Centre for Internet and Society

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop: Report in Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T04:15:29Z

Prajavani published a report of the Tulu workshop on April 6, 2014. A scanned version is below:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-april-6-2014-tulu-wikipedia-workshop

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop cum Editathon at Udupi

pavanaja — 2014-10-31T14:54:07Z

A three-day programme was held at Udupi from October 15 to 17, 2014 with an aim to increase the presence of Tulu in the online world. The first day comprised the inauguration programme and a workshop to understand the Wiki markup. The next two days were devoted to the edit-a-thon where participants added articles to Tulu Wikipedia.

The team comprised 18 girls from the Government PU College, Udupi and some other women. The event was organised by Tulu Sahitya Academy and sponsored by MGM College, Udupi and the Regional Research Centre, Udupi. Janaki Brahmavar, Chairperson of Tulu Sahitya Academy, presided over the function. She spoke about the efforts being made to add Tulu in Unicode. Jayakar Shetty, President Tulu Okkoota, expressed his happiness over the fact that it was a batch of about 20 girls who participated in the workshop cum edit-a-thon. There is a grouse that male editors far outnumber females in editing Wikipedia. This could be one instance where only female editors actively added articles to Tulu Wikipedia over three days. The programme was well covered by the print and television media. The good news is that the girls who participated in the edit-a-thon have continued adding articles. As on October 26, 2014, the total number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia has gone up to 574.

Tulu is one of the Dravidian languages spoken primarily by people from the south coast of Karnataka and north coast of Kerala[1]. As per the Census of 2001, there were 1,722,768 Tulu speakers [2]; figures of 2011 census are still not available. There are a lot of Tulu-speaking people residing outside Karnataka and Kerala in Mumbai, Goa and Gulf countries. It is estimated that the total number of Tulu-speaking people is more than 2.5 million. There has been a long-standing demand to include Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution of India[3], [4]. Tulu had its own script long ago, it is not in use. Currently, Tulu is written in the Kannada script. Tulu has a vast vocal tradition, and there is a huge collection of knowledge that is transferred across generations orally. Efforts are being made to document this vocal tradition. The history of Tulu literature has already been documented in Kannada. Recently, the Karnataka government introduced Tulu as an optional language for schools in Mangalore and Udupi districts. However, these students don't have many books to read apart from the prescribed textbooks. There are some Tulu books in the creative writing domain, but there is hardly any book of an encyclopaedic nature in Tulu language which the students can refer to. This is where Tulu Wikipedia becomes extremely significant.

Tulu Wikipedia has been in incubation since 2007[5]. Some editing activities in Tulu Wikipedia were carried out during 2007-08. But the initial momentum gradually subsided, and most editors stopped editing. Tulu Wikipedia thereafter went into a dormant status. During the Alvas Vishwa Nudisiri Programme at Moodabidre in December 2013, Dr BA VivekaRai, former vice-chancellor of Kannada University, who was the President of the cultural and literary meet, dwelt at length on the importance of implementing Tulu language in technology. This was followed by a talk by Dr UB Pavanaja, a member of the CIS-A2K team. He continued from where Viveka Rai left off, and talked about bringing world knowledge in Tulu, rejuvenating Tulu Wikipedia, and pressuring the state and Union governments towards including Tulu in the 8^th Schedule of the Constitution.

Subsequently, a workshop on editing Tulu Wikipedia was held at Mangalore on January 19 this year under the leadership and initiative of Dr BA VivekaRai. This was followed by another edit-a-thon at Mangalore on April 5 and another workshop at Udupi on May 25. All these efforts have given a new impetus to Tulu Wikipedia. The number of articles in Tulu Wikipedia was 147 as in March 2014, which went up to 365 in July. The Tulu Sahitya Academy realised the importance and pitched into the effort of making it live.

[1] http://www.ethnologue.com/subgroups/dravidian

[2] http://www.censusindia.gov.in/%28S%28i4hlwuf0ltgmdnejdawhdr45%29%29/Census_Data_2001/Census_Data_Online/Language/partb.aspx

[3] http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/requests-to-include-38-languages-in-constitution-pending-govt/article58221.ece

[4] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mangalore/Include-Tulu-in-8th-Schedule-demands-forum/articleshow/38992142.cms

[5] http://tools.wmflabs.org/meta/catanalysis/?title=Wp%2Ftcy&cat=0&wiki=incubatorwiki#overview_edits

Media Coverage

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/Wikipedia-can-establish-Tulu-in-a-wider-way.html

http://v4news.com/enliven-the-tulu-viki-fidia-first-and-then-add-tulu-to-the-8th-schedule-dr-ug-pavanaja-bangalore-rep-in-udupi/

http://www.mangaloretoday.com/newsbriefs/2-Day-Workshop-on-Tulu-in-internet.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/tulu-wikipedia-workshop-cum-editathon-at-udupi

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop at Udupi

praskrishna — 2014-06-02T08:11:56Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) and the Regional Research Centre, MGM College, Udupi invites you to a workshop on Tulu Wikipedia in Udupi on May 25. Anyone interested in contributing to Tulu Wikipedia is welcome to join the workshop.

Tulu Wikipedia is in incubation stage. Pictures of the event can be downloaded here.


Above: Participants at the Tulu Wikipedia Workshop. Pictured by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja under CC-BY-3.0 Share Alike License

The venue was sponsored by Regional Research Centre, MGM College, Udupi. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja from CIS-A2K conducted the workshop. There were 13 participants for this workshop.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-workshop-udupi

Tulu Wikipedia Workshop

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T03:45:15Z

The CIS-A2K team is organizing a Tulu Wikipedia workshop at Balmatta Computer Centre in Mangalore on April 5, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is conducting the workshop.



















