Centre for Internet and Society

Making the Powerful Accountable

chinmayi — 2014-01-30T06:43:41Z

If powerful figures are not subjected to transparent court proceedings, the opacity in the face of a critical issue is likely to undermine public faith in the judiciary.

Chinmayi Arun's Op-ed was published in the Hindu on January 29, 2014.

It is odd indeed that the Delhi High Court seems to believe that sensational media coverage can sway the Supreme Court into prejudice against one of its own retired judges. Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi High Court has said in Swatanter Kumar v. Indian Express and others that the pervasive sensational media coverage of the sexual harassment allegations against the retired Supreme Court judge 'may also result in creating an atmosphere in the form of public opinion wherein a person may not be able to put forward his defence properly and his likelihood of getting fair trial would be seriously impaired.' This Delhi High court judgment has drawn upon the controversial 2011 Supreme Court judgment in Sahara India Real Estate Corp. Ltd v. SEBI (referred to as the Gag Order case here) to prohibit the media from publishing headlines connecting retired Justice Swatanter Kumar with the intern's allegations, and from publishing his photograph in connection with the allegations.

Although the Gag Order judgment was criticised at the time that it was delivered Swatanter Kumar v. Indian Express illustrates its detractors' argument more vividly that anyone could have imagined.

Sukumar Muralidharan wrote of Gag Order case that the postponement (of media coverage) order remedy that it created, could become an "instrument in the hands of wealthy and influential litigants, to subvert the course of open justice".

Here we find that although a former Supreme Court judge is pitted against a very young former intern within a system over which he once presided, Justice Manmohan Singh seems to think that it is the judge who is danger of being victimised.

The Swatanter Kumar judgment was enabled by both the Gag Order case as well as the 1966 Supreme Court judgment in Naresh Sridhar Mirajkar v. State of Maharashtra, which in combination created a process for veiling court proceedings. Naresh Mirajkar stated that courts' inherent powers extend to barring media reports and comments on ongoing trials in the interests of justice, and that such powers do not violate the right to freedom of speech; and the Gag Order case created an instrument - the 'postponement order' - for litigants, such that they can have media reports of a pending case restricted. The manner in which this is used in the Swatanter Kumar judgment raises very worrying questions about how the judiciary views the boundaries of the right to freedom of expression, particularly in the context of reporting court proceedings.

Broad power to restrict reporting

The Gag Order case was problematic: it used arguments for legitimate restraints on media reporting in exceptional circumstances, to permit restrictions on media reporting of court proceedings under circumstances 'where there is a real and substantial risk of prejudice to fairness of the trial or to proper administration of justice'. The Supreme Court refused to narrow this or clarify what publications would fall within this category. It merely stated that this would depend on the content and context of the offending publication, and that no 'straightjacket formula' could be created to enumerate these categories. This leaves higher judiciary with a broad discretionary power to decide what amounts to
legitimate restraints on media reporting, using an ambiguous standard. Exercise of this power to veil proceedings involving powerful public figures whose actions have public implications, imperils openness and transparency when they are most critical.

Court proceedings are usually open to the public. This openness serves as a check on the judiciary, and ensures public faith in the judiciary. In countries as large as ours, media coverage of important cases ensures actual openness of court proceedings - we are able to follow the arguments made by petitioners who ask that homosexuality be decriminalised, the trial of suspected terrorists and alleged murderers, and the manner in which our legal system handles sexual harassment complaints filed by young women.

When court proceedings are closed to the public (known as 'in-camera' trials) or when media dissemination of information about them is restricted, the openness and transparency of court proceedings is compromised. Such compromise of transparency does take place in many countries, to protect the rights of the parties involved, or prevent miscarriage of justice. For example, child-participants are protected by holding trials in-camera; names of parties to court proceedings are withheld to protect their privacy sometimes; and in countries where juries determine guilt, news coverage that may prejudice the jury is also restricted.

The damage done

Although the Supreme Court stated in principle that the openness of court proceedings should only be restricted where strictly necessary, this appears to lend itself to very varied interpretation. For example, it is very difficult for some of us to understand why it was strictly necessary to restrict media coverage of sexual harassment proceedings in the Swatanter Kumar case. J. Manmohan Singh on the other hand seems to believe that the adverse public opinion will affect the retired judge's chance of getting a fair trial. His judgment also seems to indicate his concern that the sensational headlines will impact the public confidence in the Supreme Court.

The Delhi High Court's apprehension about the effects of the newspaper coverage on the reputation of the judge did not need to translate into a prior restraint on media coverage. They may better have been addressed later, by evaluating a defamation claim pertaining to published material. The larger concerns about the reputation of the judiciary are better addressed by openness: if powerful public figures, especially those with as much influence as a former Supreme Court judge are not subjected to transparent court proceedings, the opacity in the face of such a critical issue is likely to undermine public faith in the judiciary as an institution.Such opacity undermines the purpose of open courts. It is much worse for the reputation of the judiciary than publicised complaints about individual judges.

Since the Delhi High Court ruling, there has been little media coverage of the sexual harassment case. Suppression of media coverage leaves the young woman comparatively isolated. Wide coverage of the harassment complaint involving Justice Ganguly, helped the intern in that case find support. The circulation of information enabled other former interns as well as a larger network of lawyers and activists, reach out to her. This is apart from the general pressure to be fair that arises when a case is being followed closely by the public. Media coverage is often critical to whether someone relatively powerless is able to assert her rights against a very powerful person. This is why media freedom is sacred to democracies.

If the Supreme Court was confident that the high courts in India would use their broad discretionary power under the Gag Order case sparingly and only in the interests of justice, the Swatanter Kumar case should offer it grounds to reconsider. Openness and freedom of expression are not meant to be diluted to protect the powerful - they exist precisely to ensure that even the powerful are held accountable by state systems that they might otherwise be able to sway.

