Centre for Internet and Society

Books are a bridge between generations

praskrishna — 2014-05-05T09:27:05Z

Kannada litterateurs stressed on the importance of books and cultivating the habit of reading on the occasion of ‘World Book Day’ on Wednesday.

The article was published in the Deccan Herald on April 23, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was a speaker on the occasion.

Speaking on the sidelines of the event, writer Narahalli Balasubramanya said “We should ensure children emulate great minds if we want them to be responsible citizens. This is possible only if we make them read good books.

Today, we are increasingly finding ourselves in the company of corrupt people. It is through books that we can interact with great literary figures such as Bendre and Kuvempu.”

The event was jointly organised by Karnataka Publishers Association, Kendra Sahitya Akademi, Karnataka Lekhakiyara Sangha and Indian Institute of World Culture.

Balasubramanya maintained that the Kendra Sahitya Academy sold books at affordable rates and also gave a funding of Rs 400 crore to the book publishers, annually. “But not many people are aware of books entering market and the works don’t reach people,” he added.

A series of Kannada works written by authors were released on the occasion. Writer Dr Siddalingaiah who released the books said “Books are bridges between our minds and our ancestors’ minds. Every home should have a small library.”

‘Pustaka Bhagya’

“The State government has introduced Anna Bhagya, Ksheera Bhagya and other schemes. Similarly, they should also implement Pustaka Bhagya,” said M V Nagaraj Rao of Shrungara Prakashana.

Technical writer in Kannada U B Pavanaja maintained that in Kannada Wikipedia there was dearth of information on Kannada literary works. “There is enough information about English works but not on Kannada novels and literary publications. The Kannada publishers should strive to feed information and synopsis of each work into the Kannada wikipedia,” he added.

Public Library Department celebrated the occasion by holding a book exhibition and essay competition for children at City Central Library premises on Wednesday.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-april-23-2014-books-are-a-bridge-between-generations

Odia WikiMeetup

praskrishna — 2014-02-03T06:46:33Z

CIS-A2K organized an Odia Wiki meetup in Bhubaneswar on January 11.

The event was attended by Odia Wikipedians Dr. Subas Chandra Rout, Shitikantha Dash, Jnanaranjan Sahu and Sailesh Patnaik. T. Vishnuvardhan, Programme Director and Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer, CIS-A2K met Odia Wikipedians to discuss about various ongoing projects in Odia Wikipedia, potential projects and incubator projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/odia-wiki-meetup-january-11-2014

వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/గుంటూరు/అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయం - భాగస్వామ్య కార్యక్రమం జూలై 2018

Admin — 2018-08-11T00:43:35Z

CIS-A2K partnership activity in Annamayya Library, Guntur.

See the event details on Wikipedia page here

వికీపీడియా నుండి < వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం Jump to navigation Jump to search

2018 జూలై 10న గుంటూరు అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయంలో భాగస్వామ్య అవకాశాలను గురించి జరిపిన చర్చలు, చేసిన చిరు శిక్షణల సారాంశం.

వివరాలు

తేదీ-సమయం: 2018 జూలై 10న ఉదయం 11 నుంచి సాయంత్రం 4 వరకూ
ప్రదేశం: అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయం, వేంకటేశ్వరస్వామి ఆలయం ఎదురుగా, బృందావన కాలనీ, గుంటూరు

పాల్గొన్న వ్యక్తులు

వాడుకరి:Gopi.Mogili, అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయం
లంకా సూర్యనారాయణ, అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయ వ్యవస్థాపకుడు
పవన్ సంతోష్, సీఐఎస్-ఎ2కె.

