Centre for Internet and Society

Open Access Week Round-Up

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:21:01Z

Here is a round-up of events held at the University of Otago over Open Access Week. Subhashish Panigrahi made a presentation for the staff members of libraries across New Zealand. The event was organised by the University of Otago.

From 3-4pm Subhashish Panigrahi [@subhapa], based in Bangalore, described the concept of How to do Guerrilla GLAM. Given the emergence of Wikipedian in Residence projects overseas and at particular institutions in NZ (see a recent panel at NDF 2015), we were intrigued by what he had to say.

It was an interesting session which generated much discussion. For those of us in NZ where we are fortunate to have institutions where there is a relatively high rate of access to collections – I’m thinking even at the library catalogue level – the thought that guerrilla activity may be necessary to surface collection items without the intervention of institution staffers may be surprising and possibly confronting! Subhashish did stress this guerrilla activity in no way violates copyright or licencing agreements, but seeks to make cultural items in GLAMs openly available to the public, where possible by partnering with institutions. The fact that many institutions do not have the resources to digitize cultural items, he posits, leaves the door open for guerrilla activity by skilled volunteers.

One participant in the session succinctly described Guerrilla GLAM as being self-authorizing activity vs institutional authorizing activity. I understand this to mean that rather than institutions engaging their own staff or volunteers, or crowd sourcing new volunteers to digitise their content, the Guerilla GLAMers come to them. There may well be communities in NZ or small GLAMs that have no digital record of their collections. Communities and institutions in this situation may well find it helpful to engage some interested Guerrilla GLAMers to help them out.

The webinar links and chat are available here connect.otago.ac.nz/p4j21g554ny/
The slides are also available separately here http://slides.com/psubhashish/how-to-do-guerrilla-glam/fullscreen#/

Click to read the blog post published by the University of Otago.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/open-otago-october-27-2015-open-access-week-round-up

Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language

subha — 2014-10-24T15:32:40Z

In February 2014, the Government of India declared the South Asian language Odia as the 6th classical language of India which is one among 22 scheduled languages of India and has a literary heritage of more than 5,000 years. There are documents for more than 3,500 years, and the rest are undocumented oral histories.

The article was published by Opensource.com on October 22, 2014.

The native Odia speakers became hopeful of getting a lot of language related projects implemented to grow the lineage of this long literary heritage and see the language used and spoken globally, not just in literature but in computer and mobile games, interactive computer applications and in other digital media—and to reach the masses as a communicative language.

So far, not many federal initiatives have been put into place, nor a single policy level change has been made, to implement a standard as simple as like Unicode for easy access of information. And, there are very few mobile apps that offer concise and easy to digest content. Overall, there is not much content online that is available in a standard format that is easy to search, access, and reproduce,

Wikisource is here to change that and is working to open up a whole new world of online resources for readers.

With more than 40 million native Odia speakers living in the Indian state of Odisha and its neighboring states and the diaspora in rest of the world—primarily living in countries like the US, UK, UAE, and many of the South and East Asian counties—far less content in the Odia language has been made available on the Internet. The highest is Odia Wikipedia, with 8441 articles created by October 2014. A bigger problem is that though there are a few websites with Unicode content, government portals do not have content in Unicode to make them searchable and reusable. A non-profit Srujanika, with support from two other institutions, has digitized around 740 books under the scope of the project: Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB), most of which were published between 1850 and 1950. This remains the largest digital archive so far for the Odia language, yet all of the books are scanned PDFs, restricting searchability of the content.

Odia Wikisource is a project that aims for the digitization of rare books that are out of copyright. The project is even allowing authors and publishers to donate their copyrighted work by re-licensing under CC0 or CC BY-SA licenses. The goal is to bring about access to large volumes of books and manuscripts and create more Open Educational Resources (OERs). The single biggest advantage of the Wikisource project at-large is that it makes text for books available in Unicode standard, making it searchable on the web and allows readers to copy and use it elsewhere. Most other conventional archival systems lack this important feature.

Wikisource is run by a volunteers and communities who often retype or prepare the books by Optical Character Recognition (OCR), a technique that converts scanned images of books into text. Participate and contribute to Odia Wikisource by visiting or.wikisource.org, the project is open to all who want to help!

As a Wikimedia project, Odia Wikisource went through a thorough and long approval process for about 1 year and 9 months, as an active incubator project—first by the Language Committee and then by the Wikimedia Foundation's Board. During this incubation phase, the project has digitized three books completely and one partially—thanks to the individual contributors. An educational institution Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) in collaboration with the Wikimedia funded Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) are in the process of digitizing 9 books by the author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty that were re-licensed to CC BY-SA 3.0 earlier this year.

Four new Wikisource contributors joined the project in response to a tweet and a Facebook post by the author to digitize The Odia Bhagabata, classic literature compiled in 14th century. "Content that has already been typed in fonts of various non-Unicode based encoding, now they can be converted by (this) like it was done for The Odia Bhagabata, that was typed and available on the community hosted website Odia.org. New contributors did not face the problem of retyping,” says Manoj Sahukar, who along with the author designed a converter for reading text and transforming into Unicode for The Odia Bhagabata.

Questions for early contributors to Odia Wikisource

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): You have been with Odia Wikisource since its inception. How you think it will help other Odias?
Mrutyunjaya Kar, a long time Wikimedian who proofreads the books on Odia Wikisource: Odias around the globe will have access to a vast amount of old as well as new books and manuscripts online in the tip of their finger. Knowing more about the long and glorious history of Odisha will become easier.

SP: Do you think any particular section of the society is going to be benefited by this?
Nasim Ali, the oldest active Odia Wikimedian and Wikisource writer: Books contain the gist of all human knowledge. The ease of access and spread of books are the markers of the intellectual status of a society. And in this e-age, Wikisource can be helpful by not just providing easy access to a plethora of books under free licenses but also aiding the spread of basic education in developing economies. Together with Wikisource and cheaper internet this could catalyze a Renaissance of 21st century.

