on February 20, 2019.

They have also added information related to the state focused on freedom fighters, Marathi literature and cultural heritage, tourism, biodiversity and the environment.

The two-day effort was carried out under the supervision of Subodh Kulkarni from the Centre for Internet and Society, the Indian partner of the Wikimedia Foundation.

The history of Goan villages collected by students was uploaded on Wikipedia in Marathi Devanagari Unicode. They also participated in #1Lib1Ref campaign supported by Wikipedia Library and uploaded new articles and 25 photos.

Other than editing the 164 Marathi articles, the faculty and students also edited reference for articles on Wikipedia and contributed to important facts about Goa.

Kulkarni served as the resource person for the session, while director of digital learning and initiative at Goa University Prof Ramrao Wagh, head of department of Hindi Vrushali Mandrekar; librarian at GU library Gopakumar, head of department of Marathi Sunita Umraskar, and coordinator of the workshop Vinay Madgaonkar, oversaw the effort.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-february-20-2019-goa-university-students-update-goa-marathi-articles-on-wikipedia

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ತರಬೇತಿಯ ವರದಿ

Ananth — 2019-03-07T02:35:05Z

ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯು ದಿನದಿಂದ ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಬಳಕೆಯಿಲ್ಲದೇ ಕುಂದುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಭಾಗದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮದ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಸರಿಯಾದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆಕರಗಳು ಸಿಗುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ಇಂತಹ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ, ಕನ್ನಡವನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸಿ ಬೆಳೆಸುವುದು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗನ ಕರ್ತವ್ಯ. ಇದನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಗಮನದಲ್ಲಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡು, ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಆಶ್ರಯದಲ್ಲಿ ದಿನಾಂಕ ೦೯ ಹಾಗೂ ೧೦ ನೇ ಫೆಬ್ರುವರಿ, ೨೦೧೯ ರಂದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ತರಬೇತಿಯನ್ನು ನಡೆಸಲಾಯಿತು.

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣವನ್ನು ತಮ್ಮಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಬೇಕೆನ್ನುತ್ತಿರುವ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರು ಹಾಗೂ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡುವುದು ಹಾಗೂ ತರಬೇತಿ ನೀಡುವುದು ಈ ಸಮಾವೇಶದ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಉದ್ದೇಶವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಮೊದಲ ದಿನ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಿರುವ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳಿಂದ ಒಬ್ಬ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ ಮತ್ತು ಒಬ್ಬ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರನ್ನು ಆಹ್ವಾನಿಸಿ, ಅವರಿಂದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪರಿಚಯಿಸಿಕೊಡಲಾಯಿತು. ವಿಶ್ವಕನ್ನಡ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾದ ಡಾ. ಪವನಜ ಅವರು ಸವಿಸ್ತಾರವಾಗಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳುವಳಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿದರು.

ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದಿಂದ ಮಹಾದೇವಪ್ಪ ಹೆಚ್. ಹಾಗೂ ಧನ್ಯ ಭಾರದ್ವಾಜ್ ಎಂಬ ಇಬ್ಬರು ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿ, ಕರ್ನಾಟಕವಲ್ಲದೇ ಅಂತರಾಷ್ಟೀಯ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಸರುವಾಸಿಯಾಗಿರುವ ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಅಚ್ಚುಕಟ್ಟಾದ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಟ್ಟರು. ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ ವಿ.ಶಿ.ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭದಿಂದ ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗಿನ ಬೆಳೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದ ರೀತಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲ ಅಂಕಿ-ಅಂಶಗಳನ್ನು ಮಹಾದೇವಪ್ಪ ಮಂಡಿಸಿದರೆ, ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳ ನಿಲುವುಗಳನ್ನು ಧನ್ಯ ವಿವರಿಸಿದರು.

ಇದರೊಂದಿಗೆ, ಉಜಿರೆಯ ಎಸ್.ಡಿ.ಎಮ್ ಹಾಗೂ ಮೂಡಿಬಿದಿರೆಯ ಆಳ್ವಾಸ್ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯವರು ಕೂಡ ತಮ್ಮ ವಿ.ಶಿ. ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿವರಿಸಿದರು. ಹೀಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲ ಬಗೆಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳನ್ನು ಒದಗಿಸುವ ಮೂಲಕ ಮೊದಲ ದಿನದ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮುಕ್ತಾಯಗೊಂಡಿತು.

ಎರಡನೇಯ ದಿನ, ಪವನಜರ ಮುಂದಾಳತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಆನ್ಲೈನ್ ತರಬೇತಿಯನ್ನು ನೀಡುವ ಮೂಲಕ ವಿವಿಧ ಕಾಲೇಜುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಿ.ಶಿ.ಯೋಜನೆ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಲು ಸಹಕಾರ ನೀಡಲಾಯಿತು. ಎರಡು ದಿನಗಳ ಕಾಲ, ಹಾಜರಿದ್ದ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಉತ್ತಮವಾದ ವಸತಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಊಟದ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಯನ್ನು ಮಾಡಲಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಕೊನೆಗೆ, ಸ್ವಾಗತದಷ್ಟೇ ಆದರದಿಂದ ಎಲ್ಲರನ್ನು ಬೀಳ್ಕೊಡಲಾಯಿತು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c95ca8ccdca8ca1-cb5cbfc95cbfcaaca1cbfcaf-cb6cbfc95ccdcb7ca3-cafc9cca8cc6-cb8caecbecb5cb6-caeca4ccdca4cc1-ca4cb0cacca4cbfcaf-cb5cb0ca6cbf

Wikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation

subodh — 2019-04-09T00:56:25Z

Researchers in development sector produce a pool of training material and case studies. However, these do not trickle down to the society and many in the public domain are unaware of the same.

