Centre for Internet and Society

Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai

noopur — 2012-12-03T06:01:18Z

The Wiki Women Workshop was organized at the Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala in Mumbai on November 4, 2012. It was attended by over 60 women participants who were taught how to contribute to Wikipedia articles and briefed about the knowledge gaps in Wikipedia — the free encyclopedia. Noopur Raval has prepared a report of the event.

It is a well known fact that over 91 per cent of the contributors on Wikipedia are men. Women contribution comes to around 9 per cent only. As illustrated by this infographic, the articles edited by women also significantly differ from those edited by men or users who do not identify themselves. The major articles are on people, philosophy and arts. The month of November was celebrated by wikipedians across the globe to promote women editors and do women related outreach in different parts of the world. I was part of a similar initiative organized by the Wikipedia community of Mumbai in India on November 4, 2012.

The workshop was planned on e-mail more than a month in advance with inputs from various volunteers of the community as well as members of the Wikimedia India chapter. Once the logistics were taken care of, it was also suggested that the workshop be kept exclusively for women to provide them an uninhibited space to express themselves and learn editing. Although the initial response was huge (over a hundred registrations), eventually about 65 women turned up for the event.

Agenda of the workshop

The community members conducted this workshop differently to how it is usually done — they started with hands-on editing straightaway instead of giving an introduction to the Wikimedia movement and Wikipedia policies. After an hour of teaching the basics of wiki editing the participants were shown a presentation on making user accounts and start contributing articles of their choice. I helped a participant create an article on her village: Vempadu.

In the post-lunch session, participants were asked about the problems they faced and were shown how to contribute images to Commons — the free repository. The winners of the Indian leg of Wiki Loves Monuments were also announced at the workshop. The workshop ended with feedback, Wikipedia quiz and group photographs with the participants.

Feedback

For me, the feedback was particularly interesting because not many women-centric workshops have been conducted in the past. It was good to know that most of the women participants were not feeling left out or grappling with the Wiki interface. There was a diverse age range — from young school girls to retired professionals. Wireless internet access was irregular and not all could connect, which caused a lot of time to be wasted. We (community members and A2K team) would be keeping the participants updated on more events and hope they become an active part of the Wikipedia community as well. This workshop has also opened up avenues for more outreach events in other institutions.

A special thanks and acknowledgement to Vidyalankar Institute (VIT), Wadala for hosting us and to Bishakha Dutta, Moksh Juneja, Aditi Vashisht, Pranav, Krutika, Rohini, Netra, Pradeep, Samir, Netha, Nikita, and everyone else who put this event together.

Here is the blog post written by community members who attended the workshop: http://bit.ly/S78z93

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-womens-workshop-in-mumbai

Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013

praskrishna — 2013-03-13T05:09:48Z

The Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 was held on March 8, 2013 at Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar in Bangalore. It was organized by Wikimedia India. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event. The news was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-womens-workshop-bangalore-2013

Wikipedia Will Reward You For Translating English Articles To Indian Languages

Admin — 2018-04-17T15:48:16Z

India has seen a substantial growth in the number of internet users since the introduction of attractive prices by Jio. Internet adoption is seen as the key to bridging the divide between urban and rural populations and an important means of increasing literacy, especially in the backward parts of the country.

Wikipedia, one of the leading sourcing of learning and information online, has visualized the opportunity and sought volunteers for translating the content of Wikipedia articles into local languages. This is part of Project Tiger, a joint initiative started by Wikipedia Foundation, Google, Centre for Internet and Society, and Wikipedia’s Indian chapter. The initiative also promises grants such as laptops and fees for internet usage to the editors.

The free encyclopedia currently supports 23 Indian languages yet it faces a dearth of editors who can convert articles into languages that would attract more readership from the growing Indian online.

Besides the material incentives, Wikipedia’s Indian chapter had also announced several contests for various regional languages to attract more contributors and editors. As part of these, participants must contribute by creating new entries, or expanding on existing articles in regional languages with a minimum word count of 300.

The winners of the contest will be announced after the conclusion of the content on May 31, 2018, and granted access to various skill development courses that will help them develop a better sense of online editing.

The contests are now live for Marathi, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali, Telugu, Punjabi, Hindi, Odia, Malayalam, and Gujarati. As a result, Wikipedia has gained nearly 72,000 fresh views on articles in regional languages within a single month.