Participants from the Tulu Wikipedia workshop in Mangalore (by Pavanaja, CC-BY-3.0 License)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-workshop

Tulu Wikipedia Editathon

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T05:12:18Z

The Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) in collaboration with Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore is organizing a Tulu Wikipedia Editathon on April 19, 2014 at Balmatta Computer Centre, Karnataka Theological College, Mangalore. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is conducting the workshop.


Above: Photo from Tulu Wikipedia editathon program at Mangalore on Apr 19, 2014 (by U.B.Pavanaja, CC-BY-3.0 S.A.)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-editathon

Tulu Wikipedia edit-a-thon in Mangalore

pavanaja — 2016-06-18T18:06:28Z

This edit-a-thon is aimed to encourage more Tulu speakers to contribute to Tulu Wikipedia which is currently in incubator. The edit-a-thon is being organised by the Tulu Wikimedia community in Mangalore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/tulu-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-in-mangalore

TTT 2015

hasan — 2015-12-15T07:36:25Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) conducted a four day training workshop for Wikimedians all over India in order to facilitate conducting and organising outreach activities for promotion of Wikimedia activities within Indian language communities. Wikimedians from 21 language communities had participated in this training workshop including Wikipedians working for Nepali and Maithili Wikipedia.

CIS-A2K was successful in providing an idea exchange platform during the TTT workshop. Wikipedians from all over India got a chance to discuss their respective Wikimedia projects and identify best practices that could be customised for their own Wikimedia projects.

CIS-A2K conducted TTT 2015 with a clear objecive of training Indian Wikimedians in conducting effective outreach activites, As a reflective exercise on the efficacy of our TTT camp held in Bangalore during February, 2015 we are now conducting follow-up with the participants and I have contacted three Wikipedians (for the month of November 2015) and following are the updates:

Sailesh Patnaik (Odia Wikimedian):

Activities till now:

Attended Google I/O Bhubaneswar to deliver a talk about Wikipedia movement.
Has organized a workshop at KIST Bhubaneswar with 50+ participants.
Was invited by GDG Bhubaneswar group to deliver a talk about Wikipedia project during Google Dev Fest.
Presented a seminar at CET Bhubaneswar after the invitation from the organizing committee of the Perception (The Annual tech fest of CET , Bhubaneswar).

Upcoming Activities

Planning to organize a Wiki Takes Bhubaneswar photowalk and am also planning a GLAM project with a Cooperative society powered by Central Government and spread Open Source movement in Odisha.

V.T. Narayanan and Sayant Mahato (Samskritam Wikipedians):

Activities till now:

In May 2015, Samskrita Bharati organized a camp in Kalladka.
In July 2015 : Rashtriya Sanskrit Samsthan, Sringeri (Now Sringa Giri) organized a symposium for their staff and students.
In August 2015, Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidya Peeta, Tirupathi organized introductory classes on Wikipedia. Sayant Mahato attended the programme and expained in detail about Sanskrit Wikipedia.
Later in August 2015, at Aksharam, Bangalore, Samskrita Bharati conducted a " Medha Shibiram" exclusively oriented to youngsters and students who are based outside India like in USA. The Shibiram was well received both by the students and their parents. The participants were very interested to know about Sanskrit Wikipedia.
Samskrita Bharati is engaged in the work of editing the existing articles in Wikipedia.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ttt-2015

Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians

subha — 2013-11-18T08:24:52Z

Twenty Wikimedians from 10 cities speaking 8 languages attended the 4-day Train-The-Trainer (TTT) programme conducted last month by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge programme (CIS-A2K) at Bangalore. The programme aimed to improve and enhance Wikipedians' skills for outreach and community-building activities.

The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was edited by Rohini Lakshane and published in DNA on November 14, 2013.

Twenty Wikimedians from 10 cities speaking 8 languages attended the 4-day Train The Trainer (TTT) programme conducted last month by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge programme (CIS-A2K) at Bangalore. Twenty active Indian language Wikimedia communities spread across the world are moving ahead the bandwagon of collaborating with each other and carving their mark on the world's largest encyclopaedia and its other sister projects. Apart from editing Wikipedia articles, some Wikimedians devote their time to bringing new blood into the community and fostering it, so that the community grows. Indian language Wikimedia communities need to empower Wikimedians who would lead the outreach activities locally in their vernacular communities. The idea of the TTT programme was born out of this need.

The TTT programme kicked off on October 3 with Wikimedians from Punjab, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. They delivered presentations on various topics: Why the society needs Wikipedia; Wikipedia in Indian languages; How articles about diseases and other common medical science topics could be improved to help people; etc. Their presentation delivery skills were assessed by CIS-A2K's Director and Manager and they were offered individual assessment and feedback. Personal trainer Sachin Nagarajappa spent time with Wikimedians discussing mistakes that trainers do while conducting workshops and gradual improvement techniques for impactful outreach. Malayalam Wikimedian Viswanathan Prabhakaran held a session on "Crowd Sourcing from the Future" explaining various layers of crowdsourced projects.

On the next day, groups of Wikimedians were assigned the task of delivering a Wikipedia editing session to the audience as if the latter were new editors. Sachin conducted an advanced presentation skill improvement workshop based on inputs gathered from participants and the assessment of the group presentations. Veteran Wikimedian Hari Prasad Nadig shared lessons on "Challenges and Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online". FOSS activist and CIS Executive Director Sunil Abraham conducted two sessions: "A spectrogram-based activity to simplify the criticality of Neutral Point of View" and an interactive session on offline and online outreach, "Speed Geeking". These were followed by one-on-one discussions on improving presentation skills.

