Centre for Internet and Society

Wikiwomen’s Meetup at St. Agnes College Explores Potentials and Plans of Women Editors in Mangalore, Karnataka

ting — 2016-09-01T14:39:53Z

Karnataka is known for its diverse linguistic cultures. Aside from Kannada, many are native speakers of Konkani, Tulu, and other languages. A small Wikiwomen's meetup was held on Saturday, August 27th at St. Agnes College, Mangalore, to invite female Wikipedians from the region. Many of them were new to the online encyclopedia but demonstrated strong interest in learning and contributing more Indic language content online.

A Wikiwomen’s meetup was held at St. Agnes College on August 27^th in the hope to strengthen the bonding and communication between female Wikipedians in Mangalore. Attendees of the meetup on Saturday included five Kannada Wikipedian, one Konkani Wikipedian, one from the recently gone live Tulu Wikipedia, and Ting-Yi Chang from the CIS A2K team. Two of the Kannada Wikipedians are staff and faculty members of the College’s library and Department of Kannada respectively. Both were brought into Wikipedia by edit-a-thons held on the college campus in the last few months

The meetup started off with a round of brief self-introduction and an inspiring introductory presentation by Dhanalakshimi K T, a St. Agnes commerce student who had successfully organized the last two women’s edit-a-thons on her campus.

“Wikipedia is a great tool for knowledge sharing. When we edit in our own languages, people from outside of the city who don’t speak English can learn things more easily online.... It is the respect and passion I have for my language."

The presentation also touched upon some feasible benefits that editors gains through participating in Wikipedia/media projects: improvement in writing and research skills, nurturing a critical thinking habit when reading texts and doing research, learnings from collaborative work experience, improvement in language and communication skills, etc. One of the participants later mentioned that with the hobby of editing Wikipedia, she began actively researching in her interested topics. Even in occasions when she had no time to actually update the content onto Wikipedia, the knowledge she gained throughout the research process has already enriched her and broadened her horizon of the subject.

The second half of the presentation consists of an introduction to the 5 pillars rules and some other advice of Wikipedia editing. Participants who were newcomers showed great interest and actively raised questions surrounding the use of different editing tools including the infobox templates, translation tools, useful markups, and personal sandboxes.

When being asked about the barriers they have faced so far in editing Wikipedia, most agreed that time issues do prevent them sometimes as their offline commitments (work, family, school) can take priority over it. However, most participants also concluded that “those who are truly interested will eventually find the time.” On the other hand, access to internet and facilities has not been reported as a barrier in their cases, but all agreed that it can be for many other women. Awareness was emphasized as a crucial factor when trying to bring in more women to Wikipedia. One of the student participants shared her experience,

“Some people may have never heard of Wikipedia before; some misunderstood its use and potential… when I talked about Kannada Wikipedia with my peers, first they thought it was some website for Kannada stories writing…. But when I explained to them what it is and how we can edit, they were all very excited and very much wanted to try."

In the latter discussion of the meetup, participants talked about the tentative event plans for the next few months. Two sessions were suggested to be held by November, 2016. One as a workshop for the newcomers and the other as an editing event for more experienced female Wikipedians. All participants, old and new, are really excited to strengthen the bonding between Wikiwomens in Mangalore. Some suggested there should be more casual meetups every few weeks to help them communicate more and plan upcoming community events, including an ongoing event that can be held in March, 2017 for the International Women’s Day and Wikiwomen’s History Month.

The meetup continued with more discussion on various language Wikipedias’ development. As an experienced Wikipedian and an actively outreaching community member, participant Harriet Vidyasagar explained the complexity in Konkani Wikipedia, which contains five scripts, and the importance of those scripts in Konkani language’s history and culture. All participants agreed that seeing their mother tongues’ scripts online and creating more content to make their culture and language visible are a great source of happiness and a motivation for them to continue editing. The session ended with exchange of contacts and group pictures.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiwomen2019s-meetup-at-st-agnes-college-explores-potentials-and-plans-of-women-editors-in-mangalore-karnataka

Wikipedia workshop for Konkani students conducted in Mangaluru

tito — 2017-06-28T09:57:32Z

A two days Wikipedia workshop "introduction to Wikipedia" was conducted at Besant College, Mangaluru. 16 undergraduate and post-graduate students from 3 different colleges participated in the event. Here is a report.