SP: How does it feel to be one of the few contributors to digitize Odia Bhagabata? How do you want to get involved in future?
Nihar Kumar Dalai, a Wikisource writer: This is a proud opportunity for me to be a part of digitization of such old literature. I, at times, think if I could get involved with this full time!

SP: You have digitized almost two books, are the highest contributor to the project and also one of the main reasons for Odia Wikisource getting approved. What are your plans next to grow it and take to masses?
Pankajmala Sarangi, a Wikisource writer: I would be happy to contribute by typing more books on Odia so that they can be stored and available to all. We can take this to masses through social, print and audio & visual media and organizing meetings/discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-source-subhashish-panigrahi-october-22-2014-open-access-platform-to-save-the-odia-indian-language

Open access in the Marathi language expands by a thousand books

Subhashish Panigrahi and Abhinav Garule — 2016-01-03T11:26:49Z

As the Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha (MGS) celebrated its 121st anniversary recently, the organization re-licensed 1000 books under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license so that the books could be digitized and be made available on the Marathi Wikisource for millions of Marathi readers.

This was published in Wikimedia Blog on December 3, 2015.

As the Maharashtra Granthottejak Sanstha (MGS) celebrated its 121st anniversary recently, the organization re-licensed 1000 books under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license so that the books could be digitized and be made available on the Marathi Wikisource for millions of Marathi readers.^[1]

MGS is a non-profit organization working for the preservation of Maharashtra’s linguistic and cultural heritage. It was founded in Pune, India in 1894. Being an important archive for the preservation of many hundreds of years old manuscripts and historical artifacts from the Peshwa era, the institution is open to public for study and research.

During the four-day anniversary celebration, the Centre for Internet Society’s Access to Knowledge program (CIS-A2K)—an organization that supports the Wikimedia movement in India—opened a Wikipedia stall there where Marathi Wikimedians were present. Around 600 people visited the stall and learned about the news of MGS’s book donation.

Many active and new Marathi Wikimedians were present at the exhibition stall along with Abhinav Garule from the CIS-A2K program to share the incredible work Marathi Wikipedia and Wikimedia community at large are doing. Autographs of eighteen notable writers who received awards from Sanstha for different genres of writings were collected for uploading to the Wikipedia pages about them. While meeting the authors, Wikimedians also approached them to relicense some of their works under Creative Commons licenses so that they could be digitized on Wikisource and/or enrich Wikipedia—and some of the authors expressed a good deal of interest in opening up their books for Wikisource.

Some of the major books donated are Peshwa Rojnishi (diary of Peshwa), Benjamin Franklin Charitra (The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin), Kekavali, S M Paranjape Charitra (autobiography), Letters Exchanged between the Sanstha and the British Government, Shinde Gharanyacha Padmamay Itihas (manuscript), and Marathwadyatil Arvachin Marathi Vangmay (modern Marathi literature from Marathwada, a region in Maharashtra) are some of the popular books read by Marathi speakers that are going to be part of the books donated by the organization.

We reached out to Avinash Chaphekar, the joint secretary of the organization, to know more about the state of book publication and readership.

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Could you share your ideas of opening these invaluable books for Wikisource? How they are going to be useful for the online readers to learn about the Peshwas?

Avinash Chaphekar (AC): These books are of historical importance and contain information that needs to reach more people; they cover topics that are rarely covered well anywhere else. Right after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi recommended the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, as it contains a lot of messages for a common person, a lady walked up to and asked if she could read it in Marathi. Be it such autobiographies or a poetry book like “Kekavali”, such books that were published by the MGS should not be kept closed—many readers are searching for them. We donated 800 of these old books to the Marathi Wikisource because we don’t have large presence in the media or the Internet, so how would any reader who does not know us buy a book? If these books are available online, they can at least find and read them.

SP: Where do you think there is gap between publishers and readers today? Many Marathi books get published every year and if you search on the Internet, which many people today do, you would hardly find much.

AC: Online readership is increasing every day, but when you look at Marathi readers, the majority of them are still buying books. During the exhibitions here (even this year!), there is always quite a rush to buy books. Only the youth and tech-savvy people read online. But most people we meet say that they feel more comfortable holding and reading physical books. Moreover, there is no concrete research validating that most of the youngsters here are accessing information only online. I still feel reading books in a conventional way by holding books in your hands will continue to exist as there is some kind of satisfaction that lies in it.

SP: Did you know that we are going to get these books retyped, meaning that readers will not just be able to read them in their smartphones or computers but they could use the text for republishing the same books in the future? How do you think such a model will be useful for publishers?

AC: At the MGS, we don’t have funds to republish these books, and publishers are not ready to do it no matter how historically valuable the books are—even an incredibly valuable reference book called Marathi Grantha Nirmiti Watchal (the history of creation of Marathi books in Marathi), authored by SG Tulpule and published by us in 1973. This book has detailed information about Marathi publications, even those that existed before printing technology existed. As many such books are not being reprinted, we cannot leave the remaining few copies to perish. Let them go online and reach millions of people.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-blog-subhashish-panigrahi-december-3-open-access-in-marathi-language-expands-by-thousand-books

Online space for Odia

praskrishna — 2016-06-12T15:39:21Z

From a few hundred articles in 2002 to over 10,600 articles on various aspects of Odisha today, Odia Wikipedia has certainly made a mark as far as promotion of the language is concerned. Wikipedia, the volunteer driven web-based multilingual encyclopedia project, is an important reference source on the Internet for all kinds of information.

The article by Diana Sahu was published in New Indian Express on June 10, 2016. Subhashish Panigrahi was quoted.