	Typing in Indian languages is not easy, especially with the many typing layout standards used in the public and private sectors in India. CIS-A2K's Programme Officer Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted a session on the Unicode standard for Indian languages, its use and fonts in different operating systems. Social media expert and Wikimedian Tinu Cherian shared the secrets of popularising Indian language Wikipedias and bringing outstanding contributors to the limelight. He also spoke about how the media played an important role in showcasing initiatives for free encyclopaedic content contribution in India, and shared tips on using the social media. CIS-A2K's Programme Director Vishnu Vardhan shared case studies of making Wikipedia workshops interesting, interactive and fun. Viswanathan and CIS-A2K's Programme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated how to set up a handheld digital camera-based prop to easily digitise books without using a scanner.

Typing in Indian languages is not easy, especially with the many typing layout standards used in the public and private sectors in India. CIS-A2K's Programme Officer Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted a session on the Unicode standard for Indian languages, its use and fonts in different operating systems. Social media expert and Wikimedian Tinu Cherian shared the secrets of popularising Indian language Wikipedias and bringing outstanding contributors to the limelight. He also spoke about how the media played an important role in showcasing initiatives for free encyclopaedic content contribution in India, and shared tips on using the social media. CIS-A2K's Programme Director Vishnu Vardhan shared case studies of making Wikipedia workshops interesting, interactive and fun. Viswanathan and CIS-A2K's Programme Officer Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated how to set up a handheld digital camera-based prop to easily digitise books without using a scanner.

The most vital part of Wikipedia articles is citing references. Wikimedian Shyamal Lakshminarayan demonstrated how finding sources of references and citing them on Wikipedia could be made easier using various tools. Board member of the Wikimedia Foundation and writer Achal Prabhala shared stories of documenting orally continued traditions in Kerala and South Africa for building references on Wikipedia. He also shed light on how copyright laws evolved in the context of copyright issues that Wikipedia contributors face, and on content donation on WikiSource and other platforms.

Wikimedia India's founding member and veteran Telugu Wikimedian Arjuna Rao Chavala spoke about the history and future plans of Wikimedia India.

The participants then went to M.G. Road Boulevard to see the weaving work by Gandhians, a philately exhibition on Gandhi, and spent some time with Namma Metro's staff to learn about the operations of the Metro. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Kannada Wikimedian Om Shivaprakash guided the Wikimedians to the office of Deccan Herald-Prajavani where they observed the newspaper production process and learnt about the use of Kannada Unicode fonts in newspaper printing. The editor and staff of Prajavani learnt about the use of the Wikimedia Commons as a free media repository. The Wikimedians left Bangalore with happy faces with the hope of cultivating more editors in their communities.

Link to the meta page here

More pictures here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dnaindia-november-14-2013-subhashish-panigrahi-train-the-trainer-programme-for-wikipedians

Train the Trainer Program

subha — 2013-11-18T07:52:26Z

Wikipedians, about 20 of them, from 10 different cities, speaking 8 different languages, joined together for the first ever four days "Train the Trainer Program" organised by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in Bangalore from October 3 to 6, 2013.

Read the original published on the Wikipedia meta page

CIS-A2K organised the residency training program to build capacities amongst different language Wikimedia communities. A good diversity of Wikipedians from various language communities such as Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia, came over for the event.

CIS-A2K identified two prominent reasons for organizing the event: (1) Limitations of a virtual sphere, and (2) Limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities.

Limitations of a virtual sphere
Most open source communities face problem of a lack of time and space for sharing ideas in a non-virtual sphere. Similary Wikipedians, who are voluntary contributors and authors of the articles posted on Wikipedia merely get time and opportunity to meet fellow editors because of the limitations of a virtual platform on which Wikipedia is built. There are twelve active Indian language Wikimedia communities that are spread across the world and moving the bandwagon of collaborating with each other and carving their historic mark of compiling the world's largest encyclopaedia and its other sister projects. To keep this movement alive there is a need of cross-sharing ideas of working together for a common goal and strengthening the leaders of these communities.

Limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities
Only a handful of Wikipedians devote their time in leading outreach activities and bringing new blood to the community. Indian language Wikimedia communities are in need of empowering Wikipedians who would lead outreach sessions in order to expand their editor community and strengthen their language projects.

The inception of this program began with the discussion of organizing a training program for the Wikipedians who are willing to conduct more activities in their home cities. Finally on October 3, 2013, Bangalore heard the voices of prominent Wikipedians from Punjab, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Wikipedians delivered presentations on various topics such as — why Wikipedia is needed for the society, why Wikipedia in Indian languages, importance of starting new Wiki projects and so on.

Their presentation delivery skills were judged by Vishnu Vardhan and Nitika Tandon and all other community members present. They gave individual assessments and feedback for improvement towards the end of the day. Personal trainer Sachin Nagarajappa spent time with Wikipedians discussing mistakes that trainers do while conducting workshops and gradual improvement techniques for impactful outreach. Wikipedia is built on the concept of crowdsourcing and Malayalam Wikimedian Viswanathan Prabhakaran carried out a session about “Crowd Sourcing from the Future” explaining the various layers of crowdsourced projects.

The first day ended with a task where different language Wikipedians formed groups to prepare presentations for the following day.