Largely the research is restricted to non-profit organizations or their funding agencies during the project period. If the research carried out in development sector is re-licensed and then linked to Wikipedia articles as references we could see a larger section of the society gaining access to such information. The twin advantages of posting such content is that the information will be searchable online through search engines and the Wikipedia page with numerous hyperlinks leading to different sources will act as a reference resource. Larger sections in the public domain will have access to information which would perhaps be hard to gain access to.

Pictured above: Meeting at Vikas Anvesh Foundation office to discuss the possibility of disseminating the research work done, through Wikipedia. Subodh Kulkarni was the resource person for the meeting. [Picture by Sdeora14 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license].

Orientation Session

Keeping this in view an orientation session was conducted by Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) at Tata Trust’s Vikas Anvesh Foundation (VAF) in Pune. CIS-A2K and VAF joined hands to explore possibilities of content enrichment in Wikimedia projects. Dr. Ajit Kanitkar and Subodh Kulkarni were the facilitators for the session attended by eight participants.

Report

The researchers at VAF presented their publications in the form of study reports, papers in journals and conferences and datasets. Advisor Ajit Kanitkar presented story of 'Gems of Purest Ray Serene', a book about the life stories of twenty-two outstanding Indian social workers. The content of the book is uploaded on VAF's website socialworkindia.in which is freely downloadable. The book is published in Marathi and Hindi language also.

After the presentations from VAF, CIS-A2K facilitator presented different Wikimedia projects.In the discussions, it was realised that Wikipedia articles related to social issues and development sector lack reliable references. The research work on VAF website can be linked as references. The publications could be uploaded on Wikisource for wider reach. The images and videos during the work can also be uploaded on Commons.

Follow-up

VAF will discuss the process of content donation with management and decide on the further steps. The training regarding Wikipedia editing and Commons uploads would be planned.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation

Content Donation Sessions with Authors

subodh — 2019-04-10T01:28:21Z

CIS-A2K has adopted an integrated approach towards knowledge generation in Marathi language. With the involvement of various stakeholders in different programmes, CIS-A2K facilitated a comprehensive workshop for publishers, printers, designers and writers on 7 September 2018.

The State Govt. Language department, All India Marathi Literary Body & All India Marathi Publishers Consortium took the lead to organize this workshop. In this workshop, noted authors Sunilkumar Lawate and Laxmikant Deshmukh expressed their willingness to donate their books to Wikimedia projects. The awareness about content donation was spread among the writers' community through this workshop.

Objectives

To promote the concept of content donation in Wikimedia projects
To develop repository of reference books on Commons & Wikisource
To facilitate organizations working in developmental sector for developing open knowledge on internet

Report

To promote Marathi language, Marathi language fortnight (1-15 January) and Marathi Day (27 February) was celebrated in Maharashtra. CIS-A2K organized various events on this occasion with state government, publishers, writers and other stakeholders in knowledge business. Some of the authors responded to the appeal to donate their literature in public domain. The following content donations were received in February and March 2019.

Book on Home Composting

Kaustubh Tamhankar, an active citizen from Thane is promoting innovative home composting methods for zero garbage. He has produced some manuals and videos on the process. As the awareness about environment friendly lifestyle is increasing, the author thought of releasing the first manual on Commons. CIS-A2K community advocate (CA) trained him in basics of Wikipedia and Commons. He completed the OTRS process and uploaded the book on zero garbage. He has planned to upload some more manuals and videos in future.

Books by Sunilkumar Lawate

Pictured above: Cover page of the book 'V. S. Khandekar Biography' by Sunilkumar Lawate

Prof. Sunilkumar Lawate is an educationist, social activist and writer in Maharashtra. He participated in the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. He approached CIS-A2K for release of his books in CC-BY-SA on the occasion of Marathi Day on 27 February. CA trained the author in copyrights, Commons upload process and OTRS process in the session held at Kolhapur on 27 February. Prof. Lawate uploaded his 21 books on Commons. These are reference value books on education, child rights, literature, autobiographies, social issues and classic literature. The newspapers covered this event as feature of Marathi day. Because of good media coverage, many responses from other authors in Maharashtra have been received for content donation.

Books by Lek Ladaki Abhiyan

We all know that vast amount of training materials and case studies are produced in development sector. But it is not available to society at large. It is restricted to NGOs, funding agencies, etc. for project period. If it is brought in Wikimedia, it will be searchable for all and will be linked to various articles also as reference resource. CIS-A2K is approaching several such organizations for content donations. CIS-A2K received positive response from Adv. Varsha Deshpande, President of Lek Ladaki Abhiyan, Satara about bridging gender gap activities on Wikimedia projects. Lek Ladaki Abhiyan (LLA) is one of the most active organizations working on Women's issues in Maharashtra. The activities cover wide range of issues viz. stopping child marriages, counselling workshops for adolescents, pre-marriage counselling, child labour issues, legal aid to women facing violence, sting operations for exposing cases of female foeticide, hostel for girls etc.

