Centre for Internet and Society

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

Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KISS

praskrishna — 2014-01-16T06:52:36Z

A day long Odia Wikipedia workshop for post-graduate students and faculty members is being organized by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team at the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) on January 10.

Subhashish Panigrahi is conducting the workshop.

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:କର୍ମଶାଳା/ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର/୮

ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ରୁ

ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱରସ୍ଥିତ ଆଦିବାସୀ ଆବାସିକ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନ KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇସେନ୍ସ)ଠାରେ ଏଠାକାର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନେ ଆଦିବାସୀମାନଙ୍କର ଭାଷା, ଚଳଣି ଓ ଜନ‌ଜୀବନ ବାବଦରେ ଅନେକ ଗବେଷଣାଭିତ୍ତିକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଏକାଧିକ ଭାଷାରେ ଲେଖିବାର ଏକ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରାଯାଇଛି । ପ୍ରାରମ୍ଭିକ ପର୍ଯ୍ୟାୟରେ ଏହି ନ‌ଥିକରଣ ତିନୋଟି ଭାଷାରେ (ଓଡ଼ିଆ, ଇଂରାଜୀ ଓ ହିନ୍ଦୀ)ରେ କରାଯାଇ KISS ୱେବସାଇଟରେ ଉପଲବ୍ଧ କରାଯିବ । ଏହି ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସମୂହ ଜ୍ଞାନ‌କୋଷ ପରିସରରେ ଥିବାରୁ ଏସବୁକୁ ଉଇକିକରଣ କରି ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗସବୁକୁ ସମୃଦ୍ଧ କରିବା ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହି ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାର ଆୟୋଜନ କରାଯାଇଛି । ନ‌ଭେମ୍ବର ୧୪ (ଗୁରବାର‌) ଦିନ ସକାଳ ୧୧:୦୦ ରେ ଅନୁଷ୍ଠିତ ହୋଇ ଥିବା ପ୍ରଥମ କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଯୋଗଦେଇଥିବା ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ସ୍ନାତକୋତ୍ତର ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କ ନିମନ୍ତେ ଏହା ଏକ ଉନ୍ନତ କର୍ମଶାଳା । ଏଥିରେ ସେମାନଙ୍କୁ ଦିଆଯାଇଥିବା ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗଗୁଡ଼ିକୁ ସେମାନେ ସମ୍ପାଦନା କରି ସେଥିରେ ଅଧିକ ତ‌ଥ୍ୟ ଯୋଡ଼ି ତାହାକୁ ଉନ୍ନ୍ତ କରିବେ । ସମ୍ପାଦନା ପରେ ଆଗାମୀ ଯୋଜନା ବଆବଦରେ ଆଲୋଚନା କରାଯିବ ।

ଏଥିରେ କଣ କଣ ଶିଖିବାକୁ ମିଳିବ?

ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ ଟାଇପିଂ
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ. ସମ୍ପାଦନା
ଆଗାମୀ ଯୋଜନା

ସ୍ଥାନ ଓ ସମୟ

KISS (କଳିଙ୍ଗ ଇନଷ୍ଟିଚୁଟ ଅଫ ସୋସିଆଲ ସାଇସେନ୍ସ), ଭୁବନେଶ୍ୱର
ଜାନୁଆରି ୧୦ (ଶୁକ୍ରବାର‌), ସକାଳ ୦୯:୦୦

ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଭାଗ ନେଉଥିବା ଉଇକିଆଳିଗଣ

--ସୁଭାସିସ ପାଣିଗାହି (ମୋ ସାଙ୍ଗେ କ‌ଥାବାର୍ତ୍ତା)

ଅନୁଷ୍ଠାନର ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀଗଣ

କାମ ବିତରଣ

ନଭେମ୍ବର ମାସର କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ଭାଗନେଇଥିବା ସମସ୍ତ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ଓ ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀମାନଙ୍କୁ ୧୧ଟି ଛୋଟ ଛୋଟ ଦଳରେ ଭାଗ କରାଯାଇଥିଲା । ପ୍ରତିଟି ଦଳ ଏକ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ଉପରେ ମିଳିତ କାମ ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିବେ । ତଳେ ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗର ନାମ ଓ ଶିକ୍ଷକ ତ‌ଥା ଛାତ୍ରଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ ଦିଆଗଲା । ଆଜିର କର୍ମଶାଳାର ସମସ୍ତ ଅଂଶଗ୍ରହଣକାରୀ ନିଜ ନିଜର ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗରେ କିଛି ଲେଖା ଆରମ୍ଭ କରିଛନ୍ତି । ଏହି କର୍ମଶାଳାରେ ସେମାନେ ଏହି ଲେଖାଗୁଡ଼ିକ ସମୂର୍ଣ୍ଣ କରିବେ ।

