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Wikipedia in UG Education program at Christ University
https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-may-15-2014-wikipedia-ug-education-christ-university
<b>On May 15, 2014, Prajavani published an article about Wikipedia in UG Education program in Christ University.</b>
<p>Click to read the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.prajavani.net/article/%E0%B2%B9%E0%B2%AC%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AC%E0%B2%B2%E0%B2%BF-%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%A8%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%A8%E0%B2%A1-%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AA%E0%B3%80%E0%B2%A1%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AF-%E0%B2%B0%E0%B2%B8%E0%B2%AC%E0%B2%B3%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%B3%E0%B2%BF">online version published by Prajavani here</a>.</p>
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<p>A scanned version of the article is given below:</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-may-15-2014-wikipedia-ug-education-christ-university'>https://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-may-15-2014-wikipedia-ug-education-christ-university</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-05-27T10:19:48ZNews ItemWikipedia in the Classroom: A Study of the Wikimedia in Education at CHRIST (Deemed to be University)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university
<b>This is a short study on the Wikimedia in Education (WIE) at Christ University, Bengaluru, which aims to offer an overview of the key objectives and challenges of this project and map its impact on teaching-learning practices in multilingual classrooms. The report has been authored by Ananth Subray, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and external review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020.
</b>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The growth of collaborative and open access platforms such as Wikimedia over the last decade has opened up new avenues to think about access to open educational resources by people across the world. The <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/education/#:~:text=At%20the%20Wikimedia%20Foundation%2C%20we,projects%20for%20their%20learning%20objectives.&text=Key%20pillars%20of%20our%20education,Reading%20Wikipedia%20in%20the%20Classroom.">Wikimedia in Education</a> (WIE) is one such instance of a collaborative effort undertaken with educators and learners across the world, to promote knowledge equity and rethink digital forms of pedagogy, both inside and outside the classroom. The Wikimedia movement has collaborated with <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Community/Countries">diverse partners</a> around the world as part of WIE. These collaborators are using Wikipedia as part of educational content, with the objective of enabling better access to content, fostering various skills among students and augmenting content on Wikipedia in local languages As part of this program, students work on new articles, improve existing ones or work on sister projects of Wikipedia such as <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a> and <a>Wikidata</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In 2011, the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program">pilot Education Program</a> in India was started with the help of the Wikimedia Foundation in Pune. The following were some of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:India_Education_Program#Update_on_India_Education_Pilot">motivating factors </a>: </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">“India has the world's largest youth population of 1.2 billion people and it has 28 languages with hundreds of dialects.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Consumption and creation of content on the Internet is growing fast in India. In 2018, India had over 480 million internet users across the country.[1] </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">There are 23 Indic languages Wikipedias - but they all have limited content compared to English Wikipedia. The average article count is less than 40,000. There are many strong reasons to increase participation from India - and that is a primary objective of the India Education program.”</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Later in 2013, after an <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Education_Program/Pune_Pilot_Program_lessons#Motivation">assessment</a> of the pilot project in Pune, discussions with CHRIST (Deemed to be University) in Bengaluru were initiated by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge</a> (CIS-A2K). After preparing a detailed plan about Wikipedia in Education and CHRIST, the program was started with the help of community members, faculty members from the Department of Languages and people from CIS-A2K. Some of the main objectives of the program were to [2] : </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Strengthen critical thinking skills in students;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop language proficiency in terms of cohesively presenting an idea or concept;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop the ability to closely read/assess information or data;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop the ability to collaborate in a team environment; and</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Cultivate the ability to be a producer of knowledge than a passive consumer.</p>
</li></ul>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-57e1c6bd-7fff-a7b1-77b4-a05f6596ee67"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">CHRIST has been running Wikipedia in Education for the past 7 years. This study aims to understand the progress of this initiative, and its opportunities and limitations so far, especially with respect to Indian educational institutions engaging with a virtual community through Wikipedia. In particular, students, teachers, and other stakeholders have been an integral part of this online community at CHRIST.</p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Context</h3>