A two day workshop was conducted for students who opted konkani at U.G.& P.G.courses of Mangalore University on 16 and 17 December at Besant Evening College, Mangaluru. This event was jointly organised by Mangalore University Konkani Adhyayana Peeta, and the Dept. of Konkani (M. A.). The Centre for Internet Society, India (CIS, India) and Besant Evening College, Mangaluru were the collaborators. Dr. Devadasa Pai of Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy was the primary co-ordinator. A representative from CIS, India participated in the workshop as a resource person. Harriet Vidyasagar, a Konkani Wikipedia enthusiast and supporter, and Sabrina Hougaard attended the event to groom the participant and share their expertise.

16 undergraduate and post-graduate colleges from 3 different colleges of Mangalore participated in this workshop. The table below shows participation from each college and gender ratio.

College	Participants	Female	Male
Mangalore University College	2	1	1
St. Aloysius College	9	4	5
Milagress Degree College	5	3	2
Total	16	8	8

The first day's (16 December) event was started with general introduction to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement. The following topics were discussed:

Wikipedia and Wikimedia movement
Importance of Wikipedia as a source of knowledge and information in the World Wide Web (WWW)
Free knowledge movement
Indic language Wikipedias

This was followed by account creation where the participants were asked to create accounts on Wikipedia. After that they were taught about Wikipedia user page, and sandbox page. They were also taught about basic editing (general formatting) on sandbox using Visual Editor.

On the second day (17 December) the participants wrote articles on their Konkani Wikipedia user sandbox page in Kannada script. 16 students wrote more than 25 short articles on their sandbox.

They were also introduced to Wikipedia content translation tool and Wikidata. During the Wikidata session, following a general introduction to Wikidata, the participants were asked to add labels and descriptions in Indian languages such as Kannada, Konkani etc. More than 150 edits were made during this exercise.

This workshop should be followed up by another iteration where the participants will be taught about the next level of editing.

Image credit

Source: Wikimedia Commons, author: User:Outofindia, CC-BY-SA-4.0

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-workshop-for-konkani-students-conducted-in-mangalore

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

Stats for March 2016

rahim — 2016-06-07T04:06:03Z

CIS-A2K team closely works with 5 Indian languages, we call as focus language areas. Here are the stats for the month of March 2016.

We generate stats for each of our focus language area month on month, and it has been used for designing and modifying our strategies from time to time. Though these stats were never published publicly, as we get them at stats.wikimedia.org already and publishing here is just repeating it; it was felt that some more metrics can be added and published month on month here at CIS blog. Also, the data here would be for the last month, while it takes two months for data to get updated at stats.wikimedia.org.

Stub articles created :

Kannada - 3/131

Konkani - 9/38

Marathi - 50/176

Odia - 8/89

Telugu - 59/284

In Kannada Wikipedia, about 131 new articles were created and of these only 3 are stub class articles. This is because Kannada Wikipedia is implementing a strict policy on not allowing a stub class article. There is an abuse filter created by one of the admins, Harish MG, which does not allow an editor to submit a smaller article than 1000 bytes. While Konkani showed a good progress in creation of new articles and only 9 of these 38 articles were stub class articles.

Marathi and Odia had a 28% and 9% share of total articles created as stubs respectively, while Telugu has about 21% of total articles created as stubs.

Active editors count has gone up in Kannada with 133 active editors during March 2016 - this could be accounted to the post 13th anniversary activities. Four focused editathons were organised as part of the 13th anniversary celebrations. The number of active editors increased in Konkani too. While in Marathi, Odia and Telugu the number was consistent with the previous months' numbers.