Google will provides insights about which topics are most popular among the Indian users and should be prioritized in the translation process. Another facet of Google’s participation in the initiative is that it plans to use Wikipedia articles to bust conspiracy theories on YouTube by supporting videos with relevant articles. Having Wikipedia articles in regional Indian languages will ensure that users in the country are not misguided by inaccurate or deceiving videos.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/beebom-tushar-mehta-wikipedia-indian-languages-translation-contest

Wikipedia WikiMeetup at Bangalore

praskrishna — 2016-08-12T13:31:04Z

Bangalore based Wikipedians will gather for a meeting at the Centre for Internet and Society on Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 3.00 p.m.

Anyone interested in Wikipedia (user, contributor or curious about it). Wikipedians from any part of India or the world and anyone who is interested in Wikipedia! Meetup is open to members of all Wikimedia projects and Wikipedians from all languages. All are welcome, and we are especially interested in seeing newcomers to join the experienced Wikipedians/Wikimedians.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore

Wikipedia Visual Editor

nitika — 2013-07-11T06:14:00Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/visual-editor.pdf

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

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2013-09-06T05:51:49Z

CIS-A2K is conducting a Wikipedia training programme in Telugu for the faculty of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Open University (Dr. BRAOU) in Hyderabad on September 5 and 6, 2013.

This is done as part of the "ICT and eContent" workshop organized by the Centre for Staff Training and Development of Dr. BRAOU for their faculty. T. Vishnu Vardhan Program Director, CIS-A2K has been invited to teach a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era" as part of which this Wikipedia training programme was also organized.

Details in Telugu originally published in the metapage on Wikipedia is reproduced below:

వికీపీడియా:శిక్షణ శిబిరం/హైదరాబాద్/హైదరాబాద్2

--14.139.86.130 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)పరాంకుశం వెంకట రమణ==తేదీ - స్థలం== సెప్టెంబరు, 5 2013; డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం

సమయం
పొ. 10.00 నుండి మ. 1.00 వరకు

నిర్వహణ సంస్థ/లు

CISA2K డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం, హైదరబాద్ వారి సంస్థాగత భాగస్వామ్యంతో. ఈ శిబిరం Centre for Staff Training and Development (Dr. BRAOU) వారు 10 రోజులపాటు విశ్వవిద్యాలయం యొక్క ఉపాధ్యాయుల కొరకు నిర్వహించిన ‘ICT and e-Content Development’ Workshop లో భాగంగా నిర్వహించబడినది.

నిర్వాహకులు

విష్ణు (చర్చ)

--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)==Dr.BRAOU లోని కార్యక్రమ సంధానకర్తలు==

ఘంటా చక్రపాణి (డైరెక్టర్, Centre for Staff Training and Development, డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం)

--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

శిక్షణ శిబిరానికి హజరైన సభ్యులు

--Pallavisudheer (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

సరోజ --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:27, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Rajani nellutla (చర్చ) 05:29, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Kiranmayi.ys (చర్చ) 05:30, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Vasuvaddanam (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Gpushpa (చర్చ) 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC) --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:34, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Boju srinivas (చర్చ) 05:36, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Shridhevie (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

పై వరసలో పేరు చేర్చండి లేక సంతకం చేయండి>

--[[--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)]]
--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Pvramana24 (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

నివేదిక

చిత్రమాలిక

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-training-in-telugu-for-b-r-ambedkar-open-university

Wikipedia taps students for Kannada content

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T10:01:27Z

Conducts workshops in Ujire, Moodbidri for training in vernacular editing.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on March 24, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.

Wikipedia is tapping college students in tier II and III cities in India to increase vernacular content on the web-based encyclopaedia.

U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, says there is adequate content on Kannada, Kannadiga, Karnataka on Kannada Wikipedia but on science and technology, the content is a little less.

To fill this gap, he is conducting workshops to teach students to turn volunteers for Wikipedia in far-flung places like Ujire and Moodbidri.

On Sunday, 47 students attended a workshop at Shri Dharmasthala Manunatheshwara (SDM) College in Ujire. And most of them immediately donned the volunteer’s cap. “More people who write Kannada should contribute to Wikipedia in Kannada,” says Shalini, a student of M.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) at SDM College, after the workshop.

Murali Krishna, also a journalism student of SDM College, says typing in the language was “a bit difficult” but some practice will make it simpler. “I had no idea about (editing) Kannada Wikipedia,” he says.

On Saturday Mr. Pavanaja — who has been editing the Kannada Wikipedia for the past 10 years — conducted a similar workshop for 30 students at Alva’s College, Moodbidri.

Mr. Pavanaja says contributions peaked in between 2006 and 2008, then declined “due to many reasons” and “picked up last year”. There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.

He says Kannada Wikipedia has very few women editors. Of the 557 editors of Kannada Wikipedia, who have contributed 16,670 articles till now, 226 are active editors and, of them, five men and three women editors are “very active”.