(Chinmayi Arun is research director, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi, and fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-january-29-2014-chinmayi-arun-making-the-powerful-accountable

Wikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom

Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu Vardhan — 2014-01-30T10:06:40Z

Getting students to create and edit Wikipedia entries in English and Indian languages can be a comprehensive assessment tool at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. Both levels of higher education require the demonstration of the ability to present knowledge in encyclopaedic form, which can be done by a good review of relevant literature and the showcasing of key arguments in the field.

Using the Dublin competency level descriptors,[*] we can put down what sorts of higher education skills Wikipedia editing can help evaluate. The most commonly accepted descriptors internationally are:

Demonstration of Knowledge and understanding
Applying knowledge and understanding
Making judgements
Communication abilities
Learning skills relevant to higher education

Wikipedia allows for assessing the ‘depth’ of an article which is the measure of the quality of an entry. The depth is a function of several parameters like the number of edits an article has seen, the length of discussion in the talk pages, the number of footnotes, references, hyperlinks and editors active on that page. In addition to this, providing Wiki-interlinks to key concepts within an article and categorization of articles exposes the students to a "semantic web" of interconnections between various fields of knowledge. Although, it may not be a complete substitute for the more formal modes of assessment, it provides a more rounded form of evaluation for student assessment. The ‘depth’ indicator also shows the relative significance of an article for the larger community of users, thereby providing a better model for student assessment in the long run.

Bachelor's Level

By getting students to edit on Wikipedia at the Bachelor’s Level, you can test the following, and appropriate weightage can be given to each aspect of the work:

Comprehension of the theory, concepts and processes pertaining to a field or fields of learning
Demonstration of knowledge, supported by the use of advanced textbooks and other reading materials, of one or more specialised areas
Ability to apply this knowledge and comprehension in a manner that indicates a thorough and informed approach to the work, and have competences typically demonstrated through devising and sustaining arguments
Ability to gather and interpret relevant data to inform independent judgements which include reflection on relevant social, scientific or ethical issues
Ability to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences [in the case of Wikipedia, the audience would usually be a non-specialist one]

Master's Level

By getting students to edit on Wikipedia at the Master’s Level, you can test the following, and appropriate weightage can be given to each aspect of the work:

Demonstration of knowledge and comprehension that is founded upon, extends and enhances that associated with the Bachelor’s level and is at the forefront of a field of learning
Critical awareness of current problems and new insights, new tools and new processes within their field of learning (ability to do a good literature review, which can be seen through the citations provided for a Wikipedia entry)
Ability to apply their knowledge, comprehension, and critical awareness in broader or multidisciplinary areas related to their fields of study
Ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity, to formulate judgements with incomplete or limited information, with an awareness of the social and ethical responsibilities linked to the application of their knowledge and judgements
Ability to communicate their conclusions, and knowledge, rationale and processes underpinning these, to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously
Ability to reflect on one’s own writing by engaging with feedback received from a collaborative network.
Ability to form peer knowledge networks through collaboration and interaction with other contributors

Risks and Mitigation

It is helpful to be aware of the typical risks a faculty may face in using Wikipedia entries as an assessment tool.

New article creation: Wikipedias, especially the English Wikipedia, are closely monitored by thousands of volunteers from across the world. Often, articles created by new users come under a lot of scrutiny. It is advisable to first encourage the students to edit and improve the existing articles before creating a new article all by themselves. Also taking the help of an experienced Wikipedian will go a long way in mentoring the students on the nuances of the Wikipedia platform and the volunteer community that strives in good faith to preserve the quality of entries.
Copyright violation: Ctrl+c and Ctrl+v (i.e., plagiarism) is a major challenge for the higher education sector across the world. Often the students find that copy-pasting the content from various sources is an easy way of doing an assignment. On Wikipedia, plagiarism is taken very seriously and a student editor can get banned from further contribution to Wikipedia, which may de-motivate the entire class. It’s useful for the faculty to give a detailed orientation on this aspect before encouraging the students to take up writing a Wikipedia entry as an assignment. There are numerous resources (text and videos) made available by Wikimedians across the world explaining the problem of plagiarism. These could be used by the faculty.
If you are encouraging students to write an entry in an Indian language Wikipedia, special attention and support needs to be planned to train the students in typing in that particular Indian language script. Wikipedias have a useful tool called Universal Language Selector (ULS) which makes it very easy for the student to start typing in any script using the transliteration method. There is increasing support for Indian language scripts, however. You could check whether your University computer lab has Unicode compliant computers/systems. This will help the students to work offline on their assignment, if required.
One of the biggest challenges for a teacher is to get the student to see the value of taking up a Wikipedia entry as an assignment. Some of the students may see this as an additional task or extra-curricular activity and may not put in a committed effort, which could affect the goals you have set for your course. Faculties are encouraged to find various means of integrating/dovetailing the Wikipedia assignment into the curriculum or course.
Faculty may also feel this as an additional burden on them, especially in terms of evaluation of the assignment. There are various tools available to measure most of the assessment parameters set out above, which will not take much time. It is in fact possible to save faculty time if the evaluation is planned meticulously.
A pragmatic challenge for the faculty would be to deal with a scenario where the entire class submits the assignments on Wikipedia on the last day. This will not only increase burden on the faculty but can also result in a lot of plagiarism. An effective way to address this challenge is to make the Wikipedia entry assignment part of a formative assessment, whereby the student develops the entry over a period of time (e.g. one month or during the course). There are various tools through which you can track the students’ contribution continuously and share feedback with them periodically.