Above: Wikipedians Satdeep Gill, Shyamal Lakshminarayan and Shubha during at the CIS-A2K Train-the-Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Groups were given a challenge of imagining the audience as new wikipedians. Five groups presented on the second day. Sachin conducted an advanced presentation skill improvement workshop based on the inputs from the participants and the assessment of the group presentations. Veteran Wikipedian Hari Prasad Nadig shared learnings from Challenges & Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online. Open source activist and CIS's Executive Director Sunil Abraham conducted two sessions — a spectrogram based activity to simplify the "Criticality of Neutral Point of View" and an interactive session called “Speed Geeking” on offline and online outreach followed by a one-on-one discussion on the presentation skill improvement.

Typing in Indian languages is not easy especially when it comes to multiple typing layout standards followed in the public and private sectors in India. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted a session on Unicode standard for Indian languages and its usefulness with a brief context on the fonts and their different operating systems. Social media expert and Wikimedian Tinu Cherian shared the secrets of popularizing Indian language Wikipedias and bringing outstanding contributors to the limelight, how media played an important role in showcasing initiatives for free encyclopaedic content contribution in India and tips of social media. With fun activities Vishnu Vardhan shared case studies of making Wikipedia workshops interesting. Wikimedia Foundation board member and writer Achal Prabhala shared stories of documenting Oral traditions in Kerala and South Africa for Wikipedia referencing and how copyright laws evolved in the context of copyright issues that Wikipedia contributors face. Achal also threw light on content donation on WikiSource and other platforms that would be useful for people to consume for knowledge production on diverse platforms where Wikipedia could play a central role. Viswanathan and Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated how to set up a handheld digital camera based prop to easily digitize books without using any scanner and then create electronic books.

The most vital part of Wikipedia articles is referencing. Wikimedian Shyamal Lakshminarayan demonstrated how finding sources of references and citing them for the facts on Wikipedia could be made easier through detailed research and by using several tools available. Wikimedia India's founding member and veteran Telugu Wikipedian Arjuna Rao Chavala gave a talk about the history and future plans of Wikimedia India. Wikipedians then went to M.G. Road boulevard to see the weaving work by Gandhians, Philately exhibition on Gandhi and spent some time with Namma Metro's staff to know about the metro operation. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Kannada Wikipedian Om Shivaprakash guided Wikipedians to the office of Deccan Herald Prajavani where they got to see the entire newspaper production and spent time with the technical staff to learn about the use of Kannada Unicode fonts for newspaper printing. Editors and staff at Prajavani got to know about the use of WikiCommons as a free image repository.

The four action filled days involved learning new concepts, training on presentation skills, collaborating to create outreach documents, sharing stories from different language communities, understanding new mediums of outreach, meeting Wikipedians from different cities and also having lots of fun. Wikipedians left Bangalore city with happy faces and we hope to cultivate new editors in their communities.

List of Participants

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

Train the Trainer Program

praskrishna — 2015-02-27T02:37:10Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) welcomes you to attend the "Train the Trainer Program" in Bangalore.

Train the Trainer (TTT) is a residential training workshop to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. CIS-A2K is organizing the Wikipedia Train the Trainer Program 2015 (TTT 2015). This is the second iteration of this program. TTT 2015 will be conducted by CIS-A2K during 26 February to 1 March 2015 in Bangalore, India.

Note: All selected participants will be expected to reach the event venue the previous night (i.e. February 25) and leave by the evening of March 1, 2015. The selected participants are requested to kindly confirm their participation by writing to tanveercis-india.org. Registration for TTT 2015 is closed. Please do not register.. Please note that registration does not confirm participation. Selection by CIS-A2K will be final. Before registering here please go through the selection criterion.

Programme Schedule

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7:30am - 8:30am	Breakfast
8:30am - 9:00am	Registration
9:00am - 10.30am	Welcome & Introduction	Introductions (activity based) Creating name tags for yourself and your friends Energiser/Activity. Meet and greet Wikimedians	T. Vishnu Vardhan (VV) and Tanveer Hasan (TH)
10:30am - 11 am	Why TTT?	Design and Objectives of the TTT	VV
11 am - 11.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
☼ 11.30 am - 1 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre-work	TTT Participant
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant presentations	Individual presentation based on pre work	TTT Participant
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 5 pm	Presenting with impact	Effective Communication Forceful Introduction Organizing your speech (Opening, Body Closing) Get to the point (General purpose and specific purpose) Communicate clearly, accurately and vividly Body Language (Stance, Movement, Gestures, Facial expression and eye contact) Vocal Variety (Volume, Pitch, Rate and Quality)	TH
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Break
6.30 pm - 8 pm	Parallel Sessions	Personal coaching on Presentation Skills using video recordings of Presentation or Multilingual Edit-a-thon (theme - Jnanpith_Award)	Sunil Abraham(SA) VV TH Rahmanuddin Shaik (RS) Subhashish Panigrahi (SP) U.B. Pavanaja (UBP)
8:00 pm - 9:00 pm	Dinner

Friday, February 26, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner
☼ 10.30 am - 11 am	Internet research techniques (Session 2)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors slides	LS
9.15 am - 10 am	Internet research techniques (Session 1)	Information literacy and Internet research techniques for Wikipedia editors	LS
8:30 am - 9.15 am	Copyright, CC and Wikimedia	Introduction to Copyright and Creative Commons slides Creative Commons Wikimedia Applications	L. Shyamal (LS)
7:30 am - 8:30 am	Breakfast
7 pm - 8 pm	Parallel sessions	Personal Coaching GLAM Projects Do's and Dont's FOSS Tools Support and Discussion	CIS-A2K Team RL RS
6.30 pm - 7 pm	GLAM Projects in Indic Wikipedia Context	Feasibility, Scalability and Scope	Rohini Lakshane(RL)
6 pm - 6.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
5 pm - 6 pm	Essential Foss Tools for Wikimedians	Hands on Session	Rahamanuddin
4.30 pm - 5 pm	Essential FOSS Tools	Demonstration	RS
4 pm - 4.30 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
3.30 pm - 4 pm	Panel Discussion	Importance of NPOV in Indian Languages	Participant Panel (TBD)
2.45 pm - 3.30 pm	Importance of NPOV	NPOV as an essential quality for Wikimedians with English Wikipedia as a case study	NVV Char and Tito Dutta
2 pm - 2.45 pm	Spectogram	Interactive activity to critically discuss the importance of NPOV	SA
11.45 am - 1 pm	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians-Hands on Session	Group Activity
11.30 am - 11.45 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11 am - 11.30 am	DIY	Digitisation Techniques for Wikimedians	Viswa Prabha(VP)
10 am - 10.30 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

