Centre for Internet and Society

Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad

nitika — 2013-01-07T16:30:36Z

The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet & Society was approached by Gaurav Prashar, Assistant Dean at Inmantec College, Ghaziabad to organize a Wikipedia workshop. Accordingly, a workshop was organized on October 17, 2012.

It was quite overwhelming to see the amount of effort the institution had put in to organize this event. It took place in a large auditorium which was well equipped with all modern facilities like projector, internet, good sound system, each student had a laptop with access to stable internet connection.

Over 120 participants attended the workshop including MCA, BCA, BBA students and faculty members. The workshop included a brief introduction about - what is Wikipedia, who edits Wikipedia, why do they edit Wikipedia, how can one contribute to Wikipedia articles. The presentation was followed by a hands on editing training session where some participants created usernames and tried minor editing.

During the session participants also created a new article, Inmantec, and have taken it as a challenge to edit and improve this article over the period of next one month.

Participants listening to the proceedings at the Wikipedia workshop

The session was highly interactive and students asked a lot of queries regarding other projects supported by Wikimedia Foundation, when and who started Wikipedia, the demographics of existing Wikipedia editors, edit wars, collaborative editing, how they can participate in other activities organized by the A2K team and more.

Towards the end of the session many students showed interest to organize a follow up workshop where they could get to know about Wikipedia Clubs and how they could initiate one at Inmantec college.

Overall, the workshop was a huge success. The A2K team will be in regular touch with the participants through mail and Facebook to provide editing support. The participants will also be sent regular invites about Wikipedia events organised in NCR. The follow up session might be organized sometime in the month of November. Please watch out for more updates.

Presentation being given during Wikipedia workshop held in Ghaziabad

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad

Wikipedia Visual Editor

nitika — 2013-07-11T06:14:00Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/visual-editor.pdf

Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa

nitika — 2013-07-26T11:33:29Z

A three hour Wikipedia workshop was organized by the Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi, in the morning of December 14, 2012 at St. Xavier's College in Mapusa, Goa. Over 30 participants attended the session.

The workshop started with a short introductory presentation followed by a learning session on how to edit the Wikipedia. Since there were lesser number of computers, participants were divided in groups of 2 or 3 at the maximum. Each group made at least 3 edits with the help of volunteers present in the room.

A follow up session will be organised in January or February of 2013 to organise an edit-a-thon for all the interested and enthusiastic participants.

A special thanks to everyone who helped organising this event, especially to Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick, Debanjan - all from the Wikipedia family and Nitin Volvoikar, the Head of Journalism Department from St. Xavier's.


Above is a picture of the whole group of participants at the St.Xavier's College at Mapusa, Goa

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa

Wiki Women's Day in Goa

nitika — 2013-03-19T06:32:25Z

International Women's Day (IWD), also called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8, every year. There were a series of Wikipedia events organised this year with the aim of increasing participation of women contributing to Wikipedia. One such event was organised by the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikimedia India Chapter at the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College in Panaji, Goa on March 8, 2013.

NIE is a respected institution providing pre- and in-service teacher education to thousands of teachers and about a 100 of them (99 per cent of the participants being women) joined in to learn Wikipedia editing and increase women related content on Wikipedia.

Rohini Lakshane from the Wikimedia India Chapter and Nitika Tandon from Access to Knowledge, CIS lead the session jointly. The session began with the introduction of Wikipedia, Wikipedia volunteers, the five pillars, motivation of volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia tirelessly and a brief of different activities that are being organised to strengthen the Wikimedia movement in India. Most of the students and faculty members were curious about two main things:

How to integrate the new community of editors in Goa with the larger Indian and global community?
How can teachers and students use Wikipedia to advance students' knowledge and add useful content to Wikipedia?

Participants watching Netha's video	To answer the first part, participants were informed about regular Wiki meet ups in different cities, several city based and language based Wikipedia mailing lists where one can find volunteer friends, active use of user talk pages and village pumps, Wikimedia India Facebook page amongst many others. To address the second part there was also a brief discussion about wiki project classroom coordination with specific examples from universities around the world. The teachers and faculty members will be sent a detailed outline of the program, list of universities with on-going projects, list of teachers who have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool and are willing to serve as a contact to help others set up a similar teaching courses.

