Centre for Internet and Society

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (Coverage in Vijayavani)

praskrishna — 2014-04-11T10:15:45Z

Vijayavani covered the Kannada Wikipedia workshop held in Sagara.

Read the scanned version of the article published in Vijayavani below

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/vijayavani-kannada-wiki-workshop-march-3-2014

Tewiki 10th Anniversary

rahim — 2014-03-19T11:01:01Z

Tewiki 10th anniversary celebration 2014, started on February 15 in Vijayawada at Kakaraparti Bhavanarayana College. It was co-organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and the Telugu Wikipedia community. Ch.Arjuna Rao expressed his happiness on Telugu Wikipedias completion of 10 years and 55000 articles in Telugu on the inauguration of decade celebrations.

The full details are captured in the report published on the meta page. The following is an abridged version of the same in English.

The founding president of the Wikimedia India Chapter CH.Arjunarao , T.Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, CIS-A2K, President of the decade ceremonial committee BK Viswanath. K.B.N.college officials Sambasiva Rao, Rajith Kumar and Krishnamurthy inaugurated the function by Jyothi Prajwalana.

Talking on the occasion the chairman of Andhra Pradesh official languages commission Buddha Prasad said that 2014-15 must be declared as the year of the Telugu Wikipedia and to make the most of it by more exciting activities. Telugu Wikipedia has put in more efforts than governments and universities to the culture of the Telugu language. Many great personalities served Telugu language and culture were remembered in this occasion including Lakshmanrao, Mallampalli.

Telugu Computer: Past, Present, Future of the Convention

Komarraju Laxmana Rao Visishta Wikipedian award-winner Veeven organised an awareness seminar. Veeven talked about how in 2004, a decade ago, the Internet Telugu writing, and reading had many problems, and how by the year 2014 they got eliminated in the sequence. He also touched upon the future development of the technology used in the Telugu language. He said that Microsoft Office, Libre Office, Adobe In Design, Adobe Photoshop, etc., will be used as the applications in Telugu. Today Telugu is expected to be used in mobile phones, i. Pods, and this justifies the use of Android in Telugu.

Convention on Wikidata

Rahmanuddin spoke about wikidata. He explained in detail how linking an article in all languages is the first step and linking diagrams and figures is the second step and showed participants that in the third stage classification is included. He explained it with examples of the mango tree and the word 'mother'. After this he showed how the link the particular article to the word. Thereafter he spoke about the app developed by Tamil students to link a particular word to the article and urged that people should start using these apps early on in their life as then only development in this field would be possible.

Experiences of Other Language Wikipedians

Some Tamilians shared their experience in developing Tamil wiki. They said that government and other organisations have helped a lot in developing Tamil wiki. Government organisations helped a lot in filing data in digital form. Many educational institutions have take part in this project. Some even proposed that Tamil wiki might be made a part of the education for students. They said that they shared this info about Tamil wiki to various friends and organisations.

Odia wikipedian Mrutunjay said that they attached the voice app feature to help with pronounciation. They attached the Odiya files to English words so that it will be useful for easy search. He also mentioned that there is a lack of creative writers in Odisha and that they are trying to overcome this problem.

Malayalam wikipedian K.Manoj said that from wikisource Malayalam remains the topmost Indian language for obtaining various data from a specific language. He said that over 200 books and 800 articles were included in the Malayalam wiki. They organised the structure in such a way that students will be able to use it from a very early age. These books in wikisource were used by many students.Konkani wiki. Darsan said that in 2007 they started the Konkani wiki. Goa students made a significant contribution to the development of this project. They uploaded 290 articles till now and they are trying to digitalise konkani wiki and other projects to help them develop.

Making a substantial contribution to the Telugu Wikipedia Nisar Ahmed also spoke about the developments in Urdu Wikipedia. He came to share his experience with others. He said that Urdu language was born in India and in the globalized Urdu wikipedia there are only 2 or 3 Urdu wikipedians from India. He also spoke of the experiences of an article on national anthem and about the views of the Pakistani community.He further discussed about the difficulties in work caused by different countries, the available options and how to solve those problems and gain experiences.

More pictures of the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tewiki-10-anniversary

୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T05:38:58Z

This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years. This has been published in Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad) on February 9, 2014.

Click to read the original published in Odiya here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rabibara-sambad-february-9-2014-feature-on-odia-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online

praskrishna — 2014-02-06T01:52:17Z

A father-son duo has been working to include more information about Punjab and Punjabi on Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia.

The article by Jatinder Preet was published in the Sunday Guardian on February 1, 2014.

