Centre for Internet and Society

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

A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-12-30T06:01:59Z

Namaste Telangana newspaper has done a Sunday magazine feature on Telugu Wikipedia on the occasion of the 10th anniversary.

Click to download the file.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/feature-on-telugu-wikipedia

A Wikipedia Workshop at IISC

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T03:38:30Z

Along with Wikipedian Shiju Alex we supported the Assamese Wikipedians to organize a workshop at IISC.

Assamese Wikipedian Gitartha Bordoloi took a session explaining about Wikipedia. Almost 13 scholars from Assam who are currently researching at IISC took part in this workshop. This also opened a new avenue for us to start an Assamese Wiki community in Bangalore.

Click to download the original published by Amarasom Gl Publications. The link to the original is here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-workshop-iisc

Konkani Vishwakosh Encyclopedia released under Free License

nitika — 2013-12-31T12:42:35Z

Upon Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (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.

Read the blog post originally published on the Wikipedia page.

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. The encyclopedia is written in Konkani, a language spoken primarily by people living in Goa and in the neighboring states on the western coast of India (also known as the Konkan belt) – some pockets in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Vishwakosh serves as a primary source of information and one of the most important documented texts for a community of nearly 2.5 million Konkani speakers spread across India and worldwide.

Goa University is the first ever Indian University to relicense its copyrighted content under CC-BY-SA 3.0 so that the knowledge that they have painstakingly put together is made available freely to all Konkani speakers across the world through Wikipedia and other digital platforms. By doing this Goa University has set a precedent for other public sector institutions in India — such as universities and government departments — to follow. Citing this instance, the Tamil Wikipedia community has begun a negotiation with the Tamil Nadu government to release the Tamil Encyclopedias under CC license. It should be noted that majority of the knowledge production through the 20th century in Indian languages was mostly funded by the State. This victory with Goa University can bring out much more knowledge in the Indian languages into the open and could significantly benefit the Indic Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K is also leveraging this instance in getting other public institutions in India to re-release the content under appropriate CC licenses.

To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access Goa University (GU) in collaboration with CIS-A2K organized an event on 26th September 2013 at 10am at the Goa University Conference Hall. The event had significant attendance, including Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice Chancellor of GU), Mr. V.P. Kamat (Registrar of GU), Mr. T. Vishnu Vardhan (Programme Director CIS-A2K), close kin of Late. Manoharrai Sardesai (writer of the encyclopedia), Tanaji Halarnkar (editor of the encyclopedia and a long time associate of Konkani Literary movement), Goa University’s staff, faculty and students, members of Konkani speaking community and press. About 250 people attended this event, which received major media attention.

During the event GU Vice-Chancellor Satish Shetye said, “the Konkani Vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia.”

Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director CIS-A2K, Satish Shetye, Goa University Vice Chancellor, V.P. Kamat, Registrar of Goa University during press conference of re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC license (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

The event was covered by several local and national newspapers. Here are some links:

“Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months“. Jagran Josh. 30 September 2013.
Chaudhary, Apurva. “Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia” Medianama. 30th September 2013
Lobo,Joanna. “For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa’s official language“. DNA. 29 September 2013.
Prakash, Kamat.”Konkani Wikipedia in the making“. The Hindu. 29 September 2013.
“Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months“. Times of India. 27 September 2013.
“Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia“. Navhind Times. 27 September 2013.
“Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow“. The Hindu. 25 September 2013.
Desouza, Vijay. “Goa university re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26“. Times of India. 24 September 2013.

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

More details about the event can be found on the Meta Program Page

CIS-A2K’s Accomplishments

MoU between Goa University and Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)

Goa University has entered into a three year MoU with CIS for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University has re-launched four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia under CC licence and CIS will help scanning and digitizing Vishwakosh and using it as a foundation for creating articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

MoU between Goa University and Centre for Internet and Society (CIS)

Konkani Vishwakosh available on Wikimedia Commons

The 4 volumes of encyclopedia have already been scanned and made available by CIS on Wikimedia Commons. It can be found here:

Project Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (KVDP)

CIS-A2K is currently working with 37 volunteers to digitize Konkani Vishwakosh. Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia), till now available only in hard copy, will now be available for free on the Internet. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized.

“Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani Vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments,” said T. Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director of CIS-A2K. Orientation, training and follow-up workshops will also be organised by CIS-A2K.

More about the project can be found on the Meta Program Page

Konkani Wikipedia editors digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Boost to Konkani Wikipedia

CIS-A2K is encouraging Konkani editors to use Vishwakosh as a ready-made source of reference for articles on Konkani Wikipedia, thereby growing Konkani articles not only in numbers but also in quality.

The incubation for Konkani Wikipedia was initiated in 2006 (it could be one of the few projects in incubation for the longest period). During the past 7 years, little progress can be seen on this incubator project.

By way of initiating KVDP, CIS-A2K is hoping to revive the Konkani Wikipedia editing community and give birth to Konkani Wikipedia as a live Wikimedia project in the next couple of months. CIS-A2K has charted out a methodological work plan to achieve this and more.

Copyright notes: "Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC license", "Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0", "Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project 08" by Nitika Tandon, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/konkani-vishwakosh-encyclopedia-released-under-free-license

First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India

nitika — 2013-12-31T12:18:48Z

Access to Knowledge Programme at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS-A2K) organized the first ever Train the Trainer Program in India. 20 Wikimedians from 8 different language communities and 10 different cities across India attended CIS-A2K’s Train the Trainer (TTT).

Read the post originally published on Wikipedia here.

The residency program was spread over four days. The event was represented by Wikimedia communities including Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu and Odia. The event was organized to help build capacity amongst Wikimedia volunteers to conduct effective and efficient outreach programs in their respective regions in an effort to expand the Wikimedia movement to reach the nooks and crannies of a large nation like India. CIS-A2K realizes that with a small team of five it cannot cover all communities. This program would create leadership, which in turn will hopefully take the movement forward.

Hari Prasad Nadig, one of TTT’s resource persons and sysop on both Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia, said, “I think the training program was in the right direction. In fact I thought it was a very good idea.

It falls in-line with what is needed to be done with utmost importance for the Indian Wikipedia community – creating more trainers/mentors who can bring in editors to Wikipedia or guide the existing ones.”

Post-Event Survey & Report

CIS-A2K conducted a post-event survey to evaluate TTT program and also review individual training and development activities organized during the four-day workshop. The main aim of the survey was to understand how the attendees perceived the event and help CIS-A2K plan a more successful and well-attended event in the future.

Including a variety of questions ranging from likert scale questions, drag and drop list, paragraph text, multiple choices, provided an interactive and systematic way to gather participant’s feedback. The survey questions were also designed to cover different aspects of the event including attendee’s opinions of the sessions, as well as what they learned. Results and findings will be used to refine and improve the next TTT program.

CIS-A2K’s Findings I

Overall Rating – The event scored an average of 8.3 when participants were asked to rank the overall effectiveness of TTT on a scale of 1 to 10. Survey respondents found value in the program and felt the event met their expectations. A vast majority (83 percent) said they would recommend TTT to fellow Wikipedians. “The overall experience of the TTT program was quite satisfactory. What I liked about it was the timely flow of the entire planned schedule and the preparedness of CIS – A2K team,” said Rangilo Gujarati, a Gujarati Wikipedian.

Inspirational Factor – One of the questions: “After the workshop, how inspired do you feel to strengthen your Wikipedia community and project?” received an anonymous reply: “It was really a nice time with you all. I got to learn many new things. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to attend this workshop. I’m inspired and looking forward to using my skills and conduct an edit-a-thon in my language community soon.”

“The overall experience of TTT program was quite uniquely satisfactory.” said Rangilo Gujarati.

Participants gave an above average rating of 8.25 on a scale of 10. We believe this high number indicates that CIS-A2K’s was able to inspire more volunteers to conduct online and offline outreach activities to grow their Wikimedia communities.

New Learnings – “It was a good experience for me. I learned a lot of things by interacting with so many TTT participants from different communities. The sessions were extremely useful and informative”, said Pranayraj1985, an active Telugu Wikipedian. Most participants got to learn new things during the course of four day workshop. The question ‘Do you feel you got to learn new things from TTT workshops?’ got an average rating 8.58.

Feedback on various sessions – One of the participants said “All workshops were excellent. The event managed to cover different aspects such as crowdsourcing, copyright, social media, digitization, media wiki etc. There was bit of everything to match everyone’s taste. Each one of the sessions gave a lot of energy to Wikipedians. These types of programs should be conducted often. Thanks for giving us the opportunity.”

Presenting with Impact I & II was the most liked session according to feedback. DIY digitization led by Malayalam Wikipedian Vishwa Prabha and Odia Wikipedian Subhashish Panagrahi also received a high ranking. This was followed by Copyright CC and Wikimedia led by Achal Prabhala.

Sessions such as Spectogram, Accessing Media Wiki Data, Wikimedia India Chapter – History & Present were found to be less useful. This could be due to the fact that some of the participants already had sufficient knowledge about the topic or were simply not interested in the topic.

“It was a good experience for me. The sessions were extremely useful and informative”, said Pranayraj1985

Follow up Session – 92 percent of the participants recommend CIS-A2K organize a follow-up session for them in the coming months. Eight percent of them did not think it’s required. One of the resource persons from Malayalam community, Vishwa Prabha, offered to organize the follow-up meet in Kerala. He said, “December would be a good time for a follow-up meet, I would like to suggest Alappuzha (Kerala) as a venue. This could be scheduled just before or just after the WikiSangamotsavam, which is being planned by the ML community. This could also be a great opportunity for TTT members to interact with the ML community, one of the most vibrant wiki communities in Asia.”
Recommendation to other Wikimedians – 83 percent of the participants said that if another TTT program was t be organized they will recommend it to their fellow Wikimedian volunteers; while 17 percent of them won’t.

CIS-A2K’s Findings II

All participants unanimously suggested that CIS-A2K continue this program in the future and offered suggestions to improve it next time:

Organize more ice-breaking activities – Even after a four day workshop a lot of participants thought they didn’t get enough time to get to know volunteers from other language communities. This was owing to the fact that participants had relatively little free time. Communication in a multilingual environment was also rather difficult for some.

Provide longer breaks – Some participants complained that the length of breaks were too short. “While trying to stuff in so many topics (all of them being quite essential and worthy) within such a short time, the breaks seemed too short,” said one participant.