The session was planned to go on until late evening with hands on editing in the computer lab. But unfortunately, we (Rohini and Nitika) were informed that the session will have to close before the scheduled closing time as participants had to leave. Except for two or three participants coming on stage and making their user accounts and another 3-4 article edits, we couldn't include more editing as a part of the outreach session, primarily due to time constraint. We're hoping that at a small percentage of participants would try actual editing at home and contribute to women related articles and some of them will be successful in using Wikipedia as a teacher's tool. We have their contact details and we'll try and monitor their on Wiki activities and provide them support whenever needed.


A picture of participants doing Wiki editing at the NIE workshop in Goa

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa

Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator

nitika — 2013-12-31T10:56:22Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) in collaboration with the Goa University is working to build Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this program it organised the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Program recently.

Konkani Wikipedia Editor, Varsha Kavlekar, talks about her experience with Konkani Wikipedia Incubator.

Video


Above: Varsha speaks about Konkani Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/varsha-kavlekar-konkani-wikipedia-incubator

Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction

nitika — 2013-01-25T06:30:54Z

Last month, on December 12 and 13, 2012, the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet & Society along with Wikipedia community members organized a two-day workshop for M.A. and Ph.D. students at the Goa University. Nitika Tandon participated in the event and shares with us the developments.

All efforts invested in discussions and planning the workshop over multiple mail trails, conference calls, one-on-one calls paid off extremely well. Over 35 participants attended the two-days workshop and thoroughly enjoyed the sessions.

Most of the participants had already created their usernames before the first session, as it was instructed to them earlier, though there were some participants who created their user accounts during the session. Despite creating a ticket for releasing the IP from the "seven accounts creation limit" we ran into an IP block. This was the second time we encountered such a problem. We will look more closely into this matter for smoother operations in future.

It was pre-decided by the organisers that the first session will be theoretical while the second session will be a complete hands-on-traning session. Hence, the first session started with a general introduction about Wikipedia, the five pillars, how Wikipedia works, a brief introduction about the Wikipedia community, and the state of Wikipedia in India.

The following day participants pre-selected articles that they wanted to edit during the course of the second session. They were taught how to do minor edits, add edit summary, add references, view history and page statistics, and also briefed about the importance of publishing articles, and user talk pages.

The two day long workshop came to an end with a meeting organized by all the participants to decide what should be their next steps. The workshop created a lot of enthusiasm in the participants. They got to know how individual researchers and professors build pages on Wikipedia, and they too can start by contributing one page at a time. They also showed keen interest to understand how monthly meet-ups are organised in other cities so that they could also organise meet-ups in Goa starting 2013 (the proposed date was January 16, 2013 — when Wikipedia's anniversary can be celebrated).

The feedback received from the participants was extremely positive. In the meanwhile there have been some discussion about forthcoming workshops — we have already received inquires from five more institutes to organize similar events in Goa. It seems like the initial seeds have been sown for a flourishing Wikipedia community in Goa.

A special thanks to Prof. Alito Siqueira from Department of Sociology Goa University, Harriet Vidyasagar from OLPC, Prof. Gopakumar from Goa University, Debanjan and Frederick from Wikipedia community and the CIS team for making this workshop a huge success.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/two-day-wiki-workshop-in-goa-university

Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K

nitika — 2013-10-30T06:07:24Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) opened applications for the post of Programme Officer, Pilot Projects for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme on 17th April 2013. The vacancy and call for applications was shared on all Indian language mailing lists, city mailing lists as well as Village Pumps.

Last date of submitting applications was 30th April which was later extended for another week. By the first week of May we had received 35 applications.

First level of shortlisting
Applicants were given an assignment where they had to write at least one new article on their respective language Wikipedia projects (though we encouraged them to write more than one article if they liked). Asking them to write new articles on Wikipedia was a way to assess their seriousness and level of commitment towards this job. Applicants who failed to submit their written assignment were outright rejected in this level. Amongst the ones that did complete the assignment were assessed on the basis of their relevant work experience and skills that matched requirements of the job profile. CIS-A2K assessed these applicants on different parameters such as:

Exposure to digital domain
Exposure in community driven projects
Exposure of working with schools of performing arts or cultural departments
Prior experience of working in multi-cultural environment
Prior experience in program design and management
Exposure to Wikimedia projects and community
Technical work experience

In this level, 9 applicants were rejected due to failure of completing the assignment and 1 applicant pulled out. Out of the remaining 25 applicants, CIS-A2K shortlisted 15.

Second level of shortlisting
Vishnu and Nitika conducted one hour Skype interviews with each of the shortlisted candidates. CIS-A2K tried to assess candidates on their:

Understanding and passion for Wikimedia movement and projects

Level of understanding of the job profile

Level of understanding of open source, open access, open standards.