<div> </div>
<p>“ Wikipedia is the best tool available to us to go digital. We are happy that Wikipedia <span style="text-align: center;">builds in the process and our students also learn.”<br /></span><span style="text-align: center;"> - Dr Anil Pinto, Registrar, Christ University</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia is a collaborative knowledge platform, with a vision to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge”.[3] The word "Wikipedia" is derived from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick" and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links designed to guide the user to related pages with additional information. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by a community of language speakers. Wikipedia currently has more than 54 million articles in more than 300 languages and is supposed to be the largest reference website in the world.[4]</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">After the effort of the Wikimedia Foundation in initiating a pilot program at Pune, a similar collaboration was discussed between CIS-A2K and CHRIST (Deemed to be University). As both institutions have a keen interest in developing content in Indic languages on the Internet, it was an encouraging factor for this collaboration They discussed the various ways in which the program can engage students of the university, including promoting content creation in natural sciences in regional languages, publishing CHRIST (Deemed to be University) books on Wikisource, digitising old/ rare books, in addition to editing and creating articles, especially in their subject areas of study.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Faculty members from the Department of Languages supported the initiative, with the following objectives in mind [5]: </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Modern forms of teaching/learning such as learning/contributing to Wikipedia are a life-long process that learners can access anytime and anywhere. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Information explosion is an ever-increasing phenomenon, and it is imperative to be able to access such information easily. Modern education should meet the needs of a diversity of learners, and Wikipedia being an open platform may be an important aspect in meeting this need. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Open knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia are a crucial component of the information society so individuals should possess technological literacy and grasp digital tools of teaching/learning so as to access them easily. </p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Later in November 2013, CHRIST & CIS-A2K signed a <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-a2k-mou-christ-university">Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)</a> to officially start a <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University">Wikipedia in Education initiative</a> to introduce the creation/editing of Wikipedia articles as a component of the Continuous Internal Assessment (CIA) for all undergraduate students studying Kannada, Hindi or Sanskrit as a second language at the university. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Around 900 students were involved in this project in the first iteration. To monitor and train the students the position of Class Ambassadors was created, where two students proficient in the language were selected and given special training to help their peers in the class. The participating students themselves decided upon the topics of the articles to be created/edited by them. Since then every year the WIE at CHRIST has been modified according to the requirement of different stakeholders after undertaking a needs assessment.</p>
<div> </div>
<h3>Research Method and Questions </h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">This study is qualitative in nature, with a focus on key stakeholders of the program, and explores the experience of the participants (student, teacher, trainer, and Wikipedian) to understand their learnings from this experience. Interviews were conducted with students, community members, faculty members, and members of the CIS-A2K team to understand their perspectives on different aspects of the project. A total of 14 interviews were conducted, which included 5 faculty members, 6 students, and 3 community members who were involved with the program in the earlier days of Wikipedia in Education at CHRIST. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The research questions of the study are as follows: </p>
<ul><li>What were the motivations and challenges for different stakeholders (students, faculty and community members) in conducting and participating in the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> at CHRIST (Deemed to be University)? </li><li>What was the impact observed by these stakeholders as a result of their engagement with this program, (including personal changes/improvements if any)? </li></ul>
<p>The responses were then analysed to consolidate a set of observations about the program. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Observations</h3>
<p><strong>Benefits of using Wikipedia in teaching</strong></p>