Organize parallel and optional sessions – There were some participants who were not interested in technical aspects of Wikimedia projects such as Python or MediaWiki and would have liked the option of attending a parallel non-technical session. One of the participants said “Let us say for example, not everyone is interested in knowing how to access media wiki data using XML, so why force the participants to attend, even if they don’t want to. What could have been done is, some other kind of session/talk or extension of any previous session in parallel so folks uninterested in XML can attend that.” If scale permits, CIS-A2K will aim to organize parallel sessions so that the participants can choose the session they’d like to attend.

Wikipedians during at the CIS-A2K Train-the-Trainer Program Digitization workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Provide ideas and action points – Providing a report and case study on how TTT participants can infuse the lessons learned into their outreach and community activities would have been helpful. CIS-A2K was informed that the participants were highly encouraged and motivated to strengthen their language communities but didn’t know where to start or whom to reach out for help.

Create Wiki Projects for TTT participants – One of the attendees suggested that we should initiate some intra-community collaboration projects (like railway network, Bibliography database, taxonomy database, reusable standard templates among Indic communities etc) and ask participants to volunteer on these projects with a common goal. This will help break barriers as well as help volunteers get to know each other better. Another attendee said, “Another way could be to ask them to work towards creating a repository of outreach material (coursebooks, presentation modules, standards/workflows, PR, media, publicity and courses) for each Indian language community.”
Organize advanced technical sessions – A few participants would have liked more technical sessions such as bat running, edit tools, web linkups etc. CIS-A2K got requests to invite experts and organize more advanced technical sessions.

Participants during Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Conclusion

Overall, the participants and resource persons were satisfied with India’s first ever Wikimedia Train the Trainer Program. A special thanks to all the participants and the resource persons who gave their time and energy to make this program a success. A list of all participants and resource persons can be found on program meta page.

CIS-A2K will definitely try to incorporate these ideas and suggestions a the second annual TTT program. Please stay tuned to learn more about when and where it will take place!

A group photo on the last day (by Pranayraj, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Copyright notes: "HPN" by HPNadig, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons, "Photograph of Rangilo Gujarati" by Rangilo Gujarati, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons, "My Photo", "CIS A2K - Train the Trainer Programme.jpg" by Pranayraj1985, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons, "CIS-A2K Train-the-Trainer Program11.jpg", "CIS-A2K Train-the-Trainer Program2.jpg" by Subhashish Panigrahi, under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/train-the-trainer-program-in-india

You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop

praskrishna — 2013-12-06T07:55:38Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in collaboration with Andhra Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation and National Institute of Tourims and Hospitality Management is organizing a two-days training workshop (December 5-6, 2013) in Gachibowli, Hyderabad.

As you may know, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia, and is the 5th most-visited website in the world! It's completely free to use and re-use, it has no advertising, and is available in more than 280 different languages - including 20+ Indian languages. Wikipedia articles are written by ordinary people who volunteer to share their knowledge with the world.

What will you gain from Wikipedia editing?

It improves writing skills. Wikipedia provides students/professionals/researchers a platform to hone their writing skills. Writing on Wikipedia enhances critical thinking and the ability to see all sides of a story. Students will find this incredibility useful in both their personal and professional lives while evaluating the pros and cons of different situations, projects, assignments etc. Wikipedia editing also strengthens research skills. A Wikipedia editor has to provide credible references by looking up books, journals and online materials. Writing on Wikipedia is a good practice for those who will also work on a thesis or a research project.

Your articles will be read by thousands of people across the globe. If you edit a Wikipedia article, it is there *forever* and the audience can be any number from the 500 million who read Wikipedia every month!

It'll boost your chances in admissions or scholarships or placements.

It teaches students how to collaborate! Editing Wikipedia is magical. You add some content and someone from some other part of the class or school or town or country or somewhere else in the world adds a little bit more and makes the contribution that much better. Wikipedia helps one learn how to work productively with other people, even those you don’t know and may never actually meet.

The workshop will cover the following:

What exactly is Wikipedia and how does it work?
Who edits Wikipedia?
How do I edit Wikipedia?
What can I edit?
How can I input text in Indian languages?
How do I insert images?
How do I find and add references?
Do’s and Don’ts

Schedule

December 5, 2013 (Day 1)

Timing	Activity
09.30 to 10.00 a.m.	Welcome and Introduction
10.00 to 11.15 a.m.	Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet
11.15 to 11.30 a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11.30 to 01.00 p.m.	Wikipedia demonstration + Basics of Wikipedia Editing (hands on activity)
01.00 to 02.00 p.m.	Lunch Break
02.00 to 02.15 p.m.	Energizer
02.15 to 03.45 p.m.	Basics of Wikipedia Editing (Hands on activity)
03.45 to 04.00 p.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
04.00 to 05.30 p.m.	NPOV on Wikipedia (Spectrogram activity)
05.30 to 05.45 p.m.	Look back on what has worked and what has not

December 6, 2013 (Day 2)

Timing	Activity
09.30 to 11.15 a.m.	Advanced Wikipedia Editing (Hands on activity)
11.15 to 11.30 a.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
11.30 to 01.00 p.m.	On Wiki activity
01.00 to 02.00 p.m.	Lunch Break
02.00 to 02.15 p.m.	Energizer
02.15 to 03.45 p.m.	Wikimedia projects and Tourism
03.45 to 04.00 p.m.	Tea/Coffee Break
04.00 to 05.30 p.m.	Group Activity – Wiki projects on Tourism
05.30 to 05.45 p.m.	Feedback and Closing session

For map of the venue: click this link: http://sh.st/r90j

For venue: click this link: http://sh.st/r889

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/you-too-can-write-on-wikipedia-2014-training-workshop

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — November 2013

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T13:41:04Z

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

CIS-A2K Narrative ReportThis narrative report captures the work done by the A2K program during the period of September 2012 to June 2013. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over a period of the initial Ten months of the Grant. This report will also inform CIS-A2K program’s strategy for the next one year to achieve the goals set out by its donor, Wikimedia Foundation, and goals listed in our Work Plans (which were developed in consultation with the Wikimedia community in India). Importantly, this Narrative Report is critical for the Wikimedia community in India, Global Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation to get a comprehensive overview of A2K’s work and to critically assess the A2K program’s eligibility for further support. The report compiled by by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi can be accessed at http://bit.ly/1dFyjpO.
► Announcements

CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore (November 20, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team signed a MoU as part of which CIS-A2K and Christ University will impart Wikipedia education in Indian classrooms: http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz.
We are happy to share with you that Rahmanuddin Shaik has been selected for the role of "Community Communications Consultant" at CIS-A2K! Rahmanuddin is an active contributor on Wikimedia Commons, Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource: http://bit.ly/1bwrEu3.

►Articles

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Kannada Prabha, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LOw4O. The article highlights 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia, the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.
Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, November 14, 2013):http://bit.ly/ILwLMr. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane of DNA.

►Blog Entries

Train the Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18hjw0n.
Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA (by Nitika Tandon, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z.

► Events Organised

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for MA Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/ItxAtu. Syed Muzammiluddin was the trainer. Twenty students participated.

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 13, 16 and 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxsOYF. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Syed Muzammiluddin and Dr. U.B.Pavanaja were the trainers. About 1200 second language students participated in the programme.
Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop (Kalinga Institute of Social Studies, Bhubaneswar, November 14, 2013). The workshop was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi: http://bit.ly/1fSvl1v.
Documentation and Wikipedia Workshop (Kalinga School of Management, Bhubaneswar, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/Imf0DV. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konknni Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi and CIS-A2K, Goa Central State Library, November 16 and 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSwiH5.
Tenth Anniversary of Wikipedia (H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1eJ6da9. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde were the guests of honour. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
First Phase of Odia Wikipedia Workshop (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Bhubaneswar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18doDer. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session I (Goa Central State Library, November 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Konkani Vishwakosh: Doubt Solving Session II (Goa Central State Library, November 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the session.
Editing Sprint for Vishwakosh (Goa Central, State Library, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gnVV2z. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.

► Event Co-organised

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India (co-organised by Wikimedia India, Acharya Narendra Dev College and CIS, India Islamic Cultural Centre, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/HPxrAO. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development was the chief guest at the event.

► Event Participated In

Wikimedia Diversity Conference (organized by German Wikipedia Community, GLS Campus, Berlin): http://bit.ly/Ixr9W8. T. Vishnu Vardhan was a speaker at this event and made a presentation on the challenges and opportunities for the Wikimedia movement in India.

► Media Coverage CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary (RadioCity, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dHEwBI.
Indian Govt to Build Machine Translation System for 22 Indic Languages (by Brindaalakshmi, Medianama, November 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/J4qg7V. CIS MoU with Goa University is mentioned.
10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia (by ND Shiva Kumar, The Times of India, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/IxqDr7.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Udayavani, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aFwqF1.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ. ಅದರ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಒಂದು ಆಚರಣೆ (Avadhi Website, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/ImiBSy.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು: ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ (OneindiaKannada, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/19blS17.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Vijayavani, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7exSa.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ (Prajavani, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtt9v.
ಕನ್ನಡದ ಆನ್‌ಲೈನ್ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ದುರ್ಬಲ (Vijaya Karnataka, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtsCy.
Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop (Daijiworld, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1inoi03.

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.
Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
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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-november-2013

CIS-A2K Narrative Report (September 2012 – June 2013)

Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi — 2013-11-30T11:18:56Z

This narrative report captures the work done by the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in the first ten months of the grant. The report also throws some light on the CIS-A2K program strategy in the next one year.

This narrative report was originally published on the Wikipedia page. Access it here.

Background to the Access to Knowledge Programme

The Wikimedia Foundation approved a grant to support the growth of Indian language Wikimedia communities to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) to expand their Access to Knowledge program (A2K) in India. The grant enabled CIS to work with the Wikimedia community of volunteers in India to expand upon Wikimedia’s Indic language free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia in Indic languages. Further, the grant aims to generate improvements in India-relevant free knowledge in Wikimedia’s English projects and wider distribution of Wikimedia’s free knowledge within India.