చేపట్టిన పనులు, భాగస్వామ్య చర్చలు

అన్నమయ్య గ్రంథాలయానికి సంబంధించిన లక్షా మూడువేల పుస్తకాల కేటలాగును ఇప్పటికే వికీపీడియాలోకి కొంతమేరకు విశ్వనాథ్ గారు, కొంతమేరకు సీఐఎస్-ఎ2కె వారు, రహ్మానుద్దీన్ ప్రభృతులు పూర్తిచేశారు. అయితే ఆపైన నిరంతరం పుస్తకాలు చేరుతూ జాబితా అప్‌డేట్ అవుతూండడాన ఆ పుస్తకాలు చేర్చడానికి గ్రంథాలయ సిబ్బందికి శిక్షణనివ్వాల్సిందిగా ఆహ్వానించారు.
గ్రంథాలయ సిబ్బందిలో ఒకరైన గోపి మొగిలికి స్ప్రెడ్‌షీట్లలోని కాటలాగ్ వికీ మార్కప్ కోడ్‌లోకి తీసుకురావడానికి ఉపకరించే వెబ్‌సైట్ చూపి శిక్షణను ఇచ్చాం. తద్వారా భావి గ్రంథాలయ సూచికలన్నీ వికీపీడియాలోకి వచ్చేందుకు వీలవుతుంది.
గ్రంథాలయ వ్యవస్థాపకుడు లంకా సూర్యనారాయణ వికీపీడియాలో తమ కాటలాగ్ డిజిటైజ్ చేసి, తద్వారా పరిశోధకులకు గ్రంథాల అందుబాటుకు వీలుకల్పించిన వికీపీడియా వాలంటీర్లను, పాల్గొన్న సంస్థల ఉద్యోగులను ప్రశంసిస్తూ తమ గ్రంథాలయం ద్వారా తెలుగు వికీపీడియా సముదాయ అభివృద్ధికి ఏయే కార్యకలాపాలు చేపట్టవచ్చో ఆలోచించి ప్రతిపాదించమని కోరారు.
ఈ నేపథ్యంలో గుంటూరు సమీపంలోని వీవీఐటీ కళాశాలలో వాడుకరి:KCVelaga పలు కార్యకలాపాలు చేపడతున్నందను, వారి భాగస్వామ్యంతో గుంటూరులో గ్రంథాలయంలో నెలవారీ సమావేశాలు నిర్వహించడం ప్రారంభిద్దామని, గ్రంథాలయంలోని గ్రంథాలు స్కాన్ చేయడంలో వీవీఐటీ వికీ క్లబ్ సభ్యులకు శిక్షణనిచ్చి కాపీహక్కులు లేని గ్రంథాలు కొన్ని వికీమీడియా కామన్స్‌లోకి తీసుకురావచ్చనీ ఆలోచిస్తూ ఆయా ప్రతిపాదనలు గ్రంథాలయం ముందుంచనున్నాం.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/partnership-activity-in-annamayya-library-guntur

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವಗಳು/ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವ ತುಮಕೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾನಿಲಯ ೨೦೧೮

Admin — 2018-08-11T01:32:00Z

CIS-A2K team held a workshop in Tumakur University on 25 July 2018.

Read the full details on Wikipedia page

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದ ವಿವರ

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಹೊಸಬರು: ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಪರಿಚಯ, ಖಾತೆ ತೆರೆಯುವುದು, ವಿಕಿ ಸಂಪಾದನೆ ಕಲಿಯುವುದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವುದು.

ದಿನಾಂಕ ಮತ್ತು ಸ್ಥಳ

ದಿನಾಂಕ: ಜುಲೈ ೨೫, ೨೦೧೮, ಬುಧವಾರ
ಸಮಯ: ಬೆಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ೯:೩೦ ರಿಂದ ಸಾಯಂಕಾಲ ೫:೩೦ರ ತನಕ
ಸ್ಥಳ:ತುಮಕೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯ ಪದವಿ ಕಾಲೇಜು ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ವಿಭಾಗ, ಗೂಗ್ಲ್ ಮ್ಯಾಪ್

ಸಂಪನ್ಮೂಲ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಗಳು

ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದವರು

--Mangalapandith (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೪, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Vanitha YH (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೭, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Mdshreedevidevaraju (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೭, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Shashikalashivanna1 (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೮, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Varshitha govindaraju (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೯, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Soumya ravish (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೪೯, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Ganmanj (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೫೦, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Sowmyalatha.s (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೫೨, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Bindu Umesh (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೫೩, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Shashirekha V N (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೭:೫೪, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Girish.Nagappa (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೮:೪೪, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)
--Lokeshbag (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೦೮:೪೮, ೨೫ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC)

ವರದಿ

ತುಮಕೂರು ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವ/ಕಾರ್ಯಾಗಾರ ೨೫ರಂದು ನಡೆಯಿತು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ತುಂಬಾ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ನಡೆಯಿತು. ಹೊಸ ೧೨ ಸದಸ್ಯರು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಖಾತೆ ಸೃಷ್ಠಿಸಿದರು. ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ೧೦ ಜನ ಹುಡುಗಿಯರು ಮತ್ತು ೨ ಹುಡುಗರು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ಇವರು ತುಮಕೂರು ವಿಶ್ವವಿದಯಾಲಯದ ಭೌತಶಾಸ್ತ್ರ ವಿಭಾಗದ ಪದವಿ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು. ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದವರಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲರೂ ಆಸಕ್ತಿಯಿಂದ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದರು. ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದವರಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯದ ತಳಮಟ್ಟದ ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ತಿಳಿಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟೆವು. ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಅಲ್ಲದೇ ವಿಕಿಮೀಡಿಯ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ತಿಳಿಸಿಕೊಟ್ಟೆವು. ಅದಲ್ಲದೇ ವಿಕಿಯ ಇತರ ಪ್ರಾಜೆಕ್ಟುಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಹೇಳಿದೆವು. ಸಮುದಾಯದಿಂದ ಲೋಕೇಶ ಕುಂಚಡ್ಕರು ಭಾಗವಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿದವರು ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಾಗಿದ್ದರಿಂದ ಅವರಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಜ್ಞಾನ ಪಠ್ಯ ಲೇಖನಗಳು ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳಿಸಿ ಈ ಯೋಜನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸುವಂತೆ ಕೇಳಿಕೊಂಡೆವು. --ಗೋಪಾಲಕೃಷ್ಣ (ಚರ್ಚೆ) ೧೭:೦೪, ೨೯ ಜುಲೈ ೨೦೧೮ (UTC) ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮಕ್ಕೆ ಸಂಬಂಧಪಟ್ಟ dashboard link ಇಲ್ಲಿದೆ.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tumakur%20university-workshop