Charan Gill and his son Satdeep Gill have written hundreds of articles in English, Hindi and Punjabi in both Shahmukhi and Gurmukhi scripts. The father-son duo recently represented Punjabi in the first ever Train the Trainer Program in India, held at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) in Bangalore. The four-day event was organised for capacity building amongst Wikimedia volunteers for effective and efficient outreach programs in their respective regions to expand the Wikimedia movement in India, informed Charan Gill.

Satdeep Gill, a graduate student at Punjabi University, Patiala was already a contributor to the Punjabi Wikipedia when he attended a workshop held by veteran Punjabi Wikipedian G.S. Guglani. Satdeep became quite active after the workshop and soon his father too joined in. Charan informs he has contributed around 2700 articles, while Satdeep who is one of the administrators, has written around 600 pages. When he started there were around 3000 articles and there were too many factual and other errors, said Charan. He started editing older articles and adding newer ones along with Satdeep. There were others who joined in and now it has around 8700 articles. "Our target is to reach 10,000 by April," said Charan.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/sunday-guardian-february-1-2014-jatinder-preet-father-son-duo-promote-punjabi-online

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges

praskrishna — 2014-04-14T09:40:19Z

KIIT School of Management, KIIT Univeristy is holding the 7th National Management Convention 2014 at its campus in Bhubaneswar on February 21 and 22, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi have been invited to address the students of KIIT University.

Click to download the event brochure

Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi spoke at the event and also evaluated submissions by students and researchers. Subhashish's presentation titled Redefining Education to Employment Journey: Voices of the Youth/Students can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/dynamics-of-education-to-employment-journey

Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field

praskrishna — 2014-02-02T16:48:47Z

Students from any academic background, but having computer knowledge and common sense, can land a job in the IT sector, said U B Pavanaja, programme officer (Indian languages) at Centre for Internet and Society (Bangalore).

The article published by the Times of India on January 31, 2014, quotes Dr. U.B. Pavanaja.

Conducting a session on 'How to get placed in IT sector' organized by Centre for Proficiency Development and Placement services (CPDPS) here on Thursday, he said: "Students of any stream can be an expert in the IT sector. But (s)he must be well aware about IT sector and should stay updated to sustain there," he said, adding: "The ever-growing IT sector offers many opportunities. Around 90 lakh job opportunities are created every year. The sector's contribution to the nation's economy stands at 7.5%."

Speaking on the pre-requisites to land jobs, Pavanaja said: "One need not necessarily have high technical skills for that. All they need is an ability to work on the required skills."

"IT is being applied in almost all fields. Graduates and PU or diploma holders can also land jobs in IT. Those having writing skills, and also having minimum computer knowledge, can also be hired as content writers," he said, citing examples.

Speaking on mobile technology and its applications, he said, "Nearly 70% of 'likes' on a popular video-sharing website are done through cellphones. Mobile technology is a fast developing sector. Numerous applications are being developed and added on a regular basis. Compared to software, mobile apps are ease and less expensive to develop. With good knowledge, mobile apps can be developed even at home."

CPDPS director Niranajana Vanalli said the talk was organized to help IT job aspirants be industry-ready.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-times-of-india-january-31-2014-tech-savvy-students-given-tips-to-enter-it-field

Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project

subha — 2014-02-04T08:56:35Z

Odia Wikipedia has carved its mark as the largest online encyclopedia in Odia language that is edited by a volunteer editor community.

This was published by HASTAC on January 31, 2014.

By 29th of January this year it is 10 year old and 5000 articles rich. Though this was started as one of the first four Indic language Wikipedias. In 2011 there were only 550 articles with practically no contributors. The initial Wikipedians struggled to reach out to more people. Luckily, with more people coming on the Internet – primarily on social media platforms, collaboration became easier. Odia Wikipedia’s facebook page and group became the social gateway to get used to working within the Odia language. This is one of the languages which has very little online presence when it comes to having content as Unicode text. Many people still struggle with the outdated pirated operating systems installed in their computers which added more hurdles in the way of all the community led Wikipedia outreach programs. There has been more developments in recent days in language input and online contribution in Odia. More people started searching for online content using Odia in Unicode. This is where Odia Wikipedia played a crucial role in promoting a massive growth in content which is reflected in the readership. Monthly page views which remained consistently low over the years started growing from less than 1000 to more than 400,000 and at times hitting the 500,000 mark. This is the highest among all the websites that have Odia content. With a variety of new projects and more contributors than ever, Wikipedia Odia happily celebrated its its 10th anniversary over two days. Odia Wikipedians gathered in two different educational institutes; Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences in Bhubaneswar on the 28th of January and Indian Institute of Mass Communication in Dhenkanal on the 29th.