ପ୍ରସଙ୍ଗ ନାମ	ଶିକ୍ଷକଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଶିକ୍ଷକଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଛାତ୍ର/ଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ	ଛାତ୍ର/ଛାତ୍ରୀଙ୍କ ନାମ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ଲୋକସଂସ୍କୃତି	ମହତ ଶତପ‌ଥୀ		ରୁକ୍ମଣ ବରିହା	ସମ୍ବାରୀ ମୁର୍ମୁ
ହୋ ପରବ			ତରଣୀସେନ ସାମଡ
ହୋ ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ପର୍ବପର୍ବାଣୀ	ଦୀପ୍ତିରଞ୍ଜନ ବେହେରା		ସୂର୍ଯ୍ୟମଣି ସଏ	ତରଣୀସେନ ସାମଡ
ହୋ ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ବିବାହ ପ୍ରଥା‎	ସୌମିତ୍ରୀ ସାମନ୍ତରାୟ			ଜଗଦୀଶ କୁମାର ସିଂ
ଲାଞ୍ଜିଆ ସଉରା ଜନ‌ଜାତିର ଘର‎	ପ୍ରୀତିନନ୍ଦା ରାୟ		ସୁବାସ ଚନ୍ଦ୍ର ସାମଲ	ଗିରିଜା ଶଙ୍କର ମଲିକ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ପର୍ବପର୍ବାଣୀ	ସାଇ ବିଶ୍ୱନାଥ ତ୍ରିପାଠୀ	ପ୍ରିୟମ୍ବଦା ସ୍ୱାଇଁ		କାପୁରା ସୋରେନ
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ସଙ୍ଗୀତ	ନୀଳିମା ସାମନ୍ତ	ସୁଜ୍ଞାନୀ ରଥ	ବାସୁଦେବ ମାରାଣ୍ଡି
ସାନ୍ତାଳୀ ଜନ ଜାତିର ଜୀବନ ଜୀବିକା	ଶୁଭଲକ୍ଷ୍ମୀ ମହାନ୍ତି		କ୍ରିଷ୍ଣା ସୋରେନ	ମହେନ୍ଦ୍ର ବେଶ୍ରା
ମୁଣ୍ଡା ଜନ‌ଜାତି			ସରୋଜିନୀ ସିଂ

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wikipedia-workshop-kiss-january-10-2014

Rise of the bot: all you need to know about the latest threat online

praskrishna — 2014-01-31T07:16:36Z

In the last week of December, 2013, former union railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal lodged a police complaint in Chandigarh after witnessing “an unusual rise in his online fan following”. The former minister told the police that his Facebook page had received more than 10,000 likes, within a span of 24 hours. While his allegation that the ‘likes’ were “fabricated” may be true, information technology experts believe a bot was at work.

The article by Danish Raza was published in the Hindustan Times on January 5, 2014. Snehashish Ghosh is quoted.

A bot is a software that mimics human behaviour on the Internet. Bots can be used to create artificial accounts on social media, provide numerous likes on a particular page, send tweets or visit various websites. All this is done without any human involvement.

Bots already constitute a significant percentage of Non Human Traffic (NHT) online, which has, according to some estimates, eclipsed human traffic. Comscore, a US-based Internet technology company noted on its blog that NHT, also known as Artificial Traffic, increased from approximately 6% of the total web traffic in 2011, to 36% in 2012. Last month, a report from Incapsula, a cloud-based security service, which aids the security and performance of websites, stated that more than 60% of web traffic was non-human in 2013. The figure was based on data collected from the 20,000 sites on Incapsula’s network .

Other than bots, NHT on the web includes traffic generated by Internet routers and back end services used by websites to communicate with third parties.

India is not immune to the problem. According to the Symantec Internet Security Threat Report for 2012, there was a 280% increase in bot infections in India between 2011 and 2012. 17% of bot-infected computers, the highest in the world, are in India and 15% of global bot-net spam is generated here. The report also states that 69 Indian cities are prone to bot infections which includes Bhubaneswar, Surat, Cochin, Jaipur, Visakhapatnam, Indore, Kota, Ghaziabad and Mysore.

Bot spotting
How do you spot a bot? When a bot or its friend is at work, the browser directs you to sites other than the ones you intend to visit, you get full-page pop ups and pop unders, and when you quit the browser, it gets relaunched after a few minutes. Chances are your computer is part of a chain of online events which create NHT on the web, the purpose of which may be to attack a site or a server.

Why you should be wary
Malicious traffic, malware, hacking attempts, viruses slow down the Internet and delay legitimate traffic and services. Used to target systems or take down websites, NHT generates fake clicks on advertisements to increase website statistics.