Recently, Odia Wikipedia (https://or.wikipedia.org) celebrated its 14th anniversary in Bhubaneswar where the focus was on capacity building of Wikipedia contributors, volunteers and enhancing the content.

While the event brought all the active contributors under one roof, it also provided a platform to new users to learn the basics of Wikipedia editing, technical aspects, uploading and adding images to articles and dealing with copyright issues on Wikipedia.

Odia Wikipedia is free for anyone to create articles on notable topics related to Odisha, edit and enhance them. Topics covered so far are varied, from elaborate rituals in Jagannath temple of Puri to medical science.

Sister Projects

Currently, there are two sister projects of Odia Wikipedia - Odia Wikisource (an online library that already has over 300 volumes of text) and Odia Wiktionary, an online dictionary that has over one lakh entries in the language.

With these two projects, the community is bringing a digital revolution in Odia by sharing valuable content online and many language tools. Odia Wikipedia, the flagship project was started as one of the first four Indian language Wikipedias along with Assamese, Malayalam and Punjabi Wikipedia in 2002, a year after the English Wikipedia went live.

The project remained dormant for more than nine years till a group of youths revived it in 2011. Subsequently, the project became popular among Odias and they joined in writing and editing articles on different subject areas in the language.

"Odia Wikipedia is part of the 292 language Wikipedia family and a larger global family of hundreds of other free knowledge projects that are collectively known as Wikimedia projects," said Mrutyunjaya Kar, one of the administrators of the project, during the event.

Tools for Writers

Apart from writing and editing articles, the Wikipedia contributors have created several tools and resource manuals over the years. The script encoding converters that they have built is helping online users to share their Odia writings.

"Before these converters were built, people were stuck with outdated encoding systems like Shreelipi and Akruti," says Subhashish Panigrahi, Wikipedian, and Programme Officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru.

New Projects

"The next big goal is to enhance the quality of the existing articles by adding more images, references from external sources and expanding small articles by adding more information," said a contributor, Shitikantha Dash. Dash, who is also an administrator of Odia Wiktionary said, "It is important that more people contribute to the Odia Wiktionary so that words of all genres, especially the technical and burrowed words, make their way into this free multilingual dictionary. A 10-day campaign will be organised soon to celebrate the 11th anniversary of Odia Wiktionary. "This time, our focus will be that every Wikipedia editor adds at least one word to the Odia Wiktionary. We are also using these words to create a spell check facility in Odia Wikipedia that will be freely available for everyone to use," he added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-june-10-2016-diana-sahu-online-space-for-odia

Online edit-a-thon on incidents in Telugu

Subhashish Panigrahi and Pavan Santhosh — 2016-07-11T16:23:12Z

A week-long online edit-a-thon was organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community to cover popular social, political and other events on the Telugu Wikipedia.

Long time Telugu Wikipedians Venkata Ramana, Ravi Chandra, Dr. Rajasekhar, Kodihalli Muralikrishna and Pranay Raj organised an online edit-a-thon during May 1-May 7 to chronicle events of all kinds—from social to political and everything old and new—that are notable. I (Pavan Santosh) also joined them all in organising this event. 25 articles were created during the event and over the campaign week. The articles were enhanced with more citations and information.

We reached out to two of the organisers to learn about this project and below are what they had to say.

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Can you please share how you came up with the idea of organising this event? What are the future plans to take this project to the larger Telugu Wikimedia community?
Ravi Chandra (RC): The idea of organizing an edit-a-thon for events on Telugu wikipedia came up when I was chatting with Pavan Santhosh about the progress of Telugu Wikipedia. He had also heard similar comments from other Wikipedians. We knew that we were concentrating more on people, places and movies in general. We wanted to pick up a topic which we have not focused much in the past. That's how it was born.

SP: Did you see anything in particular lacking in Telugu Wikipedia that helped start this project?
RC: I think the biggest challenge in our community is the lack of editors. The kind of articles we created during this event could have been written better by history scholars from different universities of Andhra Pradesh and Telengana. I feel that we should reach out to more people from diverse background so that we get more contributors.

Pavan Santhosh (PS): Why did you participate in this edit-a-thon?
Venkata Ramana (VR): I joined in this event to improve articles in Telugu WIkipedia especially related to incidents.

PS: Where do you see one such initiative adding value to Telugu Wikipedia?
VR: There are several articles related to incidents in English Wikipedia, that too related to India. But there is a gap in Telugu Wikipedia. For example, Karamchedu massacre is one of the very important incidents in the Dalit history and there was no article in Telugu Wikipedia until this edit-a-thon happened. Similarly, this event kickstarted chronicling of several such important incidents in Telugu Wikipedia.Within a short span of one week we have covered some of the very significant incidents.

PS: What was your collective learning? Can you please share some of your future plans?
VR: Edit-a-thons like this help community recognise some major gaps in content. And community members feel encouraged to work together to fill the gaps. I have seen the impact of edit-a-thons based on incidents, movies and now Punjab. Going forward, we are planning to conduct a few thematic edit-a-thons as this edit-a-thon and a few ones in the past have proved to be very effective on community building.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/online-edit-a-thon-on-incidents-in-telugu

OK Festival 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T10:15:00Z

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

OER16: Open Culture

praskrishna — 2016-01-30T06:53:26Z

The 7th Open Educational Resources Conference, OER16: Open Culture, will be held on April 19 and 20, 2016 at the University of Edinburgh. The event is organized by Association for Learning Technology.

As a part of the programme committee, Subhashish Panigrahi is currently reviewing the submissions for the 7th Open Educational Resources Conference, "OER16: Open Culture" that is being organised during April 19 and 20, 2016 at University of Edinburgh, UK. See the details of the Programme Committee here. Download a PDF of the flyer for OER16.