Bhaskar Hegde, Head of the Department, MCJ, SDM College, said he got the workshops organised at the college after hearing about them from friend Niranjan Vanalli (Chairman, Department of MCJ, Mysore University). He said, “This is the second workshop here. The students are enthusiastic and it sharpens their writing skills.”

Mangalore will host a workshop to get people to contribute to Tulu Wikipedia. U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, said a workshop will be held in Theosophical College, Balmatta, on April 6.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-24-2014-wikipedia-taps-students-for-kannada-content

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos of Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T07:50:44Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia for the media persons.

Dr. Pavanaja explained how they can use Wikipedia in their daily work for reference. He also explained the necessity to add content to Kannada Wikipedia, correct the articles if they find any factual errors, enhance the existing articles, especially stubs, etc.

The event was organized by Prajavani on April 28, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wiki-session-for-prajavani-journalists

Wikipedia reaches Classrooms in Hyderabad

syed — 2013-09-20T07:20:54Z

The Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Hyderabad organised a one-day workshop on editing Wikipedia in Indian languages. It was attended by participants who formed a small but proactive group of students who eagerly tried to register the first edits on four different Indian language wikipedias.

A Mela for a Mélange of Learners

As a run-up to the TISS Indian Languages Mela (scheduled for September 20 – 21, 2013), the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education on August 24 conducted a workshop in Hyderabad. CIS-A2K in collaboration with the Wikipedia Hyderabad community had organized this workshop. The objective of the workshop was to inform and educate students on creating articles in any of the Indian languages on Wikipedia. Participants were encouraged to edit in Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, and Marathi, Kannada or any other language of their choice.

A Weekend for the Cause of Knowledge

A total of 20 participants came over for the weekend workshop. Nine participants had Malayalam as their native language. Five people had Telugu as their mother tongue. Four participants were Maharashtrians, and the remaining two were Kannadigas.

Two Sessions

The workshop was divided in two sessions. In the introductory session, participants were introduced to Wikipedia and its unique nature as an editable online encyclopaedia. Participants learnt about adding, modifying and deleting content on the Wikipedia, the various styles of formatting the content including creation of the heading level, sub-headings, etc. In the hands-on-session the participants were exposed to a hands-on practice about the editing features of Wikipedia, Wikimedia syntax, quality articles, new article creation, and Wikipedia’s transliteration tools for Indian languages.

End of the Day Gains

The students got a first-hand exposure to Indian languages wiki editing. Many students were thrilled at the novelty of the universal licensing system application and how it could switch between English and Indian languages. The use of shift key and multiple keys for certain consonants, diphthongs and special characters were particularly quite exciting for students. Students were eager to explore more about creating headings, sub-headings, bold, italics, underlining, bullet formats on Wikipedia. They also tested the online appearance of the Wikipedia code.

The participants were all thrilled on attending this workshop. Anand Kumar said that he was happy to get exposure about Wikipedia. Manomi Nair said that she was glad to be part of this workshop. Haseeb said it was very educative, and finally to sum up in the words of Dheeraj Kumar, an enthusiastic participant from the workshop, “this was an exciting way to explore a new world of knowledge.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-classrooms-hyderabad

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students of Christ University

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T05:16:07Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team will organize an Orientation Workshop entitled on Wikipedia for the undergraduate language students of the Christ University, Bangalore on November 16, 2013.

Trainers

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Dr Pavanaja,Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Interested Participants

The three days of the orientation programme will cover 1200 second language students of the Christ University, Bangalore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-orientation-programme-for-second-language-students

Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem

manasarao — 2017-12-11T15:52:12Z

CIS-A2K in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop for student members of the club.

Over the December 9- 10 weekend, CIS-A2K, in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop. This workshop focussed on teaching the basics of Wikipedia to all the student members of the club. The overwhelming participation of women volunteers was the highlight of the event. The workshop was organised by the Rotary Club while Salem Tamil Sangam also lent its support to the program. The President of the Rotary Club of Salem implored the students to contribute to the Tamil language by involving themselves more deeply with the Wikimedia projects.

With 13 female participants and 10 male participants, the participants were upbeat throughout both days. Veteran Tamil Wikipedian, Tamil Parithi acted as resource person along with CIS-A2K. Mr. Parithi explained the philosophy and history of the free knowledge movement which he felt was essential to the understanding of the wider Wikimedia movement. Usha Sanghamitra, a participant, reflects, "I previously thought some company was doing this but I am glad to note that it is people like you and me that are editing this information and creating such knowledge resources. I will surely take this up and continue to engage with Wikipedia."