[*].Available at http://www.tcd.ie/teaching-learning/academic-development/assets/pdf/dublin_descriptors.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-as-assessment-tool-in-indian-higher-education-classroom

Wikipedia at Forefront in Christ University

syed — 2014-02-04T05:08:41Z

Wikipedia has entered Indian undergraduate language classroom in Christ University, Bangalore. Recently the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) organized a series of events in Christ University. This blog post provides a brief analysis of the outcome.

Every year, universities worldwide and in India recognise the need to revise their curriculum to provide up-to-date knowledge for their students. Fresh topics are identified and prescribed replacing the ones which have become obsolete. As technology advances, the need for redesigning the syllabus is not just restricted to the theoretical elements of the academic programme, as the need for a paradigm shift in emphasising the practical implications of the acquired knowledge is recognised universally.

In line with this, universities and colleges across the world have introduced innovative ways of making their curriculum more contemporary than traditional and more pragmatic than academic. One of the leading examples of such initiatives was the "WikiProject Medicine" started by the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine (UCSF School of Medicine) which aimed at making quality article writing on medical subjects a quintessential part of the syllabus completion. The result of this exercise was startling — 25,825 articles produced under the project received 189,908,947 hits — a record achievement for any Wikipedia project (Source: http://bitly.com/wikiprojmed).

Universities and colleges in India also realise that internet is a boon for educational system. Students often refer to informative websites for their projects and assignments, with Wikipedia articles topping the list of the reference resources that are easily accessible. Although English Wikipedia is more viewed and referred by the students, of late there has been an increase in both readership and voluntary editorial contributions to the Indic language Wikipedias such as Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and other language versions of Wikipedia.

Keeping in view these developments, CIS entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Christ University, Bangalore to make article writing on Wikipedia a core exercise for their continuous internal assessment of its 1600 undergraduate students. The state-of-the-art university which also has a recording studio agreed to host the first of its kind Wikipedia video tutorials in two languages — Hindi and Kannada.

During the month of December 2013, 10 videos each were recorded in both Hindi and Kannada for the respective language Wikipedia editing. While the video scripts were prepared by CIS, the students of the Christ University played an active role for the introductory videos and rendered their voices for the other video tutorials which featured various Wikipedia editing screenshots. These videos have been uploaded on the Moodle Learning platform of the Christ University website, Wikimedia Commons and the "Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K)" Channel on YouTube.

In order to help the students assess their grasp of the knowledge disseminated in each video, each uploaded video on the Christ University website ends with a set of objective questions. Students were also given the right answers along with their scores. The questions were designed by CIS staff in consultation with Christ University professors.

During December 2013 and January 2014 separate campus ambassadors’ orientation programmes were organized by CIS for Hindi and Kannada second language students at Christ University. A training programme was also held for Urdu students. An orientation programme for Tamil students was organized by CIS at Christ University with support from noted Tamil Wikipedian Bala Sundara Raman. Similarly, an orientation programme for Sanskrit students was organized by CIS at Christ University with the support from Shubha of Sanskrit Bharati.

Beginning from January 23 to the first week of February, 2014 is the timeline for Christ University students to finish their assignments. With the video tutorial, training and orientation programmes, constant monitoring by CIS, and with support from Christ University, it is hoped that students will contribute significantly to the five different language Wikipedias — Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-at-forefront-in-christ-university

KIIT University to lead building free knowledge repository initiative

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T09:57:50Z

The blog post was published by India Education Diary.com on January 20, 2014.

Its Access To Knowledge program is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and works in fostering the volunteer Wikimedia community that contributes in enhancing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Its primary mandate is upbringing Wikipedia editors by outreach, creating primary resources for sources of reference in multiple ways that lead to enrich Wikipedia.

From a technical institution, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology has grown to a multidisciplinary world class University. KIIT University is a world class university spread over 25 sq. km. of land accommodating 20 sprawling wi-fi campuses with 10 million sq.ft. built up area. The university has 25 constituent schools offering more than 100 programmes. Being accredited by NAAC of UGC and NBA of AICTE, KIIT has 20,000 students pursuing under graduate and post graduate studies in the fields of Engineering, Computer Application, Management, Rural Management, Law, Biotechnology, MBBS, M.D., BDS, Nursing, Fashion Technology, Cinema & Media Studies and Languages. KIIT stands out as one of the finest universities in India declared under section 3 of the UGC Act of 1956. KIIT educational conglomerate is unique in offering a wide spectrum of academic programmes from kindergarten to postgraduate level, earning it a place in the Limca Book of Records.

Wikipedia has a critical stand in academia when it comes to peer academic research. But on the other side students ofter access and use Wikipedia for their assignment work despite of the non acceptance of Wikipedia content by the teacher community. The primary reason of Wikipedia's factual errors in many Indic related articles being Wikipedia's low contribution from the global south needs more contribution. Academicians and subject experts who are in charge of building the infrastructure of providing free knowledge to everyone often were stuck because of this setback.

This led to an conjugation of subject experts and Wikimedia contributor communities to set up a system called Wikipedia Education Program (WEP) where editing, correcting and enhancing Wikipedia articles become part of the curriculum.

To begin with the students in different schools at KIIT University the local Wikipedia community with the support from CIS-A2K is going to conduct classroom Wikipedia workshops to pilot Wikipedia contribution. KIIT University would be one of world's few universities to pilot student Wikipedia contribution as part oftheir curricula in any regional language.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/india-education-diary-january-20-2014-kiit-university-to-lead-building-free-knowledge-repository-initiative

Odisha: KISS to create tribal languages and heritage repository

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T08:33:08Z

World' largest tribal residential institute Kalinga Institute of Social Studies (KISS) is going to initiate a project in collaboration with Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge program (CIS-A2K) to gather academic and research resources on tribal languages and diverse cultural heritage.

The report by Odisha Diary Bureau was published on January 20, 2014.

Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) is the largest tribal residential institution in the world. It is home to over 20,000 tribal students from 64 tribes living in Eastern and North-Eastern parts of India that not only provide them accommodation, food, and free education from kindergarten to post graduation but also provide them 24/7 health care in the in-house hospital and many vocational trainings to empower them as able citizens of this nation ensuring their successful future. UNICEF in association with KISS has established a Children Development Resource Centre (CDRC) as part of the larger UNICEF-KIIT University joint initiative for the Centre for Children Studies (CCS) that aims in promoting evidence-based policy making by building a knowledge base thorough research and other development programmes on children's issues focusing on the state of Odisha.

KISS in collaboration with Bernard van Leer Foundation is currently devising education systems in native tribal languages that even do not have scripts. With over 17 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)s and many more in process. KISS is bringing up a new stream of sustainable growth for tribals below poverty line by educating them and imparting knowledge in their own languages.

UNICEF, UNESCO, UNFPA, College of Charleson (USA), Bernard van Leer Foundation, Vedanta Foundation, NALCO Foundation, English Access Micro-Scholarship Program (Federal Govt.), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Oracle Educational Foundation, Intel Technology, CPU Joint Volunteers (South Korea) are some of the organisations that KISS is working in tandem with to take the Indian tribal cultural diversity and heritage to the outside world by giving the aboriginal natives their space in this world.

Centre for Internet and Society is a Bangalore based Non profit organization which works primarily in the broader domains ofinternet and policy research, accessibility, open knowledge and open education. Its Access To Knowledge program is funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and works in fostering the volunteer Wikimedia community that contributes in enhancing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Its primary mandate is upbringing Wikipedia editors by outreach, creating primary resources for sources of reference in multiple ways that lead to enrich Wikipedia.

This collaboration will bring detailed research and multilingual documentation about several aspects of tribals of India and would work as an Open Education Resources (OER) for academicians and researchers. This event is organized on 11th January 2014 atKalinga Institute of Social Studies premises at 11 am. KIITUniversity's Founder-Chairman Dr. Achyuta Samanta is going to inaugurate this project formally on this occasion.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-january-20-2014-kiss-to-create-tribal-languages-and-heritage-repository

WikiSangamotsavam 2013 brings Indian Wikimedians together

Netha Hussain and Subhashish Panigrahi — 2014-02-03T06:57:04Z

WikiSangamotsavam, the annual conference of Malayalam Wikimedians, took place in Alappuzha, Kerala from December 21 to 23, 2013. The conference brought together around 200 Wikimedians and well-wishers from all over India.

The blog post originally published on Wikimedia Foundation's website was copy edited by Rohini Lakshane and published as an article in DNA on January 14, 2014.

The host town, Alappuzha is popularly known as the Venice of the East owing to its picturesque backwaters and canals. Alappuzha was chosen as the location for the conference in an attempt to draw attention to the region's diversity and touristic appeal, thereby increasing the town's representation on Wikipedia. A few pre-conference events including a bicycle rally, a meetup for young Wikimedians and several edit-a-thons were held.

Day 1
The first day of WikiSangamotsavam started with Wiki-Vidyarthi-Sangamam, a meetup of student Wikimedians. The digitisation of "Sri-Mahabharatham", a seven volume Malayalam epic was flagged off during the Wiki-Vidyarthi-Sangamam. Around 100 students from all over Kerala interacted with each other and learnt about Wikimedia projects in Malayalam. A Wikipedia workshop was conducted for physically impaired delegates. They were introduced to various means of accessibility by the DAISY Consortium. This session helped them learn about self-education tools, accessing knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia, and contributing in Malayalam online.

During a panel discussion on "Malayalam and Wikipedia" language and computing experts discussed the role of Wikipedia in the growth of the Malayalam language. Talks and presentations about topics relevant to Wikimedia were held in three parallel sessions.

The first day of the event also marked the Malayalam Wikipedia’s eleventh anniversary. The occasion was celebrated by cutting a cake. At the end of the day, Wikimedians entertained themselves by singing Malayalam folk songs.

Day 2
The second day started with the inaugural session. The event was inaugurated by Sashi Kumar, a media analyst and founder of India’s first regional satellite television channel.

Dr. Thomas Isaac, a former minister in Kerala, was the chief guest at the function. Mementos were given away to active Wikimedians who organised various Wikimedia events throughout 2013.

The QRpedia project was launched by Dr. Thomas Isaac at the Alappuzha lighthouse. QRpedia aims to make QR codes for tourist locations, which link to Wikipedia articles pertaining to the locations and monuments. By the start of the next year, all historical monuments and tourist destinations are set to be marked with QR codes. If successfully completed, Alappuzha would be the first town in India to be fully digitised with QR codes.

A Non-Malayalam Indic Wikimedia meetup was held for Wikimedians who contribute to Wikimedia projects in other Indic languages and English. There was a track to discuss how various collaborative projects could be built to have content creation drives for enriching Wikipedia.

Day 3
The third and final day of WikiSangamotsavam was devoted to taking Wikimedians on a boat trip amidst the flora of the Vembanad lake to experience its unique biodiversity. Experienced Wikimedians who have done extensive research on the region's biodiversity provided a guided tour onboard the boat.

The 126 acres of reclaimed wetland around the lake and its rare plant species serves as the location for a rich discussion and collaboration among bio-enthusiasts on Wikipedia. Wikimedians also discussed how to go about protecting the biodiversity of the R. Block of Vembanad lake.

The three-day long WikiSangamotsavam brought together many of the Malayalam Wikimedians under one roof and enabled them to share their best practices, ideas and visions for the future.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dna-january-14-2014-netha-hussain-subhashish-panigrahi-wikisangamotsavam-2013-brings-indian-wikimedians-together

Introductory talk about "Wikipedia in Academics"

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T06:48:40Z

Subhashish Panigrahi gave a talk on Wikipedia in Academics. Subhashish spoke about the use the Wikipedia in academics, students' role as contributors to Wikipedia to keep the facts correct and editing Wikipedia articles in Indic languages.