The vision for the conference is to focus on the value proposition of embedding open culture in the context of institutional strategies for learning, teaching and research. The conference will be chaired by Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services at the University of Edinburgh, and Lorna Campbell, OER Liaison at the University of Edinburgh and EDINA Digital Education Manager.

OER16 will focus on:

The strategic advantage of open and creating a culture of openness.
Converging and competing cultures of open knowledge, open source, open content, open practice, open data and open access.
Hacking, making and sharing.
The reputational challenges of openwashing.
Openness and public engagement.
Innovative approaches to opening up cultural heritage collections for education.

Follow #oer16 to keep up to date with all conference news. Register for the event Now.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/oer16-open-culture

OdishaDiary conferred prestigious Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 to Odia Wikipedia team

praskrishna — 2012-12-05T04:55:20Z

OdishaDiary (Orissadiary.com) conferred the prestigious Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 to the team of contributors of Odia Wikipedia.

This report by Pravuprasad Routray was published in the Orissa Diary on November 23, 2012. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Health Minister Dr. Damodar Rout, Revenue Minister Surjya Narayan Patro and Energy and IPR Minister Arun Sahoo presented this award to the the Odia Wikipedians in a function in Jayadev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar.

Odia Wikipedia (http://or.wikipedia.org) is a web based free encyclopedia in Odia language. Odia Wikipedia is flagship project of Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the US. The content of Wikipedia are crowd sourced from the voluntary contributors across the world. English Wikipedia being the 5th popular website on internet Odia Wikipedia is the most visited website with more than 4.7 lakh unique visitors every month and the largest website in Odia language with more than 3100 articles. Currently more than 25 editors are contributing in this project.

Odia Wikipedia aims to provide free encyclopedic content in Odia language which could be accessed online and used for academic, research and expanding someone's own knowledge base. The interesting part of wikipedia is the openness for giving the freedom to users to edit and enhance an article. Most of the articles on Wikipedia start from scratch, small articles.

Over the period of time many readers find more information and start adding them on it and that is how articles grow in quality and content. Most people end up thinking that Wikipedia articles are written by paid editors just like any other newspapers and journals. But surprisingly, any person can who notices a factual mistake can correct it and add more information to enhance the articles. Contributing to Odia Wikipedia will not only create more free content online in Odia language, but also will bring more academicians and intellectuals together to a common platform.

At the same time students and academicians who are seeking information in Odia language can make use of it without even buy volumes of books and spending time in library. “We are receiving this award for all the Odias, who has contributed a bit for the language. Everyone here is welcome to join us and be a part of this family”, said Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer of Centre for Internet Society, a grantee of Wikimedia foundation while receiving the award. Odia Wikipedia could be accessed at: http://or.wikipedia.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-november-23-2012-pravuprasad-routray

Odisha: Wikipedia workshop at IIMC, Dhenkanal

praskrishna — 2013-10-03T10:15:25Z

Wikipedia workshop was held at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, on Monday. The workshop was inaugurated by Head of IIMC, Dhenkanal, Dr Mrinal Chatterjee.

This post was published in Odisha Diary on September 30, 2013.

Inaugurating the workshop, Dr Chatterjee said, “We are always sourcing knowledge from Wikipedia. So now it becomes our duty to enrich it by writing articles for Wikipedia.”

He specifically asked Odiya Journalism students to write more in Odia Wikipedia as there is less content in Odia as compared to other Indian languages.

Subhashish Panigrahi, Program Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society, coordinated the entire event along with members of Odia Wikipedia, Dr Subas Chandra Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar and Sasanka Sekhar Das. They provided hands-on training about editing, styles and techniques of writing on Wikipedia to the students.

“Anybody can write and edit available articles on Wikipedia,” Panigrahi said while encouraging students to volunteer for Wikipedia.

Not only Odiya and English, students were also encouraged to contribute articles in various other Indian languages. Students of both Odiya and English Journalism were present during the day-long workshop.

Odiya Wikipedia team are planning to organise a series of workshop with IIMC, Dhenkanal in coming months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/odisha-diary-september-30-2013-odisha-wikipedia-workshop-at-iimc

Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark!

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T05:10:30Z

Many are not aware of the existence of Odia Wikipedia and other Indian language Wikipedias. But Odia Wikipedia has been growing gradually all these years and has become the most searched website and largest online encyclopedia in Odia language.

The Report by Odisha Diary bureau, Bhubaneswar was published on December 17, 2013. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Initiated in 2002 Odia Wikipedia saw its first edit in 2004 and suffered from low contribution for almost seven years. But slowly the gloomy scene changed with the first workshop in Bengaluru which started initiating more consecutive Wikipedia training workshops in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Nalconagar, Baleswar, Dhenkanal and many other cities. Over these years after many outreach workshops individuals who are experts in different subject areas and organizations and institutions like Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal and KIIT University have been associated with the Odia Wikipedia editor community.

After Gopal Chandra Praharaj's Purnachandra Ordiya Bhashakosha and Binod Kanungo's Jnanamandal no such progressive encyclopedic compilation was done in Odia. Where the encyclopedias take years for reprinting which is also negligible in regional languages Odia Wikipedia articles get revised every now and then. “This has been possible because of the collaborative writing mechanism of Wikipedia All of us keep editing the articles that refine the content and make it free from biased and incorrect facts.”, says Mrutyunjaya Kar, one of the very active Wikipedians. Some time ago noted linguists like Natabara Satpathy and Deepak Kanungo raised questions about the authenticity and writing standards of the articles on Odia Wikipedia.

"But I think we have overcome those issues of poor quality content. And the very thing Wikipedia got is the gradual growth of articles in terms of amount of information and accuracy. Something that attracted me to Odia Wikipedia is the way one liner stub articles grow to good quality articles in few days", says Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer to Centre of Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge program that is working for the growth of Indian languages. Many of the valuable aspects of Odisha's history, diverse languages, cultural heritage and tourism are being documented and shared for free on the internet which otherwise would not ever come to the limelight.