Section A: Introduction

Objective of the Narrative Report

This narrative report captures the work done by the A2K program during the period of September 2012 to June 2013. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over a period of the initial Ten months of the Grant. This report will also inform CIS-A2K program’s strategy for the next one year to achieve the goals set out by its donor, Wikimedia Foundation, and goals listed in our Work Plans (which were developed in consultation with the Wikimedia community in India). Importantly, this Narrative Report is critical for the Wikimedia community in India, Global Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation to get a comprehensive overview of A2K’s work and to critically assess the A2K program’s eligibility for further support.

Context

Though the mandate of the CIS-A2K program was clearly articulated before the commencement of the program, it should be noted, that the context in which the program had to undertake its work was very disturbed. Majority of the Wikimedia community in India saw CIS-A2K as an extension of the India Program as the entire team of the India Program moved into the CIS’s A2K program, except for the Director. Thus the CIS-A2K program inherited the not so conducive image of the India Program that was operational until August 2012. It should be noted that by August 2012, the Wikimedia community in India was extremely critical of the India Program’s work and achievement.[1]

Further, the community explicitly expressed lack of faith and Trust in the India Program’s method of work.[2] Thus, it is important to note that the CIS-A2K program did not start with a clean slate but had to first address multiple challenges, before it could take on active implementation of various programmatic activities. These challenges include:

building trust with the Wikimedia community in India;
building a collaborative relationship with Wikimedia India Chapter;
finding a new leadership to anchor the program that was left vacant in August 2012.

A2K Program Achievements (September 2012 to June 2013)

CIS Access to Knowledge (A2K) team started working on facilitating the improvement of Indian language Wikimedia projects with special focus on Indic Wikipedias in September 2012. Some key activities during the period of September 2012 to June 2013 are:

Number of newsletters published: 10
Number of events conducted: 49
Number of Wikipedia Education Programs conducted: 5
Number of people reached: about 1314
Number of women participants: approximately 406 (30.9%)
Number of community meet-ups & IRCs: 13
Number of sites across India where Wikimedia events were conducted: 18
Number of valid usernames: 582
Number of blogs posted: 58
Number of Print and Electronic Media mentions: 28
Number of Hackathons supported: 2
Number of community celebration events: 7
Number of Institutional partnerships: 13

CIS hired A2K Programme Director, T. Vishnu Vardhan, through an open and multi-stakeholder process of selection.[3] Representatives from Wikimedia India Chapter, Wikimedia community in India and Wikimedia Foundation were actively part of the selection process. This process was extremely critical and ensured participation of the Wikimedia community in India and the WMIN Chapter in deciding the leadership of the program.

Noted academician Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana was hired as Adviser to A2K.[4] This was done upon the request of the selection committee that was constituted for the selection of the program Director and in consultation with the WMF.

A2K proactively interacted with the WMIN Chapter Executive Committee and built collaborative working relationship.
Most of the A2K programs executed in collaboration with WMIN Chapter and community.
Began a new project on visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedias [5] [6] Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro are working on this. Two blog posts have been published so far. This was appreciated by the Wikimedia community in India and the WMF. Further, the WMF has expressed interest in extending these visualizations at a global level.
A2K has successfully reached out to the Wikipedians across Indian Language communities through conducting outreach programs, resolving technical bugs, supporting with required logistics, merchandise and media publicity, building public relations and communications.
Work-plans for the growth of Indic Wikipedias[7] were developed in a participatory manner with active collaboration from Wikimedia community in India and Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee.
Proactive open disclosure of A2K budget. and proposed revisions to the budget seeking feedback from the Wikimedia community in India towards building transparency.
CIS-A2K gave significant media visibility to Indian Language Wikipedias both in print and electronic media.

Section B: A2K Programme Impact

In discussing the A2K program’s impact we have presented below both the tangible and intangible aspects of our work.

Intangible Impact

The A2K team has left no stone unturned since the commencement of the program in September 2012 to work in a transparent manner. We have taken the following measures in being transparent:

Periodic publication of A2K work and outcomes through monthly newsletters.
Circulation of A2K monthly newsletters and notifications on various India related Wikimedia mailing lists.
Real-time listing and communication of activities on A2K Meta page.
Active documentation of all events and activities, which were published as blogs on CIS.
Prior announcements of all the events organized or supported by A2K.
Open and collaborative process of hiring Program Director.
Keeping the Wikimedia India Chapter EC in the loop on all programmatic developments since March 2013.
Proactive disclosure of A2K program budget and proposed revised budget to the Indian Wikimedia community.

In addition to this A2K has explored various possibilities of collaboration with the Indian Wikimedia community and Chapter alike. The biggest instance is the A2K Wok Planning exercise for 2013-14, where multiple stakeholders were consulted. These include

Some English-language Wikimedia community members from India;
Wikimedia India chapter Executive Committee;
Indian language Wikimedians and
A few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Some of the collaborative and community building efforts of A2K were:

Support to community-led activities and facilitating community participation and ownership (e.g. Wiki Women’s Month).
Mobilization of the Indian Wikimedia community in organizing mega community events like Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam.
Engagement with WMI Chapter EC and built a collaborative relationship.
Wikipedia Education programs in 4 Indian languages done in collaboration with the local Wikimedia community.
Supporting Wikimedians in conducting outreach events.
Almost all the A2K events since February were done in collaboration with WMI Chapter and the Wikimedia community in India.
A2K team actively participated in various community meet-ups.
A2K has provided significant media visibility to Indian Language Wikipedias, especially in mainstream English press.

These transparency and collaboration efforts resulted in building trust among the Wikimedia India communities, where in they have begun to constructively engage with the A2K program’s work. This is a significant achievement since the closure of India program in August 2012. However, there are still some Wikimedians who prefer to ignore the A2K program, which indicates that the A2K program still needs to prove its worth. Thus it could be said that the A2K program has been partly successful in winning the faith of the Indian Wikimedia communities and still needs to put in more effort in this direction. The A2K team is committed to achieve this by demonstrating success through its work during the next phase of this program.

Tangible Impact

It is difficult for the CIS-A2K program to either take direct credit for the growth or direct blame for the lack of it in the Indian language Wikimedia projects. However, we believe that we have been one of the factors — and sometimes a key factor — in impacting the growth of the Wikimedia projects and communities in India since the commencement of the project.

Though the A2K program has done some amount of work with almost all Indian language Wikipedias, the A2K team has had relatively more involvement in 10 Indic languages - Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Telugu - during September 2012 to June 2013.

In addition to this based on the various outreach work done by A2K we have attempted to present an analysis of direct new Wikipedia users that have emerged in languages impacted by the A2K program, keeping in mind that community mobilization will always be an autonomous activity to some extent.


Graph 1: Growth of Articles in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

The growth momentum in Indian languages over the eight month period of September 2012 to June 2013 looks healthy.
Some language Wikipedias have been growing at a phenomenal rate than others in terms of percentage change since September 2012.
Punjabi, Assamese and Odia Wikipedias have a growth rate of 82%, 59%, and 37% respectively and are the top 3 Indian language Wikipedia projects during the ten month period.
In terms of absolute number of articles, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and Hindi Wikipedias have grown by about 5,812; 5,008; 3050; and 2,734 articles respectively.
However, given the small size of the Wikipedia communities in Punjabi, Nepali, Kannada, Odia and Sanskrit the growth achieved by them is much commendable and all efforts have to be put to ensure that this momentum continues by strengthening these communities and also expanding them.


Graph 2: Active Editors in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

There is a fluctuation in the number of active editors in all Indian language Wikipedias.
The active editors on Assamese, Marathi and Gujarati Wikipedias have been consistently coming down, which is a cause of concern.
It is important to note that Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Nepali Wikipedias where the number of Active Editors were declining earlier have shown a remarkable turnaround. The efforts of the A2K program, especially in Telugu and Kannada, over the last 4 months could have resulted in this positive change.
It seems the Wikipedia Education Program, Nepal has been instrumental in bringing significant number of new active editors on Nepali Wikipedia.
Overall the active editors on Malayalam Wikipedia have crossed the 100 mark numerous times, making it the first Indian language Wikipedia to reach this benchmark. However, in month of May and June 2013 this dropped to a 2 digit figure again.
Looking at the trends Tamil Wikipedia may soon reach the 100 active editor mark.
Even Bengali community could cross 100 active editors if concerted efforts are put in.
The Assamese Wikipedia, which received support from A2K program until January 2013, had a consistent active editor population which was around 20 people. However, once the support from the A2K dwindled since February a declining trend can be noticed. One could deduce that the A2K program has had critical relevance in the growth of Assamese Wikipedia. The decline over the last 5 months also alerts us to the possibility of building dependencies on the A2K program, which is a concern that we need to address going forward.


Graph 3: Monthly growth of New Editors on Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

On an average 94 new editors have joined Indian language Wikipedias every month.
Bengali, Malayalam and Tamil Wikipedias have consistently seen more than 10 new editors joining almost every month since Jan 2013.
Hindi, Marathi and Telugu have many new editors joining per month.
Total of 849 new people have become editors for Indian language Wikipedia since Sep 2012.
However, the conversion rate of new editors into active editors is still a challenge across all Indian language Wikipedias.


Graph 4: Snapshot of “Page Views” of Indian Language Wikipedias in September 2012 & June 2013

Overall the “Page View” trends of Indian Language Wikipedias until April 2013 look positive. but since the last two months the trend is in the decline. However, it should be noted that the month on month “Page View” trends keep fluctuating.
Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and Punjabi Wikipedias have shown highest percentage growth in page views since September 2012.
In absolute numbers Bengali Wikipedia has seen a spectacular growth of 3,000,000 page-views, Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedias witnessed a growth of about 927,150 and 365,913 a page-views respectively.
Based on the the absolute numbers of “Page Views” for Indian Wikipedias it could be speculated that there is a significant increase in demand for knowledge and information in Indian languages on the internet.

In the below given Graph 5, we have also looked at the direct impact the A2K programme had in cultivating new editors on Indian language Wikipedias through various outreach programs that conducted during September 2012 to June 2013.


Graph 5: New Editors from CIS-A2K Outreach September 2012-June 2013

It should be noted that during the 10 month period CIS-A2K reached out to a total of 1,314 participants. This is approximate 130 people per month. However, the username data for more than 700 participants could not be ascertained, due to incorrect inefficient data collection and input. This includes participants giving wrong usernames, trouble with the handwriting of some of the participants, etc. We have already taken note of this issue and have put in measures to efficiently capture the new user data. Hence, we have only presented an analysis of 582 participants, whose usernames are valid.