Now. lets look at the editing activity.

Kannada had 3279 edits adding about 86.57 MB of data. Konkani Wikipedia saw 920 edits in all, adding 8.41 MB of data. Marathi Wikipedia had 2926 edits with 68.42 MB of data; Odia Wikipedia added 1106 edits and 15.28 MB of data and Telugu Wikipedia had 8559 edits with 122.17 MB of data.

Having a provision of local image upload, Telugu Wikipedia added 53 images to the project while Marathi, one image was added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/stats-for-march-2016

Report of Konkani Wikipedia's progress (July-December 2015)

rahim — 2016-02-05T02:49:29Z

Konkani language is one of the 22 languages recognized by Indian union in 8th schedule. As per the 2007 census there are about 7.4 million Konkani speakers.[1] Konkani language has its own Wikipedia created on 15th June 2015. This blog post will try to put out Konkani Wikipedia's growth from a perspective based on Wikimedia stats.

Konkani language has varied scripts used by its speakers. There are more than six different scripts in which Konkani people seem to be writing, of these, Devanagari (same as Hindi, Marathi), Romi (Roman or Latin script) and Kannada script are more popular. The project went out of incubation and became a live Wikipedia project as Goan Konkani Wikipedia (language code gom and is available at gom.wikipedia.org).The Konkani community that contributes on Wikipedia is mostly present in Goa with a few contributors living elsewhere.

Below is the last 6 months' statistics of Goan Konkani Wikipedia:

	Total Editors	New editors	Active editors	Very active editors	Article count	New article created per month
July 2015	124		8	4	2100	8
August 2015	125	1	6	3	2300	6
September 2015	125		5	4	2400	1
October 2015	125		5	3	2400	1
November 2015	125		2		2400

Observations:

As we see the total number editors is at a good state as compared to other language Wikipedia projects that have gone live recently. Also the article count seem to be significant.
But the growth in total number of editors is not that encouraging and needs to be worked upon. This might be probably because of unawareness of Konkani Wikipedia among the native language speakers.
The active editor count has been declining over the 6 months. For the month of December, there has been no activity from the active community on Konkani Wikipedia.
Number of the most active Wikipedians will grow once we proactively engage with the existing community in organising outreach to bring new editors.
There has been no new article created on Konkani Wikipedia in November and December at all. This is an alarming issue.
This is slightly disturbing as we can see from stats tables.
Of the 40 or so active Konkani Wikipedians, only 2 of them have done some small activity on Konkani Wikipedia, whereas the rest have not visited the site for almost 3 months.
The community needs to be engaged with more and there is a need for bringing leadership. May be Konkani language encyclopedia Konkani Vishwakosh that was relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license by the Goa University will be a useful resource to enhance the Goan Konkani Wikipedia.

Note:
1. Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in Nationalencyklopedin

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-december-2015

Reading Devanagari script based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada Script

pavanaja — 2016-06-18T18:14:43Z

This is a small hack to read websites with Devanagari script (used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Maithili and a few more languages) based sites like Konkani Wikipedia in Kannada script.

Konkani Wikipedia finally went live in this June after being in Incubator for nine years. Konkani language is written using five different scripts; Devanagari (official script for Konkani in Goa), Kannada, Latin, Malayalam and Persian. The current Konkani Wikipedia is available at https://gom.wikipedia.org where “gom” is for the Goan variation of Konkani.

There is a significant Konkani population in coastal Karnataka and to a small extent in northern Kerala that use Kannada script for writing Konkani. Many of these people might be facing issues with reading the Konkani articles in Devanagari script in the Goan Konkani Wikipedia which brings the need for making the Wikipedia available in Kannada and other scripts that Konkani uses.

There are various ways to go about it. Some of the Wikimedia projects like the Serbian and Chinese Wikipedia already had this issue and had multi-script transliteration as a solution. Transliteration between Devanagari and Kannada scripts could be transliterated in multiple ways and below is one of them.