Available in 286 world languages Wikipedia is edited by more than 77,000 contributors across the world. Odia Wikipedia has only a small community consisting handful of contributors. We aim to reach out to more people to spread the sum of the entire knowledge in our own language, says another active contributor Shitikantha Dash. Odia Wikipedia could be accessed at: https://or.wikipedia.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-december-17-2013-odia-wikipedia-reaching-5000-article-mark

Odisha Dibasa 2014: 14 Books Re-released under CC License

subha — 2014-04-14T10:57:43Z

Odisha became a separate state in British India on April 1, 1936. Odia, a 2,500 year old language recently gained the status of an Indian classical language. The Odia Wikimedia community celebrated these two occasions on March 29 in Bhubaneswar with a gathering of 70 people.

Originally published on the Wikimedia blog on April 8, 2014. Media coverage of the event can be accessed here.

Linguists, scholars and journalists discussed the state of the Odia language in the digital era, initiatives for its development and steps that can be taken to increase accessibility to books and other educational resources. 14 copyrighted books have been re-licensed under the Creative Commons license and the digitization project on Odia WikiSource was formally initiated by an indigenous educational institute, the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS). Professor Udayanath Sahu from Utkal University, The Odisha Review’s editor Dr. Lenin Mohanty, Odisha Bhaskar’s editor Pradosh Pattnaik, Odia language researcher Subrat Prusty, Dr. Madan Mohan Sahu, Allhadmohini Mohanty, Chairman Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa and trust’s secretary Brajamohan Patnaik along with senior members Sarojkanta Choudhury and Shisira Ranjan Dash spoke at the event.

Eleven books from Odia writer Dr. Jagannath Mohanty were re-released under Creative Commons Share-Alike (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license by the “Manik-Biswanath Smrutinyasa” trust, a trust founded by Dr. Mohanty for the development of the Odia language. Allhadmohini Mohanty formally gave written permission to Odia Wikimedia to release and digitize these books.

The community will be training students and a group of six faculty members at KISS who will coordinate the digitization of these books. “Collaborative efforts and open access to knowledge repositories will enrich our language and culture,” said linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak as he inagurated the event. Dr. Pattanayak and Odia language researcher Subrat Prusty from the Institute of Odia Studies and Research also re-licensed three books based on their research on Odia language and cultural influence of the language on other societies under the same license. KISS is going to digitize some of these books and make them available on Odia Wikisource.

An OpenType Odia Unicode font, “Odia OT Jagannatha” designed by Sujata Patel from Odialanguage.com was released under the OFL license. This is the first Odia OpenType font that the community actively tested. A new Odia offline input tool called “TypeOdia” by Wikipedian Manoj Sahukar was also released for public distribution. DVDs containing the font, the input tool, Odia language dictionaries, offline Odia Wikipedia in Kiwix, Wikipedia editing guide, ISCII to Unicode font converter, various free and open source software packages and Ubuntu operating system.

Active Odia Wikipedian and Admin Mrutyunjaya Kar gave the inaugural speech. Subhashish Panigrahi from the Center for Internet and Society read the annual report and vision of Odia Wikipedia. Chief guest Dr. Debiprasanna Pattanayak discussed about the efforts put forth that brought the Odia language as the sixth Indian classical language. A large majority of Odia publications are not available on the internet and readers are devoid of easy accessibility. He further discussed the process of digitization for preserving valuable books that are out of print and the old palm leaf manuscripts. Professor Udayanath Sahu presented on the process, progress and implementation of machine translation project in Utkal University.

Experienced Wikimedians conducted an advanced Wikipedia workshop on the second day of event at KIIT University, Bhubaneswar. It was attended by a majority of the existing Wikimedians from the community including new Wikipedians who signed up for the Odia Wikipedia Education Program at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal. Mrutyunjaya Kar presented on WikiData and various tools for linking and accessing information in multiple languages on various Wikimedia projects. Ansuman Giri discussed advanced technical aspects such as the use of various gadgets, proper categorization, how to use subpages, how to auto-list archive pages, customizing WikiLove feature, user rights modification, including how important it is to cite biographies of living persons with secondary sources, etc. Shitikantha Dash discussed copyright and issues regarding uploading images and other media files on Wikimedia Commons. Dr. Subas Chandra Rout presented on “notability, referencing and creating citations for the notable topics.” Subhashish Panigrahi discussed the work plan for the year, failure of program projects, collective learning and the dos and don’ts of community building.

We hope that more authors will come forward and re-release their books under CC-BY-SA license. The Odia community is excited to see or.wikisource.org go live. A few Wikipedians are even interested in typing their favorite free licensed books to make them available on Wikisource. I believe it’ll be challenging to train the KISS students to type and proof-read the written texts. In the CISA2K’s draft plan, the goal to have the number of editors seems overestimated. The students need to have some knowledge about Wikimedia and how it works in general before they start working. We hope that the books will be digitized properly and in coming days more users will join us in the process as we will have more free books in Odia Wikisource. I appeal to the Odia people to be a part of the Odia Wikimedia community and make Odia Wikisource a successful project, we need all the time you can devote. :-) Ansuman Giri, Odia Wikipedian


A group picture of Odia Wikipedians (by Jnanaranjan Sahu, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odisha-dibasa-2014

Odisha Day 2014

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T04:39:56Z

CIS-A2K in collaboration with the Odia Wikipedia community is organizing this event on March 29, 2014 at Jayadev Bhawan, Bhubaneswar.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/odisha-day-2014

Odia Wikisource, its Potential

subha — 2014-12-05T01:47:37Z

I wrote an editorial in Odia newspaper the "Samaja" on November 17, 2014. I have written about Odia Wikisource, its potential and how people can get involved in it with a short note about the digitization done already. I have also highlighted the authors and copyright holders who kindly have donated their work under CC-by-SA license.