మిసిమి పత్రిక గ్రంథాలయంలో తెలుగు వికీపీడియన్ల కార్యక్రమం

pavan — 2018-08-22T15:11:03Z

తెలుగు నాట లలిత కళలపై రసజ్ఞత పెంపొందించేందుకు దశాబ్దాలుగా పనిచేస్తున్న పత్రికల్లో మిసిమి విశిష్టమైనది.

ప్రపంచ ప్రఖ్యాతి చెందిన కళాకారుల గురించి కావచ్చు, తెలుగునాట మరుగునపడ్డ చిత్రకారుని గురించి కావచ్చు - తెలుగులో లోటుగా ఉన్న ఆసక్తిదాయకమైన. విజ్ఞానదాయకమైన అంశాలపై మిసిమి వెలుగుపరచడం తెలిసిందే. అలాంటి మిసిమి పత్రిక తమ గ్రంథాలయంలో గత దశాబ్ది పాటు అంతర్జాలంలో తెలుగులో స్వేచ్ఛా విజ్ఞాన సృష్టి చేస్తున్న తెలుగు వికీపీడియా హైదరాబాద్ సమావేశానికి, వికీడేటా లేబుల్‌-అ-థాన్‌కి ఆతిథ్యమిచ్చారు. కార్యక్రమాన్ని తెలుగు వికీపీడియా, సీఐఎస్‌-ఎ2కెల తరఫు నుంచి పవన్‌ సంతోష్‌ నిర్వహించగా, మిసిమి వైపు నుంచి సంపాదక మండలి సభ్యుడు కాండ్రేగుల నాగేశ్వరరావు, ప్రధాన సంపాదకుడు వల్లభనేని అశ్వనీకుమార్ సమన్వయపరిచారు. నిర్వహించిన పవన్‌ సంతోష్‌తో పాటు తెలుగు వికీడియన్‌లు ప్రణయ్‌రాజ్‌, రహ్మానుద్దీన్, వీవెన్, అజయ్‌ పాల్గొన్నారు. మిసిమి సంపాదకులు వల్లభనేని అశ్వినీకుమార్, కాండ్రేగుల నాగేశ్వరరావు, మిసిమి రచయితల్లో ఒకరు, ప్రముఖ తెలుగు అనువాదకులు ముక్తవరం పార్థసారధి ఈ సమావేశంలో పాలుపంచుకున్నారు.

మాట్లాడుతున్న పవన్ సంతోష్, చిత్రంలో వీవెన్, వల్లభనేని అశ్వినీకుమార్, అజయ్ బండి, ముక్తవరం పార్ధసారధిలను చూడవచ్చు.

భారత స్వాతంత్ర్య దినోత్సవానికి సంబంధించిన వికీడేటా లేబుల్‌-అ-థాన్‌లో (మారథాన్, ఎడిటథాన్‌లా లేబుల్స్ చేర్చుకుంటూ వెళ్ళడం లేబులథాన్) భాగంగా ఉదయం 10.30 నుంచి సాయంత్రం 5.30 వరకు పాల్గొన్న వికీపీడియన్లు ఐటంలకు లేబుల్స్ చేర్చారు. లేబులథాన్ థీమ్ ప్రకారం - పలు భాషల కేంద్ర సాహిత్య అకాడమీ పురస్కార గ్రహీతలు, భారత స్వాతంత్ర్యోద్యమం గురించి సంఘటనలు, పరిణామాలు, వ్యక్తులు, సంస్థలు, వగైరా ఐటంలకు తెలుగులో లేబుళ్ళు, వివరణలు చేర్చారు. స్వేచ్ఛగా ఉపయోగించుకుని, అభివృద్ధి చేయగల జ్ఞాన గని. వికీపీడియా వాక్యాలు మనుషులు చదవడానికి తేలికైతే వికీడేటా కంప్యూటర్లు చకచకా విశ్లేషించగల స్ట్రక్చర్డ్ డేటా ప్రాజెక్టు. దీనిలో ఒక్కో అంశానికి తెలుగులో పేరును, వివరణను చేరుస్తూ పోవడం అన్నది భావి తెలుగు భాషాభివృద్ధికి ఉపయోగకరం. సాయంత్రం అయ్యేసరికి 280 పైచిలుకు ఐటంలలో వీవెన్, ప్రణయ్, అజయ్, పవన్ సంతోష్‌లు తెలుగు లేబుల్, వివరణలు అభివృద్ధి చేశారు.