Noted typographer K. P. Rao who is known for creating fonts for almost all the Indian scripts has recently come up with a solution for Devanagari⟷Kannada transliteration by creating a new font “Devama” that has Devanagari Unicode encodings with Kannada glyphs. The font has the rendering logic as per Kannada rules which means if we set this fonts for any text typed using Devanagari script, it will display it in Kannada script. This will help anyone who can read Kannada script to read something written in Devanagari. Mr. Rao has generously released “Devama” under Open Font License (OFL) ver. 1.1. The source file for the font is currently available at https://github.com/pavanaja/DevamaNew for anyone to use and modify with attribution.

How to use the font:

Download and install the font as a .zip file.
Unzip the file and find the “Devama.otf” file. Install it. (the installation will vary based on your operating system, check a how-to guide to learn).
Now inorder to make the font working you need to change the browser settings. (check here for Firefox and Chrome browser settings). You need to set “Devama” as the display font for Devanagari script.
In Mozilla Firefox:

Select “Options” from Tools menu. It will open a new tab. Select the “Content” tab. Click on the button “Advanced...”. Select Devanagari from the drop-down list from “Fonts for” and set “Devama” as the font for all options. Click on “Ok” and close the dialog box. Now reload the Konkani Wikipedia to check if it is working or not.

Not just Konkani Wikipedia, any other site in Devanagari script (used for Hindi, Marathi, Nepali, Maithili, Bihari and a few other Indian languages) could also be read in Kannada. This might be useful for those who could read in Kannada and have problems reading in Devanagari.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/reading-devanagri-konkani-wikipedia-in-kannada-script

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

Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language

subha — 2014-01-31T06:20:11Z

CIS-A2K team interviewed Priyadarshini Tadkodkar about Konkani language. She speaks how editing/contributing to Konkani Wikipedia would help students.

Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team was there in Goa University to conduct a four day long Konkani Wikipedia workshop for the MA Konkani students. During these days Subhashish Panigrahi of CIS-A2K caught up with Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar, Head, Konkani department of Goa University and asked about the brief history of Konkani language. In this video Dr. Tadkodkar shares the origin and movements that has affected Konkani, influence of other languages on it and the documentation process of the language. The Census Department of India, 2001 figures put the number of Konkani speakers in India as 2,489,015. Out of these, around 6 lakh were in Goa, 7 lakh in Karnataka, 3 lakh in Maharashtra, 6 lakh in Kerala and rest live outside of India, either as expatriates or citizens of other countries (NRIs).

Video


Above: Video of Priyadarshini Tadkodkar speaking on Konkani language

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/priyadarshini-tadkodkar-konkani-language

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

Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-18T08:33:09Z

In order to showcase Romi Konknni on a global platform, Dalgado Konknni Akademi (DKA) organized a two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop November 16 and November 17 for Romi Konknni writers in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme, Bangalore.

This was published in Daijiworld.com on November 18, 2013.

The workshop which was held at Krishnadas Shama Central Library was attended by 30 Romi Konknni writers including editors of Romi Konknni periodicals.

The workshop was conducted by enthusiastic Nitika Tandon, Goa incharge and Programme Manager of Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme.

Among those who attended the Romi Konknni Wikipedia Workshop were young writers Nevena Furtado, Frank Fernandes, Venisha Fernandes, Anselmo Fernandes, tiatrist Mario Menezes, Konkani scholar and researcher Fr Pratap Naik, besides editor of ‘Gulab’ and ‘The Goan Review’ Fausto V da Costa, newly appointed editor of ‘Vavraddeancho Ixtt’ Fr Eusebio Gomes and editor of ‘Amcho Avaz’ weekly Tomazinho Cardozo.

DKA President Premanand A Lotlikar while welcoming the participants explained the importance of building up Romi Konknni Wikipedia. Treasurer Walter Menezes proposed the vote of thanks, and secretary Jose Salvador Fernandes co-ordinated the two days workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/daijiworld-november-18-2013-dka-organizes-two-day-konkani-wikipedia-workshop

NIE Steps in to Grow Konkani Wikipedia

vishnu — 2014-10-10T11:26:26Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) signed a memorandum of agreement (MoU) with Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa to enhance digital literacy in Konkani in the education sector across Goa.