Clarity of thinking and communication skills

Ability to work with teams and communities

Experience / understanding of community mobilisation & outreach

Skills in project management

Comfort with working in unstructured environments

Ability to learn new things and approach unfamiliar situations

Personal passions and interests

On the basis of Skype conversations, CIS-A2K shortlisted 6 candidates out of 15 for the next level.

Third level of shortlisting
At this stage one more applicant pulled out and remaining 5 were called for personal interviews to our Bangalore office. All participants were requested to come prepared to present on the topic of 'Performing Arts and Wikipedia' for 10 mins. Each interview lasted for approximately an hour. Towards the closure of the day all participants were requested to gather where each one of them showcased their presentations. This further led to an interesting group discussion.

CIS-A2K had requested Wikimedia India to select someone from the Chapter who could be involved in the selection process and we're glad that Sowmyan Tirumurti, Executive Manager of Wikimedia Chapter could join us for a little while on the day of personal interviews.

Final Selection
Based on all the parameters and levels of interviews, CIS-A2K decided to extend the offer to Syed Muzammiluddin for the position of Programme Officer - Pilot Projects. Muzammil's experience, skills and interest matched our requirements the best and we look forward to a long and successful relationship with him.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/selection-of-programme-officer-pilot-projects-a2k

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0

nitika — 2013-11-04T12:14:03Z

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.

Introduction

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 CC (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.

Goa University and CIS-A2K have signed an MoU to work together to digitize “Konkani Vishwakosh” under Creative Common license and build a Digital Knowledge Partnership in order to enhance digital literacy in the Konkani language and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and disseminate the same free of cost through Kokani Wikipedia (currently under incubation). Gos University and CIS-A2K will co-design and jointly implement relevant training programmes to achieve this objective during the months of Oct-Dec 2013. Information from the Vishwakosh will also be used to write articles on Konakni Wikipedia by the volunteers.

CIS-A2K is grateful for the support and encouragement received from the Goa University Vice-Chancellor Dr. Satish Shetye; Prof. Alito Siqueira; Prof. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; Dr. Madhavi Sardesai; Dr. Gopakumar; and other faculty of Goa University.

We are also equally grateful to Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar and Frederick Noronha who have engaged with CIS-A2K team and been a constant source of support.

Snippets from the Event

"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.
“Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public,” said Satish Shetye, Vice-Chancellor of Goa University, speaking at the launch of the project.
"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," said Vishnu Vardhan from Access to Knowlesge Programme.
"The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.
“This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.” GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said.

Press Coverage

Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26 (The Times of India, September 24, 2013).
Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow (The Hindu, September 25, 2013).
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months (The Times of India, September 27, 2013).
For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language (by Joanna Lobo, DNA, September 29, 2013).
Konkani Wikipedia in the making (by Prakash Kamat, The Hindu, September 29, 2013).
Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months (Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013).
Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia (by Apurva Chaudhary, Medianama, September 30, 2013).

Invitation

http://bit.ly/1aCQ8hW

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/re-release-konkani-vishwakosh-under-cc-by-sa-3.0

Promoting GLAM in Goa

nitika — 2013-07-26T11:27:22Z

We organised an introductory Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAM) session at Goa State Central Library on December 13, 2012. It was well attended by about 45 interested people coming from over 10 different GLAM institutes in Goa.

Nitika Tandon from CIS and Debanjan from Pune community led the session about Wikipedia and GLAM activities that have been undertaken by our global community since 2010. The talk instilled a lot of enthusiasm in librarians and curators in Goa to start similar programs in their associated institutes.

Some of the institutes attending the session were: Museum of Christian Art, Goa Chitra, Bookworm Library, K.S. Goa State Library, GTL Bicholini, and DFLG District Library. Participants had a lot of interesting questions about starting GLAM projects in English, Marathi and Konkani, starting point of the project, logistical/financial support required to run a GLAM project, etc.

To begin with we'll be meeting Victor Hugos Gomes from Goa Chitra who has shown keen interest to start a GLAM project. Goa Chitra showcases the rich tradition of implements, tools, arts and crafts. Goa Chitra has archived Goa's cultural heritage through documents, books, photographs, handicrafts, electronic recordings, costumes, musical instruments, and artifacts. In the coming weeks we'll be following up with Goa Chitra and more institutions to figure out the possibility of starting new projects in 2013.