LLA organization is involved in content generation on women's issues for the last two years with the support of CIS-A2K. The process proved useful for the members and other participants. On the occasion of Women's day on 9th March, LLA re-licensed 8 books and uploaded on Commons. The convener Adv. Varsha Deshpande has authored 6 books. She has taken this noble initiative. The content is spreading across beneficiaries and getting good feedback also. The books cover all the issues mentioned above. The articles created in women's day workshop and books donated by this organization have contributed to reduction in gender gap. LLA would like to lead the movement with other like-minded organizations in urban, rural, tribal areas to facilitate the open knowledge generation on women's issues.

Books by Laxmikant Deshmukh

Laxmikant Deshmukh is former IAS and writer in Maharashtra. He was president of All India Marathi Literary Festival in 2017 at Badoda. He was co-organizer for the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. From that event, he has been promoting open knowledge concept and Wikimedia projects. The training session at Pune was held on 16 March for re-licensing his 4 works. The books are on socio-economic issues of Maharashtra.

Link to the Wikipedia page report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors

SVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University

subodh — 2019-04-26T06:47:40Z

The Centre for Internet & Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) wing organized an SVG translation workshop in collaboration with KBC North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon on 14-15 March 2019. The workshop was a part of India level campaign. Total 58 participants attended the workshop and contributed to Commons till 31 March 2019.

Background

During the edit-a-thons and thematic workshops, the need for images in Marathi was realised. Many articles on health and science have images with labels in English. The issue was discussed with few institutions. KBC University came forward to start the activity under this campaign.

Objectives

Orientation of Wikimedia projects
Localisation of SVG images
Commons upload policies and process

Facilitators

Krishna Chaitanya Velaga -- User: KCVelaga
Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K --Subodh (CIS-A2K)
Prof. Manish Joshi, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon -- Joshmanish
Dr. Snehalata B. Shirude, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon --Snehalata Shirude

Agenda

Introduction to Wikimedia projects, Marathi Wikipedia, Commons
Account creation, basic editing skills
Copyrights, Commons upload process
Graphics images, types of formats, features
Installation of fonts, Inkscape
Resources for translation, verification before uploads
Selection of images, tags, categories for upload
Using translated images in local Wikipedia

Report

As the participants were not aware of Wikimedia projects, the first two sessions dedicated to an introduction to various projects. The participants opened accounts on a smartphone and created user pages after logging in on computers. They were introduced to basic skills in Wikipedia editing, giving references/wiki links and adding images from Commons. The Commons platform was explained in detail. The missing images in Marathi language articles and Commons as well were shown. The discussion on these topics resulted in understanding the need for SVG translation exercise.

The next session was to download and install the necessary software on each computer. The participants installed Google Input Tools for Marathi typing and also Inkscape. Before translating images on Inkscape, the students first practised Marathi typing on their sandboxes. After this, the main graphics sessions were conducted. Krishna explained various types of formats, differences between raster and vector graphics, the importance of SVGs and actual SVG file translation process. He demonstrated the process for images with different difficulty levels. They were introduced to resources available as a part of the campaign for SVG translation and necessary techniques. The usage of various online resources like encyclopedia and thesaurus available was also explained. The images were selected and working tags were applied by the participants. The faculty facilitated the process of work distribution among the students. The participants were able to upload 100+ images on the first day.

Pictured above: Students from Day 1 helping others on Day 2 (Picture by Subodh Kulkarni)

On Day 2, around 20 participants newly joined the workshop. This group comprised of teachers, journalists, doctors, and other enthusiastic citizens. Active students from Day 1 facilitated the training of this new batch. Having conducted a session on the previous day greatly helped to facilitate this session easily. The experienced teachers and citizens helped others to get correct translations and terms. This boosted the speed of the work. The images were also used in the articles on Marathi Wikipedia.

With the help of science teachers, the images were verified before uploading to Commons. Due to active participatory work on the second day, the total images crossed 200 mark. The students continued to contribute till last day of campaign i.e. 31 March. At the end, due to consistent work Marathi category reached the highest number with a total of 357 images among all Indian languages. The workshop and further work was well organized and motivated by Prof. Manish Joshi and Prof. Snehalata Shirude from Computer Science department.

Link to the Wikipedia page report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university

Indic Wikisource Speak: Dr. Gitartha Bordoloi

jayanta — 2019-04-17T20:10:28Z

"People are more aware of Wikipedia than Wikisource." - Gitartha Bordoloi from Assamese Wikisource community, share his experience with CIS-A2K team.

Gitartha Bordoloi from Assamese Wikisource community

CIS : Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?

Gitartha: I'm Gitartha Bordoloi hailing from Jorhat, Assam. I edit in Wikimedia projects under the username Gitartha.bordoloi. I'm a doctor by profession and currently I'm working as a faculty in the Department of Physiology, Silchar Medical College and Hospital, Assam.

I joined Wikimedia movement in February, 2011. I tried to write an article in English Wikipedia when a friend of mine informed me that there's even a Wikipedia in Assamese and suggested I contribute there too. I'm now mostly involved in Assamese Wikipedia and Wikisource. I contribute to commons also to the best of my ability.