వికీడేటా లేబులథాన్లో నిమగ్నమైన సభ్యులు

కార్యక్రమంలో భాగంగా వికీపీడియన్లతో వల్లభనేని అశ్వినీ కుమార్, ముక్తవరం పార్థసారధి పలు అంశాలు చర్చించారు. పవన్ సంతోష్‌ ఈ సందర్భంగా వికీపీడియా నిర్మాణం వెనుక మూలస్తంభాలు, వాటి అమలు, తెలుగు వికీపీడియా స్థితిగతులు వగైరా వివరించారు. ప్రారంభంలో తెలుగు వికీపీడియాలో నెలనెలా ఇరవై నుంచి ముప్పై మిలియన్ల వరకూ పేజీ వ్యూలు ఉంటున్నాయని పవన్, రహ్మాన్ వివరించారు. ప్రధానంగా మొబైల్‌ వేదికగా చదువుతున్న తెలుగువారు తెలుగులోనే సమాచారాన్ని ఆశిస్తున్నారని వివరించారు. (ఇతర బాధ్యతల కారణంగా ఆపైన సమావేశం నుంచి రహ్మాన్ నిష్క్రమించారు) తెలుగు రచయితలు ఎక్కువమంది వివరాలు తెలుగు వికీపీడియాలో దొరకాలని, అందుకు అవసరమైతే డేటా స్థాయిలో తాము సహకరించగలమని వల్లభనేని అశ్వినీకుమార్ పేర్కొనగా తెలుగు వికీపీడియా విషయ ప్రాధాన్యత పరిధిలోని వారికి తెవికీలో వ్యాసాలు సృష్టించడం, మిగిలిన అందరి వివరాలను వేరే వేదికలో సమాచారం అందుబాటులోకి తేవడం చేయవచ్చని వీవెన్ సమాధానమిచ్చారు. ముక్తవరం పార్థసారధి ఉదాహరణ కోసం రచయిత త్రిపుర వ్యాసాన్ని తెరిచి అందులోని సమాచారాన్ని పరిశీలించి ప్రారంభ స్థాయిలో ఉన్నా ఇలా ఎందరో రచయితలు, ఇతర అంశాల గురించి విజ్ఞానాన్ని అందించడం చాలా కీలకమని పేర్కొన్నారు. పార్థసారధి మాట్లాడుతూ ఏ విషయంలోనైనా అత్యున్నత నాణ్యత కోసం అంటూ అసలు పనిచేయకపోవడం కన్నా సాధ్యమైనంత ఉత్తమ నాణ్యతతో పని జరుగుతూండడం మంచిదని తన దృక్పథాన్ని వెల్లడించారు. పవన్ సంతోష్‌ ఒక మంచి వ్యాసాన్ని చూపించి, ఈ స్థాయికి నాణ్యత అభివృద్ధి చేయాలన్న లక్ష్యంతో పనిచేస్తున్న వికీపీడియన్లూ ఉన్నారని తెలిపారు. పవన్ సంతోష్‌ మాట్లాడుతూ మిసిమి వారు నాణ్యమైన వనరులు రూపొందించినవైన చిత్రకళ, సాహిత్యం, సంగీతం, నాట్యం అన్న నాలుగు అంశాలు తీసుకుని, ఈ రంగాల్లో తెలుగువారి గురించి తెలుగు వికీపీడియాలో నాణ్యమైన సమాచారం రూపొందించేందుకు ప్రామాణిక మూలాలను జాబితా వేయడం అందరికీ ఉపయుక్తమని సూచించారు. చర్చల్లో భాగంగా తెలుగు వికీపీడియా గురించి, తెలుగు వికీపీడియాలో అసలు రాయవచ్చన్న సంగతినీ విస్తృతమైన తెలుగు సముదాయానికి ఎలాగోలా తెలియజేయడం వల్ల వాలంటీర్ల సమస్య తీరుతుందని అభిప్రాయాలు వెల్లడయ్యాయి. ప్రణయ్‌రాజ్ వికీపీడియాలో రాయడం వల్ల ఆత్మతృప్తి, నైపుణ్యం లభిస్తుందని అయితే ఇతర మాధ్యమాల్లా వెనువెంటనే పేరు ప్రఖ్యాతులు రావడం సాధ్యం కాదని, అయినా సిద్ధపడి సేవచేస్తున్న వికీపీడియా సముదాయ సభ్యుల సమున్నత వ్యక్తిత్వం కొనియాడారు. అందరికీ తెలుగులో విజ్ఞానం అన్న తెలుగు వికీపీడియా ఉద్దేశాన్ని ప్రతిధ్వనిస్తూ తమ గ్రంథాలయాన్ని వేదికగా ఇచ్చి, చర్చలో పాల్గొన్నందుకు నిర్వాహకుడు పవన్ సంతోష్‌, వికీపీడియా సభ్యులు కృతజ్ఞతలు తెలిపారు. మిసిమి తరఫున విచ్చేసిన సభ్యులు ప్రతిగా ఒకేలాంటి లక్ష్యాలు ఉన్నందున తెలుగు వికీపీడియన్లు చేసే కృషి పట్ల తమకున్న ఉన్నత భావాన్ని వెల్లడించారు.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c2ec3fc38c3fc2ec3f-c2ac24c4dc30c3fc15-c17c4dc30c02c25c3ec32c2fc02c32c4b-c24c46c32c41c17c41-c35c3fc15c40c2ac40c21c3fc2fc28c4dc32-c15c3ec30c4dc2fc15c4dc30c2ec02

Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities

Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P. V. — 2018-09-19T02:18:40Z

Wikisource is one of the trending Wikimedia projects. Many new editors and new books to Indic language Wikisource's get added over a period of time. However, new editors as well as existing editors face numerous problems while working with the content online. The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team, to help the editors, has created this Handbook. CIS invites feedback to the first draft of this Handbook. CIS-A2K will continue to work with the Wikipedia communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.

Preface

Currently, CIS-A2K is working with five Indian-languages Wikimedia communities (Kannada, Konkani, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu) and one focus project area (Wikisource with punjabi community). While working with the above mentioned Indic Wikimedia communities, we noticed that there are many similarities between the issues and challenges faced by these communities. So, we decided to create this “Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities”.

At first, we went through the Wikisource of each language and noted the status. Then we talked to Indic Wikipedians to know more about the Wikisource related issues that they are facing. We also asked for the feedback on the first draft of this handbook. Our actual work will start after the release of this book, when we’ll work with the communities to improve their efforts towards developing Wikisource.

Click to download the Wikisource Handbook for Indian Communities co-authored by Bodhisattwa Mandal and Ananth Subray P V. with graphics support from Saumya Naidu.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-source-handbook-for-indian-communities

Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study

Dr. George Joseph,Dr. Sebastian K.A, and Kavitha A — 2018-10-28T05:56:25Z

We have published an article in International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities. The article is titled "Digital Technology Engaging Pedagogy through Hindi Wikipedia - A Case Study". The authors of the article are Hindi faculty members of Christ University and Ananth Subray from the Centre for Internet & Society provided research assistance.

Abstract

Hindi Wikipedia (Hindi Edition of Wikipedia) in the undergraduate language classroom. Wikipedia or Open Source Learning is a powerful tool in the acquisition of knowledge especiallyin today’s digital context.While many of the European languages have already established afoothold in the digital space, the Indian languages are yet to create a niche for themselves. Even after a decade of its launch,the Hindi Wikipediacould not attire the enabled richness of the English Wikipedia.While there are about fifty lakh articles in English, Hindi Wikipedia has only about a lakh.

This paper is an attempt to show how a whole new concept of productive activity for faculty andstudents can be opened through a study of basics in Indian language computing typing and editing Wikipedia articles.It explains the value of Wikis for teaching and learning as compared to traditional teaching and physical paper assignment model, showing the power of Open Source Learning and Wikipedia.Most importantly, it shows how Wikipedia and Global Peer Review can directly and immediately influence the quality and relevance of Teaching and Learning in classrooms and learning spaces today.This pilot study ofstudents’ use of sources in authoring Wikipedia articles shows, how students processed texts from sources to compose their own texts transforming classrooms from a place of knowledge deliveryto a place of creativity and research.Through Wikipedia, students are being empowered tobecome creative writers, efficient editors and successful researchers. Article creation and editingof articles in Hindi for Wikipedia is bound to transform the students’ ability to interpret, analyze,create new knowledge and develop their Research Aptitude. This article addresses the importance of Digital Learning through Wikipedia as Pedagogy in Christ University’s UG language classrooms and discusses the prospects and possibilities of using Wikipedia as a learning tool through a case study.

Read the peer reviewed article published by the International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities, Volume 6, Issue 8, August 2018

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digital-technology-engaging-pedagogy-through-hindi-wikipedia-a-case-study

Odia Virtual Academy launched

Admin — 2018-10-29T02:27:23Z

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday launched a new web portal of ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ (www.ova.gov.in) to promote the Odia language and literature at the Secretariat here.

The article was published in the New Indian Express on October 27, 2018.

Launching the web portal, the Chief Minister said, “It is a matter of pleasure that the new web portal of the ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ is being dedicated today. Odia language has received the classical status.

A lot of literature has also been created in Odia language. The Academy has taken the responsibility for promotion, preservation and digitisation of the Odia language and literature.” Naveen said the new website will be helpful in the promotion of Odia language at the international level, especially for the Non Resident Odias (NROs). He said youths will also benefit from the Academy.

Three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed by the State Government with the University of Chicago library, CDAC and Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru to expedite digitisation of Odia literature and development of Odia software. “This will go a long way in enhancing the visibility of Odia language and literature in the digital space,” he said.

So far, as many as 170 books of Odia literature have been placed in the Academy website. The prime objective of the Academy is digitisation of about 2000 rare and copyright free Odia books and establishment of a free digital library, digitisation of various Odia dictionaries available presently for free access, promotion of Odia unicode font faces through standardisation of typing keyboards and making those affordable for public in coming six months and development of primers and uploading those for easy learning.