Prof.Parthosen Gupta, Professor-KIIT School of Management and Sucheta Priyabadini, Joint Registrar, KIIT were present during the event to talk about the KIIT - CIS-A2K partnership and forthcoming collaboration projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/talk-on-wikipedia-in-academics

What is happening in South America and how Openness is an opportunity to Social, Political and Activist Movements?

praskrishna — 2014-01-13T08:32:06Z

Pilar Saenz, project coordinator from the Karisma Foundation in Colombia and Ulises Hernandez, an engineer in electronics and telecommunication will give a talk on Openness as an opportunity for social, political and activist movements in South America. The talk will be held at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) office in Bangalore on January 17 at 6.00 p.m.

What is happening in South America is a mapping of projects on free/open software, political advocacy and hacktivism in South America. The main idea is to show what is happening in the region, which networks could be linked and establish initial contacts with amazing experiences.

The Latin America region has a long tradition of social and political movements, but with the use of technology the possibilities have grown. Now, it' is common to find political advocacy movements that use social networks and independent media. We also find artists and designers working together with engineers and technicians to solve social problems using bottom-up approaches; and many other spaces where people share their experiences and become a network.

There are other people, communities and organizations doing the same type of work and having amazing and innovative experiences throughout the Global South, but these often don't know each other. Therefore, in order to build more effective networks between these projects, this presentation will be a first point of contact with several initiatives, ideas and people of Latin America.

Karisma Foundation and Right, Internet and Society Group

Karisma Foundation is a civil society organization founded in 2003 and located in Bogotá, Colombia. Its mission is to support and promote the good use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the Colombian and Latin American societies, seeking a responsible and reflective appropriation of ICT in various sectors of society.

"Right, Internet and Society" (DIS in Spanish) is a group inside the Foundation that develops and supports initiatives in human rights and civil liberties in digital environments, promotes culture, content and free software vindicating the public interest, and spaces and commons.

DIS members participate in public policy discussions at the convergence of ICT and law, promote citizen participation around these issues, support and defend human rights in the digital environment, and participate in research, analysis and action in Colombia and Latin America.

About the Presenters

Pilar Saenz is project coordinator at the Karisma Foundation in Colombia, where she leads DIS' policy advocacy projects. A physicist by profession but an activist by vocation, Pilar’s work focuses on free software, open technology and open culture.

Ulises Hernandez is an Engineer in Electronics and Telecommunication with a deep interest in education. He is a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Sciences at the University of Cauca, where he is also the coordinator of a teacher training program in ICT. He is the main researcher of Open Educational Resources project at Karisma Foundation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/what-is-happening-in-south-america-how-openness-is-an-opportunity-to-social-political-and-activist-movements

ଆଦିବାସୀ ଭାଷାର ଉନ୍ନତିକଳ୍ପେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T10:43:58Z

Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted in this article published by Odishan.com on January 12, 2014.

ଗତକାଲି ଭୁବନେଶ୍ବରସ୍ଥିତ କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇନ୍ସେସ (କିସ) ପରିସରରେ କିଟ ବିଶ୍ବବିଦ୍ୟାଳୟ ସହିତ ବେଙ୍ଗାଳୁରୁର ସେଣ୍ଟର ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି-ଆକ୍ସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଏକ ମେମୋରାଣ୍ଡମ ଅଫ ଅଣ୍ଡରଷ୍ଟାଣ୍ଡିଂ (ଏମ ଓ ୟୁ)ରେ ଦସ୍ତଖତ କରିଛନ୍ତି । କିସଠାରେ ଆଦିବାସୀ ପିଲା ଓ ଅଧ୍ୟାପକମାନଙ୍କୁ ନେଇ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧି କରିବା ତଥା ଆଦିବାସୀ ଭାଷାରେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ବିକାଶ ନିମନ୍ତେ ନୂଆ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମମାନ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯିବ । ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ସଂସ୍କୃତି, କଳା ଓ ଜନଜୀବନର ଅନେକ ଉପାଦେୟ ବିଷୟ ଆଜି ବି ଜନସାଧାରଣଙ୍କ ଅଗୋଚରରେ ରହିଛି ।

ଏହି ବିବିଧ ବିଷୟରେ ବୁଦ୍ଧିଜୀବୀ, ଗବେଷକ ଓ ମାନବବିଦମାନେ ଅଧିକ ଗବେଷଣା ପାଇଁ ଏହି ମିଳିତ ପ୍ରଚେଷ୍ଟା ବିଶ୍ବର ଏକ ନୂଆ ଯୁଗର ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବ ବୋଲି ଏହାକୁ ଉଦଘାଟନ କରି କିସ ଓ କିଟର ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ଡଃ ଅଚ୍ୟୁତ ସାମନ୍ତ କହିଛନ୍ତି । ଏଥିରେ ଯୋଗଦେଇ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି-ଆକ୍ସେସ ଟୁ ନଲେଜ ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମର ପ୍ରୋଗ୍ରାମ ଅଫିସର ତଥା ଏହି ଦୀର୍ଘସୂଚୀ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମକୁ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକାରୀ କରୁଥିବା ଶୁଭାଶିଷ ପାଣିଗ୍ରାହୀ ଏହା ଆଦିବାସୀଙ୍କର ଜୀବନକୁ ବିଶ୍ବସ୍ତରରେ ପରିଚିତ କରାଇବ ତଥା ଆଦିବାସୀ ଭାଷାସମୂହର ନଥିକରଣରେ ସହାୟକ ହେବ ବୋଲି ମତବ୍ୟକ୍ତ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଏହି ଉତ୍ସବରେ କିଟ ତରଫରୁ ରେଜିଷ୍ଟ୍ରାର ଡଃ ସସ୍ମିତା ସାମନ୍ତ, କିସ ତରଫରୁ ସୂର୍ଯ୍ୟକାନ୍ତ ମହାନ୍ତି ଓ ସେଣ୍ଟର ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ଏଣ୍ଡ ସୋସାଇଟି ତରଫରୁ ଟି ବିଷ୍ଣୁବର୍ଦ୍ଧନ ଏହି ମିଳିତ ଏମ ଓ ୟୁରେ ଔପଚାରିକ ଭାବେ ଦସ୍ତଖତ କରିଥିଲେ ।