7 am - 7.30am	Breakfast
7:30am	Departure to Janapada Loka
9 am - 9.30am	Expectations from GLAM Activity	Design,scope and expected outcomes	TH
9.30am - 1 pm	* GLAM Activity	Interviewing Janapada Loka Staff Documentation of Janapada Loka exhibits Resource Collection for Wiki Commons Material collection for GLAM Edit-a-thon	VP RL CIS-A2K
1 pm - 2 pm	Lunch
2 pm - 3.30 pm	Group Activity	GLAM Editathon in Indian Languages	VP and VV
3.30 pm - 4 pm	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
4 pm - 4.30 pm	Panel Discussion	Need and importance of GLAM Activities	TBD
4.30 pm - 5.30 pm	Focused Group Discussion	GLAM Activities to be pursued (Individual and Community)	Participant Groups
5.30 pm - 6.30 pm	Departure to CEO Centre
☾ 8 pm - 9 pm	Dinner at CEO Centre

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Timing	Session	Topics to be Covered	Coordinator / Resource Person

07:30 am - 08:30 am	Breakfast
08:30am - 9.30 am	Media and Social Media Strategies for Wikimedians	Mobilizing mainstream media to cover Wikimedia success stories Best practices of Social Media	Tinu Cherian
9.30am - 10 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	Introduction to WMIN	Ravishankar Ayyakkannu (RA)and Yohann Thomas (YT)
10am - 10.30 am	Building Communities for Wikimedia Movement	CIS-A2K Trials and Success	VV
☼ 10.30 am - 11:00 am	☕ Tea/Coffee Break
11am - 11.30 am	Group Discussion	Challenges & Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online	Participant Groups
11.30 pm - 12.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Participant Presentations
12.30 pm - 1 pm	Lunch
1.30 pm - 2 pm	Focused Group Discussion	Road Ahead for GLAM activities in India Languages	Participant Presentations
2.30 pm - 3.30 pm	Participant Presentation	Submission of Outreach and GLAM Draft Plans
3.30 pm - 3.45 pm	Feedback Session
3.45 pm - 4 pm	Closing Remarks
4:00 pm	Departures or Visit to CIS

For any further queries please email—

tanveercis-india.org 09844439247
ajoy cis-india.org 09845492122
vishnucis-india.org 09845207308

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

Train the Trainer 2018

Admin — 2018-01-01T16:39:17Z

We are delighted to inform that the Train-the-Trainer (TTT) 2018 programme organised by CIS-A2K will be held from 26-28 January 2018, in Mysore, Karnataka, India.

CIS-A2K believes that in every experienced Wikimedian, there is a trainer. A trainer is like a candle that can light up many other candles. (S)he can inspire many other Wikimedians. The workshop attempts to groom such trainers. After three successful iterations of Train the Trainer in 2013, 2015, 2016, and 2017, CIS-A2K is going to organize the fifth iteration of the program on 26-28 January 2018 (note 25 January is day zero).

What is TTT?
Train the Trainer or TTT is a residential training program. The program attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community (including English) members. Earlier TTT have been conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Who should join?

An editor who is interested to conduct real-life and online Wiki-events such as outreach, workshop, GLAM, edit-a-thon, photowalk etc.

Any active Wikimedian contributing to any Indic language Wikimedia project is eligible to apply.
The editor must have 500+ global edits before 1 November 2017. Anyone who has already participated in an earlier iteration of TTT, cannot apply.

Please see more about this program and apply to participate or encourage the deserving candidates from your community to do so:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program/2018

Note: In an effort to encourage participation from women and other minorities, at least 20 percent of the participants at TTT 2018 would comprise of women and/ or other minorities.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/train-the-trainer-2018

Train The Trainer 2017

Manasa Rao — 2017-06-07T08:43:19Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge program conducted its annual flagship event, Train The Trainer(TTT), between 19 to 22 February, 2017 at Jayamahal Palace, Bengaluru. The three day residential workshop focussed on training participants to develop the skills and attributes required for conducting events and outreach activities while also, eventually, taking on leadership roles within their respective language communities. The aim of the program is to groom such leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. 19 participants from nine different language communities from the Indian subcontinent attended the workshop.

The pre-event session on the evening of the 19th consisted of fun games for participants to break the ice and get to know one another. As the evening wound down, the participants, who were invited to bring sweets and savouries from their cities and towns, set up a sweets table. This activity was inspired from Wikimedia Deutschland's candy table at Wikimedia Conference 2015. The idea is to hold an exciting sweet tasting session as the participants attend the workshop. Participants enthusiastically shared trivia about the delicacies they brought to the event and exchanged notes on the various recipes.