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme of CIS, in its sustained efforts to enhance the content and reach of Kokani Wikepedia (which is in incubation), has signed an MoU for a period of five years with Nirmala Insitute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College established in 1963 by the Society of the Daughters of the Heart of Mary in response to the then urgent need for trained teachers in post liberation Goa. The key objectives of this partnership are: a) to design, develop and execute a certificate course titled "Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia", which is aimed at middle and high school teacher-trainees and teachers; and b) to introduce Wikimedia projects into the pedagogic curriculum of NIE.

Both CIS and NIE share a mutual interest in conserving, developing and disseminating knowledge free of cost in Konkani, which incidentally is Goa’s official language. Konkani as a language faces several challenges — it has no official script. The population who speak it are dispersed across the world and have little motivation to further the cause of Konkani, and there are few educational venues that offer a formal course to study Konkani or offer Konkani based curriculum. NIE Principal Dr. Denzil Martins welcomed this MoU and said that "it will guide our teacher-trainees to upload relevant information in Konkani that can be freely accessed by the local population" and "provide the volunteer-trainees with skills that they will be able to use to contribute and enhance the free knowledge in Konkani". The MoU was signed by Dr. Denzil Martins from NIE and T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, CIS) in the presence of staff and students of NIE and volunteers Harriet Vidyasagar and Gayathri Rao Konkar. Dr. Rita Paes, ex-Principal of NIE who worked to forge this MoU sent her best wishes.

CIS-A2K since 2013, has worked to develop partnerships with key educational institutions to promote and grow Konkani Wikipedia. It has previously worked with NIE to design and implement a program to enroll 100 B.Ed. students to increase the amount of information available in Goan villages and towns on Konkani Wikipedia. A2K has also been instrumental in convincing Goa University to re-release Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) under CC-BY-SA 3.0 , making it freely available to public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done.

The course ‘Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia’ will enable the teacher participant to have a) a comprehensive understanding of changes due to digital technology to the knowledge domain; b) an introduction to various openness movements that inform the discourse on Open Educational Resources; c) exposure and training to participate on open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia; and d) practical examples and best practices of using Wikipedia and sister projects within the classroom context. The parties will also co-design and jointly implement programmes to introduce Wikipedia in the NIE curriculum. The curriculum for this workshop is positioned within the context of indian languages (particularly Konkani) and school education to ensure that any learning is practical and can be applied within the teachers immediate pedagogic environment. Speaking about the relevance of this course Gayathri and Harriet (who have been associated with NIE as volunteers) mentioned that "the Goa government has handed out tablets to all school going children in Goa. In order to use them effectively in the classroom will require teachers to rethink their role and teaching methodologies and this course is an important step towards that". Agreeing with this Denzil Martins feels that this course "will provide the teacher-trainees with ideas and inputs for using Wikipedia in creative ways in the classroom".

This partnership could bring huge momentum and scale for the growth of Konkani as participants who graduate from this course will as teachers act as anchors and mentors to teach and assign Wikipedia editing assignments in their respective schools and classrooms.

As Gayathri feels "such courses once fine tuned should be made available to teachers from all over the country and should be part of the package for introducing the digital technology in the school system. Today it ends with setting up computer labls in schools or distribution of hardware to students - they may have a 'computer teacher' but the class and subject teachers never become part of these new initiatives. Only when this happens can we move away from 'teaching computers' to using computers as tools to learn and teach, which is the primary objective of digital technology in schools".

CIS will develop this open course and welcomes anyone to partner in this effort, which will be made available for anyone to use it within their context. The efforts to build free and open knowledge platforms like Konkani Wikipedia will continue and partnerships like NIE will play a crucial role in building a robust knowledge society in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/nie-steps-in-to-grow-konkani-wikipedia

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference

praskrishna — 2013-10-14T01:36:04Z

Jagotik Konknni Songhotton (JKS) organized an All-India Konkani Writers’ Conference on Sunday, September 29 at Kalaangann.