A follow-up workshop is on the cards in December 2017.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-orientation-program-at-rotary-club-of-salem

Wikipedia now available in Tulu

praskrishna — 2016-08-09T03:05:28Z

In another boost to yet another Indian language, the Wikipedia in Tulu has gone live.

This was published by domain-b.com on August 8, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.

The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true, IANS reported.

Dr Vishwanatha Badikana, a PhD in Kannada literature in Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bharathesha, a mechanical engineer based in Muscat announced at the Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national Wikipedia meet in half a decade which is being held in Chandigarh this weekend.

Tulu, which is spoken by around 2 million speakers mostly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district of Kerala belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. According to some scholars, Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with its roots going back some 2,000 years.

Wikipedia itself is available in 22 Indian languages, with Tulu becoming the 23rd. There are another one-and-half dozen Indian language Wikipedias under development at present. However, not all languages have an active wiki community.

Located at tcy.wikipedia.org, the Tulu Wikipedia had been in "incubation" since 2008 and the term was used to describe such online collaborately-crafted encyclopedias which were still waiting to go "live" or active and come online.

It was reactivated around 2014, following some meetings and workshops and the concept was also showcased that year at a "World Tulu Conference" stall in December.

"There are about 200 registered users (editors), out of which around 100 have more than 10 edits. On an average, there are about 8 to 10 active editors," Dr UB Pavanaja from the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, and one of the mentors of Tulu Wikipedia, told The Hindu newspaper.

He further added that, "Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors."

According to Pavanaja, the achievement would help create pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.

Wikipedia is available in 22 Indian languages including, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

The inclusion of Tulu takes the count to 23.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu

Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:04:24Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women at Roshini Nilaya, Mangalore on February 26, 2014. An event report was published in Prajavani the following day.

Scanned version of the report published by Prajavani on February 27 is below. The event was organised by Roshini Nilaya and co-sponsored by CS-A2K.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-workshop-mangalore-coverage-prajavani-february-27-2014

Wikipedia looks to ramp up its Indian language content

Tushar Kaushik — 2019-06-05T07:20:17Z

Wikipedia is generating more content in major Indian languages with the help of Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society.

The article by Tushar Kaushik was published in Economic Times on May 28, 2019.

Hundreds of people from across the country are generating online content in local Indian languages and are even competing in ‘editathons’ that pit contributors of different languages against each other.

While online encyclopedia Wikipedia’s content might be exhaustive in English, its content in Indian languages is limited. Keeping this in mind, Wikipedia’s parent organization Wikimedia roped in Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in 2017 and started ‘Project Tiger’ aimed at generating more content in Indian languages.

A pilot project was held from December 2017 to May 2018 and another phase of the competition is set to begin next month. The project has generated content in major languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Odiya and Gujarati.

The contributors are from varied age groups, some are also from remote, rural areas and they worked from different cities across the country. Two years ago, Durga Prasanna, a journalism student at Alva’s college in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district, joined a group of contributors to Wikipedia as part of a requirement from the college.

She got an opportunity to participate in ‘Project Tiger’ last year. She generated Wikipedia entries in Kannada and also in the regional languages of Tulu and Konkani. Apart from Durga, seven other students of her college together contributed over 70 articles in Kannada, and a few in Tulu and Konkani, during the ‘editathon’. “We were provided a long list of topics on which not much literature existed in the local languages and among them, we chose topics based on our interests. For example, I wrote articles on ‘psychologist’ and ‘medicinal plants’,” she said.

Another participant, Charan Gill, a 65-year-old former social worker from Patiala, Punjab, was the top contributor in Punjabi. “I wrote 432 articles in a span of two-and-a-half months. However, contributing is not new to me as I have written over 10,000 Wikipedia entries in Punjabi since 2012,” he says.

Gill now works with another Wikimedia project, translating literary classics into Punjabi. He is currently translating some works of 19th century Russian author Ivan Turgenev. Thanks to Gill’s contributions, the Punjabi community of contributors won the prize for producing the most articles — 1,320. In Tamil, 1,241 articles were contributed. A total of 78 articles were produced in Kannada by eight members.

A Gopalkrishna, community advocate for Kannada language, CIS, said all written articles were evaluated by a Wikimedia team to check if they fulfilled all criteria before being uploaded on Wikipedia. “The main idea was to create content in Indian languages. The things most Indian contributors required were internet and hardware support. So participants who had made significant contributions prior to the competition were provided internet connections or laptops,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/economic-times-tushar-kaushik-may-28-2019-wikipedia-looks-to-ramp-up-its-indian-language-content