Besides, the Academy’s purpose is to digitise and preserve Odia lexicon, ancient magazines and journals, traditional music, ancient documents, literature on science and history, folk culture, tribal language and literature, history-oriented essays, speech of great personalities, Sri Jagannath culture, temple and its architecture.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched

Community Toolkit for Greater Diversity

Admin — 2018-10-30T02:08:31Z

P.P. Sneha participated in a 3 day programme organized by Wikipedia community in Mandrem, Goa from October 5 - 7, 2018. The event was a peer training programmeto strengthen the work in the direction of building greater diversity and inclusion in the Wikimedia community.

Click to see the agenda of the event

More info of the programme can be accessed here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/community-toolkit-for-greater-diversity

South India Copyright Workshop

subodh — 2018-11-06T01:25:49Z

A workshop on Copyright was organized by CIS-A2K at Hotel Bhagini Icon in Bengaluru from 19th to 21st October 2018. Seventeen members from 5 language communities (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Tulu) participated in the workshop. Yann Forget was the master trainer for the workshop.

Before the event participants listed their questions. The workshop participants’ queries covered all aspects of copyright on Commons.

The event began with ‘Lightning talk About Copyrights’ by master trainer Yann. He spoke about copyright, what works be copyrighted, and why doesn’t one gets copyright. The session covered important issues like originality, creativity, Default copyrights of Collective works, Compilation works, newspapers and magazines. Case studies of 2D & 3D works of art (paintings, sculptures), Texts, Pictures & videos were elaborated. Yann also elaborated on some critical cases like recordings of musical concerts, complex geometric figures, dictionary content, mathematical theorems and algorithms.

The workshop also threw light on what is free license, acceptable licenses, CC-BY-SA with attribution and ‘share alike’ license, etc. Various license tags and templates, non-copyright restrictions, etc. were also deliberated upon during the workshop. A hands-on session on translation of important templates in local languages and verifying files on Commons for description, source, categories, license and other details was also done. Participants were also introduced to uploading YouTube videos on Commons. Websites having copyright free content were also discussed.

Yann also discussed various aspects of GODL India license policies. A brief session on process of deletion, un-deletion and OTRS volunteers’ structure was also conducted. On Day 2, an exhaustive session on copyright of pictures from sources such as Flickr, Instagram, Pixabay, Bollywood Hungama, Newspaperarchive, NASA, Government websites etc. was conducted. Participants explored specific categories and found out treasures of free images on web. Important templates like PD-Art, PD-India, PD-1996, Not-PD-US-URAA, PD-UK unknown were explained with proper examples.

The final session was dedicated to Books on Commons. All participating communities were actively involved in digitization and uploading free content on Commons and Wikisource. Nationalization of books by Tamil Nadu state government was taken up for discussion. Tamil Wikipedians spoke about the licensing procedures and problems being faced by community on Commons. Yann stressed on importance of creating Wikidata items for files and categories in Commons with examples.

In the concluding session a follow-up plan was framed with active contribution of all members. The major tasks include - Creating a list of authors with death year details in the respective language to decide public domain/copyright free status in India (Works of Indian authors who died 60 years ago), Translation of important 10 policy pages, 8 templates and 2 category pages in local languages and Preparation of check list for users before uploading any content to Commons. Yann Forget played crucial role in developing clear understanding on important issues. The workshop has definitely created cohesive group of Indic Wikimedians striving to build free content on Commons.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/south-india-copyright-workshop

Van Bodh Workshop for content development on Forest Resources at Gadchiroli

Admin — 2018-11-06T01:36:39Z

CIS-A2K has collaborated with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI) to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation. These contents will become a part of "Van Bodh Knowledge repository".

Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Bombay University has formulated and going to start a "Diploma course in Community Resource Management " with the support of TRTI, Pune from 2nd of oct 2018. This is a historic attempt to impart education of the level of a diploma to rural, especially tribal youth without any condition of academic qualification. The course was conducted at Mendha(Lekha) an hamlet in Dhanora taluk of Gadchiroli District. CIS-A2K has collaborated with TRTI to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/van-bodh-workshop-for-content-development-on-forest-resources-at-gadchiroli

Odia Wikipedia workshop in Puri, Odisha sparks creation of informal Wikipedia group WikiTungi

Sailesh Patnaik — 2016-01-12T05:28:14Z

The first ever Odia Wikipedia workshop in Odisha's historic town of Puri finally shaped in on this December 20. With 25 participants contributing to Odia Wikipedia this day, more Wikipedia outreach in the city were planned.

Organised at the Premier Institute of Computer Studies (PICS), this workshop saw many students from technical background including four female participants. The Google Local Guides group of Bhubaneswar collaborated with us in organising this workshop. Thanks to long time Odia Wikimedian Dr Subas Chandra Rout to spare time and taking pain in coming all the way from Bhubaneswar to mentor the new editors. Only 10-12 participants could sign up on the spot because of IP address throttle that we could not fix beforehand. Otherwise the event went well and after a week, many of the participants have turned out to be active on Odia Wikipedia which is pretty exciting.