The original article published by the Samaja in Odia on November 17 could be read here.

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହି ପ୍ରକାଶନ ପାଇଁ ନୂଆ ରାହା
ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ
ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ପ୍ରଥମ ଛାପାଖାନା ସ୍ଥାପିତ ହେବାଠୁ ଆଜିଯାଏ ବିତିଛି ଏକ ଲମ୍ବା କାଳ । ଏ କାଳ ଭିତରେ କେତେ ଲକ୍ଷ ପାଣ୍ଡୁଲିିପି ଲେଖା ହୋଇଥିବ, କେତେ ବହି ଛପା ହୋଇଥିବ । ଏ ଭିତରେ କେତେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଓଡ଼ିଶା ବାହାରକୁ ଯାଇଥିବେ । ତାଙ୍କ ଭିତରୁ ପଢ଼ାରଙ୍କୁଣା ଲୋକେ କ'ଣ ସବୁବେଳେ ସବୁ ବହି ପାଇପାରୁଥିବେ? ଓଡ଼ିଶାରେ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ମଧ୍ୟ ଲାଇବ୍ରେରୀ ଯାଇ ବହି ଖୋଜିବା ଅବସ୍ଥାରେ ସବୁବେଳେ ନଥାନ୍ତି । ଲୋକେ ବହି ପଢ଼ିବାର ସଳଖ ସୁବିଧାଟିଏ ନପାଇଲେ ଧୀରେ ପଠନ ଅଭ୍ୟାସ କମିଯାଏ । ଆଜି ଓଡ଼ିଶାର ଅଗଣିତ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଠକୀୟ ରୁଚି କେବଳ ଖବରକାଗଜ, ସାପ୍ତାହିକୀ ଆଦି ପଢ଼ାକୁ ଖସି ଆସିଲାଣି । ଏ ବେଳା ଏକ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଶୁଭ ନୁହେଁ । ଆଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆର ଶାସ୍ତ୍ରୀୟ ମାନ୍ୟତା ପାଇବା ପାଠକପଣ ବଢ଼ାଇବାରେ ମୁଖ୍ୟ ଭୂମିକାଟିଏ ନିଭାଇପାରିନାହିଁ । ତେବେ କେଉଁଥିରେ କିଛି ଊଣା ରହିଯାଇଛି କି? କାହିଁକି ଆଜି ଭାଷା-ସାହିତ୍ୟର ଶ୍ରୋତା-ବକତା ଉଭୟ ସମାନ? ବହି ଉନ୍ମୋଚନ ହୋଇ କେବଳ ଲେଖକ ମହଲରେ ବଣ୍ଟାହୋଇ ସମୀକ୍ଷା ହୋଇଯାଉଛି, ସଭା କିବା ବହିମେଳା ହତା ଡେଉଁନାହିଁ?

ଆଧୁନିକ କାରିଗରି ବଳରେ ବହିକୁ ଅଧିକ ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଖକୁ ନେବାରେ ଏଯାବତ ଅଳ୍ପ କିଛି ଉଦ୍ୟମ କରାଯାଇଛି । ରାଜ୍ୟ ସରକାରଙ୍କ ସଂସ୍କୃତି ବିଭାଗ ପକ୍ଷରୁ ସାରଳା ମହାଭାରତ ଓ ଭାଗବତ ଆଦି କେତୋଟି ପୁରୁଣା ପୋଥିକୁ ଟାଇପ କରି ଡିଜିଟାଲ ସଂସ୍କରଣ ତିଆରି କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । (ଓଡ଼ିଆ.ଓଆରଜି) ୱେବସାଇଟ ଜରିଆରେ ବିଦେଶରେ ଥିବା କେତେଜଣ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅନେକ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିକୁ ଟାଇପ କରି ଏବଂ ସ୍କାନ କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇଥିଲେ । ପୁରୁଣା ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ଅଭିଲେଖ କରିବା କାମ ବିଧିବଦ୍ଧ ଭାବେ କିଛିବର୍ଷ ତଳେ ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରର ସୃଜନିକା ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ତରଫରୁ ଏନଆଇଟି ରାଉରକେଲା ଓ ପ୍ରଗତି ଉକ୍ରଳ ସଂଘ ସହଯୋଗରେ ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ "ଓପନ ଆକସେସ ଟୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବୁକ୍ସ' ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । ଏଥିରେ ସ୍କାନ ହୋଇଥିବା ମୋଟ ୭୪୦ଖଣ୍ଡ ବହି ଓ ପତ୍ରପତ୍ରିକା ଭିତରୁ ୨୦୦ରୁ ଅଧିକ ବହି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଡାଉନଲୋଡ଼ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯାଇଛି । ଏସବୁ ପ୍ରମୁଖ କାମକୁ ବାଦ ଦେଇ ଆଉ କେତେକ ଉଦ୍ୟମ ମଧ୍ୟ ହୋଇଛି । ତେବେ ଏଯାବତ ହୋଇଥିବା ଏସବୁ କାମରେ ଲେଖାଖୋଜା ବା ଟେକ୍ସଟ ସର୍ଚ ସୁବିଧା ନାହିଁ । ଅର୍ଥାତ, ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପ କରି କିଛି ଭାଗବତର ପଦଟିଏ ଖୋଜିଲେ ସେ ପଦ ଥିବା ସ୍କନ୍ଧଟି ମିଳିବ ନାହିଁ । ପାଠକୁ ଲୋକଙ୍କ ପାଖରେ ପହଞ୍ଚାଇବା ପାଇଁ ଏ ଏକ ବିରାଟ ସମସ୍ୟା । ତେଣୁ ଆହୁରି ଲକ୍ଷେ ବହି ସ୍କାନ କରି ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ରଖିଲେ ମଧ୍ୟ ତାହାକୁ ପାଠକେ ଖୋଜି ପାଇବେ ନାହିଁ ।