ଆଗାମୀ ପାଞ୍ଚ ବର୍ଷ ନିମନ୍ତେ କିଟ ଓ କିସରେ ବହୁବିଧ କର୍ମଶାଳା ଓ ସଚେତନାମୂଳକ ଆଲୋଚନାଚକ୍ର ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ଛାତ୍ରମାନଙ୍କୁ ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟ ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଗବେଷଣାତ୍ମକ ନଥିକରଣ ଓ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଭଳି ମୁକ୍ତ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷରେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗମାନ ଲେଖି ଓ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରି ନିଜ ଜ୍ଞାନର ବିକାଶ କରିବା ସଙ୍ଗେସଙ୍ଗେ ଅନ୍ୟମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ ମଧ୍ୟ ମୁକ୍ତଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣ କରିପାରିବେ । ଏଥିସହିତ ବିଶ୍ବର ବାକି ଦେଶମାନଙ୍କରେ ଥିବା ଅନେକ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀ ଓ ଗବେଷକମାନଙ୍କ ସହ ଭାଗନେଇ ନୂତନ ଦିଗନ୍ତମାନ ଉନ୍ମୋଚନ କରିପାରିବେ ।

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଯାହା ୨୦୧୧ ମସିହା ପରଠାରୁ ଅନେକ ସମ୍ପାଦକଙ୍କ ଦ୍ବାରା ସମ୍ପାଦନା ହେବାକୁ ଲାଗିଲା, ଏବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ବିଶାଳତମ ଅନଲାଇନ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷ ଓ or.wikipedia ରେ ସମସ୍ତେ ଏହାକୁ ପଢ଼ିପାରିବେ ତଥା ଏଥିରେ ଅଧିକ ତଥ୍ୟ ଯୋଡ଼ି ଏଥିରେ ଥିବା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ଅଧିକ ତଥ୍ୟପୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କରିପାରିବେ । ଏଠାରେ ଥିବା ଆଦିବାସୀ ପିଲାମାନେ ନିଜେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଭଳି ଏକ ବିଶ୍ବସ୍ତରୀୟ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷରେ ଜ୍ଞାନଦାନ ଓ ଗ୍ରହଣ କରି ବାକିମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ଅନେକ ସହଜ ଶିକ୍ଷଣ ତିଆରି କରିପାରିବେ ବୋଲି ବିଶ୍ବାସ ରଖନ୍ତି ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ସକ୍ରିୟତମ ସଦସ୍ୟ ଶିତିକଣ୍ଠ ଦାଶ । ବୃତ୍ତିରେ ଇଞ୍ଜିନିୟର ହୋଇ ଯଦି ନିଜେ ଅନ୍ୟମାନଙ୍କ ପାଇଁ ପାଠପଢ଼ାର ସାଧନକ୍ଷେତ୍ର ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆକୁ କିଟର ଛାତ୍ରମାନେ ଉନ୍ନତ କରିପାରିବେ ବୋଲି କହନ୍ତି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଆଉଜଣେ ସ୍ବେଚ୍ଛାସେବୀ ସଦସ୍ୟ ଜ୍ଞାନରଞ୍ଜନ ସାହୁ ।

ଆଗାମୀ କିଛିମାସ ଭିତରେ କିସଠାରେ ଅନେକ ପୁସ୍ତକ, ଜର୍ଣ୍ଣାଲ, ଅନଲାଇନ ଗବେଷଣା ନଥିଆଦି ଅଣାଯାଇ ଏକ ଭିତ୍ତିଭୂମିର ବିକାଶ କରାଯିବ । ଏହା ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀ ତଥା ଶିକ୍ଷକମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅଧିକ ଜ୍ଞାନ ଆହରଣର ସୁବିଧା ଯୋଗାଇବ । ଏହି ପରୋକ୍ଷରେ ଅଧିକ ଛାତ୍ରଙ୍କୁ ପରୋକ୍ଷରେ ସ୍ବାଭାଲମ୍ବୀ କରାଇବା ସଙ୍ଗେସଙ୍ଗେ ସେମାନଙ୍କୁ କମ୍ପ୍ୟୁଟର ମାଧ୍ୟମରେ ଜଗତସାରା ଲୁକ୍କାୟିତ ଜ୍ଞାନର ବିତରଣରେ ସହାୟକ ହେବ । ଏହି ତୃଣମୂଳ ସ୍ତରର ପରଖ କିଟ ତଥା ଅନେକ ଅନ୍ୟାନ୍ୟ ଶିକ୍ଷାନୁଷ୍ଠାନରେ ଏହିପରି ବିଭିନ୍ନ କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମ ପାଇଁ ବାଟ କଢ଼ାଇବ ।

Click to read the original published by Odishan.com here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/odishan-january-12-2014-coverage-on-odia-wikipedia

‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T06:05:48Z

Social media is set to grow in India in a big way with Google and Facebook gearing up to tap the regional languages market.

The interview was published in the Tribune on January 12, 2014.