Day 1

First day of Odia Wikipedia 10 began with the traditional Chhena poda by noted linguist Padmashree Dr. Debiprasanna Patnaik. Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) has recently collaborated with The Centre for Internet and Society for the resource gathering, documentation and archival of 62 tribal communities of Odisha and neighboring eastern Indian states and initiating Wikipedia projects in the indigenous tribal languages. The first few phase of the workshop brought about 15 students pursuing their masters in Arts, Science and Commerce disciplines and 10 faculty members.

This project also will also dovetail into the Mother Tongue based Multilingual Lab that has been set up in the institute to foster educational materials in tribal languages. Dr. Patnaik spoke to these contributors about the native languages and the importance of documenting language and cultural heritage online. Subrat Prusty, General Secretary of Janasammilani and founding member of Odia Biswabidyalaya gave a talk on the factors that have diminished the native languages and how collaborative efforts could revive dying languages through a 5000 word free-license dictionary in Odia. With the audio recording of Dr. Patnaik introducing himself, Odia Wikipedians inaugurated the Voice intro project as the first Indic language project. Odia Wikipedians interacted with the students and teachers at KISS to get their inputs on the kind of knowledge imparted by introducing Wikipedia editing. Later these will streamline the process of writing to the linguistic team for pledging for the classical language status of Odia.

Day 2

The second day of Odia Wikipedia 10 was celebrated in the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) Dhenkanal campus . Students who had participated in the series of Odia Wikipedia workshops earlier in the year took part in this event. Sampad Mohapatra, a TV and print media journalist inaugurated the event by lighting Dipa and cutting a birthday Chenapoda. Mohapatra shared his experiences on how the entire media industry relies on Wikipedia for collecting information and how contribution in regional languages will benefit the students through more job availability in the regional media. Professor Dr. Mrinal Chatterjee who heads the institution shared the way accessing knowledge is slowly moving to internet based search. He discussed strategies of how bringing more online content in regional languages will help the academia and the students. Usha Padhee, Secretary of Mass Education Department, Odisha Government distributed awards to the top Wikipedia contributors. She later presented on the role of media in educating society and Open Educational Resources in new tools of imparting knowledge.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/hastac-january-31-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-odia-wikipedia

Odia Wikipedia (Coverage in Sanchar)

praskrishna — 2014-02-04T07:38:30Z

Sanchar published about Odia Wikipedia in their edition on January 31. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/odia-wikipedia-coverage-in-sanchar

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — January 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-04T05:55:18Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of January 2014:

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 January 2014:

CIS-A2K, KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences sign MoUs
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: http://bit.ly/1j1qtFv.

Article

Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project (by Subhashish Panigrahi, HASTAC, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jvxD8r.
WikiSangamotsavam 2013 brings Indian Wikimedians together (by Netha Hussain and Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, January 14, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane: http://bit.ly/1jvynKP.

Blog Entries

Wikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom (by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu Vardhan, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1m5QHMD.
Wikipedia at Forefront in Christ University (by Syed Muzamiluddin, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/LTFA8E.

Events Organised

Odia WikiMeetup (Bhubaneswar, January 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBkFJi.
Introductory talk about "Wikipedia in Academics" (KIIT School of Technology, Bhubaneswar, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1yv1f.
Wikipedia Editing Demonstration at NIE (Nirmala Institue of Education, Goa, January 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fmYkKK
Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary @ KISS (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar, January 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsqkJC.
Odia Wikipedia 10th anniversary (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dGRBoy.

Event Participated In

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Digitising contest to preserve rare books in Malayalam (The Hindu, January 4, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBtVgz.
‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’ (by Shubhadeep Chaudhury, The Tribune, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ojb1IZ. Shubhadeep interviews T. Vishnu Vardhan on internet and social media.
ଆଦିବାସୀ ଭାଷାର ଉନ୍ନତିକଳ୍ପେ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ (Odishan.com, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kAWJmG.
KIIT University to lead building free knowledge repository initiative (India Education Diary.com, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1Rzwk.
Odisha: KISS to create tribal languages and heritage repository (Odisha Diary Bureau, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1bLBhmB.
FDC recognition for the Centre for the Internet and Society (Wikimedia Foundation, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fYdxOz. Wikimedia Foundation published a resolution declaring CIS eligible for funding through the Annual Plan Grants program.
Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field (The Times of India, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1QvIX.
Odia Wikipedia (Sanchar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ePwAON.