<p>Using Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool trains students on how to share information related to advanced topics in every discipline with the general audience in an effective manner, as this is sometimes not covered in academic training. Teaching this style of writing is helpful and has a high impact on the way information is accessed by most readers regularly. As the readers and consumers of information on the Internet are increasing day by day, it also offers a lot of scope for students to add content on diverse topics. The first step for CHRIST towards incorporating Wikipedia in the curriculum was to understand that it can be used as an educational tool, for the benefit of the students, such as improving digital literacy skills, writing skills and using the local language on the internet.</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>How to inculcate Wikipedia in higher education?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">When the WIE was started at CHRIST, there was a small change in the plans for the course and the continuous internal assessment (CIA). Students contributed to Wikipedia projects by making edits or creating articles, proofreading pages on Wikisource, etc. Here faculty members or community members with the help of the CIS-A2K team introduced the students to Wikipedia and its interface, and also monitored the student's <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University#Reports">activity and progress</a>. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Students created articles related to subjects of their specialisation, and academic topics which are mostly read by the students of the same age group. Since these sets of articles are widely read, it attracts the attention of the Wikipedia communities. They correct mistakes if any and teach the students basic aspects of editing and article creation. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia in Education is facilitated with the help of a faculty member who is familiar with Wikipedia and its community. Having faculty members with no experience in editing Wikipedia is not efficient and as they can't effectively use Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool. Also, it will be difficult to answer the students’ queries and properly guide them. While it may not be possible for faculty members to equip themselves with advanced skills, they are encouraged to learn the basic aspects of Wikipedia before teaching the students. This gives them the confidence to respond to the concerns of the students in doing assignments on Wikimedia platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> Changes made in the WIE at CHRIST based on the students’ feedback and community requirements are as follows[6]:</p>
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<thead>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Year</p>
</td>
<td>
<p> Changes made in the program at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) over the last 7 years</p>
</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2013-14 </p>
</td>
<td>
<div>
<ul><li> Wikipedia in Education was started to increase the awareness about the Wikimedia community among students. </li></ul>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2014-15 </p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li>The use of sandbox was explained and it was introduced to students</li></ul>
<ul><li>A peer review system was started to enhance the quality of the work</li></ul>
<ul><li>New evaluation methods were adapted. </li></ul>
<ul><li>Wikisource was Introduced to the students.</li></ul>
<div> </div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2015-16</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">A certificate course & Wikimedia internship was introduced to attract more students to the Wikimedia world.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Ambassadors were selected to have multiple touchpoint systems. </p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2016-17</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li> Different methods were chosen to increase awareness of the work done by the students, such as social media promotion. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Students were involved in a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">national conference</a> to meet different community members. </p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2017-18</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li> Community members were involved in different steps. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Faculty members started to do the evaluations of the articles.</p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2018-19 </p>
</td>
<td>
<ul><li> New methods were adopted to promote the work done at the University.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Community members started reviewing the articles written by the students.</p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> <span style="text-align: justify;"> </span> </p>
<p> <strong>How is students writing a Wikipedia article for their assignments helpful in achieving larger learning objectives? </strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Wikimedia in Education opened up a number of ways in which students get to choose and work on their favourite topics, areas of interest, and aid teachers in designing new and innovative assignments. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Faculty members have also found different tools to evaluate the assignment, </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/">track the student’s work</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and to spot </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&title=Draft%3AVaval%2C_the_King_of_Carnival&noredirect=1.">plagiarism </a><span style="text-align: justify;">of assignments among students. Writing assignments on a Wikimedia platform helps students to understand the importance of group collaboration and teamwork. Wikipedia helps the faculty members to imbibe group collaboration among students and monitor individual progress with the help of "</span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:User_contributions">User contribution"</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Some of the tools developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, such as the </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/">Program & events dashboard</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> help aculty members to evaluate the work of the students and monitor each edit done by all the students. </span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ca68618f-7fff-bb2c-3fb3-d799168d67ed"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> <strong>How is Wikipedia in Education helpful for community members? </strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">A group of 20-25 students from over 1000 students from each batch contributing to various topics on Wikipedia helps the community to generate </span><span style="text-align: justify;">more content</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> and enhance the usefulness of the Wikipedia projects that have been engaged with as part of the program. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The content created as part of the WIE is reviewed by language experts and subject experts which helps the community to create more quality articles in less time. Since the articles created by students are in the sandbox, after reviewing these articles they are moved to the main <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_an_article%3F#Namespace">namespace</a> by the community members with minor changes. In Wikimedia in Education, more students gain skills and knowledge related to Wikipedia which can result in a good number of student volunteers in the community and potential long-term contributors. Some of the students make it a hobby to write articles on Wikipedia even after completing the course; this increases the potential of having more long-term contributors and helps to strengthen the existing community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Last but not least, it has benefits beyond the Wikipedia community and classroom. Wikipedia content is under a free license for the entire world. As such, the students' work translates into aiding all those who use Wikipedia — which, as recent studies indicate, means most Internet users.[7]</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>What do students think about Wikipedia assignments?</strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Some students communicated that they are very confused about Wikipedia, and some feel it is easy to contribute and engage with it. Some students shared that they initially faced difficulty but when a faculty member helped them clear their doubts, it enabled them to improve their perception of learning this tool. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">The majority of the students who responded to interviews prefer a </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University#CIA%E2%80%99s">Wikipedia assignment</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> over a traditional one when they are provided with frequent training on how to contribute to Wikipedia. The students who disliked the assignment usually noted that it was more difficult than just writing a regular paper in an offline word processing software. Those who liked the Wikipedia assignment commented that their project resulted in an above-average group paper that would be seen and appreciated by others. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Some of the students at the university appreciated Wikipedia in Education as their work is read by the wider public, and the fact that they are creating useful digital content on the internet, rather than just writing assignments on paper to be read by faculty members. </span></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>Limitations of the program</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Despite its many positive aspects, the project comes with certain limitations as well. Students may or may not be well versed with the language, especially with respect to the community standards on quality and expectations of active community members, and they may not be able to create the article as per the same. In this situation, sometimes the community may get annoyed by looking at such articles. Trainers/faculty members should pay more attention to these kinds of students or class ambassadors to guide these students in the whole process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">During the orientations, some of the students may not pay attention properly and won't follow the instructions, which leads to incorrectly prepared articles and edits. Also, students may vandalise the Wikipedia pages while contributing and burden the communities. In such cases, the trainer/faculty members should monitor them thoroughly with the program & events dashboard and correct them if any students vandalise a Wikipedia page. </p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e399ec4c-7fff-a5f4-3175-ea2384052e02"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>Conclusions and Recommendations</h3>
<p>This study helped us understand the challenges and advantages observed by the students with both the opportunity and access to Wikipedia platforms to communicate on advanced topics in science/higher education to the general public. One observation from the students who took part in the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> was that they had improved their own capacity to assess the quality of the material they used in order to write the articles, because of the visible nature of Wikipedia. </p>
<p>While implementing Wikipedia in Education at Christ we became aware of several aspects that should be kept in mind before introducing students to the Wikipedia movement. These are a few observations from the interviews: : </p>