The analysis of this data reveals that more than 120 users have done more than 5 edits, which is about 21 per cent of the participants with valid usernames. Further, 25 participants have done more than 100 edits on English and various Indian language Wikipedias, which constitutes 4 per cent of the total participants that the A2K programme has reached out to. Further 11 users have become very active editors on Indian language Wikipedias with more than 1000 edits to their credit.

Section C: Learning and Challenges

Outreach

One of the biggest constraints with the existing outreach efforts across India including that of CIS-A2K's is that they are all based on light-touch model. We have learned that a light touch outreach with no follow up, no hand-holding, no support system will not be able to yield desired results. We need to have a thoroughly thought out well-designed outreach programs where there should be continuous interaction with the participants for a minimum of 2-3 months. CIS-A2K approach to outreach should be different from usual Wikipedia editing training. Further, any outreach with an educational institution on the lines of a "Wikipedia Education Program" requires at least 3-4 months commitment from everyone concerned (i.e. student, institution, community and CISA2K).

This in no way means diminish the importance of the light-touch model of 1/2 or 1 day Wikipedia editing training workshops, as seldom you get institutions/groups who are willing to commit to a long-term engagement. Thus a mixed approach is more pragmatic, while more energies need to put in long-term engagements.
There is a strand of criticism about effectiveness of physical outreach in general. However physical outreach for Indian languages is extremely essential as this is the lead exercise by which language communities have strengthened themselves over the years, though this has been very slow. The need to involve human element, face-to-face interaction and two-way communication is an extremely important factor of for growth of Indian language communities.
The need for each language community is different with respect to outreach. There are some communities that are more comfortable with conducting physical outreach while other communities are more efficient with outreach on social networking sites. For instance the Odia Wikipedia community where the average age of the active members is less than 25 is more active on Social Media and extensively uses it to network among themselves and to also discuss about the Wikipedia, whereas the Telugu Wikipedia is more comfortable with physical meetings and primarily uses Village Pump for all community discussions.
Based on the interaction with most of the Indian language Wikimedia communities, CIS-A2K noticed that except for some communities like Malayalam, an institutional partnership is something that might not be easily taken up by community members. This is so because it requires high level of effort, time and strong network, amongst several other things. CIS-A2K has been focusing to address this need in general and in the five focus language areas in particular.

Work Plan Development and Community Communications

Even after sending multiple invitations, it took a lot of effort by CIS-A2K to encourage the larger community to engage and participate actively in the development of language focused work plan. CIS-A2K put its best efforts in inviting the community members through meta pages, village pumps, language and city-wide mailing lists, Indian mailing list, India English mailing list, meet-ups, IRCs, social-media channels to give their valuable suggestions and feedback. However, very few community members showed interest and helped in refining the plans. Better feedback could be gathered during physical and informal meetings with the community members.
Less than 10% active volunteers across all Indian language communities are active on Meta and even less on Indian mailing lists. During some informal conversations some community members expressed that it is too much of an additional burden to also visit Meta and engage. Taking into consideration that most of the language communities have less than 20 active volunteers, pragmatically speaking it is a huge ask to expect them to actively participate on Meta or mailing lists. Thus one cannot have a uniform standard and uniform mode of communication with different language communities. Thus CIS-A2K needs to explore various means of engaging with the Wikimedia community in India and should adopt a mixed channel approach of gauging community feedback. Though this is requires additional efforts on the team.
The mediums listed show a significant effort was made to solicit feedback and participation. It's okay and understandable that strategic planning is not for everyone, that volunteers economize their time devoted to the movement. So CIS-A2K does not necessarily see it as a failure that participation was low. What CIS-A2K aimed to do was to make sure participation was solicited, encouraged, and made possible. Of course ideally we would want higher participation, but CIS-A2K is careful not to confuse and turn higher participation in strategizing into a goal in itself.
In spite of this CIS-A2K took the risk and went ahead with a participatory and continuous mode of evaluation. We foresee a challenge in actively involving the community in quarterly evaluation cycles as this would require them also to introspect. In the five focus language communities such an introspection exercise was not done systematically before and a mandatory imposition may not be productive either for the Community or for CIS-A2K. The challenge would be that in the first 2 quarterly cycles CIS-A2K could miss meeting its own evaluation criteria. However, the opportunity here is to train the community to systematically introspect, which will go a long way in strengthening the Indian language Wikipedias and the associated communities.
Some programs, especially institutional partnerships, have a higher risk of failure than others. Though CIS-A2K committed to a very granular break-down of outcomes, it may require significant revisions. Hence it is extremely important for CIS-A2K to review and revise the plans and goals every 3-4 months.

Community Engagement/Development

Indian language communities are able to grow and cultivate new editors who come from similar background as their’s. For example, we find that the Telugu community comprises primarily in the age group of 30-50 years, while on the other hand, the Odia community consists of relatively younger editors between the age group of 20-30 years. Hence, it is essential that the community building programs take this aspect into consideration and work to diversify the community mix by engaging with people belonging to varied backgrounds.
Transparency and accountability are essential to build community trust. CIS-A2K has already taken various measures in this direction. However, there are occasions when more demands are placed on CIS-A2K, which consumes a lot of CIS-A2K's time and effort. The challenge is to struck a balance between the demands of transparency and accountability and the actual work they describe.
Meetups, one-on-one meetings/talk with community members are an essential ingredient to build long-term relationship. This is especially very important for nascent language communities with few editors. These kind of personal interactions help community members to know and connect with other Wikipedians. It also helps build trust and working relationship between community members and the A2K team.
CIS-A2K recognizes the potential role of Wikimedia India Chapter in growing the Wikimedia movement in India. Though CIS-A2K's work doesn't depend on the India Chapter, there is a huge potential for collaboration between the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS-A2K. CIS-A2K has put in its best efforts to build a cordial working relationship with the India Chapter. However, the extent of the collaboration would depend on the India Chapter's capacity and interest.

Section D: Progress Report

A detailed progress report of the A2K program activities has been presented on a monthly basis below. Most of the activities have been documented as blog posts or news-items on the CIS website. All of the A2K events, blog-posts and news-items can be seen here.

Outreach Sessions in September 2012

Note: Although most of these workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the reports for all of these were written during September 2012:

The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012). A total of 25 participants came for this workshop. There were 15 new editors (of which 13 were female).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012). About 30 participants including students and teachers attended the workshop.
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012). Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop.
Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012). About 32 participants attended the session on Day 1 and 10 participants attended the session on Day 2.
Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012). About 30 participants including students and teachers participated in this workshop.
Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad! (By Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012). There was coverage in the Hindu on September 28, 2012. About 60 students participated in the event.

Outreach Sessions in October 2012

Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects! (October 7, 2012, Bangalore). Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Jessie Wild led the session. Seven Kannada wikipedians participated in the event.
Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012). The Access to Knowledge team was approached by Gaurav Prashar, Assistant Dean at Inmantec College, Ghaziabad to organize the workshop. Over 120 participants attended the workshop including MCA, BCA, BBA students and faculty members.
Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success! (organised by Wikipedia Club Pune at PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012). Subhashish Panigrahi shares the experience in a blog post.
First Pune Odia Wikipedia Workshop Organized! (Co-organised by CIS and Pune Odia Wikipedia community, Pune, October 27, 2012). The Access to Knowledge team showed the participants the Chatasabha, a friendly desk on Odia Wikipedia and demonstrated how they can ask questions and see the answered questions. New wikipedians were connected to Facebook

Outreach Sessions in November 2012

Odia Wikipedia Workshop at AML (Academy of Media Learning, Bhubaneswar, November 10, 2012). Odia Wikipedians like Ansuman Giri, Manoranjan Behera and Diptiman Panigrahi participated in this event.
Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session (Bharati Vidyapeeth, Delhi, November 19, 2012). A Wikipedia introductory session was organised at Bharati Vidyapeeth Engineering College in Delhi early this year and a follow up session was organised by CIS on November 19, 2012. About 15 participants attended the follow up session.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB (co-organized with CIS and with Odia Wikipedians, KMBB College, Bhubaneswar November 18, 2012). The agenda for the two-and-a-half hour session was to educate students about open source movement, journey of Wikipedia and how to contribute to Odia Wikipedia and how it would help them. Nine active Odia Wikipedians joined to support this event.

Outreach Sessions in December 2012

Marathi Wiki Workshop at TISS (co-organised with the Wikimedia India Chapter, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, December 8, 2012). There were about 25 participants (MA and PhD level) and 5 conductors - Yogesh, Nikita, Moksh, Kartik and Nitika.
Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT (NMAIT, Karkala Taluk, Karnataka December 21, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Subhashish Panigrahi led the session. About 170 engineering students took part in this event.
Wikipedia Workshop at SRM (SRM University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, December 17, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Noopur Raval participated in the event. About 40 students from different engineering colleges in Chennai participated in the workshop.

(Note: The following events were also conducted in December 2012. However, reports for these events were published later in January.)
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013). The workshop was conducted on December 12 and 13, 2012 along with the Wikipedia community members for M.A. and Ph.D. students at the Goa University. Over 35 participants attended the two-day workshop.
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013). The workshop was conducted on December 14, 2012. Over 30 participants attended the session.
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team organised an introductory Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAM) session at Goa State Central Library on December 13, 2012. About 45 people from over 10 different GLAM institutes in Goa participated in the event.
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013). An introductory session on Konkani in Wikipedia was conducted at the Konkani Department in Goa University on December 12, 2012. About 30 participants took part in the event.

Outreach Session in January 2013

A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013). Around 65 mechanical engineering students from second and third year participated in this workshop.

Outreach Session in February 2013

Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (University of Delhi, February 5, 2013). A digital literacy workshop was organised at the Department of Arts, Delhi University for students pursuing their masters in Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies on February 5, 2013. About 30 students and 4 faculty members attended the workshop.

Outreach Sessions in March 2013

Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (organised by CIS, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Goa, March 7, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team was invited by Nikhil Dixit, Public Relations Officer at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani – Goa (BITS Goa) to organise Wikipedia session on March 7, 2013. About 30 people participated in the event.
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop on Women's Day (organised by CIS, Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, March 8, 2013). Telugu Wikipedians Dr. Rajasekhar and Rahmanuddin alongwith T. Vishnu Vardhan led this event.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia India Chapter, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the event.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by CIS, Institution of Engineers, JLB Road, Mysore, March 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led this workshop.
Wikipedia Indian Languages Workshop at IIT, Bombay (organised by CIS, IIT Mumbai, March 28, 2013). Noopur Raval led the event.