This was published in Daijiworld on October 1, 2013. Nitika Tandon is quoted.

As many as 78 Konkani writers from Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and various regions of Karnataka, attended the conference.

The conference was organized with the intention of bringing together writers of all the five scripts of Konkani and also to probe the possibilities of forming an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum.

Roy Castelino, treasurer, JKS, welcomed the gathering. The secretary general of JKS, Eric Ozario, explained the purpose of the conference and the need for forming an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum. Tomazinho Cardozo, ex-speaker of the Goa Assembly and president, JKS, spoke about the injustices done to writers in the Roman script.

Dr Pratap Naik, Konkani activist, spoke of the progress in the writ petition filed in the Goa bench of the Mumbai high court, seeking rectification of the Official Language Act of Goa, to include the Roman script.

Valerian D’Souza, Marcel D’souza and Eric Ozario explained the progress in the writ petition filed in the high court of Karnataka against the Sahitya Akademi, seeking equal treatment to all scripts of Konkani.

Nitika Tandon, programme manager, The Centre for Internet & Society, spoke about Konkani Wikipedia and the need for the participation of the Roman and the Kannada script writers.

The conference resolved to form an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum, which would protect the interest of Konkani literature and Konkani writers of all scripts. An ad-hoc committee was formed to discuss and decide upon the immediate steps to be taken towards the formation of the Forum.

A book compiling short stories written by Kevin D’Mello, Karkala, titled ‘Chondda ani Gorbh’, was also released on the occasion.

Victor Mathias conducted the proceedings of the conference.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/daijiworld-october-14-2013-mangalore-konkani-writers-resolve-to-form-all-india-forum-at-jks-conference

Konknni Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-11-15T08:19:50Z

Dalgado Konknni Akademi in collaboration with Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme is organsing a 2 day Wikipedia editing workshop at the Goa Central State Library on November 16 and 17, 2013 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

This workshop is free and open for anyone to attend. Please feel free to join hands in the campaign to promote free access to knowledge in one’s mother tongue – Konknni in Romi! This is a brilliant opportunity to showcase Konkani language in Roman script on a global platform such as Konknni Wikipedia!

Click to download the invite here. (PDF, 64 Kb)

Read more on Dalgado Konknni Akademi here
Read more on the Centre for Internet and Society here
Read more on Goa Central State Library here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/konknni-wikipedia-workshop-nov-16-17-2013

Konkani-language books from Konkani-language culture center Mannd Sobhaann to enrich Konkani Wikipedia

Rahmanuddin Shaik and Tanveer Hasan — 2015-11-12T13:08:07Z

Mangalore based cultural centre Maand Sobhaann has recently relicensed 3 of their publications under a free license so that the books could be digitised on Konkani Wikisource and enrich Konkani Wikipedia.

Mannd Sobhaann, a private organisation working for unification of Konkani people around the world, preservation and promotion of Konkani language and culture, has recently relicensed 3 of their published books under a CC-by-SA 4.0 license. Erik Ozario, founder of the organisation has kindly permitted to open these books under free license so they get digitised on Konkani Wikisource and contribute in enriching the Goan Konkani Wikiepdia. Thanks to Wikimedian Harriet Vidyasagar for her help in acquiring these books. The three books that are relicensed are Konkani pustakaam, a compilation of Konkani books published for last century; Prabhaav, compilation of Konkani stories and writers; and another book containing compilation of songs in praise of Jesus.

Mannd Sobhaann as an organisation has been quite instrumental in taking Konkani language to masses. They have opened up a space called Kalangan in Mangalore for Konkani speakers to gather and organise various language and cultural celebrations. They have published 13 books and 23 music albums on Konkani language and culture. Their publication and association of them will hopefully lead to better the Konkani Wikimedia projects and unite the Konkani speakers in Mangalore and Goa to grow the Wikimedia community.