Audio

Here's an audio recording of the entire event: http://bit.ly/XEmylE


A GLAM lecture at Goa Central Library

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/promoting-glam-in-goa

Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects

nitika — 2013-12-31T11:04:59Z

Video


Above: Participant of Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project, Pooja Tople, talks about her experiences with Wikimedia Projects

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/pooja-tople-wikipedia-projects

Marathi Wiki Workshop at Tata Institute of Social Sciences

nitika — 2013-02-04T04:55:56Z

The Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is taking up a number of activities and conducting workshops focusing on Indian languages across cities. A series of workshops in Marathi, Kannada and Bangla have been planned with Wikipedia sessions in each of these events.

The Marathi workshop was organised on December 8, 2012 at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). It was a three-hour workshop.

Following preparations were made before the session:

Yogesh Khandke and Kartik Nadar from Mumbai community visited the venue three days prior to check technical requirements.
Programme participants were suggested to select a subject of their choice and find sufficient resources to add information during the course of the event. This proved to be extremely helpful and an efficient way. Participants didn't spend any time looking for resources during the event; they were already ready with the content they wanted to add.
Programme participants were requested to create usernames before they came for the session.
A tailored presentation was made ready.
A ticket was raised to release the IP address of TISS computer labs. Despite the ticket being resolved the IP address got blocked after creation of seven accounts. We will be looking deeper into this problem to make sure that we do not face such issue again.
Multiple conference calls were organised between the conductors — Yogesh, Nikita and Nitika.

Details of the event

The morning session of this workshop focused on digital humanities and social sciences research, and exposed students to different kinds of resources. The afternoon session focused on Wikipedia literacy and Marathi-language computing. There were be about 25 participants (MA and PhD level) and 5 conductors - Yogesh, Nikita, Moksh, Kartik and Nitika.

Nikita gave a brief 40 minutes introduction about Wikipedia using a presentation followed by a hands on session which was led by Yogesh and supported by rest of the conductors. Many of the participants were comfortable with Marathi computing while some were struggling. There were a few participants who were editing in other languages including Hindi and Malayalam. Kartik & Moksh jointly led the session with educating participants about Wikimark ups, page view stats, article and user talk pages. Rest of the conductors pitched in with insightful examples, comments and answers. The participants raised some really interesting questions and were completely involved the workshop. Several participants showed interest to organise similar workshops at other institutes they are connected with.

—

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss

Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University

nitika — 2013-07-26T11:43:37Z

The Assamese Wikipedia community has shown a rapid growth in the past six months from 20 active editors in January 2012 to 29 active editors in June 2012. The absolute numbers might seem low but in terms of percentages its an overwhelming increment of 45 per cent.

This increment can partly be credited to the photography and article contest, conducting workshops at various educational institutions and organic community growth.

Though Assamese Wikipedia is still a small project with about 1600 articles, the Assamese Wikipedians have the drive, willingness and zest to get more editors and multiply their community. Their enthusiasm and determination has led them to start with an Assamese Wikipedia Education Program. The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 masters students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, Guwahati University.

The day before the launch some of the Assamese Wikipedia editors including Jyoti and Durbhajyoti met to design and alter the Wikipedia Education Program for Assamese Wikipedia. It was decided that the entire program will be divided in four different stages which are as follows:

Stage 1: Introduction to Wikipedia + Introduction to Education Program + Assamese typing
Stage 2: Editing Assamese Wikipedia
Stage 3: Advanced editing including adding references, headers, TOC and wiki markups
Stage 4: Concluding the Education Program

In accordance with each of these stages there will be set of deliverables expected out of the students which are as follows:

Deliverable 1: Create Wikipedia user accounts and user pages
Deliverable 2: Submit a two-page typed article in Assamese
Deliverable 3: Students will select one article each and start editing their articles
Deliverable 4: Students will continue enhancing their articles and will start adding references, wiki markups and pictures, if desired.

Assamese Wikipedia Education Program initiated in Guwahati University

On Oct 14, 2012 at 11 a.m., the program was initiated with an introduction about Assamese Wikipedia and Wikipedia Education Program. Students were completely thrilled with the idea of them contributing to Wikipedia articles and created their usernames during the session. Since students were not familiar with Assamese typing a larger part of the session was dedicated to teach students on how to type in Assamese using Rudali. As a deliverable, students will be submitting two-page article typed in Assamese on paper before the first week of November. Thereafter, a second in-class session will be organized where students will be taught editing Assamese Wikipedia.