We planned to organise a meetup once in two month at Puri with the focus on improving at least 20-25 articles related to to the city and district during the meetup. There was a three-minute coverage of the workshop on Odisha Television (OTV) and a brief report of the workshop was published on Odisha Reporter.

As part our effort in chronicling the voice of the Wikipedia community in the WikipediansSpeak series, we reached out to Wikimedians Dr. Subas Chandra Rout and Snehasish Nayak after the workshop. Dr Rout shares his interactions and future plans to expand the Odia Wikimedia community:

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): Thank you so much for mentoring these new Wikimedians! How was your overall experience working with them?
Subas Chandra Rout (SRR): The participants were, indeed, very enthusiastic. They not just were good listeners when we were presenting but contributed well after we demonstrated.

SP: How often do you think we should come back here and work with the same set of participants?
SRR: I think one more visit to ensure that they feel more integrated with the larger Odia Wikimedia community and help them contribute more. Face-to-face interaction will also help them feel more comfortable to share the kind of problems they might have been facing.

SP: What kind of problems did they face during the workshop? How did you help them with those problems?
There were certain technical/logistics problems which kind of made us keep the workshop limited to more demonstration by us and less practice by them. Sailesh seems be following up with them as some of them have already started editing Wikipedia actively.

Snehasish Nayak, organiser of the event and a new active Wikimedian of the Odia community—it is worth mentioning that Snehasish has 360 edits on Odia Wikipedia already—shares more about himself, his interests and ideas for future projects:

Subhashish Panigrahi (SP): How and when you got introduced to Odia Wikipedia? Did you know about it before or heard from someone before you formally got an orientation?
Snehasish Nayak (SN): The first time I got to know about Odia Wikipedia was during the Google I/O 2015 event. It was Sailesh Pattnaik who introduced me to Odia Wikipedia. My Wikipedia journey started in December 2015, when Sailesh asked me for some help to conduct a Odia Wikipedia in my hometown Puri.

SP: You graduated as an engineer. Many engineers in India do not even contribute much to language related work, especially the ones that are not paid for. What drives you to contribute so much that you have crossed 360 edits in just three weeks?
SN: From my school days, Wikipedia has been good friend to me. I don’t remember in how many projects Wikipedia has come to my rescue. And in return Wikipedia never asked for anything. I felt it would be the best platform to share free knowledge across the globe.Odia being my native language and it being a very old language needs contribution from the youth like me. In the era of digital revolution Odia Wikipedia has the potential of empowering every single Odia with the sum of the world's knowledge any time of in any place. If anyone asks me about what I am getting in return because of my contribution, my first answer would be "knowledge". I have learnt quite a lot after I started contributing to Odia Wikipedia. And after each contribution, it gives me a great feeling that I have done something useful for the world”. It inspires me to contribute more and more...

SP: You have recently started working and promoting about WikiTungi Puri. Can you share little more about it? What it will do? How it will benefit the Odia language?
SN: With the coming of our group, WikiTungi Puri, we are going to organize more workshops, meetups and other outreach programs in and around Puri. But the work will never be limited only to the city. We are always ready to collaborate with the global community. At Puri, We have plans to design thematic outreach activities in some of the educational institutions of Puri and we would like to invite them to be part of WikiTungi Puri. We have plans to bring the "Odia Wikiquote" live out of the Incubator wiki. We have started working on designing of training materials for the new editors. I have a great feeling that we are going to have more and more active contributors joining us in the near future.

From the place where see it from, Odia Wikipedia is becoming a pioneer of bringing digital technology for taking our language to a whole new level!

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/odia-wikipedia-takes-puri

Will domain dot भारत spur the growth of Indian languages on the internet?

praskrishna — 2014-09-08T05:50:11Z

Modi's effort to promote the use of Hindi and e-governance has given hope to those who want to see more vernacular content online, but many challenges have to be overcome.

Rohan Venkataramakrishnan's blog post was published in Scroll.in on August 29, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

For most of its short history, the internet has been the English speaker’s playground. Though English is the world’s third-most spoken language (after Mandarin and Spanish), it is by far the most commonly used language on the internet. If you wanted to make sense of most of what’s on the World Wide Web, you had to be able to read and write English.

This is slowly changing. The launch of Devanagari script web addresses on Sunday, allowing people to use .भारत domain names, was another step in the slow effort to bring about a multilingual Web. Already, Indian languages like Hindi – one of the most commonly-spoken languages on Earth – lag far behind. The move gels well with the new government’s effort to promote the use of Hindi, and its push to increase digital services available to all citizens. The next few years could well see a spurt in vernacular content online.

But first many challenges have to be overcome. “At present, not a single Indian language figures in the top 10 languages prevalent on the Internet, though Chinese, Arabic and Russian feature in the list,” said a McKinsey report on the internet's impact on India. “The next wave of internet adoption in India will be dominated by local language speakers, which underscores the need for much more content and applications to be offered in local languages.”