CIS : What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute to your language Wikisource?

Gitartha: When we started as.wikisource we didn't have any scans and we typed or collected only texts. Then after learning about the detailed process I scanned a few books from my personal collection and uploaded those to commons for proofreading in Wikisource. We are currently digitizing scanned books found in Archive and other online sources. We are putting the list of new additions on the wikisource home page and encouraging the volunteers, mostly through social networks, to work on them. Instead of picking random books for proofreading, we are choosing an author every month (based on the birth or death month) and doing proofreading works penned by the author.

CIS : How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?

Gitartha: The awareness about Wikisource in the community isn't that great reflecting the awareness of the general population. People are more aware of Wikipedia than Wikisource. We're trying to tell people about this project through facebook group, page and twitter. Some articles were published in news papers in the past which we'll have to do again. We'll also arrange some wikisource meets and workshops in near future.

CIS : We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?

Gitartha: Of late there has been a sharp growth in Assamese Wikisource due to active engagement of a number of users which we would like to sustain in the long term. We're planning to conduct the first Assamese wikisource workshop within a few months. Many new users have shown interest in this. Hopefully we'll get the guidance from CIS at every step. When the community grows we should be given a chance to hold a national level program such as TTT which will catch people's eyes and increase the number of contributors.

CIS : What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.

Gitartha: As a contributor the first challenge I faced in wikisource was its steep learning curve compared to wikipedia. It's one thing to do only the proofreading part, but Wikisource is much more than that. Checking copyright status, uploading, indexing, transcluding, formatting etc take some effort. So the new users have to be kept away from some of the processes. Another major challenge for me is get sufficient time for offline wiki activities which I'm unable to do now. Third major challenge for me is motivating people about developing project without any monetary benefit.

CIS : How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?

Gitartha:Our project is still in the nascent stage and so we're not yet having any social challenges. We hope we face such issues in the coming months with the growth of our community.

CIS : Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed.

Gitartha: I would like to consider all the works that I've contributed as remarkable and close to my heart. Though one rare book titled "ল'ৰা-ছোৱালীৰ ৰং-ঘৰীয়া খেল" (Lora-suwalir rong-ghariya khel) stands out. It was published in 1849 and teaches a large number of simple sports and physical activities including dance movements which can be practiced in schools. I found it in archive.org and transferred to commons before completing proofreading process with some other users.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Indic-Wikisource-Speak-Dr-Gitartha-Bordoloi

Indic Wikisource Speak: J. Balaji

jayanta — 2019-04-25T15:21:57Z

To perfectly proofread the content with matching styles it takes a lot of effort. Patience is the key. The formatting methods are in wikisource are different from Wikipedia. So wikipedians are finding it difficult to edit in wikisource without an introduction.The young generation are accessing the internet through Mobile. They don’t use laptops and computers much. Though mobile is good medium for creating multimedia content, they are poor in creating text. It is difficult to proofread wikisource using a mobile phone. The challenge is bringing the next generation proofreaders - Wiki-librarian J. Balaji share his experience.

CIS:Tell us about yourself, When did you join Wikimedia movement? And What are the projects you are involved in?

A: My name is J. Balaji. I am from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. I edit in wikis with the username Balajijagadesh. I am geoscientist by profession.

I joined in Wikipedia in 2009 though was using the Wikipedia from 2006. I remember how costly the books (encyclopaedias) back then. Even in libraries the encyclopaedias can only be read there itself. They don’t allow encyclopaedias for lending. Accessing knowing was costly and hassle. Suddenly I found Wikipedia which was free for anyone. Anyone can contribute too. I was fascinated by this idea. Wanted to make sure people in the future shouldn’t face problem like I did with costly encyclopaedias. From then I am a regular contributor to Wiki projects. I mostly edit in Tamil Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Wikidata and commons. Also sometimes in English Wikipedia and other projects out of interest

CIS: What are the methods or workflow you follow to contribute on your language Wikisource?

A: In 2016 in collaboration with Tamil Nadu government (Tamil Virtual Academy) about 2000+ books i.e. more than 4 lakh scanned pages were uploaded to commons. Then by the Google OCR (Optical Character Recognition) script written by T.Shrinivasan (those times OCR for indic languages were not available in Indian Languages) the OCR was done for the 4 lakh pages. Since the proof reading work is huge, I turned my efforts to Tamil wikisource. Since that was the first time proof reading was done in Tamil wikisource many templates were not available. Many templates were imported from other languages, help pages for other users were created, rules were framed. Now the system is maturing. Hence these days the typical work flow in proofreading, validating pages proofread by other people and transclusion of books completed. (Transclusion is a process by which the page wise content is placed in logical sections for easy reading of the public). Interested Tamil wikisource contributors have formed a telegram group. So I help other members with their problems, doubts etc in proofreading the wikisource. Also we have a collaborative proofreading project called “proofreading book of the month” where many people collaborate and work on a single book for a month. I participate in this too.

CIS:How is the awareness about Wikisource in your language Wikimedia community?

A: The awareness about wikisource in Tamil community is less compared to Tamil Wikipedia. We are trying to place many links from Wikipedia to wikisource. For example if there is an article about famous book we place a template which tells that the complete book is available in wikisource for reading. If there is an author page in Wikipedia whose work is available in wikisource we place a template which tells that the author’s works are available in wikisource. We have twitter and facebook account to increase awareness. In the future some training sessions are also planned to increase awareness and create interest

CIS:We see there’s a growth in Indic Wikisource movement (showing Amir’s stats), what kind of help does the community need to grow?