The programme director of Access to Knowledge at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, T Vishnu Vardhan is leading the growth of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in Indian languages as part of grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. His experience spans across academics, industry (media) and not-for-profit sectors. He talks about the spread of the Internet and social media in India and their impact on the traditional media. Excerpts:

How powerful are the Internet and social media today?

One way to answer the question is to throw some data. There is 83 per cent of mobile connectivity, so and so per cent of Internet connectivity over computer in India, and so on. The data is important to understand the extent of penetration of digital technology in India, particularly through the mobile telephone rather than the PC-based or laptop-based access to the Internet.

When you say mobile phones, are you talking about smartphones?

These could be smartphones or feature-phones also. So many feature-phones are available in the market now. These phones do not cost much. Hardware, therefore, is not going to be anymore a deterrent for access to Internet. I have seen the elderly also getting accustomed to using computers so they can keep in touch with their children who live abroad.

What about social media and its power in India?

It is very powerful. At least it is believed to be powerful because right from political parties and politicians to small vendors, all are trying to leverage it. During the last five years, there has been a tectonic shift in this regard. It will be very interesting to see how the story unfolds in India.

What is unique about India?

Social media is set to become bigger and bigger in India with companies like Google and Facebook gearing up to tap the regional languages market.

Is English increasingly becoming strong and all pervasive in India?

I would believe it and get worried on that score. But the Internet is bringing in a lot of changes. Font problem has been solved too. The ramification of what takes place when this new regional language enabled market comes on board in social media platforms is still not very clear. But it is certainly going to be huge.

Whatever is happening in India now must be an old story in developed countries?

In the US and Europe, Internet penetration took place in the PC age. But we have bypassed the PC. Internet access in India through phone is growing rapidly. India is taking a completely new path for this.

Some social media websites are also trying to get into the news domain. Have you come across instances where news has been first broken in the social media?

There are many such instances. One of the Wikipedians, Kartik Naga, took some pictures of the Mumbai terror attack and posted on commons. These were available to the world much before the traditional journalists could capture images of the incident. Real-time information about tsunami also came from people.

In the West, some print publications — newspapers and magazines — have closed down because people have apparently switched over to the Internet.

The real issue here is whether traditional media wants to stick to a particular technology or it is ready to embrace a new technology for the production and dissemination of news, which is its core activity. If traditional media is averse to embracing the new technology, there will be all kinds of problems like the paper will shut down or some completely new random players will come and corner an old veteran and so on. But if the new technology is embraced, there will be new ways and means of benefiting from it. It depends on how a traditional media entity is looking at Internet and social media. In the last two or three years, we have also seen so many news stories that got made by social media. There is a buzz about social media, and traditional media picks it up and makes it even a bigger story. I do not agree with this drawing of lines between social and traditional media. I think it is a mixed media.

You mean to say there is no threat to traditional media from social media in the long run?

There is no threat. At the end of the day, production of news is not the business of people active on social media portals. Traditional media could actually thrive by the clever use of Internet and social media.

What about news that breaks in social media and is imaginary or based on rumours. What happens then?

These things do happen. People are working on finding out ways to verify news contents on social media. There are already people whose mission in life is to prevent rumour mongering on the Internet.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-tribune-january-12-2014-shubhadeep-chaudhary-with-internet-in-every-pocket-power-to-the-people

CIS-A2K, KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences sign MoUs

subha — 2014-02-03T06:24:18Z

KIIT University, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) for furthering Odia Wikipedia.

Dr.Achyuta Samanta, Founder-Chairman of KIIT and KISS inaugurated both the collaborations formally. Dr. Sasmitarani Samanta, Registrar, KIIT and Surjya Kanta Mohanty, Chief Operating Officer, KISS signed the MoUs of KIIT and KISS respectively whereas T. Vishnuvardhan, Programme Director, CIS-A2K was there to sign in both the MoUs on behalf of CIS along with Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, CIS-A2K. Odia Wikipedians Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, Shitikantha Dash, Jnanaranjan Sahu and Sailesh Patnaik, senior faculty and management members; Prof. Parthosen Gupta, Professor-KIIT School of Management, Sucheta Priyabadini, Joint Registrar, KIIT Santosh K. Pani, Dean-KIIT School of Electrical Engineering and other staff members from KISS were there for this event.

The event was held on January 11, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-a2k-kiit-university-kaling-institute-of-social-sciences-mou

Odia WikiMeetup

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T06:46:33Z

CIS-A2K organized an Odia Wiki meetup in Bhubaneswar on January 11.

The event was attended by Odia Wikipedians Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, Shitikantha Dash, Jnanaranjan Sahu and Sailesh Patnaik. T. Vishnuvardhan, Programme Director and Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, CIS-A2K met Odia Wikipedians to discuss about various ongoing projects in Odia Wikipedia, potential projects and incubator projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wiki-meetup-january-11-2014

Digitising contest to preserve rare books in Malayalam

praskrishna — 2014-01-31T06:33:15Z

The Malayalam Wiki Grandhasala has announced a competition in digitally preserving rare books in Malayalam.

The article was published in the Hindu on January 4, 2014.

‘Digitalisation Contest 2014’, launched by the Wiki community, is aimed at digitising rare books in Malayalam, the copyright of which has expired, and making them available online in Unicode font.

The Wiki community wants the books to reach innumerable readers through the Internet.

The competition will be held in separate categories for schools and the general public. The competition involves entering the text on the computer and proof-reading. The prizes include e-book readers and books.

In the first phase of the project, 55 books listed by the Kerala Sahitya Akademi have been offered for digitising. They include ‘Samskshepa Vedartham’ (1772), ‘Malayanmayude Vyakaranam’ (1863) and ‘Hasthalakshanadeepika’ (1892).
Copies of magazines such as ‘Rasikaranjini’ and ‘Mangalodayam’ have also been offered for digitising.