Sweets table at TTT 2017/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

Day 1: Introductory discussions, event planning & WikiConference India case study

The first day of the workshop started with a welcome address from the organisers and a formal introductory session for all those present. The participants introduced themselves and spoke about the one Wikipedian they are most inspired by. This was a platform for both participants and organisers to understand each other and their motivation to be a part of the free knowledge movement. Participants also shared the nature of their work on Wikimedia and their pet projects. Most importantly, they spoke about the challenges they have overcome in their journey as a Wikipedian. Pabitra Kumar Panda(User:pkp05) of Odia Wikipedia spoke about how he began editing Wikipedia on his phone using public hotspots in his city(Puri). “I love editing Wikipedia so much that I used to sit for hours together and edit on the street using the wi-fi available. I completely lost track of time,” he said. Another participant, Sumita Roy(User: Sumita Roy Dutta), spoke of how she learned to combine her love for trekking and Wikipedia. She uploads extensively categorised photos on Wikimedia Commons from every trek in order to help potential trekkers or travellers who may wander off the beaten path in the Himalayas.

The interaction gradually transitioned into an activity where participants were asked to present their expectations over the next few days and for the year ahead. Participants were divided into five groups with one CIS-A2K team member at each table to facilitate discussions or clarify doubts. Sanskrit Wikipedian Sidharth Dhodapkar(User:Siddharthdhodapkar) pointed out that while focussing on language communities is important, general outreach activities should also be conducted simultaneously so as to not miss out languages like Sanskrit that are rarely spoken today. Suyash Dwivedi(User:Suyash.dwivedi), an active contributor to Wikimedia Commons, stated that the need of the hour was localisation of global best practices that serve as a guideline for volunteers across Indic language Wikipedias.

Participants presenting their group projects/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Notably, many participants brought up the need for a more concentrated Wikipedia effort in the domain of education in India. Paramjit Singh(User:param munde), a school teacher from Punjab explained how his students would stand to benefit from a reliable learning platform available online. “We need to explore ways by which we can convert Wikipedia articles into basic educational resources at the school level, keeping Indic languages in mind,” he said. Frederick Noronha(User:Fredericknoronha), a journalist from Panaji and English Wikipedia contributor, urged the participants to tap into digital resources already made available by the National Council of Educational Research and Training. Adding to that, Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, Punjabi Wikipedian and forensic scientist, said that students can be taught animal kingdoms, for example, with the help of “Categories” (of photos) on Wikimedia Commons. Reiterating the need for expert knowledge on subjects, Ramakrishna Reddy Palagiri(User: Palagiri) pointed out that these subject expert articles must be translated across the Indic language Wikipedias. These interactions helped the CIS-A2K team understand the various ways in which we can expand our support providing infrastructure to the Indic language communities.

The first master class session began with CIS-A2K team members, Tanveer Hasan and Tito Dutta, talking about Wikimedia Foundation grants. They elaborated on the two types of grants offered by WMF: individual grants and grants for groups and organisations. They answered questions about the practical nature of processing the grants and the expenses covered by these grants. Participants seemed most interested in the procedure of applying to and receiving the Rapid Project Grant that is commonly requested for edit-a-thons, contests, equipments and events, with a funding of USD 1500- 2000 approximately.

This was followed by a session on “Essentials of Conducting an Event” by long time Wikipedian (Retd.) Col. Ashwin Baindur. The session mapped the connect between the spirit of conducting an event and the logistical challenges trainers and volunteers must be prepared to face. He pointed out that professional administrative support and preparedness leads to Wikipedians feeling a sense of purpose. He related a quote from his personal experience and said, “the more you sweat in peace(i.e.planning and preparation), the less you bleed in war(i.e. the actual event). Participants were glad the presentation touched upon new topics such as generating enthusiasm through pre-work, dividing participants into groups so as to facilitate healthy exchanges and following up with sharing of the event’s documentary resources and feedback.

The day came to an end with Dr. Manavpreet Kaur’s presentation on WikiConference India. She put forth a case study on how they prepared for and conducted the pan India event in 2016. This presentation went through the administrative process and challenges as well as tips that helped conduct such a large scale conference.

Day 2: Excursion to Cubbon Park & the Wikipedian’s ethos

Participants at Cubbon Park/ Image By Manasa Rao/ CC-BY-SA 4.0

The second day involved an excursion for the participants who were geared up to go to Cubbon Park, Bangalore. This was a nature walk conducted by long time Wikipedian, Shyamal Lakshminarayan(User:Shyamal). The organic discussions that took place during the excursion surrounded conducting photo-thons and GLAM activities that drew on local heritage and biodiversity. The participants visited the Government Museum near the park and Shyamal explained the importance of knowing about the available resources of knowledge for every Wikipedian. “It’s cheaper to put wrong information on the web, so physically visiting libraries to find relevant information will help you judge the credibility of a source,” he said. At the late afternoon session back at the conference venue, participants were introduced to the Internet Archive while Col. Baindur helped the participants understand easy reference templates. Participants were even taught hacks that they could use to cultivate new editors. For example, while uploading Commons images with different categories is important, someone who doesn’t know how to do it may still upload the images with the basic categories so that other users may add detailed categories. A new Wikimedian may initially find this useful as he/she is learning the ropes. Reflecting on the morning’s excursion, the participants were encouraged to ponder on the more philosophical question: how does knowledge on Wikipedia reflect the reality around us?