One of the perils of ignoring artificial web traffic is that it gets counted for real impressions for which clients end up paying. For example, a website owner may hire the services of a digital marketing firm to publicise the site. In the guise of increasing page views, the marketing firm can produce a bill for fake impressions, supplementing actual human traffic to the page with bot usage.

“Unless there is a curb on this practice of malicious NHT, one stands at risk of being duped by marketers, agencies and even clients,” said Chiragh Cherian, director, online PR at Perfect Relations, a brand management firm. Recent studies have estimated bot traffic to be between 4 - 31% of total web traffic in the US, which translates to between $650 million and $4.7 billion in wasted marketing spend. According to Miaozhen Systems, a leading Chinese advertising technology company, NHT caused advertisers in China to lose approximately US$ 1.6 billion between July 2012 and June 2013.

How to combat Non-Human Traffic
Most servers have defence mechanisms to tackle spam and cyber attacks. Websites are also now developing mechanisms such as asking for human authentication which is difficult for a bot to execute. “But even personal computers should be equipped with strong Internet security applications such as anti-virus and anti-spyware to prevent hacking and phishing attempts and to prevent being used as slave machines for distributed cyber attacks,” said Chintu Cherian Abraham, a digital media professional. Figures show that we need to watch out where and how we go online. According to Norton Report, 2013, 61% Indians access their social network accounts from unsecured wi-fi connections, while 42% access bank accounts and 44% shop online using unsecured wi-fi connections.

Social media companies are gradually devising mechanisms to filter bots. “When a page and a fan connect on Facebook, we want to ensure that connection involves a real person interested in hearing from a specific page and engaging with that brand’s content. As such, we have recently increased our automated efforts to remove Likes on Pages that may have been gained by means that violate our terms,” mentions Facebook’s site integrity policy.

Agency-client intervention is necessary to ensure that artificial traffic is not presented as real. “It’s also important to make all agencies, advertisers and clients aware of their responsibility to keep the Internet free from malicious NHT,” said Chiragh Cherian.

Government involvement is also needed to control the problem of malicious bots. “A lot needs to be done from the government’s side to tackle bots which can be used to target the country’s critical infrastructure such as banking websites,” said Jiten Jain, a cyber security analyst, adding, “Last year, I highlighted the flaws in HDFC’s net banking website which have been rectified now. They could have been exploited to block the net-banking service.”

Until we have a robust mechanism to filter out bogus traffic from real, it will be difficult to say whether the social media followers of Bansal and other public figures are human or not.

Know your Bots
Not all bots are used with a negative intent. Some help in research and monitoring.

The Malicious
Bots can be effectively used to impersonate and to hack accounts leading to financial losses and intellectual property theft. “Theft of personal details, username and password to operate one’s bank account is a classic example of how bots can lead to financial losses. It is an organised cyber crime,” explained Commander (Retd) Mukesh Saini, former national information security coordinator, Government of India. In May 2013, cyber criminals broke into the Mumbai-based account of the RPG group and siphoned off `2.4 crore. Three people were arrested in the case.

“The rate at which NHT is increasing is alarming,” says Tinu Cherian Abraham. “Any computer connected to the Internet is vulnerable to such attacks. The user will not get to know about it unless he or she has installed an Internet security application.”

Besides bots, computers also generate other kinds of secondary activities, while the user is surfing the Internet. This activity remains in the background and is never seen by the user, unlike the bot-generated pop ups, observes Comscore. For example, your computer might be being used as a channel to reach a server with the intention of hacking it. And you will never know.

The Good
Not all NHT is bad, though. In fact, good bots such as scrapers can be effectively used to conduct research. “Wikipedia can be scraped to investigate the frequency of edits on a Wikipedia page and track the increase in the number of editors,” explained Snehashish Ghosh, policy associate at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet & Society.

Good bots are also used by search engines to track content on websites and enhance their search results. Search bots and other good bots formed 31% of total bots, the Incapsula report noted.

The Social
Apart from malicious and good bots, there are social media bots too. “Extensive analysis is done on social media traffic for monitoring, business lead generation, as well as reputation management. This has amounted to a lot of automated or non-human traffic,” said Abraham.

According to Facebook’s filings published in a Forbes report in February 2012, around 83 million of its users are bogus. “It’s a violation of our policies to use a fake name or operate under a false identity, and we encourage people to report any user they suspect of doing this, either through the report links we provide on the site or through the contact forms in our help centre,” a Facebook spokesperson told HT.

Twitter bots have also made its presence felt on the platform. “Twitter has witnessed very interesting bots which have found appreciation from the community for being funny and creative. The microblogging site cracked down on some harmful bots, but still some of the advanced level bots slip through the net,” said Ghosh.