Those who wish to take part in the competition should visit the Wiki Grandhasala (ml.wikisource.org) and become a member of the project.

Details of the competition and the list of books may be downloaded. The contest will be open till January 31. It is being organised on the 10th anniversary of the Wiki Source project by the Centre for Internet and Society, IT@School project, Swanthanthra Malayalam Computing and the Kerala Sahitya Akademi.

For details, contact K. Manoj, general convener of the contest (cellphone number: 9495576262).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-january-4-2014-digitising-contest-to-preserve-rare-books-in-malayalam

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — December 2013

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T10:31:35Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of December 2013:

We from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) thank you all for your support and collaboration and wish you a very Happy New Year. We bring you the details of our work for the month of December 2013:

CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia

We are pleased to share with you the key accomplishments on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013 in this report. It has been found that there has been an increased editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia, and an increase in the number of articles on Konkani Wikipedia. Konkani Vishwakosh was re-released under Creative Commons License, we initiated Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project and signed a MoU with Goa University to build Konkani Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/1l6ttmp.

Article

Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, DNA, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/19OAvUV. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshané.

Blog Entries

First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India (by Nitika Tandon, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1euwSXt.
Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hldNM8. We are featuring this here as we didn’t carry this in the last newsletter.
Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator (by Nitika Tandon, December 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/KmxyFo.
Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process (by Nitika Tandon, December 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cqKyQ2.
Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1keWyya.
Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects (by Nitika Tandon, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hlbubU.

(2-6 are videos of participants from the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project (jointly organised by CIS-A2K and Goa University) speaking on their experiences with Wikimedia projects.)

Events Organised

You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop (National Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1edmx1z.
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (KBN College, Vijaywada, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i8ScnL.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat (Moodabidre, December 19 – 22, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22): http://bit.ly/1dGTBkw.

Events Co-organised

Wikipedia Orientation Workshop (organised by CIS-A2K and Christ University, Bangalore, December 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lrkwEy.
Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur (organised by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, Srivahini College, Tiruvur, December 19, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/1e3oQX7. It was covered by Andhraprabha (http://bit.ly/1bU5VsQ).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-december-2013

CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia

nitika — 2013-12-31T11:48:02Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K team) is pleased to share with you the key accomplishments about the work it accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013 in this report. In accordance with the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge Program’s (CIS-A2K) Konkani Work Plan 2013-14 the program has invested time and effort to build Konkani Wikimedia community and projects.

Highlights

Increased editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia

CIS-A2K has been organising different programs and workshops. The idea is to bring in as many volunteers as possible who can contribute to Konkani Wikipedia for years to come. We have organised these outreach sessions mainly in Devanagari, Romi and Kannada scripts. As a result of these programs we have been able to significantly increase no. of editors, consistently have minimum of 5-6 active editors per month and build a community of volunteers. You can also view level of editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia for the past few months in the chart below:


Above: Edits Per Month on Konkani Wikipedia (Mar-13 to Dec-13) (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Increased number of articles on Konkani Wikipedia

Total number of articles increased from 150 in Sep 2013 to 315 in Nov 2013. The number of articles have doubled over a period of 3 months. We should keep in mind that out of those who edited in Devanagari; 95% of them were completely new to the input method and had to spend considerable time learning and practicing it.


Above: No. of articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Translated Media Wiki messages

CIS-A2K organised translation sprint to help translate Media Wiki interface messages. We achieved translating 79% of these messages in Konkani Devanagari while all 100% messages have already been translated in Romi script

Re-release of Konkani Vishwaksh under Creative Commons License

Upon 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. 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. To know more about click here and here

Initiated & Completed 30% of Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project

Goa University in collaboration with the CIS-A2K is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. 37 participants are enrolled in this project who are working to digitize the encyclopedia in a time bound manner. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized. The program started on 19th October and in just about 2 months 30% of the encyclopedia had already been digitized. You can monitor the progress of this project on Wikisource. Here are the links for Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 and Volume 4. Please note that some of the participants firstly digitize the encylopedia either in their Sandbox or offline and then move it to Wikisource. To know more about the project click here.

Signed an MoU with Goa University

Goa University entered into a three year MoU with CIS for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to help build Konkani Wikipedia and community.

White paper by a Linguist

Fr. Pratap Naik, S.J. B.Sc., B.Ed. M.A. (Linguistics), M.Phil. (Linguistics), Ph.D. (Linguistics) has written a white paper discussing issues faced by Konkani language and his views on how it should be dealt on Wikimedia projects. We'll soon upload the white paper on Wikimedia Commons and make the link available.

14 Outreach session, over 450 participants, in 3 months

CIS-A2K organised about 14 outreach sessions and reached out to over 450 people to create awareness about Konkani Wikipedia and the community between Sep-Dec 2013. Details of these sessions can be found here.

Got consensus from field experts

Over the past few months CIS-A2K has spoken with Konkani Wikipedians (such as Frederick Noronha, Deepak D'Souza, Seby Fernandes) Konkani linguists (such as Fr. Pratap), professors from Konkani Department at Goa University (Dr. Madhavi Sardesai and Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar), cultural experts (such as Prof. Alito Siqueira and Harriet Vidyasagar) and other experts to propose a solution for Konkani Wikipedia that faces a problem of usage of multiple scripts. To a great extent we have got consensus from different field experts that we should strive to create separate Wikis for each script, at least those which prove to be active.

Wikipedians Speak

One of the ongoing projects of CIS-A2K is 'Wikipedians Speak' which are small videos of Wikipedians that captures their expereinces, learnings and challenges. As a part of this project CIS-A2K published several videos of Konkani Wikipedians.

Link to the post published on Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/work-accomplished-konkani-wikipedia