<ul><li>The faculty members who are part of the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> should be Wikipedians, or at least they should know the basic aspects of editing Wikipedia, as this will help them to create more awareness and interest among the student community. If the faculty members are not well versed with Wikipedia and its editing skills it will be difficult for them to use Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool in an effective manner. Some efforts to train the faculty members of CHRIST were made at regular intervals during the program.</li><li>The number of students involved in the education program should be proportionate to the number of in-charge faculty members. This helps them give more attention to the students and they will be able to learn more about Wikipedia. </li><li>In order to help the students learn and contribute effectively, , they need to be trained at regular intervals and provided with the user manuals/videos, etc. This will enrich the student's knowledge about Wikipedia and editing skills. Also, monitoring the students will be helpful to know the progress of the student's activity. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia has articulated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style">style guidelines</a>, and students should be given information in detail on these at the beginning of the project, as this helps them to avoid many mistakes.</p>
</li><li>Students need to create their own illustrations/diagrams and upload them to Wikimedia Commons on a free license, and then use them on Wikipedia articles. This will help them to understand the workflow of creating an illustration and also give more value to the article. </li><li>Strategies to follow up with the students who have graduated need to be prepared before starting the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span>. This will help us to retain the interest of students who have graduated, and potentially convert them to Wikimedians who will continue to contribute in the long-term. </li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>This short report is an attempt to consolidate and analyse our experiences and learnings from working on the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> at CHRIST( Deemed to be University) over the last few years. We have also tried to capture some of the many challenges and opportunities with initiating and building strategies for teaching-learning with Indian languages and open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia in the classroom. As we move towards increasingly online modes of pedagogy and training, we hope that these observations will be helpful in the process of building and sustaining such initiatives in education programs across various Indian language Wikipedia communities. </p>
<div> </div>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>[1] Keelery, Sandhya. “<a class="external-link" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/255146/number-of-internet-users-in-india/#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20India%20had%20over,for%20the%20south%20Asian%20country">Total Internet Users in India.</a>” Statista, October 16, 2020. </p>
<p>[2] The objectives are as per the discussion among the stakeholders in the early days of Wikimedia in Education at CHRIST.</p>
<p>[3] “<a class="external-link" href="https://onbeing.org/programs/jimmy-wales-the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge-2/">Jimmy Wales - The Sum of All Human Knowledge.</a>” The On Being Project. Krista Tippett, September 8, 2016. </p>
<p>[4] “<a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About">Wikipedia:About.</a>” In Wikipedia. Accessed February 3, 2021.</p>
<p>[5] These objectives are paraphrased from the MoU signed with CHRIST ( Deemed to be) University in 2013. </p>
<p>[6] Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. “<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Progress_report_form#Wikimedia_Education_Program">The Centre for Internet and Society/Progress Report</a>” Accessed February 3, 2021. </p>
<p>[7] Weiqin Chen and Rolf Reber, 2011. “<a class="external-link" href="http://122.155.1.128/icce2011/program/proceedings/pdf/C6_S14_141S.pdf">Writing Wikipedia articles as course assignment</a>” Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computers in Education, accessed February 3, 2021.</p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Notes </h3>
<div>[1] See Annexures<a href="https://cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20III" class="external-link"> I</a>,<a href="https://cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20II" class="external-link"> II </a>and<a href="https://cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20III" class="external-link"> III</a> for the interview questionnaires for students, faculty members and community members. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>[2] Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_in_the_Classroom:_A_Study_of_the_Wikimedia_in_Education_Program_at_CHRIST_(Deemed_to_be_University)"> here. </a></div>
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<h3>
<p> </p>
</h3>
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<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanth SubrayA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:33:31ZBlog EntryWikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa
<b>A three hour Wikipedia workshop was organized by the Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi, in the morning of December 14, 2012 at St. Xavier's College in Mapusa, Goa. Over 30 participants attended the session.</b>
<p>The workshop started with a short introductory presentation followed by a learning session on how to edit the Wikipedia. Since there were lesser number of computers, participants were divided in groups of 2 or 3 at the maximum. Each group made at least 3 edits with the help of volunteers present in the room.</p>
<p>A follow up session will be organised in January or February of 2013 to organise an edit-a-thon for all the interested and enthusiastic participants.</p>
<p>A special thanks to everyone who helped organising this event, especially to Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick, Debanjan - all from the Wikipedia family and Nitin Volvoikar, the Head of Journalism Department from <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Xavier%27s_College,_Mapusa,_Goa">St. Xavier's</a>.</p>