ହେଲେ ସ୍କାନ କଲାପରେ ପୁରୁଣା ବହିର ଲେଖାକୁ ଟେକ୍ସଟରେ ରୂପାନ୍ତର କରିବା ଏତେ ସହଜ ନୁହେଁ । କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଟେକନୋଲୋଜିରେ ନାନାଦି ସାଧନ ନିର୍ମାଣ କରାଯାଇଥିବା ଜଗତର ବହୁବିଧ ଭାଷାରେ ଏ ସ୍କାନ ଛବିରୁ ଟେକ୍ସଟ ରୂାନ୍ତର ଲାଗି ଅପ୍ଟିକାଲ କ୍ୟାରେକ୍ଟର ରେକଗନିସନ (ଓସିଆର) ନାମକ କାରିଗରୀ ବ୍ୟବହାର କରାଯାଏ । ତେବେ ଛବିକୁ ଚିହ୍ନି ତାକୁ ଅକ୍ଷରରେ ରୂାନ୍ତର କରିବା ଦୁରୂହ ଓ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ତାଲିମ ଦେବା ସମୟସାପେକ୍ଷ । କାମଟି କିନ୍ତୁ ଏ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ବରଦାନ । ତେବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସମେତ ଭାରତର ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଭାଷାରେ ଏଯାଏ ଓସିଆର ସେତେ ବେଶି ନିର୍ଭୁଲ ଭାବେ କାମ କରିନାହିଁ । କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ଜ୍ଞାନ ଥିବା କିଛି ଲୋକ ୬-୭ ମାସ ଲାଗିଲେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଏ ଉପକରଣର ବିକାଶ କରାଯାଇପାରନ୍ତା । ବିକଳ୍ପ ସମାଧାନ ହେଲା ବହି ପାଠକୁ ଇଉନିକୋଡ଼ ନାମକ ମାନକରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଲିିରେ ଟାଇପ କରି ଟେକ୍ସଟ ରୂପେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଇବା । ଏ କାମ କିନ୍ତୁ କେବଳ ମୂଲ୍ୟବାନ ବହିମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ କରାଯିବା ଉଚିତ । ଧରାଯାଉ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଆଈମା କାହାଣୀ କି ଅବଲୋକରା କାହାଣୀ କିମ୍ବା ବାକି ଲୋକକାହାଣୀ ସବୁ ଏତେ ଉପାଦେୟ ଓ ଯୁଗୋପଯୋଗୀ ସେ ସବୁକୁ ଥରେ ଟାଇପ କଲେ ଅନେକ ଲୋକଙ୍କ କାମରେ ଲାଗିବ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଇ-ବହି ବା ବହିର ଡିଜିଟାଲ ସଂସ୍କରଣ କରାଯିବାର ନୂଆ ରାହାଟିଏ ନିକଟରେ ଖୋଲିଛି । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିିପିଡ଼ିଆର ସହଯୋଗୀ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ନାମକ ଏକ ନୂଆ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ ହୋଇଛି । ଏଥିରେ ଥିବା ବହିସବୁ or.wikisource.org ରେ ପଢ଼ିହେବ । ଭାରତରେ ପ୍ରକାଶକ କିମ୍ବା ସ୍ୱତ୍ୱାଧିକାରୀଙ୍କ ଦେହାନ୍ତର ୬୦ବର୍ଷ ପରେ ବହିର କପିରାଇଟ ଲୀନହୋଇ ବହିଟି ପବ୍ଲିକ ଡୋମେନରେ ଗଣାଯାଏ । ଏହି ଶ୍ରେଣୀର ଓଡ଼ିଆ ବହିସବୁକୁ ଓସିଆର କିମ୍ବା ଟାଇପ କରି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିାଠାଗାରରେ ରଖାଯାଇପାରିବ । କିନ୍ତୁ ଏ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପର ଏକ ବିଶେଷ ସୁବିଧା ଲେଖକ ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶକଙ୍କ ମଙ୍ଗଳ ଲାଗି ମଧ୍ୟ ରହିଛି । ନିଜ ବହିକୁ ଅନଲାଇନ ବିତରଣ କରିବାକୁ ଚାହୁଁଥିବା ପ୍ରକାଶକ କିମ୍ବା ଲେଖକ ନିଜର କପିରାଇଟର ସର୍ତ୍ତାବଳୀକୁ
ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କପିରାଇଟରୁ ଆଂଶିକ କପିରାଇଟକୁ ମଧ୍ୟ ବଦଳାଇ ପାରିବେ । ଏହି ଆଂଶିକ କପିରାଇଟର ନାଁ ହେଲା କ୍ରିଏଟିଭ କମନ୍ସ ସେଆର-ଏଲାଇକ (ସିସି-ବାଇ-ଏସଏ) । ଏଥିରେ ଅନ୍ୟ ଜଣେ ଏକା ସର୍ତ୍ତରେ ପୂର୍ବ-ପ୍ରକାଶିତ ଲେଖାର ପୁନଃପ୍ରକାଶନ କରିାରିବ । ଏହା ବଳରେ ବହିଟିକୁ ଅନ୍ୟମାନେ ପଢ଼ିପାରିବା ସହ ବିତରଣ ମଧ୍ୟ କରିାରିବେ । ଏ ବିଶେଷ କପିରାଇଟ ଆଜିକାଲି ଏତେ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ହେଲାଣି ଯେ ଜଗତର ଅନେକ ଜଣାଶୁଣା ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ଓ ପ୍ରକାଶକ ନିଜର କିଛି ବହିକୁ ଏହି କପିରାଇଟରେ ବିତରଣ କରୁଛନ୍ତି । ଆହେ ଦୟାମୟ ବିଶ୍ୱବିହାରୀ ଓ ଅଗଣିତ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଶିଶୁକବିତା-ଗପର ରଚୟିତା ରାମକୃଷ୍ଣ ନନ୍ଦ, ସୁଶିକ୍ଷକ- ଭ୍ରାମଣିକ-ଦାର୍ଶନିକ ଡ.ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ମହାନ୍ତି, ଭାଷା-ଗବେଷକ ଡ. ସୁବ୍ରତ ପୃଷ୍ଟି ଓ କବି ଭାରତ ମାଝୀଙ୍କ ବହିମାନ ସ୍ୱତ୍ୱାଧିକାରୀଙ୍କ ଅନୁମତି କ୍ରମେ ପୁନଃଲାଇସେନ୍ସ କରାଇ ଉଇକିାଠାଗାର ପରିସରକୁ ଅଣାଗଲାଣି ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଠକେ ଏହି ଉଇକିାଠାଗାର ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପରୁ ଆଉ ଏକ ସୁବିଧା ମଧ୍ୟ ପାଇପାରିବେ । ଏଥିରେ ଟାଇପ ହୋଇ ବହିସବୁ ସିନା ଗଚ୍ଛିତ ହେବ । ହେଲେ ସେସବୁକୁ ଟାଇପ କରିବ କିଏ? ଅନେକ ସମୟରେ ଯାହା ସରକାର କିମ୍ବା ଏକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ କରିନପାରେ ସେତେବେଳେ ଜନସାଧାରଣଙ୍କ ବଳର ଉପଯୋଗିତା ବୁଝାପଡ଼େ । ଆଉ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ଭାବେ ଏହି ସ୍ୱେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀଙ୍କ ବଳରେ ବଳୀୟାନ । ଜଣେ ଚାହିଁଲେ ଲେଖାର ଭୁଲଟିଏ ସୁଧାରିପାରିବ, ବାକିଥିବା ପୃଷ୍ଠା ଟାଇପ କରିାରିବ ଆଉ ଅସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ ବହିଟିଏକୁ ସମ୍ପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କରି କୋଟିକୋଟି ପାଠକଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ପଠନର ଏକ ନୂଆ ଝରକା ଖୋଲିଦେଇ ପାରିବ ।