In August 2012, London-based firm Digital Evaluators, which evaluates social media presence of worldwide companies, released an analysis of Twitter followers of the US Presidential Election candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. 21.9% of Barack Obama’s 17.82 million Twitter followers were found to be bogus.

The Big Brother
Ghosh said that the increase in NHT related to the Internet of things, the concept which enables communication between two or more devices, results in privacy issues. “Take a situation where your mobile device is constantly tracking your location for the purpose of switching on the air conditioner at your home before you reach. Such applications produce huge amounts of personal data and there is no clarity whether this data is being stored,” he said.

“As the new networks link data from products, company assets, or the operating environment, they will generate better information and analysis, which can enhance decision making significantly. Some organisations are starting to deploy these applications in targeted areas, while more radical and demanding uses are still in the conceptual or experimental stages,” noted a McKinsey & Company report on Internet of things.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-january-5-2014-danish-raza-rise-of-the-bot

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

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T09:48:19Z

The Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society conducted a workshop at Moodabidre from December 19 to 22, 2013.

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. He spoke about Kannada and IT in general and also about Kannada Wikipedia. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22). Scanned copies of these are reproduced below:


Above: A report published by Prajavani


Above: Article by Guruprasad TN about Kannada Wikipedia, Dr. Pavanaja is quoted.


Above: Article in Hosadigantha. Dr. Pavanaja is quoted.

Also there was a report published by Udayavani on December 24, 2013. This can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1cjwIyD.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-workshop-alvas-vishva-nudisiri-virasat

Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark!

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T05:10:30Z

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years

rahim — 2013-12-31T04:40:40Z

Telugu Wikipedia completed 10 years on December 10, 2013. Several training sessions, aka Wiki Academies, were planned by the Telugu Wikipedia community to mark the occasion.

The article by Rahmanuddin Shaikh was published by DNA on December 16, 2013. It was edited by Rohini Lakshané.

Telugu Wikipedia completed 10 years on December 10, 2013. Several training sessions, aka Wiki Academies, were planned by the Telugu Wikipedia community to mark the occasion. One such session, the Te-Wiki Shikshana Shibir was organised at Hyderabad on December 8. It was the fifth Wiki Academy ever held in the city.

The Wiki Academy saw a turnout of around 21 people coming from various teaching backgrounds, right from a professor of Telugu from Osmania University to a teacher at a private school. Teachers, professors, student-teachers, and instructors participated in the event. It has carved the way for organising Te-Wiki Dasabdi (Telugu Wikipedia decennial celebrations) with more enthusiasm.

The Telugu teaching community has affirmed that it would make use of the Telugu Wikipedia in and out of the classroom. Many of the participants have already turned into Wikipedia editors. "A few of the difficulties the Telugu teaching fraternity faces have been solved by the Telugu Wikipedia," said one of the participants hailing from Mysore CIIL. "I've been horrified by the mere touch of keyboard and mouse, this Telugu Wikipedia seems promising to deal with my Computerophobia," said HoD, Telugu Osmania University, Prof S.V. Satyanarayana. The professor also urged the organisers to conduct one such workshop for his students in the coming days.

Resources:

Event page on Telugu Wikipedia
Photos of the WikiAcademy
Cross-posted at Wikimedia India Chapter blog

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dna-december-16-2013-rahmanuddin-shaikh-telugu-wikipedia-completes-10-years

Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur

praskrishna — 2014-01-09T09:52:42Z

A Wikipedia training session was conducted by T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik at Srivahini College in Tiruvur on December 19, 2013.

About 150 - 200 people attended in each of the two sessions. The event was co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Telugu Wikipedia community.


Above: T. Vishnu Vardhan addressing students at the Srivahini college in Tiruvur.

The following newspapers covered the event on December 19, 2013:

Awareness on Wikipedia, Andhraprabha, December 19, 2013
Wikipedia Helps Spread Knowledge, Eenadu, December 19, 2013
The Many Uses of Wikipedia, Sakshi, December 19, 2013
Awareness on Wikipedia, Prajasakthi, December 19, 2013

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-training-session-tiruvur

Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects

nitika — 2013-12-31T11:04:59Z

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

Video


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

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

Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia

nitika — 2013-12-31T10:38:07Z

Darshana Mandrekar a participant at the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Program speaks about her inspiration to edit Konkani Wikipedia.

Video


Above: Darshana Mandrekar speaks about Konkani Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/darshana-mandrekar-on-konkani-wikipedia

Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process

nitika — 2013-12-31T10:47:46Z

Darshan Kandolkar, talks about his experience with Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process and Konkani translation sprint.

Video


Above: Darshan Kandolkar's interview on Konkani Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/darshan-kandolkar-konkani-vishwakosh-digitization-process

Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator

nitika — 2013-12-31T10:56:22Z

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

Video


Above: Varsha speaks about Konkani Wikipedia

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