<hr />
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/GroupSt.Xavier.png" alt="St.Xavier GLAM" class="image-inline" title="St.Xavier GLAM" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Above is a picture of the whole group of participants at the St.Xavier's College at Mapusa, Goa</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa</a>
</p>
No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-07-26T11:33:29ZBlog EntryWikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones
https://cis-india.org/news/sci-dev-net-megha-prakash-wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones
<b>Wikipedia in India's regional languages and accessible over mobile phones is revolutionising the way Internet content is used in this multi-lingual country, say information technology (IT) experts.</b>
<hr />
<p>This post by Megha Prakash was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.scidev.net/south-asia/digital-divide/news/wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones.html">published in Sci Dev Net </a>on October 15, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Developing Wikipedia and other content in regional languages is a way forward to bridge the knowledge gap," says T. Vishnu Vardhan, programme director of the Access to Knowledge project at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore. <br /> <br /> In September, CIS signed an agreement with Goa University to train students and foster collaborative content development with Wikipedia libraries and archives in view. A similar agreement was signed in August with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, while a third is due to be signed this month with Christ University, Bangalore.<br /> <br /> India's 28 states and seven union territories are organised on a linguistic basis and three of its vernaculars — Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi — rate among the world's ten most widely spoken languages, each with its own script. <br /> <br /> With 70 mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people and the market flooded with affordable feature phones, the majority of India's 1.2 billion people potentially have <a href="http://www.scidev.net/global/enterprise/digital-divide/">access to IT</a>. Current usage, however, is limited to downloading entertainment content and to such applications as mobile banking. <br /> <br /> Vardhan tells <i>SciDev.Net</i> that attention is now being paid to developing knowledge repositories in India's regional languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">M. Sampath Kumar, who heads the Telugu department at the University of Madras in Chennai, says the Telugu Wikipedia is regularly used by students and researchers and is a resource for speakers of the language living abroad but eager to maintain community links.<br /> <br /> Kumar tells <i>SciDev.Net</i> that literary content is popular and that there is a future for regional Wikipedia in <a href="http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/education/">educating</a> the younger generation and serving as a free repository for traditional knowledge in the vernacular. <br /> <br /> Subbiah Arunachalam, a Chennai-based IT consultant, says the effort will benefit non-English speaking rural youth at school and college levels and help bring them on par with their urban counterparts in terms of knowledge.<br /> <br /> A programme funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and due to end in June 2014 covers the Telugu, Kannada, Oriya, Bengali and Konkani languages. A Hindi version already has 100,000 articles and recorded eight million views.<br /> <br /> 'Lilavati's Daughters', a book on Indian women scientists published by the Bangalore-based Indian Academy of Sciences, is currently being translated into the regional languages with a view to engaging women content developers and editors.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/sci-dev-net-megha-prakash-wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones'>https://cis-india.org/news/sci-dev-net-megha-prakash-wikipedia-in-indian-languages-on-mobile-phones</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-10-25T06:00:28ZNews ItemWikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad
https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad
<b>CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus are organizing a hackathon for their tech fest — ATMOS on October 26 - 27, 2012, from 6.00 p.m. on October 26 to 6.00 a.m. on October 27.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An all night hackathon to get started in contributing technically to the world’s largest source of free information – Wikipedia. The code that you write (and eventually deploy) will be viewed/used 7,938,026,125 times a month! Write user scripts that fix annoying little things with the way Wikipedia functions. Write bots to import (and accurately maintain) large amounts of information from various sources into Wikipedia. Write tools to make it easier to maintain Wikipedia’s standards and fight spam. Most of all join the awesome Open Source community and have fun!</p>
<h3>Pre-requisites:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Preferable working knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript *or* python.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Laptops, which you will have to carry with you.</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="text-align: start; float: none; ">To register for the event, click </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpCalViX1FCc0FwT1g2ZFNqN3FrNUE6MQ" style="text-align: start; " target="_blank">here</a><span style="text-align: start; float: none; ">.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad'>https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent Type2012-10-25T08:42:56ZEventWikipedia Gains Massive Traffic Thanks To Vernacular Languages