Vernacular internet
Early studies of the internet attempted to quantify how much of the web was in English. A 1997 estimate put the number at 80% of all websites, while the Online Computer Library’s study in 2003 concluded that 72% of all online content was in English. Today that number is much lower.

W3Techs, which conducts surveys of the internet, now estimates that about 55% of content on the Internet is in English, followed by German, Russian and Japanese. Indian languages don’t crack the top 35.

The analysis is by its nature imprecise. The internet is vast and mostly uncharted. Estimates suggest search engines have indexed only 40% of Web content, leaving much off the mainstream radar. Measuring language becomes even harder because, in the early years, when fonts were harder to render, most non-English content on the internet was spelt out in Roman letters.

Indian Wiki
The rise of multilingual scripts has changed that, and made it easier to evaluate the diversity of the internet. Yet even the best approach relies more on sampling than measurement. There is one section of the Web, however, that does allow for comparisons of absolute numbers.

Relative to other tongues, Indian language-articles still comprise a minuscule portion of Wikipedia. English, Spanish and French are perhaps expected, but even languages like Vietnamese have nearly 10 times the number of pages that Hindi does. Waray-Waray, the fifth-most commonly spoken language in the Philippines, appears to be an outlier because of an automated translation method that creates pages in that language.

Hindi content has been growing on the internet encyclopedia, from no pages in 2003 to more than one lakh in 2011, but it still falls far behind the languages that are spoken as commonly as it, like Spanish and Arabic, let alone those with much smaller reach. Of course in many countries English is not spoken at all, so Internet users need web pages in their own language. In India, because of the language-class association, the majority of Internet users are at least conversant in English.

Obstacle Course
The impediments to further growth are all too apparent. For one, internet infrastructure still leaves much to be desired. Though India has the third-largest internet user-base in the world, only 10% of the country is actually online. Even by 2015, when internet access is expected to reach 28% of the population, the equivalent rural figure is likely to be just 9%, according to estimates.

“A lot of the core infrastructure that is necessary for language computing is missing,” said Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet & Society. “There’s no mandate by the government that these languages must be supported, no comprehensive dictionaries, no thesauri, no machine translation capabilities, no optical character recognition capabilities. Because our market is so insignificant for proprietary software makers, they haven’t done enough to develop these. Meanwhile, the free software community is too small and mostly English-speaking.”

The government has launched some initiatives in this regard, like a National Translation Mission aimed at machine translating text from English into Indic languages, as well as banks of fonts that are free to use. But Abraham said that while the government is clear this should be a priority area, it underestimates the scale of the problem.

“We need large scale investment by the government into each language,” he said. “We’re looking at maybe even Rs 100 crore per language, to bring each of our traditional languages into the internet age.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/scroll-in-rohan-venkataramakrishnan-will-domain-dot-bharat-spur-the-growth-of-Indian-languages-on-the-internet

CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada: Coverage in Eenadu

praskrishna — 2014-09-09T09:22:23Z

This article was published in Enadu on August 15, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cis-mou-with-alc-coverage-in-eenadu

Marathi Language Day events by CIS-A2K in February 2018

subodh — 2018-03-17T08:58:44Z

Marathi Language day is celebrated all over world on 27th February. Dnyanpeeth award winning writer V.V.Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj was born on this date. Various events and activities were conducted in collaboration with community, institutions and government departments.

Online Workshops

These were conducted at Jeevan Jyoti Women empowerment centre,Velhe ; Garware College of Commerce, Pune and Dayanand college in Solapur. Proof reading of marathi book on Wikisource was completed by the students of Garware college on this day.

Media

Guest editorial in leading newspaper Sakal was published on 10th Feb. The gist is - Everyone speaks, discusses about status of marathi on the occasion of language day on 27th feb and Yearly Litfest. If we want to make marathi, a global language for knowledge sharing and connecting to world lang' communities, it is necessary to adopt unicode and open source softwares in writing, publishing,printing etc. The collaborative works also need unicode as it is a universal bridge. The Wikipedias in 288 lang's is a great success story because it is based on Unicode & open source. The editorial also gives future action plan to achieve this, viz. upgradation of academic courses related to language business, writers/publishers workshops, Indic lang computing centre, digitisation/OCR and content donation in Wikisource, Wiktionary etc., Copyright free/relicense movement among writers or copyright holders, Appeal to social and educational magazines to upload their old issues on Wikisource as reference material.

Radio Interview on Tomato FM 94.3 Kolhapur on 27th Feb. The promotion was made through Facebook post and ads on Radio. The interview received good response from 2 districts.

Event in Sangli

A special event was arranged by 'Janswasthya organisation on 28th Feb. Nearly 80 prominent personalities from Sangli district gathered together to discuss about growth of marathi language. Alongwith Subodh Kulkarni, writer Ramdas Phutane also participated.

Media Coverage

News in Pudhari
News in Lokmat
News in Samana

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-language-day-events-by-cis-a2k-in-february-2018