CIS-A2K's work with the Konkani Wikipedia received a boost when two prominent organisations working for popularisation and conservation of Konkani culture, Maand Sobhaan and World Konkani Centre decided to join hands with us. They have agreed to not only host GLAM (unleashing cultural data by institutional partnership with galleries, libraries, archives and museums) activities at their premises and the proposed museum at Maand Sobhaan but by donating three invaluable books to be released under CC-BY-SA license have paved the way for introduction of new content and also provided sources for citation and reference.

These organisations have worked relentlessly in their own capacity to spread the Konkani language, culture, aspects of life and introduce prominent personalities that have worked to promote Konkani language. Their association with the Konkani Wikimedia projects is a sure way of not only addition of content but leads to the definite possibilities of increase in readers, increase in editors. A2K has proposed to digitise their archives which contains invaluable resources (audio, video and text) that shall be of immense help in growing Konkani Wikimedia projects.

By securing the help of these organisations, CIS-A2K has been able to spread the utility and functionality of Konkani Wikipedia from Goa to Mangalore. CIS-A2K is also considering to conduct and organise events that bring in institutions and organisations from different Konkani speaking parts of India together.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/konkani-language-books-from-konkani-language-culture-center-mannd-sobhaann-to-enrich-konkani-wikipedia

Konkani Wikipedia in the making

praskrishna — 2013-09-30T09:11:09Z

Process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia will be completed in six months’ time.

This article by Prakash Kamat was published in the Hindu on September 29, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.

The Goa University has re-launched a four-volume Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopaedia) and announced its plan to upload the same on Wikipedia so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia.

The project is seen as a major stride in Konkani learning, research and production of books. The project, which will involve 42 students of the Konkani Department of Goa University including four designated as Ambassadors of Konkani, will turn students into producers of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge. The University has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.

“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.

Narrating how the project began, Registrar of Goa University V. P. Kamat explained that Mr. Satish Shetye, who took over as Vice-Chancellor over a year ago, happened to notice the huge piles of hardbound volumes of the Konkani encyclopaedia stacked in the Goa University library and wished to digitise the manuscripts and re-launch the encyclopaedia. The idea to upload the whole content on Wikipedia was thus born.

The work for the Konkani encyclopaedia project was commissioned during the tenure of the first Vice-Chancellor B. Sheik Ali. The project was seen as a historical step to document the identity of the State and its people and the history of Goa for posterity. University insiders, however, said that no serious efforts were made to take the invaluable research work undertaken beyond the University. Secondly, because of the lack of human resource and funds, no initiative was taken so far to update these volumes.

Initiative

Prof. Shetye took a proactive initiative and tied up with Access to Knowledge Programme of the CIS. The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopaedia are being released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access.

Programme Director at CIS’s Access to Knowledge Programme Vishnu Vardhan said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopa edia on Wikipedia would be completed in six months’ time. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in the encyclopaedia so as to make the content more relevant.

Students of the University involved in digitisation work and rewriting the content see this as an opportunity to learn about digitisation and to write Konkani of global standard, said Madhavi Sardesai, Professor, Department of Konkani at the University. Mr. Vardhan also disclosed plans for a relevant training programme specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the University to put up the content on Wikipedia.

He said that the Goa University is the first in the country to re-license copyright of its content and hailed the initiative towards open knowledge. Though the MoU signed last month would be initially valid for three years, Mr. Vardhan is optimistic that it would go beyond the launch of the Vishwakosh volumes.

Mr. Halarnkar, associated with the Konkani literary movement, who was present at the launch as the editor of the original volumes, welcomed the process of digitisation as relevant, historical and need of the hour. However, he stressed on supervision over the accuracy and accountability while digitising original data and regular updating of the content in the context of the Konkani language, its history and movement.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-september-29-2013-prakash-kamat-konkani-wikipedia-in-the-making