https://cis-india.org/news/beforeitnews-august-1-2013-wikipedia-gains-massive-traffic-thanks-to-vernacular-languages
<b>The blog post was published in Before It's News on August 1, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://beforeitsnews.com/science-and-technology/2013/08/wikipedia-gains-massive-traffic-thanks-to-vernacular-languages-2623714.html">Click to read the original published in Before It's News</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Non-profit <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://wikimediafoundation.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation</a>, the parent company of knowledge-based article collating platform <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.wikipedia.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> seems to be <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Wikipedia-boom-in-Marathi-Malayalam-and-other-desi-languages/articleshow/21518534.cms" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">receiving</a> enhanced traction on the portal from India. The reason for this upswing in activity is apparently its decision to <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2010/09/25/wikimedia-to-open-office-in-india/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">expand</a> the scope of the portal via multiple Indian Languages, revealed a recent study by the Bangalore-based Center for Internet and Society (<a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://cis-india.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">CIS</a>).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A while back Wikipedia, sensing the need of non-English speaking /understanding audience had opened its doors for about 18 Indian Languages. The main attractions seemed to be articles penned down in Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam & Kannada, which managed to attract a lot of writers who have come forth & added “thousands” of new articles in these & other native languages, all within a span of 8 months ranging from September 2012 to April 2013.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Interestingly, the study reveals that though a lot of pages did get created, many of these articles did not enjoy equally massive visitor count. However, when Wikipedia subsequently <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2012/03/01/now-browse-wikipedia-in-marathi-more-indian-languages-coming-soon/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">extended</a> the support to Marathi & Bengali, the reader-count picked up. Started just a few months back, about 40,000 articles written in Marathi have been getting 30 Lakh visitors & these pages have collectively managed to add another 10 Lakh monthly visitors, while Bengali articles has been steadily getting about 14 Lakh Page Views per month.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia seems to have undoubtedly fueled the consumption of online content. It has proven that people actually craved for knowledge in the native language, but didn’t have a proper platform. However, there were a few technological hurdles as well. Web Browsers, in their formative stages, simply didn’t have the capability of pulling, processing & displaying languages or alphabets other than English. Additionally, having been used to type in English-only keyboards, penning information-laden articles in native languages did have a long & steep learning curve.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thankfully, such petty, but pestering issues seem to have been <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2013/07/26/wikipedia-announces-an-editing-tool-for-mobile-devices/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ironed out</a> & creation, publication & consumption of content in local languages has evidently picked-up steam. Now the writers, who are fondly called ‘Wiki foot soldiers’ have been forwarding the crusade of offering free knowledge to anyone <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2013/07/26/aircel-offers-free-wikipedia-access-on-mobile-phones-thanks-to-wikimedia-partnership/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">interested</a> & numbers at both the end is growing healthily.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Judging by the <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2013/03/28/gmail-introduces-indic-language-support-for-feature-phone-users/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">appetite</a> for online content in their <a href="http://beforeitsnews.com/r2/?url=http://www.watblog.com/2013/05/09/google-can-now-translate-into-five-new-languages-including-marathi/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">local avatar</a>, T Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director, Access to Knowledge Project, CIS has aptly summarized the current state of altered necessities. He says “<i>In the last two years, the demand for knowledge in Indian languages has grown as we have moved to the motto of ‘roti, kapda and internet</i>” What do you think?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/beforeitnews-august-1-2013-wikipedia-gains-massive-traffic-thanks-to-vernacular-languages'>https://cis-india.org/news/beforeitnews-august-1-2013-wikipedia-gains-massive-traffic-thanks-to-vernacular-languages</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-19T04:18:24ZNews ItemWikipedia Event in Mangalore
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/vijaya-karnataka-december-18-2016-wikipedia-event-in-mangalore
<b>The article was published by Vijaya Karnataka on December 18, 2016.</b>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_VijayaKarnataka.png/@@images/cdd03817-c94d-4aa9-90aa-8de08db72573.png" alt="Vijaya Karnataka" class="image-inline" title="Vijaya Karnataka" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/vijaya-karnataka-december-18-2016-wikipedia-event-in-mangalore'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/vijaya-karnataka-december-18-2016-wikipedia-event-in-mangalore</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KKannada WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-12-20T16:43:30ZNews ItemWikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-as-assessment-tool-in-indian-higher-education-classroom