A: The community needs help in training. Because the editing methods and rules are slightly different from Wikipedia. Sometimes in can become tricky to edit in wikisource for those who come from Wikipedia. Second is the technical support regarding proofreading. Some of the proofreading methods are very complicated. For example, to create a family tree or flow chart is very tedious using complicated table formatting. Technical support would be of great help. Also support with respect to copyright status would be very helpful.

CIS: What are the challenges do you face while contributing to the project? Or social challenges while reaching out to authors or publishers.

A: To perfectly proofread the content with matching styles it takes a lot of effort. Patience is the key. The formatting methods are in wikisource are different from Wikipedia. So wikipedians are finding it difficult to edit in wikisource without an introduction. The young generation are accessing the internet through Mobile. They don’t use laptops and computers much. Though mobile is good medium for creating multimedia content, they are poor in creating text. It is difficult to proofread wikisource using a mobile phone. The challenge is bringing the next generation proofreaders.

Another major challenge is on the copyright side. The copyright status of the authors who have already passed away can be known only if the date of death is known from an authentic source. Many a times this information is missing. Hence there is difficult to judge if an author’s work is in public domain or not.

CIS: How would you describe the future of Wikisource? What are your personal goals for it?

A: The future of wikisource is optimistic. The support and interest is growing day by day. For example, the site views of Tamil wikisource was about 4000 views per day two years ago. It has now increased to 13,000 views in April 2019. The absolute page views of wikisource is very less compared to Wikipedia. Nevertheless it is an important project in the era of fake news and fake information. By documenting the source of printed information it increases the quality of references in Wikipedia. For example if a particular information in an article in Wikipedia quotes a book and the book is available in wikisource then it’s easy to cross verify the facts easily by anyone.

My personal goals for the wikisource is on two sides. One is to increase the number of books available for proofreading in wikisource platform. There is potential for 10,000 books to be uploaded in Tamil wikisource in a year’s time. Then proofreading the pages already in wikisource. With the current rate of proof reading it would be taking decades to complete the work. So the contribution need to be increased by arranging online/offline workshops, proofreading competitions, engaging of similar interested non-profit agencies for proofreading, proofreading education programs, etc.

CIS: Please share one remarkable work which is available at your domain and you had contributed.

A: I don’t want to beat my own trumpet by claiming my work as remarkable. One of the books proofread by me was close to my heart is சோழர் வரலாறு. The book is about history of Chola kings and kingdoms (A major kingdom with its capital in south of India) , documenting history from 300 B.C to 1200 A.D. I did proofreading and transcription for this books. Other few users too contributed for proofreading and validating the pages.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/indic-wikisource-speak-j-balaji

Eight Challenges That Indian-Language Wikipedias Need to Overcome

subha — 2016-03-29T17:05:36Z

Even after a decade of existence, Indian language Wikipedias are not yet known to many Indian language speakers. Wikipedia, being the largest available encyclopedia made in the human history, it what it is today because of the hundreds and thousands of volunteer-editors. But while native-language Wikipedias are becoming game-changers in other corners of the world, the scenario in India is skewed. In my experience, here are a number of challenges that Indian-language Wikipedias are currently facing.

The article was published in the Wire on March 17, 2016. A version of the article was also mirrored by Opensource.com on March 28, 2016.

1. Language communities:

The language communities of many of the Indian languages are such that many of them do not know how to search for information online, in their language typed in their script. Some of these communities even believe that because Google’s home page does not have their script, their language does not exist on the Internet. Starting with five Indian languages as the language of its interface, Google now has has nine Indian languages. But this does not stop a Santali or Manipuri user to search in Unicode Ol chiki (script for Santali) or in Unicode Meithei (script for Manipuri). Google or any search engine for that matter will display anything available in any script on the Internet. But the lack of this very thing is keeping many people away from being connected to the Internet in general and Wikipedia in particular.\

2. Wikipedia’s editor community:

Wikipedia is written by people like you and me. And from writing to editing everything happens voluntarily. As many people do not probably know, or do not try to learn, anybody can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. While these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages. In January this year, the Hindi Wikipedia, for instance, had only 89 editors while the total number of Hindi speakers would be over 550 million.

3. Language input in computers:

A vast majority of people in this country do not know how to type in their own language.. There is also little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing a proliferation of more computers and Internet access, native language input and several other essential training of basic computing are not widely taught in schools in all states. What is sad is that there is a wide variety of free software for native-language input and the challenges of typing in Indian languages that existed a few years back has almost gone.

4. Language input in mobile devices:

With over 1 billion people with mobile phones, the 15% internet penetration rate will soon grow at a faster pace. This in turn — and also tough competition that compel TSPs to drop data charges — will help many Indians get access to the Internet . If these people are not educated about native language input then they will be victims of the English-centric Internet rather than being able to enjoy the virtue of the same. Many Indians that have smartphones need full Indian language support and especially inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

5. Low availability of Indian-language content on the Internet:

Lack of native language content on the Internet is another major factor in the low adoption of Indian language Wikpedias. As per an Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is left behind from joining the online sphere simply because of lack of content in their languages. Take, for instance, my state odisha.While the Kerala government’s official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, the Odisha government’s tourism portal itself has no information in Odia-language today. Our languages are neglected largely in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media:

Many conventional media houses still continue to use non-standard variants of the ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems, instead of adopting the Unicode standard. Unicode being a global standard, and having the advantage of unifying the world, has been available for Indian languages for almost 25 years now. But much of our vernacular print media has failed to adopt this. Consequently, many popular Indian-language newspapers are yet to become available in Unicode on the open Internet.