Students learn Assamese typing using typing tool Rudali.

All the students have willingly enrolled themselves in the program and have not been forced by the faculty members. Indeed, three students were not studying in Guwahati University but still wanted to be a part of the Assamese Education Program. A loud cheer and good wishes to the Assamese Wikipedia community!

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program

Konkani Wikipedia Advances in 4 Days — From 90 Articles to 130 Articles!

nitika — 2013-09-03T10:37:15Z

There has been a rise of article contributions to the Konkani Wikipedia in a span of 4 days following a 4 day programme organized by the CIS-A2K team for M.A. students from the Konkani Department, Goa University at the Central State Library, Goa from August 21 to 24, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the event.

The original details posted on the meta page can be viewed here.

Introduction

There are 30 lakh Konkani speakers spread across the Konkani belt of Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra. Only a few are aware of the existence of an open source project, Konkani Wikipedia, that can help them preserve their language and culture. The project has been in incubation since its inception in 2006 and had 90 articles till last week — an incomparable number in English Wikipedia, which has 4.3 million articles. However, CIS-A2K teams effort in Goa to strengthen Konkani Wikipedia project and community has finally started to show some tangible results. As a follow up to the early workshops and orientations we organized this latest programme to help the students make themselves familiar in editing and contributing articles to Konkani Wikipedia.

We started the event with a demonstration on the basics of editing the Wikipedia followed by a brief discussion about Konkani Wikipedia and the editing session. Besides these we had fun activities and wiki quiz.

Highlights of the Workshop

A total of 38 students from the Konkani Department took part in this workshop. Forty-three new articles were created and added to Konkani Wikipedia in the 4-day event.
During the first couple of days, 22 students generated 42 pages of print material and in the last two days, 16 students generated 56 pages of printed material.
A total of 987 edits were made and 41 references were added on Konkani Wikipedia.
The students added a total of 3,90,040 bytes of data; an average of 10KB data was added by each student.
Students wrote articles on varied topics such as Goan folk dances, eminent personalities, festivals, folk music, proverbs, food items, theater, etc.


Pictured above: Participants at the Konkani Wiki editing workshop in Goa University. Picture credit: Subhashish Panigrahi

Articles and Participants

Phase 1 (Day 1 and Day 2)

1	धालो	Varsha Kavlekar
2	केळशीची फमाद दर्यादेग	Mona Rodrigues
3	देखणी	Fernandes Sandra
4	गोयच्यों परबो	Komal Dhuri
5	जागर्	Cliffa Fernandes
6	गोंयचे पारंपारीक वेवसाय	Abigail Dias
7	गोंयचें मुखेल जेवण	Effa Dias
8	चवथ	Shanta Gaundalkar
9	कुंकळ्ळेची चळवळ	Dias Neves
10	राणेचे बंड	Fay Fernandes
11	रविंद्र केळेकार	Gaurisha Phal Desai
12	गोंयचे पारंपारीक खेळ	Safira Ferns
13	शणै गोयबाब	Pratima Fal Desai
14	मांडो	Anisha Gad
15	संगीत	Santoshi Kole
16	म्हणी,ओपारी	Pooja Kavlekar
17	मोसिन्योर दाल्गाद- जीण आनी वावर	Sukhada Daikar
18	कोंकणी तियात्राचीं कांतारां	Konknni mogi 24
19	कोंकणी लोककाणयो, कोंकणी सिनेमा	Supriya Kankumbikar
20	गोवा कोंकणी अकादेमी, कोंकणी भाशा मंडळ	Vaishali Parab
21	कोंकणी नाटक	Darshan Kandolkar
22	विश्व कोंकणी केंद्र	John Noronha

Phase 2 (Day 3 and Day 4)

1	गोंयचें लोक नाच	Pooja Tople
2	गोंयची जातीय वेवस्था, गोंय मुक्ती उपरान्तचो इतिहास	Priyanka Kudaskar
3	दिवाळी,शिरगांवची जात्रा	Pritam Barve
4	गोंयची लोकगितां	Rusita Paryekar
5	हिंदूच्या सणपरबांचें जिन्नस	Gauri Prabhugaonkar
6	लोकवादय़ा	Suma Parab Gaonkarr
7	गाराणें	Darshana Mandrekar
8	तुळशीलग्न	Heefza
9	बारसो	Nikita Prabhu
10	कोंकणी कथा	Marizma Mascarenhas
11	गोंयचीं क्रिस्तावांचीं काजारां	Linette Saldanha
12	बेबींक	Frania Pereira
13	तियात्र	Rhakee Santos
14	गोंयचे तियात्रिस्त	Pereira Goreti
15	कुळबी समाजाच्यो परबो	Rubiya Komarpant
16	कोंकणीतलें पयलें बरप	Savidha Talekar