Day 3: Global Initiatives, Gender Gap Bridging on Indic Wikipedias & Feedback

The final day of Train The Trainer 2017 began with a masterclass on global initiatives that the participants could learn from and adapt to their communities. Some of the methodologies for improving community consultation were discussed such as needs assessment, outreach activities and surveys. The participants (who would all ideally be prepared to take on the role of trainers) were introduced to Learning Patterns and how they could document the lessons they have learned regardless of the outcome of their event. Another global strategy, global engagement, was also discussed in detail. Participants were asked to make the fullest use of traditional and social media in promoting their events, whether online or offline. Participants were introduced to Share-A-Fact, an inbuilt option on the Wikipedia mobile application which allows the sharing of any sentence or phrase as per the reader’s choice from a Wikipedia article onto any social media or email application. This is imposed over a photo from the article along with a link to the article itself. Participants who were active on social media pointed out that the social media handle of CIS-A2K team had shared these quick facts during the excursion the previous day.

Ravi Ayakannu conducting a session on photo contests/ Image By Indrajit Das/ CC-BY-SA 3.0

Following this, Ravi Ayakannu, long time Tamil Wikipedia community member held a session on conducting photo contests such as Wiki Loves Monuments and Wiki Loves Food. He explained that these are held online and help keep the volunteers motivated without requiring their physical presence. Mr. Ayakannu advised the participants to be inclusive in their approach to awarding best photos such as awards for diversity, creativity, etc. He suggested that organisers must give themselves ample time before adjudging the photos and the organisers could involve someone from Commons. "These contests would also get professional non-Wikimedian photographers involved and hence produce high quality images", he added. For promoting the photo contest, Mr. Ayakannu suggested site banners on Wikipedia.

The final session of the workshop was on Wikipedia and Women. Ting Yi Chang, CIS-A2K research intern, working on exploring ways to bridge the gender gap on Indian Wikipedias conducted the session. Participants were introduced to global initiatives for bridging both the women-related content and male to female editor ratio gap on Wikipedia. While speaking on her soon to be published gender gap bridging toolkit(inspired by User:Keilana's Systemic bias kit) for Indic Wikipedias, Ting Yi noted, "women are not periphery subjects and we must avoid treating it as such." Participants appeared interested to learn about projects such as Women in Red that makes an effort to add women-related content on Wikipedia. The session also reminded participants to organize community events during commemorative events such as Women's History Month in March. The following are a few global initiatives on Gender Gap Bridging:

1. Women's History Month

2. Art and Feminism

3. Wiki Women's User Group

The session was followed by activities that were aimed at sensitizing the participants and urging them to think critically on issues they could potentially face as organizers, both on and off wiki, regarding the participation of women or women-related content. The session came to an end with a free-wheeling discussion among participants about the various scenarios, biases and mindsets they need to be aware of while attempting to bridge the gender gap on Wikipedia and related projects.

As the three day event drew to a close, the participants shared some of their key takeaways and follow-up action points which included cross-community collaborations and mentorship at least at the regional level, encouraging informal/ semi-formal opportunities for community members to mingle and share their ideas with one another among others.

To watch videos of the event, please click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/train-the-trainer-2017

Train the Trainer — Report in Udayavani

praskrishna — 2015-04-04T16:20:49Z

As part of the Train The Trainer program, on Feb 28, all the participants (Wikipedians from all over India) were taken to Janapada Loka, near Ramanagara. There was a report in Udayavani, Ramanagara edition on March 2, 2015 about this event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/train-the-trainer-event-report-march-2-2015-udayavani-report

Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2015-09-27T09:59:00Z

Train the Trainer is a four-day long residential training workshop to enable Indian Wikipedia community members conduct outreach sessions effectively and independently. It is being conducted by the CIS-A2K team in Bangalore in the first week of October.

See the event on the Wikipedia page here. Please note that the exact dates for this event hasn't been finalized. We will let you know once it is done. See the Snippets from Wikimedia Train the Trainer here.

Why CIS-A2K is conducting this Program?

Based on an internal needs assessment exercise undertaken by CIS-A2K, it has been realized that:

bulk of the Indian population does not know about the existence of Indic Wikipedias and sister projects.
there is a lot of potential to do outreach in India but it is hampered by community member's lack of time, lack of availability of support material and/or ability to do outreach.
though many Indic Wikipedia community members have desire to undertake offline outreach they seldom receive support and guidance.
there is a need to further build the capacity of interested community members to conduct effective outreach sessions.

Thus through this program, the CIS-A2K programme wants to support and enable community members who are interested to conduct Wikipedia outreach sessions in their own cities/languages and to spread the word about the Indic Wikipedias.

Overview of the programme

CIS-A2K is organising a 4 day Train the Trainer Program in Bangalore. The program will include:

3 day sessions with interactive training run by professional consultants on how to conduct outreach in an effective manner – training on presentation skills, audience engagement, public speaking etc. It will include mock presentations, with video recording for feedback.
4th day will be a field trip aiming to train the participants on how to organise an effective photothon; in addition, participants will also add pictures from the field trip to Wikimedia Commons for enhancing and improving articles on Indian language Wikipedias.

Selection Criterion

CIS-A2K will conduct this program for approximately 20-25 interested community members from different Indian language communities. We want to make sure that there is equal participation from each language community. The CIS-A2K will use below mentioned parameters for selecting candidates.

CIS-A2K's evaluation of Train the Trainer Program Application Form.
Motivation of the candidate to be a part of the program.
The applicant should have made minimum 200 edits on their respective Indian language Wikipedia.
The applicant should have created at least 5 new articles of start class (as defined by their language community) on their respective Indian language Wikipedia.
The applicant should have conducted at least 1 outreach session before the end of application date and shared the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.)