7. Lack of Open Access:

Majority of the information produced on the Internet in general and by the government, in particular, are mostly copyrighted. The paywalled garden of copyright restrictions keeps the information closed and stop people from sharing and learning more. On the contrary, Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which allows anyone to make use of the content and even distribute commercial copies of its content. The idea of opening up information for masses in a free license could make information reach millions of people.

8. People with disabilities:

Many people cannot read, speak and write. India has over 60 million people with some form of hearing impairment. There is a desperate need for a high-quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engine for people with physical disabilities. Also, these software products have to be free software so that common people, that cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS, can contribute to Wikipedia in their language. Many text-to-speech engines that are available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is difficult for common speakers to use them.

Subhashish Panigrahi is an educator and free knowledge evangelist, and currently works for Communications, Program Capacity & Learning at Wikimedia Foundation, and Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society. Portions of this article came from a speech that Panigrahi gave at BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival in New Delhi.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-wire-march-17-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-eight-challenges-that-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome

8 Challenges In Growing Indian-Language Wikipedias

praskrishna — 2016-06-18T17:11:05Z

While speaking at BHASHA: Indian Languages Digital Festival, a day-long discourse at New Delhi on Indian languages and their state in new media, especially digital platforms, I touched upon Wikipedia in Indian languages. Most people, in fact, do not even know that Wikipedia exists in many Indian languages.

The article was first published in Huffington Post on March 19, 2016. This was cross-posted in Medianama titled as Multiple key factors preventing Indic Wikipedia growth on March 21, 2016.

I personally did not know about the Odia Wikipedia until 2011 when a friend told me about its existence. Back then the project was completely inactive. And then a couple of friends and I started contributing, and the project grew to what it is today. The site now has more than 300,000 visitors every month and it is the most-visited Odia language site on the internet. Other languages, I believe, could follow a similar trajectory on Wikipedia, but there are several challenges along the way.

Many people do not even know how to search for information online in their own language, typed in its script.

1. Ignorance of language communities

Many people do not even know how to search for information online in their own language, typed in its script. Some even share that because Google's home page does not have their script it means that their language does not exist on the internet. This ignorance perpetuates the gap.

2.Wikipedia's editor community

Wikipedia, as you all know, is written and edited by people like you and me who volunteer their efforts. Many people probably do not know or do not try to learn that they themselves can correct the mistakes and inaccuracies that exist in many Wikipedia articles and become editors. The Wikipedia editor communities for several Indian languages are really small. When these languages are spoken by millions of people, only a handful of editors contribute in editing the Wikipedia in these languages.

3.Language input in computers

A vast majority of people in this country do not know how to type in their own language. There is also little documentation for users to learn about language input. Even though many government-run schools in India are seeing more computers and internet, native language input is not widely. However, there is a lot of free software for language input and the challenges of typing in Indian language that existed a few years back have almost gone. You just have to look for the right tools.

4. Language input in mobile devices

With over 1 billion people with mobile phones, the 15% internet penetration rate will soon grow. This in turn will help a lot many Indians to get access to the internet. If these people are not educated about native language input then they will be unnecessarily constricted by the English-centric internet. Many Indians that have smartphones need inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

Many Indians that have smartphones need inbuilt input methods to be able to contribute in their own language Wikipedia.

5. Low availability of Indian-language content on the Internet

Lack of native language content on the Internet bars many from accessing knowledge. As per the Internet and Mobile Association of India survey conducted in 2012, over 6% of the population is deterred from going online because of lack of content in their languages. Take the example of my state. When the Kerala government's official tourism portal is available in Odia and other Indian languages, the Odisha government's tourism portal has no information in Odia language today. Our languages are neglected in our own states.

6. Mismatch of conventional and new media

Many conventional media houses still use non-standard variants of ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems instead of adopting the Unicode standard. Unicode being a global standard and having the advantage of unifying the world has been available for Indian languages for about 25 years now. But many of our traditional media have failed to adopt this. Many popular Indian-language newspapers are yet to become available in Unicode.

7. Lack of open access

Most of the information produced on the internet in general and by the government, in particular, is copyrighted. The paywalled garden of copyright restrictions keeps the information closed and stops people from sharing and learning more. On the contrary, Wikipedia is available under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license which allows anyone to make use of the content and even distribute commercial copies of it. The idea of opening up information for the masses in a free license could make the information reach millions of people.

Many conventional media houses still use non-standard variants of ASCII/ISCII script encoding systems instead of adopting the Unicode standard.