Outreach Sessions in April 2013

Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (April 9, 2013 at the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Arjunarao, Rahmanuddin and Pavithran along with T. Vishnu Vardhan led this half-day workshop. This was organized as a pre-event to Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (April 11, 2013 at the Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Radhkrishna and Rajachandra led this half-day workshop. This was organized as part of the Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Telugu Wikipedia Advance level Workshop (April 11, 2013 at the Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Arjunarao and Rahmanuddin led this demonstration. This was organized as part of the Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.

Outreach Sessions in May 2013

Wikipedia workshop (May 8, 2013, TISS, Mumbai). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop to the students of Post Graduate Diploma in Community Media. A total of 14 students and 1 teacher attended this multi-lingual Wikipedia training workshop.

Outreach Sessions in June 2013

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (June 4, 2013, Ramakrishna Vidyalaya, Hassan). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.
Wikipedia workshop (June 10, 2013, Internet Institute, Palm Grove, Bangalore). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop. This orientation workshop on Wikipedia was attended by representatives from about 25 Civil Society organizations across India. This was followed up by a hands-on Wikipedia training workshop.
Kannada Wikipedia workshop for bloggers (June 24, 2013, Suchitra, Bangalore). Dr U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop and gave a presentation on Kannada Wikipedia.

Education Programme Updates

Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education program at Guwahati University (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012). The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 post-graduate students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, Guwahati University.
Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012). This program is the first of its kind in an Indic language, and Malayalam community is doing the program in collaboration with the IT@School, a project of the Department of General Education, # Government of Kerala, setup in 2001, to foster the IT education in schools. Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). This was a competition to raise Wikipedia awareness and help students discover the joy of writing articles in their native language and an attempt to connect producers having knowledge in Gujarati to a wide audience of more than 4,00,000 readers.
Gujarat Wikipedia Education program:Rajkot (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). This report analyses a series of meetings and workshops held in Rajkot, a city in Gujarat, India during the month of October 2012 including students from the Galaxy Education System, Christ College students and members from the Wikipedia community.
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program to be Rolled Out (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012). Odia wikipedians launched this program at the Indian Institute of Mass Communications, Dhenkanal on November 8, 2012 to bring students to edit articles on Odia wikipedia through a series of assessments by professors.
Odia Education Program (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013). This is the first Odia Education Program which ran for three months and 16 students took active part in contributing on various articles on Odia Wikipedia.
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013). Sixteen student wikipedians signed up and took part in editing more than a dozen articles on Odia Wikipedia.

Hackathons

Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012).
A Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi (CIS, New Delhi, November 11, 2012)

Meetups

Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia! (Kolkata, November 3, 2012). The journeys of three Wikipedians — Jayanta Nath, Deepon Saha and Ashwin Baindur are examined. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting.
Wikivoyage, November 18, 2012: Ravikiran presented the Wikivoyage project and discussions on Wiki Project Karnataka. A total of 13 participants attended this meeting.
Wikidata, December 2, 2012: Lydia Pintscher presented the Wikidata project. The talk covered history of Wikidata project, state of the project and Wikidata India opportunities. About 13 people attended this event.
Wikimedia Meet-up, Hyderabad (7 Hyderabad based Wikimedians attended this meet-up. Abhijith Jayanthi - SIG Hyderabad, Rahimanuddin Shaik - SIG Telugu, Dr. Rajasekhar; Veera Venkata Chowdary, Tausif, Sai Anudeep, and Akhila Thumma came together for a discussion meeting with the CIS-A2K Program Director T. Vishnu Vardhan.
Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013). Four Wikipedians from Kolkata, Wikimedia Foundation's mobile Developer Yuvaraj Pandian and OPW intern Sucheta Ghoshal joined T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi for this event.
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi met Odia Wikipedians in Cuttack to discuss about the current state of Odia Wikipedia and understand the community building strategies.
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).
First Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (co-organised by Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K on June 2, 2013). S.J. Veera conducted the meet-up.

Celebration and Events

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). The event attracted good coverage in the local media:

Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai (by Noopur Raval, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala, Mumbai, November 4, 2012).
Wiki Women's Day in Goa (organised by the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Nirmala Institute of Education, Panaji, Goa, March 8, 2013). The workshop was organised on International Women's Day. Rohini Lakshane and Nitika Tandon led the workshop.
Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia. Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.

Events Participated In

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013).
GNUnify 2013 (organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research, Pune, February 15 – 17, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Creative Commons comes to India (co-organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research in Pune, February 15, 2013, and CIS the Wikimedia India Chapter, Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, February 25, 2013).The Access to Knowledge team participated in the CC meetings organized in Bangalore.
Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (organized by Radhakrishna Arvapally, SIG (Special Interest Group) Chair, Bangalore (a part of the Wikimedia India Chapter) with support from Solutions IQ, Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Indian Institute of Management, February 25, 2013). Sudhwana Jogalekar (President, Wikimedia India) spoke on Wikimedia Projects. T. Vishnu Vardhan (program Director, A2K, CIS) gave a talk on 'Accessibility to Knowledge'. Joe Justice (Founder WikiSpeed) and Vibhu Srinivasan gave a presentation of WikiSpeed Car project. Chief Guest K.S. Viswanath (Vice President, Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM) gave the welcome address. Noopur Raval participated in the event.
Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (organized by Wikimedia India and Creative Commons, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event. CIS supported the event.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia Chapter India, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 (organised by Wikimedia India, Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar, Bangalore, March 8, 2013). The event was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia at Avenir (organised by the Wikipedia community, Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal, March 11, 2013). CIS supported the event.
Wikipedia Community members helped the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications program (HEIRA) of CSCS Bangalore organizes a day-long workshop on ‘Digital Literacy’ at Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Maharasthra on January 17, 2013. Tanveer Hasan of HEIRA shares with us the developments in this report. During this period, CIS established partnerships with the Goa University, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, Regional Research Centre, Udupi, etc.

Section E: Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project


Given above is a chart depicting the visualization of Indic Wikipedia project

CIS hired Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Sajjad Anwar to work on visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia. Their project takes basic parameters, like page views, total articles and total editors, and compares them over time and across projects:

They have looked into the different aspects of the past and present activities of Indic Wikipedias, and divided the visualisation into three different focus areas:
1. Basic parameters
2. Geographic patterns of edits
3. Exploring topics that receive greatest number of edits. You can read more about Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters
They also worked on visualisation of the page views statistics and the project specific pages. The page views indicate the number of unique visits Wikipedia project concerned has received in one month. You can read more about Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages
Readership Dashboard: The Readership Dashboard combines a line graph showing the movement of page view for a project across the years and bar graphs showing a separate variable for the same project.
Motion Charts: The motion charts help compare Indic Wikipedia Projects across Languages on various parameters such as new editors, new articles, active editors, total editors etc.
Calendar Charts: The calendar charts limits each chart section to 12 months allowing the user to focus on more granular movements of the variable concerned, say the number of new editors per month or page views per month, etc.

Section F: The Access to Knowledge Work Plan (2013 – 2014)

The Access to Knowledge team assessed 12 of the active Indic-language communities based on the community dynamics, growth patterns in readership, and community and edit contribution for drafting this work plan. In putting together this work plan the Access to Knowledge team has extensively engaged with various stakeholders. These include: a) some Wikimedia community in India members across various Indian-language Wikimedia projects; b) some English-language Wikimedia community members from India; c) Wikimedia India chapter executive committee; d) some potential institutional partners; e) a few like-minded advocates of free knowledge; f) Access to Knowledge program Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana; and g) a few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff. Five languages were selected as core language areas. These include: Bengali, Kannada, Konkani, Odia and Telegu. Some key factors that determined the selection of languages areas included:

The Access to Knowledge team's existing ties with knowledge institutions, groups and individuals.
Willingness of language community to interact and engage with the Access to Knowledge team.
Considering Wikimedia India Chapter EC's suggestion that Access to Knowledge team should work on at least one incubation project.
Access to Knowledge team's familiarity with the languages.

However, choosing these five languages do not necessarily mean that the A2K program would not focus on the other languages rather there would be more programmatic support and organizational ties to be built.

Language Area Work Plans

The language area work plans are linked to the individual meta-pages:

The expected and dream targets for the languages are shown below:

Expected and dream targets for languages
Parameters	Telugu		Odia		Kannada		Bengali		Konkani
	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Target
No. of Editors	755	905	120	350	600	1000	930	1200	NA
No. of New editors	200	350	35	100	300	700	30	100	24
No. of Acitve editors	25	40	20	40	50	70	100	150	NA
No. of Aritcles	54000	55000	5000	6000	25000	30000	27000	28000	500
No. of Outreach Events	29	34	12	15	12	20	5	15	12

The detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K program activities could be accessed here.

Overall Community Support

Besides the specific programs mentioned under individual language area plans, A2K team will provide overall support to all Indian-language Wikipedia communities. This includes but is not limited to:
Creating awareness through online editing videos, editing guides and digital coverage all in local Indian languages.
Supporting outreach activities
Capacity building to multiply outreach efforts. This would include training sessions to improve presentation skills, audience engagement skills with mock presentations and video recording for feedback. The first Train-the-Trainer program is being planned in June.
Facilitate more qualitative interactions amongst community members with an aim to foster creation of new project ideas in the form of physical meet-ups, hangouts/Skype calls, and small/large scale conferences.
Organize language specific IRCs where community members from that specific language could discuss their plans, issues, concerns, and anything at all.
Encourage community members to share feedback, suggestions or details of any kind of support on A2K's Meta help page.
Supporting communities for bug reporting and following up for resolution. A detailed overall community support page can be found here.