Candidates' Deliverable

There are certain deliverables that CIS-A2K expects out of selected candidates. These are:

Take lead in translating outreach documents (including presentations, banners, FAQs, handouts) in their respective language and share it with their respective communities.
Organise at least 2 outreach sessions per month in their respective cities, for a minimum of 6 continuous months and share the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.).
Take lead in organising at least 1 community meet up in their respective cities, where they would give a small talk/presentation about their experience in the Train the Trainer Program and share ideas and tips they picked from the program with their language community members.
Write a 1500-word report sharing their Train the Trainer Program experience with large emphasis on their learnings and take-aways to be shared with all Indian communities.

What's in it for you?

Get general training and presentation skills which you can apply not only during Wikipedia workshops, but also during delivering personal and professional talks.
Receive detailed feedback about your presentation and training skills from professional consultants.
Help design a training program that serves Wikimedia community in the long term.
Share your skills with others.
Meet fellow Wikimedia editors and have fun.

Dates	Number of days	Details
30th August to 13th September 2013	14 Days	CIS-A2K accepts applications.
13th September to 16th September 2013	3 Days	CIS-A2K evaluates the applications and shares details of selected candidates.
16th September to 23th September 2013	7 Days	CIS-A2K co-ordinates with selected candidates to finalize their travel plans, make reservations etc.
1st week of October 2013	4 Days	CIS-A2K organises Train the trainer Program.

Call for Participation

CIS-A2K is calling for applications for it's Train the Trainer Program. If you'd like to be part of this program please make sure that you meet the selection criterion and fill in the Train the Trainer Program Application Form by 13th September, 2013.

FAQ

What is train the trainer program?
Train the trainer is a 4 day program organised by CIS-A2K to build capacity and enable community members to conduct outreach sessions independently or with minimal support to introduce Wikipedia to prospective editors in their respective Indian languages. Participants will be trained on various aspects such as presenting with impact, engaging with the audience, significance of body language, outreach follow ups etc. Program will also include groups discussions on ideas, learnings, challenges faced during outreach sessions.
When will train the trainer program run?
Train the trainer program will take place in Bangalore for 4 continuous days in the 1st week of October 2013. Exact details of dates and venue will be communicated shortly.
Who can take part in the program?
The event is open to all Wikimedia volunteers from India who can and want to support outreach events in the coming year.
How can I apply?
Please fill in Train the Trainer Program Application Form.
Who will take care of my travel and accommodation?
CIS-A2K has a budget for Community Development and the team will be able to cover your travel and accommodation.
What will be the timings each day?
The timings of the program will be 9.00am to 7.30pm everyday with sufficient time for lunch, dinner, tea breaks and fun sessions.
Where will I eat?
Light breakfast and lunch will be provided; together with social dinner. Arrangements will also be made for tea and coffee.
What is expected out of me?

Each selected candidate will be given some pre-work. You're expected to come with completed pre-work.
Take lead in translating outreach documents (including presentations, banners, FAQs, handouts) in their respective language and share it with their respective communities.
Post the program, organize at least 2 outreach sessions per month in your respective cities, for a minimum of 6 continuous months and share the report with the community (via mailing list, village pump, event page, etc.).
Post the program, take lead in organising at least 1 community meet up in your respective cities, where you would give a small talk/presentation about your experience in the Train the Trainer Program and share ideas and tips you picked from the program with your language community members.
Write a 1500-word report sharing your Train the Trainer Program experience with large emphasis on learnings and take-aways to be shared with all Indian communities.

Contact

For any further queries please mail at a2k@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/train-the-trainer

Touch Point Report: Department of Tourism Studies, Christ University and St. Aloysius College, Managalore

hasan — 2015-12-15T07:37:14Z

CIS-A2K conducts Wikipedia in Education programme at St. Aloysius colege, Mangalore. This partnership is unique as it provides to us a pool of editors for three Wikimedia projects, i.e: Kannada, Tulu and Konkani.

Touch point Report:

St. Aloysius

With editors from St. Aloysius college taking lead in organising 13^th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia anniversary, Kannada Wikipedia is growing in Mangalore and can be expected to produce content and engagement regularly similar to Bangalore and Mysore volunteers.

Activites

Translation of system messages for Tulu Wikipedia
Creating Tulu WP tutorial videos
Guiding St Aloysius College Student interns
Planning of 13^th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia anniversary

Reporting on the learning: PEG application created after extensive discussion with the student volunteers and Mr. Vishwanth Badikana who is primary coordinator of the event.

New developments: A possible partnership with Karnataka Tulu Academy is being explored, this could lead to content donation.

Failures: Non-availabilty of scanners hampered our chances of securing some important primary resources that would have been useful for content generation.

Primary Contact: Mr. Vishwanath Badikana,

Christ University

Introduction: A2K team is implementing its largest Wikipedia in Education programme at Christ University. This programme has been under operation since 2013 and has seen multiple revisions regarding: faculty engagement, evaluation process, student contributions and A2K team's responsibilties.

Activites: Edit-a-thon on Wikivoyage organised at Department of Tourism Studies, Christ University, Bangalore

Reporting on the learning: 1) As the edit-a-thon was happening on English Wikivoyage and A2K team had not intimated about the event to the larger community, there were instances of accounts being blocked and ip address being blocked as well.

A2K conducted Wikivoyage edit-a-thon and was surprised to see that many tourist places in India do not find mention on this Wikimedia project.

New developments: Interest shown by the faculty of Department of Tourism Studies, Christ University to host the student assignments on Wikimedia projects.

Failures: A2K was unable to help students to upload images onto commons.wikimedia.org during the session. A follow up session is being planned.

Primary Contact: Ms. Mugdha Kulkarni, mugdha.shailendra@christuniversity.in

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/department-of-tourism-studies-christ-university-st-aloysius-college