8. People with disabilities

Many people cannot read, speak and write. India has over 60 million people with hearing impairment. There is a need for a good quality text-to-speech and speech-to-text engine for people with physical disabilities. Also, these software products have to be free so that common people who cannot afford to buy expensive proprietary software like JAWS can contribute to Wikipedia in their language. Many text-to-speech engines that are available today for Indian languages sound so mechanical that it is tough for common speakers to use them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/huffington-post-march-19-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-8-challenges-in-growing-indian-language-wikipedias

8th IBA International Conference

praskrishna — 2016-04-04T15:32:54Z

The 8th IBA International Conference was organized by Indus Business Academy in Bengaluru from March 24 to 26, 2016. The theme of the conference was Taking India to Greater Heights. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Democratizing of Knowledge Access- Case of Regional Language Wikipedia.

India’s journey since independence has been eventful. The long struggle against colonialism left Indian private capital in a poor state. The Government intervention was essential and hence there was a need for the public sector. Experiments with socialism and national planning turned out to be a mixed success. The 1991 crisis propelled India towards a market driven economy. Politically, its unpopularity reverted India to a state of socialism once again. The 2014 elections have renewed interest in a market driven economy.

Indian achievements have been sizable. The successful Mars Mission, Agni mission, Green Revolution, White Revolution, IT industry growth all demonstrate the positive achievements that India has made in the last 60 odd years. In recent months, across the world, there is a renewed interest in India.

Yet we can hardly be complacent. The lowering oil prices, conflict in the Middle East, slowdown in Chinese economy, fears of Russian expansionism, decline in European growth, concerns about the state of US economy and rising trends in terrorism have created turbulence across different parts of the world. India cannot be immune to these changes.

India’s response can manifest itself in multiple forms. There could be rapid expansion of defence procurement and preparedness both on external as well as internal fronts. It could involve building alliances with countries aligned strategically to Indi’s interests.

It could manifest through the rapid growth of manufacturing sector. The services sector could move higher in the value chain. The spillovers generated by the establishment of industries could spawn a major entrepreneurial ecosystem.

With the UN approval to celebrate International Yoga Day, India’s soft spiritual power is also rising in the horizon. Indian philosophical and ideological thoughts are getting renewed interest across different parts of the world. Indian talent, youth demographics etc. have literally placed India on the centre stage. No doubt, exciting times are ahead.

This Conference aims to deliberate on such changes and suggest ways and means to leverage this growing interest in India and identify the new perspectives emerging in Business, Management, Leadership and Consciousness as a result of these changes.

The schedule for 8th IBA International Conference can be accessed here. More info on the event here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/8th-iba-international-conference

Otago Southland are the Coolest

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:06:13Z

LIANZA Otago Southland are delighted to announce our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi (@subhapa), from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme, will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision of Guerilla GLAM, describe case studies of these initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.

This was published by Library and Information Association of New Zealand. The submission was accepted for Wikimania 2015.

Subha believes “this presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.”

Read more about Subha and the abstract for his talk here https://blogs.otago.ac.nz/openotago/2015/10/06/how-to-do-guerilla-glam/

Please share this event with your other GLAM networks!

Event Details

How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa <https://twitter.com/subhapa>Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT In Dunedin: Conference Room 3, 1st floor University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin<http://www.otago.ac.nz/library/locations/#central>

Online: via Adobe Connect<https://connect.otago.ac.nz/sarah/?launcher=false>. [No software required, just click the link and sign in as a guest. Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen] The session will be recorded.

Pre - presentation preparation - entirely optional

If you’re planning on attending Subhashish’s webinar and want to know more about using Wikipedia in your GLAM, you might be interested in watching this first.

This blog post from Alex Stinson<https://twitter.com/sadads> from the Wikimedia Foundation<https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>, entitled "Librarian as Teacher: ways to use Wikipedia"<http://interlibnet.org/2015/10/07/librarian-as-teacher-ways-to-use-wikipedia/>, specifically regarding her discussion about GLAM-wiki
A recording of the September webcast by Phoebe Ayers<http://if%20you%E2%80%99re%20planning%20on%20attending%20subhashish%E2%80%99s%20webinar%20and%20want%20to%20know%20more%20about%20using%20wikipedia%20in%20your%20glam%2C%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20watching%20this%20first./>, a librarian at MIT and former member of the Wikimedia Foundation’s Board of Trustees about the basics of editing Wikipedia especially for Librarians.https://join.onstreammedia.com/play/sparc/7087-edit-a-thon-training-09.30

How to do Guerilla GLAM

Open Access Week (19-25 October) is fast approaching and we have a number of events in store – one I’m keen to tell you about now is a webinar we have planned entitled, “How to do Guerilla GLAM”.

Our speaker, Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa, from the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge programme will be tuning in via the interwebs from India to share his vision, case studies of Guerilla GLAM initiatives in India, as well as touching on the creation of documentaries, learning resources and promotional material from acquired content.

GLAM = Galleries Libraries Archives and Museums
Guerilla Glam = “getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.”

Details of the event

How to do Guerilla GLAM / Subhashish Panigrahi @subhapa
Tuesday 20 October, 3.00pm NZDT
Conference Room 3, 1st floor University of Otago Central Library, 65 Albany Street, Dunedin
Or join us via Adobe Connect. [Please ensure you are logged in before 3pm and have read the participant notes on screen]

We will be recording this session and Subha has given permission for us to make the recording and his slides available here on the blog. We encourage participants to ask questions via the chat facility in Adobe Connect, or to tweet questions using #OAWeek #AOASG.