Section G: Team Orientation and Development

Team’s Professional Development

A one-day orientation was organized in CIS where Wikimedia board members Bishakha Datta and Achal Prabhala helped the Access to Knowledge team members to develop an agenda for a period of 6-7 months. They helped team members to find overlaps, prioritise and recognize possibilities to make best use of available resources. The board members also shared learnings, principles and concepts from other movements that could be applied to the Access to Knowledge program.
A one-day orientation program was organized with Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee Members to find common minimum program on which both the Chapter and the Access to Knowledge team could work together to achieve common objectives. The orientation also helped define overlapping areas and how the two oragnisations will handle them.
A one-day orientation program was organised with Wikimedia community in India Members such as Tinu Cherian who gave a talk on how to leverage mainstream and social media; Gautam John who organized a workshop on organisational procedures for greater transparency and accountability, and Arun Ramarathnam who spoke about best practices for working with Wikipedia community. This orientation was organized as a part of training and skill development for the Access to Knowledge team members.
Since March 2013 CIS-A2K started having weekly Team Learning Sessions on every Wednesday. However, given the hectic schedules of the Team these could not be organized in a regular manner.

Exits and New Hires

CIS has an office in New Delhi with a five-member team for the Access to Knowledge program. The team is currently headed by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director (Access to Knowledge). Other team members include Tejaswini Niranjana (Distinguished Fellow), Dr. U.B. Pavanaja (Program Officer, Indian Language Initiatives), Nitika Tandon (Program Manager) and Subhashish Panigrahi (Program Officer).

	T. Vishnu Vardhan: Vishnu Vardhan was hired as the new program Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu Vardhan has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu Vardhan managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and also worked as Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore.
	Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the team as program Officer, India Language Initiatives on March 4, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc.
	Tejaswini Niranjana is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai joined A2K as an Adviser. She guides the Access to Knowledge team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and helps in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.

The following staff left the organisation:

Shiju Alex, Program Manager, Access to Knowledge left the organization on November 16, 2012.

Noopur Raval, Program Officer, Access to Knowledge left the organization on April 24, 2013.

Section H: Additional Links and Data

Blog Entries

Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report: January – June 2012 (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012).
Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012).
The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012).
Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012).
Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar (by Shiju Alex, September 30, 2012).
Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad! (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012).
Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012).
Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012).
Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012).
Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012).
Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 29, 2012).
Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).
Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).
First Pune Odia Wikipedia Workshop Organized! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012).
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Academy of Media Learning (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 10, 2012).
A Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi (a guest blog post by Yuvraj Pandian, November 11, 2012).
Report on Wikipedia Hackathon held in Hyderabad (a guest blog post by Yuvi Panda, November 19, 2012).
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB College, Bhubaneswar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 19, 2012).
Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session at Bharati Vidyapeeth — More Interested and More Involved Participants (by Nitika Tandon, November 19, 2012).
Typing in Indic Languages from Mobiles made Easy! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 19, 2012).
Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai (by Noopur Raval, November 21, 2012).
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program to be Rolled Out (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012).
Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012).
Marathi Wiki Workshop at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 8, 2012).
Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 19, 2012).
A Wikipedia Workshop at SRM University, Chennai (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 27, 2012).
New Avenues: Media Wiki Groups (by Noopur Raval, December 27, 2012).
A Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 30, 2012).
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 30, 2012).
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 14, 2013).
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).
Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 21, 2013).
A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 22, 2013).
Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).
Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 19, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (by Nitika Tandon, March 19, 2013).
Ahmednagar — Marathi Wikipedia Workshop (by Tanveer Hasan, March 18, 2013). This is a report contributed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society.
Wiki Women's Day in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, March 19, 2013).
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, March 26, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 3, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 4, 2013).
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, April 22, 2013).
Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013). This is a guest blog post by Netha Hussain.
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 11, 2013).
Access to Knowledge Work Plan: Synopsis of Feedback by Wikipedians (by Nitika Tandon, May 20, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 30, 2013).
CIS Signs MOU with TISS, Mumbai (May 31, 2013).
A Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (April 2013 - June 2014) (a guest blog post by S J Veera, June 2, 2013).
Access To Knowledge Work Plan (April 2013 - June 2014) (by T Vishnu Vardhan, June 10, 2013).
My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T Vishnu Vardhan, June 19, 2013).
Wikipedia Visual Editor (by Nitika Tandon, June 27, 2013).
A 'Kannada' Wikipedia Workshop for Bloggers (by U B Pavanaja, June 28, 2013).

Press Coverage

Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012).
‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’ (by Kalyan Subramani, Bangalore Mirror, November 15, 2012).
A Report of the Odia Wikipedia Workshop held in KMBB College of Engineering, Bhubaneswar (Sambad, November 19, 2012).
OdishaDiary conferred prestigious Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 to Odia Wikipedia team (by Pravuprasad Routray, Orissa Diary, November 23, 2012).
A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).
વિકિપીડિયા ગુજરાતી માં પણ છે (by Harsh Kothari, Cybersafar, November 28, 2012).A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal (OdishaDiary Bureau, January 27, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media (Sambad, January 30, 2013).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Sambad, February 4, 2013).
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, March 2, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop, Mysore — Coverage in Prajavani (Prajavani, March 25, 2013).
CIS Celebrates 5 Years: A Report in Prajavani (Prajavani, May 24, 2013).
CIS Celebrates 5 Years: A Report in Udayavani (Prajavani, May 24, 2013).
A Feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians on HMTV (Prajavani, May 30-31, 2013).
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme on HMTV (Prajavani, June 1, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Prajavani, June 5, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Samyukta Karnataka, June 5, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Vijaya Karnataka, June 5, 2013).
Wiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion on Suvarna News (Suvarna News 24x7, June 13, 2013).
Wiki donors (TimeOut Bengaluru, June 21, 2013).

Newsletters

The following newsletters have been published:

September 2012 Bulletin
October 2012 Bulletin
November 2012 Bulletin
December 2012 Bulletin
January 2013 Bulletin
February 2013 Bulletin
March 2013 Bulletin
April 2013 Bulletin
May 2013 Bulletin
June and July 2013 Bulletin (During this month the CIS-A2K Newsletter was redesigned based on feedback from the community and thus the June Newsletter was clubbed with July 2013).

Talk @ CIS

Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012). Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk on Wikipedia.

Section I: Budget Utilization

Currency in INR	2012-13 (Per month)	1st Year (10 months)	Budget Utilization (Sept. 2012 to June 2013)
People
Prg. Manager	1,17,000	1,170,000	1,170,000
Prg. Officer	58,800	5,88,000	580,000
Prg. Officer	1,44,000	14,40,000	1,008,000
Communications role	60,000	6,00,000	2,20,000
New Prg. Director	2,00,000	2,000,000	1,000,000
Consultant	34,500	3,45,000	2,76,000
Benefits – All	6,250	62,500	0
Staff costs	6,20,550	6,205,500	4,262,000
Rent	47,300	4,73,000	5,70,000
Janitorial	2,750	27,500	48,634
Utilities	7,500	75,000	61,836
Telephone	4,000	40,000	47,819
Office pantry	5,000	50,000	38,765
Office space	66,550	6,65,500	7,67,054
Travel
SF travel	77,726	7,77,257	1,81,887
Wikimania travel	0	0	0
Domestic travel	1,10,000	1,100,000	1,373,469
Travel	1,87,726	1,877,257	1,555,356
Printed materials	50,000	5,00,000	38,800
Design, Creative	55,000	5,50,000	1,25,400
Volunteer development	50,000	500,000	0
Postage & Mailing	2,500	25,000	5,800
Office supplies	7,500	75,000	50,192
General expenses	1,65,000	1,650,000	2,20,192
Total before fees	1,039,826	10,398,257	6,804,602
Admin fee	51,991	5,19,913	5,19,913
Program fee	51,991	5,19,913	5,19,913
Total	1,143,808	11,438,082	7,844,428

Notes:

The above table gives a picture of the A2K program budget utilization (un-audited) for the period Sept. 2012 to June 2013. Thus it is important that these figures be read as provisional figures, which could change post the statutory audit as per the Indian laws binding a Registered Society.
Approximately there is a 31% underspending of the Budget during the ten month period. This is mainly because of the transition of the program to CIS took sometime along with delays in the recruitment of the New Program Director. CIS-A2K has requested the WMF for a reallocation of the Budget since then.

Footnotes

[1]. Independent Report from Tory Read on India Education Program

[2]. Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot. Wikimedia-India Mail archive

[3]. Most recent updates on the hiring of the Programme Director for the A2K programme. Wikimedia-India mail archive

[4]. The Access to Knowledge - Bulletin - January '13

[5]. Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters

[6]. Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages

[7]. CIS-A2K Work Plan (Draft). Wikimedia-India mail archive

[8]. CIS-A2K Budget, Utilization Report and proposed revision. Wikimedia-India mail archive

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-access-to-knowledge-narrative-report-september-2012-june-2013

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ

pavanaja — 2013-11-20T09:55:31Z

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja wrote an article highlighting 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia. Kannada Wikipedia started in the year 2003 and now it has completed 10 years. The article highlights the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.

Read the original article published in Kannada Prabha on November 1, 2013. For downloading the article (PDF), click here.

ಕನ್ನಡದ ಮುಕ್ತ ಜ್ಞಾನಕೋಶವಾದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಈಗ ಜನಪ್ರಿಯ

ಯುಗಯುಗಾದಿ ಕಳೆದರೂ ಯುಗಾದಿ ಮರಳಿ ಬರುತಿದೆ ಎಂಬಂತೆ ನವೆಂಬರ್ ಕೂಡ ಮರಳಿ ಬರುತಿದೆ (ಬೇಂದ್ರೆಯವರು ಕ್ಷಮಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ). ಕನ್ನಡದ ಸ್ಥಿತಿಗತಿ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮತ್ತೊಮ್ಮೆ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಮಹಾಪೂರದ ಸಮಯ. ಪ್ರತಿ ನವೆಂಬರ್‌ಗೆ ಇದನ್ನು ಮತ್ತೆ ಮತ್ತೆ ಓದುವುದು ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ರೂಢಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಅಂತೆಯೇ ಮತ್ತೆಮತ್ತೆ ಬರೆಯುವುದು ನಮಗೆ ರೂಢಿಯಾಗಿಬಿಟ್ಟಿದೆ.