ଅନେକେ ବିରସି ଉଠନ୍ତି ଗୁଗୁଲରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ନାହିଁ ବୋଲି; ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ୍‍ରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖାର ଅଭାବ ତା'ର ଏକ ବଡ଼ କାରଣ । ଯେଉଁ ଭାଷାରେ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ କାରବାର ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ ସେ ଭାଷା ନୂଆ ପିଢ଼ିର ସେତେ ନିଜର । ଆଉ ଯେଉଁ ଭାଷା ଏବେର ପିଢ଼ି ତୁଣ୍ଡରେ ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ କଥିତ, କାମରେ ଯେତେ ଅଧିକ ବ୍ୟବହୃତ, ସେ ଭାଷା ଭବିଷ୍ୟତରେ ସେତେ ଛାମୁଆ ହେବ । ଓଡ଼ିଆ ପାଇଁ ଉଇକିପାଠାଗାର ଭଳି ଏକ ବିଶ୍ୱମାନର ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଅଧିକ ଲେଖକଙ୍କ ସମାଗମରେ ଭରି ଆମ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଏକ ବିଶାଳ ପାଠାଗାରରେ ପରିଣତ ହୋଇପାରିବ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/the-samaja-november-17-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikisource-its-potential

Odia Wikisource workshop at New Delhi

subha — 2014-12-30T01:08:00Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with "The Intellects" organized a seminar in New Delhi on December 14, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi gave a talk.

The seminar was on the Relevance of Bhagabat Tungi in the evolution of Odia language from Buddha era to digital age. After attending the event one of the participants Pankajmala Sarangi took great interest in Odia Wikisource which was then an incubator project. Since then she has digitized three books and is now proofreading Odia Bhagabata, an Odia language classic from the 14th century. Having the highest number of edits in Odia Wikisource, Ms. Sarangi took interest to build a community in Delhi. Another Odia Wikilibrarian Sitikantha Kheti also joined in to organise the first Odia Wikisource workshop in Delhi. These Wikimedians, a Delhi based group The Intellects and CIS-A2K collaboratively conducted a workshop.

The Intellect's president Debendra Rout addressed the participants and broadly spoke about the goal of the workshop and long term plans in Delhi. Both the Wikilibrarians shared their experience on Odia Wikisource. The workshop started with self introduction of the participants followed by screening of a documentary "Odia: Silalekharu Mobile".

Video

A handbook with details on the project, Odia input and keyboard layout was distributed among all. Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated Odia input and the process of digitization of books on Wikisource. Plans for more workshops and digitization sprints were also charted out.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikisource-workshop-new-delhi-december-14-2014

Odia Wikisource to Hold 1st Anniversary

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:09:54Z

Odia Wikisource, a sister project of Odia Wikipedia and a free online Odia-language library will celebrate its first anniversary at the Indian Institute of Management of Agricultural Extension (IMAGE), Siripur here on Monday.

Available online at or.wikisource.org, it not just provides readers to free and open access to 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.

"Last year the Wikimedia community in Odisha did a remarkable job in bringing as many as 141 books by multiple authors relicensed under free licenses like CC-BY/CC-SA", said Centre for Internet and Society's Programme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi.

Odia Wikisource administrator Mrutyunjaya Kar has invited everyone to join the event.

This was published by Pioneer on October 26, 2015.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/pioneer-october-26-2015-odia-wikisource-to-hold-1st-anniversary