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-january-2014

Odia Wikipedia 10th anniversary at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal

praskrishna — 2014-01-30T12:06:21Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team along with the Odia Wikipedia community invite you to the 10th anniversary of Odia Wikipedia at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication in Dhenkanal on January 29, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ, ଅନଲାଇନରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ସର୍ବବୃହତ ମୁକ୍ତ ଜ୍ଞାନକୋଷର ୧୦ମ ବାର୍ଷିକ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ୨୯ ଜାନୁଆରୀରେ ଢେଙ୍କାନାଳର ଭାରତୀୟ ଜନସଂଚାର ସଂସ୍ଥାନରେ ପୂର୍ବାହ୍ଣ ୧୧ ଘଟିକା ସମୟରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହେବାକୁ ଯାଉଛି । ଏହି ଅବସରରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ପରିବାର ଆପଣମାନଙ୍କୁ ଏହି କାର୍ଯ୍ୟକ୍ରମରେ ଭାଗ ନେଇ ଏହାକୁ ସାଫଲ୍ୟମଣ୍ଡିତ କରିବାକୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରୁଛି ।

ଏଥିରେ ଆମେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ଉପଯୋଗୀତା, ଏହାର ବ୍ୟବହାର ଓ ଆପଣ କିପରି ଏଥିରେ ଭାଗ ନେଇପାରିବେ ଓ ଜ୍ଞାନ ବିତରଣର ଏହି ମହାପ୍ରବାହରେ ସାମିଲ ହୋଇପାରିବେ ସେ ବାବଦରେ ଜାଣିପାରିବେ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary-indian-institute-of-mass-communication-dhenkanal

Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary at Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar

praskrishna — 2014-01-30T12:01:22Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge along with the Odia Wikipedia community invite you to the tenth anniversary celebrations of Odia Wikipedia t Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar on January 28, 2014 from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

କିଛି ଦିନ ତଳେ କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇନ୍ସେସଠାରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା ଓ ସ‌ହବନ୍ଧନ ପରେ ସେଠାର କର୍ତ୍ତୃପକ୍ଷ ଓ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ତ‌ଥା ଛାତ୍ରମାନେ ଆମ ସମସ୍ତଙ୍କୁ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ୧୦ମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ ପରିସରରେ କରିବା ପାଇଁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ମୁଁ ଏଥିରେ କେତେଜଣ ବରିଷ୍ଠ ଭାଷା ଗବେଷକ ଓ ଭାଷାବିଦମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିଥିଲି । ଏଯାବତ ସେଣ୍ଟ୍ରାଲ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚ୍ୟୁଟ ଅଫ ଇଣ୍ଡିଆନ ଲାଙ୍ଗୁଏଜେସ (CIIL), ମହୀଶୂରର ପ୍ରତିଷ୍ଠାତା ଓ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାବିଦ ପଦ୍ମଶ୍ରୀ ଦେବୀପ୍ରସନ୍ନ ପଟୃନାୟକ, ଓଡ଼ିଆ ସାହିତ୍ୟ ଏକାଡେମୀର ଅବାହକ ଓ ଭାଷାବିଦ ଡ. ଗୌରହରି ଦାସ ତ‌ଥା ଭାଷା ଗବେଷକ ସୁବ୍ରତ ପୃଷ୍ଟି ସମ୍ମତି ପ୍ରଦାନ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଦୟାକରି ସମସ୍ତେ ନିଜ ତରଫରୁ ମଧ୍ୟ ଅଧିକ ବରିଷ୍ଠ ଗବେହକମାନଙ୍କୁ ଅନୁରୋଧ କରିବା ସ‌ହିତ ଏଥିରେ ଅଂଶଗ୍ରହଣ କରି ଏହି ସାମୁହିକ ଉଦ୍ୟମକୁ ଫଳବତୀ କରାଇବାରେ ସ‌ହ‌ଯୋଗ କରିବେ ।

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary-kalinga-institute-of-social-sciences-bhubaneswar

FDC recognition for the Centre for the Internet and Society

praskrishna — 2014-01-30T07:38:33Z

The Wikimedia Foundation Board has published a resolution declaring the Centre for Internet and Society as eligible for funding through the Annual Plan Grants program.

Click for the original published on the Wikimedia Foundation's website

The resolution was approved at the Board's November 2013 meeting.

Whereas, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) and the Centre for the Internet and Society (CIS) have engaged in a working relationship in support of the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement in India since September 1, 2012;

Whereas, the Board would like to ensure that the activities and initiatives of CIS and its grants and payments received from WMF in support of the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement are subject to the review and recommendations of the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) to ensure the best consideration and use of donor monies;

Whereas, the Board recognizes that the work of CIS is comparable to that of other Wikimedia-affiliated entities in support of the mission goals of the Wikimedia movement;

Resolved, that, for purposes of eligibility to submit funding requests to the FDC, the FDC should treat the CIS as it would treat an eligible Wikimedia-affiliated entity for the limited term of CIS’ agreement with WMF.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/fdc-recognition-to-cis

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

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.

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