ಪೆಟ್ರೋಲ್ ಉಳಿಸಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಪೆಟ್ರೋಲ್ ಬಳಸಬಾರದು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಸಬೇಕಾದರೆ...?' ಎಂಬ ಮಾತು ಪ್ರತಿ ನವೆಂಬರ್ ಒಂದರಂದು ಅತ್ತಿಂದಿತ್ತ ಹರಿದಾಡುವ ಒಂದು ಜೋಕ್. ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಯಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಬಳಸಬೇಕು. ಇದು ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ಒಪ್ಪುವ ಮಾತು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಬಳಸುವುದೆಂದರೆ ನಿತ್ಯದ ವ್ಯವಹಾರಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ಬಳಸುವುದು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಶ್ರೀಮಂತಿಗೆ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಭಾಷಣ ಬಿಗಿದು ಮೇಜು ಕುಟ್ಟುವುದರಿಂದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಅದು ಉಳಿಯಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಜನಸಾಮಾನ್ಯರು ಅದನ್ನು ಬಳಸಬೇಕು. ಜನಸಾಮಾನ್ಯರಿಗೆ ಪ್ರಮುಖವಾಗಿ ಬೇಕಾಗಿರುವುದು ಸಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ಬೆನ್ನು ತಟ್ಟಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವ ಸೃಜನಶೀಲ (ಕಥನ) ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯವಲ್ಲ. ಅದು ಬೇಡ ಎಂದಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಜನಸಾಮಾನ್ಯರಿಗೆ ಅಗತ್ಯವಾಗಿ ಬೇಕಾದುದು ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯ. ಒಬ್ಬಾತನಿಗೆ ಹೊಚ್ಚಹೊಸ ನಮೂನೆಯ ಪ್ಲಾಸ್ಮಾ, ಎಲ್‌ಸಿಡಿ ಅಥವಾ ಎಲ್‌ಇಡಿ ಟಿವಿ ಖರೀದಿಸಬೇಕಾಗಿದೆ ಎಂದಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಳ್ಳಿ. ಆತನಿಗೆ ಇವುಗಳ ವ್ಯತ್ಯಾಸ ಗೊತ್ತಿರಬೇಕು. ತನ್ನ ಅಗತ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಇತಿಮಿತಿಯೊಳಗೆ ಯಾವುದು ಉತ್ತಮ ಎಂದು ತಿಳಿಯಬೇಕು. ಆತ ಇದನ್ನು ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ತಿಳಿಯುವ ಬಗೆ ಹೇಗೆ? ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಬೇಕು ಒಂದು ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ.

ಈಗ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ವಿಷಯದ ಕಡೆ ಗಮನ ಹರಿಸೋಣ. ಈಗ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮ ಮತ್ತು ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಚರ್ಚೆ ನಡೆಯುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಲಿತರೆ ನಮ್ಮ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಜ್ಞಾನ ದೊರೆಯುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ನಮ್ಮ ಮಕ್ಕಳನ್ನು ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಲಿಸುತ್ತೇವೆ ಎಂದು ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ತಂದೆತಾಯಂದಿರು ಹೇಳುತ್ತಾರೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಜ್ಞಾನದ ಲಭ್ಯತೆ ತುಂಬಾ ಕಡಿಮೆ ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ನಾವು ಒಪ್ಪಲೇಬೇಕು. ಆದರೆ ಈ ಸಮಸ್ಯೆಗೆ ಪರಿಹಾರ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಭಾಷೆಗೆ ಮೊರೆಹೋಗುವುದಲ್ಲ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಜ್ಞಾನವನ್ನು ತರುವುದು. ಈ ರೀತಿ ಮಾಡಲು ಸಹಾಯ ಮಾಡುವುದು ಅತಿ ಜನಪ್ರಿಯವಾಗಿರುವ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಮುಕ್ತ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಇದು 2001ರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಇದು ಜಗತ್ತಿನ 286 ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿದೆ. ಇನ್ನೂ ಸುಮಾರು 300 ಭಾಷೆಯ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗಳು ತಯಾರಿ ಹಂತದಲ್ಲಿವೆ. ಸುಮಾರು 20ಕ್ಕೂ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಲಭ್ಯ. ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡವೂ ಸೇರಿದೆ. ಭಾರತೀಯ ಭಾಷೆಯ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಂದಿ, ತಮಿಳು, ತೆಲುಗು, ಮಲಯಾಳಂ, ಮರಾಠಿ, ಬೆಂಗಾಳಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗಳು ಕನ್ನಡಕ್ಕಿಂತ ಅಂಕಿ ಅಂಶಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಂದಿವೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ 2003ರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಅಂದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ.

ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗಳಂತೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವೂ ಜನರಿಂದ ಜನರಿಗಾಗಿ ಜನರೇ ನಡೆಸುವ ಒಂದು ಮುಕ್ತ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಯಾರು ಬೇಕಾದರೂ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾಗಿ ಲೇಖನ ಸೇರಿಸಬಹುದು. ಇರುವ ಲೇಖನ ತಿದ್ದಬಹುದು. ಇನ್ನೊಬ್ಬರು ಬರೆದ ಲೇಖನದಲ್ಲಿ ಏನಾದರೂ ತಪ್ಪುಗಳು ಕಂಡುಬಂದರೆ ಅಥವಾ ಮಾಹಿತಿಯ ಕೊರತೆ ಇದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ ಆ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ನಿಮ್ಮಲ್ಲಿ ಇದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ ಅದನ್ನು ನೀವೇ ತಿದ್ದಬಹುದು ಮತ್ತು ಹೆಚ್ಚಿನ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸಬಹುದು. ನಿಮಗೆ ಒಂದು ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ತಿಳಿದಿದೆ ಮತ್ತು ಆ ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಲೇಖನ ಇಲ್ಲ ಎಂದಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಆ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದು ಹೊಸ ಲೇಖನವನ್ನು ನೀವೇ ಸೇರಿಸಬಹುದು. ನಿಮ್ಮ ಲೇಖನ ಯಾರೋ ಒಬ್ಬರು ಒಪ್ಪಿದ ನಂತರ ಅದು ಪ್ರಕಟವಾಗುವ ಪರಿಪಾಠ ಇಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ. ನೀವು ಲೇಖನ ಬರೆದು ಪುಟ ಉಳಿಸಿ ಎಂಬುದರ ಮೇಲೆ ಕ್ಲಿಕ್ ಮಾಡಿದರೆ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಲೇಖನ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಸೇರ್ಪಡೆಯಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಪ್ರಪಂಚದಾದ್ಯಂತ ಹಬ್ಬಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗರಿಗೆ ಅದು ಕ್ಷಣಮಾತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ದೊರೆಯುವಂತಾಗುತ್ತದೆ.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಆದಾಯರಹಿತ (ನಾನ್ ಪ್ರಾಫಿಟ್) ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯಾದ ವಿಕಿಮೀಡಿಯ ಫೌಂಡೇಶನ್‌ನ ನಿಯಂತ್ರಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಕಾರ್ಯನಿರ್ವಹಿಸುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಇದು ಸರ್ಕಾರಿ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯಲ್ಲ, ಸರ್ಕಾರದಿಂದ ಯಾವುದೇ ರೀತಿಯ ಅನುದಾನವನ್ನೂ ಪಡೆಯುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಗೆ ಅವಶ್ಯಕವಾದ ಬಂಡವಾಳವನ್ನು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಬಳಕೆದಾರರಿಂದ ದೇಣಿಗೆಯ ರೂಪದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಂಗ್ರಹಿಸಲಾಗಿದೆ. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ನಡೆಸಲು ನೀವೂ ಧನಸಹಾಯ ನೀಡಬಹುದು. ಇಂದು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಇಷ್ಟು ಜನಪ್ರಿಯವಾಗಿರುವ ಕಾರಣ ಕೆಲವು ಸರ್ಕಾರಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಕಾರ್ಪೊರೇಟ್ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳು ಕೂಡ ಧನಸಹಾಯ ನೀಡಲು ಮುಂದಾಗಿವೆ.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ನಾವು ತಜ್ಞರೇ ಆಗಿರಬೇಕು ಎನ್ನುವುದು ತಪ್ಪು. ವಾಸ್ತವವಾಗಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಯಾವುದೇ ಬರಹ ಒಬ್ಬನೇ ಲೇಖಕ ಬರೆದುದಲ್ಲ. ಬೇರೆ ಬೇರೆ ದೇಶ, ಹಿನ್ನೆಲೆಗಳ ಅನೇಕ ಮಂದಿಯ ಸಹಕಾರದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಂದು ಪುಟವೂ ರೂಪುಗೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತದೆ. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಸಹಯೋಗಿ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ನಿಮಗೆ ತಿಳಿದಷ್ಟು ನೀವು ಸೇರಿಸಿ. ನೀವು ಬಿಟ್ಟಿರುವುದನ್ನು ವಿಷಯ ತಿಳಿದ ಬೇರೆ ಯಾರಾದರು ಸೇರಿಸುತ್ತಾರೆ.

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವುದರಿಂದ ಯಾವುದೇ ಆರ್ಥಿಕ ಲಾಭವಿಲ್ಲ. ಲೇಖಕರ ಹೆಸರನ್ನೂ ಲೇಖನದ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಬರೆಯುವ ಪರಿಪಾಠವಿಲ್ಲ. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆಯುವುದೆಂದರೆ ನಿಜವಾದ ಸ್ವಾರ್ಥರಹಿತ ಸಮಾಜಸೇವೆ. ನಮ್ಮ ಭಾಷೆಯ ಉಳಿವಿಗೆ ಇದು ಅತೀ ಅಗತ್ಯ. ಆದ್ದರಿಂದ ಇಂದೇ ಕೀಲಿಮಣೆ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಟ್ಟಿ -- kn.wikipedia.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kannada-prabha-november-1-2013-dr-ub-pavanaja-10-years-of-kannada-wikipedia

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು : ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T08:54:46Z

A post-event report of the program published in OneindiaKannada on November 17, 2013.

Read about the event published in Oneindia Kannada on November 17 here.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು, ನ.17: ಕನ್ನಡ ನೆಟ್ಟಿಗರ ಜ್ಞಾನದಾಹವನ್ನು ತಣಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ 10 ವಸಂತಗಳನ್ನು ಪೂರೈಸಿರುವ ಸಂತಸವನ್ನು ನವೆಂಬರ್ 17 ರಂದು ನಗರದ ಬಸವನಗುಡಿಯ ನ್ಯಾಷನಲ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಡಾ. ಎಚ್ ನರಸಿಂಹಯ್ಯ ಸಭಾಂಗಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲಾಯಿತು.

ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಮಾರಂಭಕ್ಕೆ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿಗಳಾಗಿದ್ದ ಡಾ. ಯುಆರ್ ಅನಂತಮೂರ್ತಿ ಹಾಗೂ ರವಿ ಹೆಗಡೆ ಅವರು ಕಾರಣಾಂತರದಿಂದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಕ್ಕೆ ಆಗಮಿಸಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಮತ್ತೊಬ್ಬ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿಗಳಾದ ನಾಡೋಜ ಪ್ರೊ.ಜಿ. ವೆಂಕಟಸುಬ್ಬಯ್ಯ ಅವರು ಸಭೆಯನ್ನು ಉದ್ದೇಶಿಸಿ ಹೀಗೆ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದರು :

'ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು. ನಾಡಿನ ಯುವ ಜನತೆ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಉತ್ಸುಕರಾಗಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವನ್ನು ಮಾಹಿತಿಯೋಗ್ಯ ತಾಣವಾಗಿ ಮಾರ್ಪಡಿಸಿ' ಎಂದು ನಾಡೋಜ ಪ್ರೊ.ಜಿ. ವೆಂಕಟಸುಬ್ಬಯ್ಯ ಯುವಜನತೆಗೆ ಕರೆ ನೀಡಿದರು.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರಿನ ಬಸವನಗುಡಿಯ ನ್ಯಾಷನಲ್ ಕಾಲೇಜು ಸಭಾಂಗಣದಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆದ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿಯಾಗಿ ಮಾತನಾಡಿದ ಪ್ರೊ.ಜಿ. ವೆಂಕಟಸುಬ್ಬಯ್ಯ ಅವರು, 'ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವನ್ನು ಹತ್ತು ಪೂರೈಸಿದ ಮಾತ್ರಕ್ಕೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಮುಂದುವರೆಯುತ್ತದೆ ಎನ್ನುವ ಭಾವನೆ ಬೇಡ. ಪ್ರೀತಿಯಿಂದ ಕಟ್ಟಿದ ಒಂದು ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ ಮುಂದುವರೆಯಬೇಕಾದರೆ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಬಹಳಷ್ಟು ಜನರ ಸಹಕಾರ ಬೇಕು. ಈ ಸಹಕಾರ ಈಗ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಅಗತ್ಯವಿದೆ. ನನಗೆ ಈಗಾಗಲೇ ನೂರು ವರ್ಷವಾಗಿದೆ. ಆದರೂ ನನ್ನಿಂದಾಗುವ ಸಹಾಯವನ್ನು ನೀಡಲು ಸಿದ್ದ. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ನನ್ನ ಬೆಂಬಲ ಯಾವತ್ತೂ ನಿರಂತರ' ಎಂದರು.

ಇಂದು ಇಂಟರ್ನೆಟ್ನಲ್ಲಿ ಒಂದು ವಿಚಾರಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿದಂತೆ ಸಾವಿರಾರು ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ಸಿಗುತ್ತದೆ.ಇವುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಖರವಾಗಿರುವ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ತಾಣಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಗುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟ. ಹೀಗಾಗಿ ಅಯಾ ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ಸಾಧನೆ ಮಾಡಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಸಾಧಕರು ತಮ್ಮ ಕರ್ತವ್ಯವೆಂದು ಭಾವಿಸಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ಕೆ ಮುಂದಾಗಬೇಕು' ಎಂದು ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಿ ಅನಂತರಾಮು ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯಪಟ್ಟರು.

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಯು.ಬಿ. ಪವನಜ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ, 'ಪೆಟ್ರೋಲ್‌ ಉಳಿಸಲು ಕಡಿಮೆ ಪೆಟ್ರೋಲ್‌ ಬಳಸಿ ಎಂದು ಹೇಳುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಆದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಸಲು ಏನು ಮಾಡಬೇಕು ಎಂಬ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಗೆ ಉತ್ತರ ಸಿಗುವುದು ಕಷ್ಟ. ಆದರೆ ವಿಶ್ವದ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ನಮ್ಮ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದಾಗ ಮಾತ್ರ ಕನ್ನಡ ಉಳಿಸಬಹುದು. ಕಥೆ, ಕವನ ಇತ್ಯಾದಿ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯದ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಈಗ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯವನ್ನು ಬರೆಯುವ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಾಹಿತಿಗಳ ಅಗತ್ಯವಿದೆ. ಈ ಸಾಹಿತಿಗಳಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒಂದು ಉತ್ತಮ ವೇದಿಕೆ.ಈ ವೇದಿಕೆಯನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯವನ್ನು ಉತ್ತಮ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಕೋಶವನ್ನಾಗಿ ರೂಪಿಸಬೇಕಾಗಿದೆ' ಎಂದು ಹೇಳಿದರು.

ನಿರ್ದೇಶಕ ಅಭಯ್ ಸಿಂಹ ಮಾತನಾಡಿ. 'ನನ್ನ ಅಜ್ಜ ಜಿ.ಟಿ ನಾರಾಯಣರಾಯರು ಬರೆದಿರುವ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಿಸಿ ಬರೆದಿರುವ ಲೇಖನಗಳು ಕ್ರಿಯೆಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್‌ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್‌ನಿಂದಾಗಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯವಾಗಿದೆ.ಈ ಲೈಸನ್ಸ್‌ ಮೂಲಕ ಈಗಾಗಲೇ ಮುದ್ರಣಗೊಂಡಿರುವ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಲೇಖನಗಳು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಸೇರುವಂತಾಗಬೇಕು' ಎಂದು ಆಶಿಸಿದರು.

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಅತಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸಂಪಾದನೆ ಮಾಡಿದ ಲೇಖಕರಿಗೆ ಸ್ಮರಣಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿ ಗೌರವಿಸಲಾಯಿತು. ಬಳಿಕ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಹೊಸ ಲೇಖನ ಸೇರಿಸುವ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಓಂ ಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿದರು. ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ವಿಚಾರದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಕಿರಣ್ ರವಿಕುಮಾರ ಉಪನ್ಯಾಸ ನೀಡಿದರು.

ಎಲ್ಲ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಸುದ್ದಿಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಒನ್ಇಂಡಿಯಾ ನೋಟ. ನಿರಂತರ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಪಡೆಯಲು Facebook ಮತ್ತು Twitter ಮೇಲೆ ಇರಲಿ ಕಣ್ಣು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/one-india-november-17-2013-kannada-wikipedia-10th-anniversary-celebration-basavanagudi

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T07:34:14Z

A report of the Kannada Wikipedia tenth anniversary celebrations in Prajavani on November 18.

Read the online version published in Prajavani here.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು: ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ. ಬಸವನಗುಡಿ ನ್ಯಾಷನಲ್‌ ಕಾಲೇಜು ಡಾ.ಎಚ್‌.ನರಸಿಂಹಯ್ಯ ಸಭಾಂಗಣ ದಲ್ಲಿ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಭಾನುವಾರ ನಡೆಯಿತು.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಈ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಬಹುಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯ ಇದೆ. 2001ರಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀ ಡಿಯಾ ಆರಂಭವಾದುದು 2003 ರಲ್ಲಿ. ಪ್ರಸ್ತುತ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆವೃತ್ತಿಯು 15,369 ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಕುರಿತಾದ ಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದೆ. ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್‌ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ 44 ಲಕ್ಷ ವಿಷಯ ಗಳಿವೆ. ಹಿಂದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ 1 ಲಕ್ಷ, ತೆಲುಗು ವಿನಲ್ಲಿ 53,900, ತಮಿಳುನ ಭಾಷೆ ಯಲ್ಲಿ 56,000, ಮಲಯಾಳಂನಲ್ಲಿ 25,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳಿವೆ.

ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ 80,000 ಸಂಪಾ ದಕರು ಇದ್ದರೆ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವುದು 403 ಮಂದಿ. ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಕ್ರಿಯರಾ ಗಿರುವವರು 40 ಮಂದಿ.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ 2004 ರ ವರೆಗೂ ಒಂದೇ ಲೇಖನ ಇತ್ತು. 2004ರ ಅಂತ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ 176ಕ್ಕೆ, 2005ರಲ್ಲಿ 515ಕ್ಕೆ ತಲುಪಿತು. 2006ರ ಜೂನ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ 1,000 ಲೇಖನ ಗಡಿ ದಾಟಿತು. ಬಳಿಕ ಪ್ರಕ್ರಿಯೆಗೆ ವೇಗ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತ್ತು. ಮತ್ತೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಮಯ ಕಳೆಯುವಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಗತಿ ಕುಂಠಿತವಾಗಿದೆ.

‘ಮುಂಬೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಲೆಸಿರುವ ಎಚ್‌.ಆರ್‌.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ವೆಂಕಟೇಶ ಅವರು 10,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹಾಗೂ ಬಿ.ಎಸ್‌.ಚಂದ್ರಶೇಖರ್‌ ಅವರು 4,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಷ್ಕರಣೆ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಇಬ್ಬರೂ 80 ವರ್ಷದ ಆಸುಪಾಸಿನವರು. ಇಂತಹ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ ಇತರರಲ್ಲಿ ಮೂಡಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಆಗಲಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಒದಗಿಸದಿದ್ದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿ ಯಲ್ಲ’ ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಾರೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಲ್ಲಿ ಒಬ್ಬರಾದ ಯು.ಬಿ.ಪವನಜ.

‘ಕನ್ನಡದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಚಾರಸಂಕಿರಣ, ಕವಿಗೋಷ್ಠಿಗಳನ್ನು ನಡೆಸಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂಬ ಭ್ರಮೆ ಬಿಡಬೇಕು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ವಿಕಿ ಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸಲು ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಅರಿವಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಮೌನ ವಾಗುವುದು ಸರಿಯಲ್ಲ’ ಎಂದರು.
ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ, ಸಂವಾದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಗಳನ್ನು ಆಯೋಜಿಸಲಾಗಿತ್ತು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tenth-anniversary-kannada-wikipedia-prajavani-coverage-november-18