Abstract
Building partnership with galleries, libraries, archives and museums (collectively known as GLAM institutions) is a great way of funneling the cultural content acquisition and bringing open access to such valuable data. But it is not that easy given the complications each country has in terms of formal agreement, organizational framework, etc. This presentation will detail about the learning curve of institutional partnership building, leveraging personal contacts in small scale GLAM projects and bringing in several indie-projects to cut implication cost, and execute low-cost models.

During this presentation I will present two case studies of contrasting nature: India’s first GLAM project at the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, and various small-scale collaborative projects. Where the first one would have learning from the six months long project, the second one will draw inspirations from many initiatives that have really no cost or low cost implication and less implementation time involved.

At times, institutional collaborations become liabilities and labor intensive with low Return on Investment. Training staff and implementing GLAM projects are not always easy and retaining contributors is a challenge. Alternatively Guerrilla GLAM could be thought of when having a Wikimedian-in-Residence is not feasible. This presentation will be useful for those who can mobilize a small team of volunteers equipped with digital camera, access to local cultural institutions and some level of expertise of curating data.

Making documentaries and building narratives based on acquired content to creating learning resources and promotional materials will be another aspect of this presentation. Building partnerships with many federal or private institutions also needs sustained long-term engagement and volunteer time is not always enough to devote for a long term GLAM project. This presentation will detail about going the guerrilla way to acquire data from GLAM institutions. This will involve low cost models, leveraging various factors, and getting the most out from cultural institutions where collaboration and long term engagement has high cost and time implications.

About Subhashish

Subhashish Panigrahi is an India based educator, author, blogger, Wikimedian, language activist and free knowledge evangelist. Earlier with Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program and currently at the Centre for Internet and Society‘s Access To Knowledge program, Panigrahi works on building partnership with universities, language research and GLAM (Gallery, Library, Archive and Museums) organizations for bringing more scholarly and encyclopedic content under free licenses, designing outreach programs for South Asian language Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects and communities.

The other hats he wears are as the Editor for Global Voices Odia, Community Moderator of Opensource.com, and Ambassador for India in OpenGLAM Local, Juror of 2015 American Alliance of Museum Muse Awards, and member of OER 2016 Standing Committee. He has presented in various Indian and international conferences on the free knowledge, GLAM and Open Access movement. Panigrahi has authored of “Rising Voices: Indigenous language Digital Activism” in Digital Activism in Asia Reader and was winner of the 2015 Opensource.com People’s Choice Award. Subhashish is available on Twitter at @subhapa and over email at psubhashishatgmaildotcom for more discussion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/guerilla-glam

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ଆବଶ୍ୟକତା ସମାଜ

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:11:10Z

Odia Wikisource, a sister project of Odia Wikipedia and a free online Odia-language library is celebrating its first anniversary in Bhubaneswar tomorrow. Available online at or.wikisource.org, the project finally went live in last year on October 20 after being incubated over two years.

In a nutshell, it not just provides free and open access to readers to access text that are out of copyright or available under free license, but also allows them to contribute in either digitizing copyright-free text or correcting mistakes made by others. All the contributors to the project are volunteers and are fondly called "uikiali" in Odia. These volunteers follow certain guidelines to check through the content digitized by others to make sure there is no copyrighted text posing copyright violation, correct typos and other grammatical mistakes and incorrect attribution. Authors and copyright holders are also encouraged to provide permission in re-licensing their work under free licenses like CC-BY/CC-by-SA licenses so that some of their content becomes available online and fill the large gap of the Odia books online to some extent. "Last year, the Wikimedia community in Odisha did a remarkable job in bringing as many as 141 books from multiple authors relicensed under the above mentioned licenses" said the Centre for Internet and Society's Programme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi. "Where we, as an institution, could play a role in reaching out to many authors and convincing them for a small contribution to the society" added Panigrahi.

Click to read the full story published by Full Odisha on October 25, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/b13b21b3cb3fb06-b09b07b15b3fb2ab3eb20b3eb17b3eb30b30-b06b2cb36b4db5fb15b24b3e-b38b2eb3eb1c

Odia Wikisource Celebrates 1st Anniversary this 25th October

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:10:22Z

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ୧ମ ଜନ୍ମତିିଥି (Odia Wikisource’s 1st anniversary):

ଆଗାମୀ ୨୫ ତାରିଖ ଦିନ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଠାଗାର “ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର”କୁ ବର୍ଷେ ପୂରିବାକୁ ଯାଉଛି । ଏଥି ନିମନ୍ତେ ଆମେ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରରେ ପାଳୁଛୁ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାରର ପ୍ରଥମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି । ଆଉ ଏ ଉତ୍ସବରେ ଯୋଗଦେବା ଲାଗି ଆପଣଙ୍କୁ ରହିଲା ବିନୀତ ମାଗୁଣି, ଆସିବେ ନିଶ୍ଚେ । ଅଧିକ କିଛି ଜାଣିବାକୁ ଚାହିଁଲେ ଆମ ସହ odiawiki@gmail ରେ ମେଲ ଯୋଗେ ଯୋଗାଯୋଗ କରିପାରିବେ । ଧନ୍ୟବାଦ!

This was published by Bhubaneswar (Buzz) on October 24, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/bhubaneswarbuzz-odia-wikisource-celebrates-1st-anniversary-this-25th-october