Media Coverage

Wikipedia writes a new script (by Joyce Dias, The Goan, August 24, 2013)
Konkani Wikipedia makes headway (by Diana Fernandes, OHeraldO, August 24, 2013)

Learnings

Pre-course work : Participants were asked to do pre-course work before the actual event. This included creating Wikipedia usernames, selecting articles they wanted to edit, writing their articles in Konkani on a piece of paper and get their references too. Students were also given few pages of Wikipedia literature to read beforehand. Students did all their pre-course work with a lot of dedication and efficiency confirming their passion and interest to contribute to Wikipedia. The pre-course also helped students to come prepared and focused for the workshop.

Limiting number of participants: We limited the number of participants to a total of 40 and further divided in two different groups with about 20 students in each. The first batch came for 2 consecutive days and the second batch came for the last two consecutive days of the event. By limiting the number of participants we were able to give individual attention to each student and closely monitor their on wiki performance.

Longer duration workshop: Fourteen hours of training was given to each batch. It was spread over 2 days. We had sufficient time to break down the entire workshop into different sections (theoretical and practical) that could be easily followed by the participants. Those 14 hours gave us enough time to cover most of the important topics (such as teaching typing, adding reference, adding headers, wiki markup, talk page protocol, etc.) at as comfortable pace.

Bite size chunks: The workshop was divided into different sections to give them bite size information only. Each theoretical section was followed by a practical section. For example, the first section involved teaching typing in Devanagari and then participants were given enough time to type their articles in Devanagari. In the second section we taught them how to add headers and then the participants were given sometime to add only headers to their articles. This was followed by a third section where we taught them how to add references and then giving them time to add their references. We made sure that we didn't overwhelm the students with a lot of information in one go and broke it down into simpler pieces.

Energizers : Seven continuous hours of editing Wikipedia would have really tired the students and made them disinterested as well. To keep their energy and motivation level high, after fixed intervals we played some energizer games with them.

Student co-ordinators: A total of 4 students were selected (2 from each batch) to act as student co-ordinators. These co-ordinators acted as a communication bridge between A2K members and the participants. For example, these co-ordinators would help students take a unanimous decision about what are the next dates for a follow up session, what timings would work for everyone, etc.

Varied sources of information: We used different sources and means to educate students about Wikipedia and Wikipedia editing. We definitely didn't want it to be a 14-hour long discourse and hence used different tools such as (Netha's, Poongothai's, Sriket and Noopur's, and Ganesh's videos talking about their personal experiences in the Wikipedia world), along with handouts, presentations, cheat sheets for typing, etc. We also invited Harriet for a video conference to speak with students in Konkani and share with them some inspirational stories.

Challenges

Most students didn't know typing in Devanagari and had to be taught during the workshops. It took them a little while to practice and get comfortable with the typing tool.
We wanted to make sure that along with quantity, students are also producing good quality articles. Non-existance of active Konkani Wikipedia editors makes it a little tough to keep control on the quality. Hence, we reached out to Madhavi Sardesai and Priyadarshani Tadkodkar professors from the Konkani Department at Goa University to assess the quality and ask students to make required changes.
Since Konkani Wikipedia is in incubation students had to do some additional work such as:
- Browse through incubator.wikimedia.org to find about Konkani Wikipedia. Many wanted to know why Konkani Wikipedia doesn't have an independent link just as en.wikipedia.org.
- Add Category:Wp/gom to every new article that was created. Many found this as extra work.
- Searching for existing articles on incubation was difficult for participants.
During the workshop all students added huge amount of information but only a handful of them continued editing once they left the computer lab. This brings us to our all time biggest challenge: How do we keep their motivation and interest levels high for them to continue writing on Wikipedia beyond these workshops?


Seen above: Konkani Wikipedia editing session in progress. Picture credit: Subhashish Panigrahi

Acknowledgements

This event and future events at Goa University would not have been possible without the committed support CIS-A2K has got from the Goa University and Wikipedians. CIS-A2K is very thankful to Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice-Chancellor, Goa University) — for seeing the significance of growing open knowledge movement in Goa and Konkani and encouraging Konkani Wikipedia activities at GU. Thanks are due to the GU faculty, specifically Prof. Alito Sequeira; Prof. Madhavi Sardesai; Prof. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; and Dr. Gopa Kumar. Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar and Frederick Nooronha. Last but not the least the enthusiastic students of Goa University who are integral to this event.


				Konkani Wikipedia editor Frania Pereira speaks about her editing experience on Konkani Wikipedia. (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

What's Next?

A2K team is organizing a follow-up session with the same set of students on Sept 6 and 7, 2013. This session will aim to clear any confusions/doubts that participants may have about Wikipedia editing and also to give them a brief about Wikimedia Commons. In this session, students will also decide how they would want to continue with this project with an aim to bring Konkani Wikipedia as a live project.

Additional Info:

Konkani Department, Goa University: http://bit.ly/14S87Ci
Central State Library, Goa: http://bit.ly/1dzHmao
Konkani Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/1dGOFOL

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-wikipedia-advances-in-four-days

Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA

nitika — 2013-11-30T10:47:20Z

Upon CIS-A2K's explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under the Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in digital era and will also feed into building of Konkani Wikipedia.

What is Konkani Vishwakosh?

Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume hard copy encyclopedia (3632 pages) published by Goa University; a work of over 14 years. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc. The encyclopaedia is written in Konkani language — a language spoken primarily by people living in Goa and in the neighbouring states on the western coast of India (also known as the Konkan belt) — some pockets in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Vishwakosh serves as a primary source of information and is one of the most important documented texts for a community of 2,489,015 Konkani speakers spread across India and worldwide.

What does re-releasing under CC mean?

Upon CIS-A2K's explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Vishwakosh under the Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done.

This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in digital era.

Goa University is the first varsity to enter into a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license that will permit copyrighted produced data by an Indian university accessible to internet users and open to modification (wiki), making Goa University a victory of sorts of free information.

MoU: Goa University and the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K)

Goa University has entered into a three year MoU with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia under CC licence on Wikimedia projects and CIS will help with scanning and digitization of the Vishwakosh and using it as a foundation for creating articles on Konkani Wikipedia. CIS India has also called out for volunteers to help digitize Konkani Vishwakosh.

Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia), till now available only in hard copy, will now be available for free on the Internet.

Event: Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC

http://bit.ly/17nPMuV

To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access, Goa University in collaboration with CIS-A2K organised an event on September 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Goa University Conference Hall. The event had a huge attendance including Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice Chancellor of GU), V.P. Kamat (Registrar of GU), T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director CIS-A2K), close kin of Late. Manoharrai Sardesai (writer of the Encyclopaedia), Tanaji Halarnkar (editor of the Encyclopaedia), Goa University’s staff, faculty and students, members of Konkani speaking community and the press.

During the event, GU Vice-Chancellor Dr. Satish Shetye said, "the Konkani Vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopaedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia," he was quoted as having said.

The event was covered by several local and national newspapers:

"Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months", Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013.
Chaudhary, Apurva. "Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia", Medianama, September 30, 2013.
Lobo,Joanna. "For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language", DNA, September 29, 2013.
Prakash, Kamat."Konkani Wikipedia in the Making", The Hindu, September 29, 2013.
"Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months", Times of India, September 27, 2013.
"Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani Encyclopaedia on Wikipedia", Navhind Times, September 27, 2013.
"Konkani Vishwakosh Relaunch Tomorrow". The Hindu, September 25, 2013.
Desouza, Vijay. "Goa University Re-releasing Konkani Encyclopaedia on Sept 26", Times of India, September 24, 2013.

More about the event here: http://bit.ly/1aSufAE

Project: Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (KVDP)

http://bit.ly/183USAg

Goa University in collaboration with CIS-A2K is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. This is a two month project where CIS-A2K will work with a group of individuals who will help digitize the encyclopaedia in a time bound manner. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized.

"Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani Vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments," said Vishnu Vardhan. Orientation, training, follow-up workshops will also be organised by CIS-A2K. More about the project here: http://bit.ly/HWEMh7

Boost to Konkani Wikipedia

Konkani Vishwakosh could serve as a ready made source of reference for articles on the Konkani Wikipedia, which is in incubation since its inception in 2006. Konkani Wikipedia editors could use content from the Vishwakosh to build articles on Konkani Wikipedia thereby growing Konkani articles not only in numbers but also in its quality.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-vishwakosh-under-cc-by-sa

Konkani Vishwakosh Encyclopedia released under Free License

nitika — 2013-12-31T12:42:35Z

Upon Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K)‘s explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era.

Read the blog post originally published on the Wikipedia page.

Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume hard copy encyclopedia (3632 pages) published by Goa University; a work that took over 14 years to develop. It encompasses the world’s information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. The encyclopedia is written in Konkani, a language spoken primarily by people living in Goa and in the neighboring states on the western coast of India (also known as the Konkan belt) – some pockets in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Vishwakosh serves as a primary source of information and one of the most important documented texts for a community of nearly 2.5 million Konkani speakers spread across India and worldwide.

Goa University is the first ever Indian University to relicense its copyrighted content under CC-BY-SA 3.0 so that the knowledge that they have painstakingly put together is made available freely to all Konkani speakers across the world through Wikipedia and other digital platforms. By doing this Goa University has set a precedent for other public sector institutions in India — such as universities and government departments — to follow. Citing this instance, the Tamil Wikipedia community has begun a negotiation with the Tamil Nadu government to release the Tamil Encyclopedias under CC license. It should be noted that majority of the knowledge production through the 20th century in Indian languages was mostly funded by the State. This victory with Goa University can bring out much more knowledge in the Indian languages into the open and could significantly benefit the Indic Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K is also leveraging this instance in getting other public institutions in India to re-release the content under appropriate CC licenses.

To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access Goa University (GU) in collaboration with CIS-A2K organized an event on 26th September 2013 at 10am at the Goa University Conference Hall. The event had significant attendance, including Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice Chancellor of GU), Mr. V.P. Kamat (Registrar of GU), Mr. T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director CIS-A2K), close kin of Late. Manoharrai Sardesai (writer of the encyclopedia), Tanaji Halarnkar (editor of the encyclopedia and a long time associate of Konkani Literary movement), Goa University’s staff, faculty and students, members of Konkani speaking community and press. About 250 people attended this event, which received major media attention.

During the event GU Vice-Chancellor Satish Shetye said, “the Konkani Vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia.”

Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director CIS-A2K, Satish Shetye, Goa University Vice Chancellor, V.P. Kamat, Registrar of Goa University during press conference of re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC license (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The event was covered by several local and national newspapers. Here are some links:

“Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months“. Jagran Josh. 30 September 2013.
Chaudhary, Apurva. “Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia” Medianama. 30th September 2013
Lobo,Joanna. “For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa’s official language“. DNA. 29 September 2013.
Prakash, Kamat.”Konkani Wikipedia in the making“. The Hindu. 29 September 2013.
“Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months“. Times of India. 27 September 2013.
“Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia“. Navhind Times. 27 September 2013.
“Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow“. The Hindu. 25 September 2013.
Desouza, Vijay. “Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26“. Times of India. 24 September 2013.

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

More details about the event can be found on the Meta Program Page

CIS-A2K’s Accomplishments

MoU between Goa University and Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)

Goa University has entered into a three year MoU with CIS for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University has re-launched four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia under CC licence and CIS will help scanning and digitizing Vishwakosh and using it as a foundation for creating articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

MoU between Goa University and Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)

Konkani Vishwakosh available on Wikimedia Commons

The 4 volumes of encyclopedia have already been scanned and made available by CIS on Wikimedia Commons. It can be found here:

Project Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (KVDP)

CIS-A2K is currently working with 37 volunteers to digitize Konkani Vishwakosh. Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia), till now available only in hard copy, will now be available for free on the Internet. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized.

“Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani Vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments,” said T. Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director of CIS-A2K. Orientation, training and follow-up workshops will also be organised by CIS-A2K.

More about the project can be found on the Meta Program Page

Konkani Wikipedia editors digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Boost to Konkani Wikipedia

CIS-A2K is encouraging Konkani editors to use Vishwakosh as a ready-made source of reference for articles on Konkani Wikipedia, thereby growing Konkani articles not only in numbers but also in quality.

The incubation for Konkani Wikipedia was initiated in 2006 (it could be one of the few projects in incubation for the longest period). During the past 7 years, little progress can be seen on this incubator project.

By way of initiating KVDP, CIS-A2K is hoping to revive the Konkani Wikipedia editing community and give birth to Konkani Wikipedia as a live Wikimedia project in the next couple of months. CIS-A2K has charted out a methodological work plan to achieve this and more.

Copyright notes: "Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC license", "Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0", "Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project 08" by Nitika Tandon, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-vishwakosh-encyclopedia-released-under-free-license