<b>Getting students to create and edit Wikipedia entries in English and Indian languages can be a comprehensive assessment tool at the Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. Both levels of higher education require the demonstration of the ability to present knowledge in encyclopaedic form, which can be done by a good review of relevant literature and the showcasing of key arguments in the field.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Using the <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/dublin-descriptors.pdf" class="internal-link">Dublin competency level descriptors</a>,<a href="#fn*" name="fr*">[*]</a> we can put down what sorts of <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education">higher education</a> skills Wikipedia editing can help evaluate. The most commonly accepted descriptors internationally are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Demonstration of Knowledge and understanding </li>
<li>Applying knowledge and understanding </li>
<li>Making judgements </li>
<li>Communication abilities</li>
<li>Learning skills relevant to higher education</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikipedia</a> allows for assessing the ‘depth’ of an article which is the measure of the quality of an entry. The depth is a function of several parameters like the number of edits an article has seen, the length of discussion in the talk pages, the number of footnotes, references, hyperlinks and editors active on that page. In addition to this, providing Wiki-interlinks to key concepts within an article and categorization of articles exposes the students to a "semantic web" of interconnections between various fields of knowledge. Although, it may not be a complete substitute for the more formal modes of assessment, it provides a more rounded form of evaluation for student assessment. The ‘depth’ indicator also shows the relative significance of an article for the larger community of users, thereby providing a better model for student assessment in the long run.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Bachelor's Level</h3>
<p>By getting students to edit on Wikipedia at the Bachelor’s Level, you can test the following, and appropriate weightage can be given to each aspect of the work:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Comprehension of the theory, concepts and processes pertaining to a field or fields of learning </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Demonstration of knowledge, supported by the use of advanced textbooks and other reading materials, of one or more specialised areas </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to apply this knowledge and comprehension in a manner that indicates a thorough and informed approach to the work, and have competences typically demonstrated through devising and sustaining arguments</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to gather and interpret relevant data to inform independent judgements which include reflection on relevant social, scientific or ethical issues </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialist and non-specialist audiences [in the case of Wikipedia, the audience would usually be a non-specialist one]</li>
</ul>
<h3>Master's Level</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">By getting students to edit on Wikipedia at the Master’s Level, you can test the following, and appropriate weightage can be given to each aspect of the work:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Demonstration of knowledge and comprehension that is founded upon, extends and enhances that associated with the Bachelor’s level and is at the forefront of a field of learning </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Critical awareness of current problems and new insights, new tools and new processes within their field of learning (ability to do a good literature review, which can be seen through the citations provided for a Wikipedia entry)</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to apply their knowledge, comprehension, and critical awareness in broader or multidisciplinary areas related to their fields of study </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to integrate knowledge and handle complexity, to formulate judgements with incomplete or limited information, with an awareness of the social and ethical responsibilities linked to the application of their knowledge and judgements </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to communicate their conclusions, and knowledge, rationale and processes underpinning these, to specialist and non-specialist audiences clearly and unambiguously</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to reflect on one’s own writing by engaging with feedback received from a collaborative network.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Ability to form peer knowledge networks through collaboration and interaction with other contributors</li>
</ul>
<h3>Risks and Mitigation</h3>
<p>It is helpful to be aware of the typical risks a faculty may face in using Wikipedia entries as an assessment tool.</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">New article creation: Wikipedias, especially the <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia">English Wikipedia</a>, are closely monitored by thousands of volunteers from across the world. Often, articles created by new users come under a lot of scrutiny. It is advisable to first encourage the students to edit and improve the existing articles before creating a new article all by themselves. Also taking the help of an experienced Wikipedian will go a long way in mentoring the students on the nuances of the Wikipedia platform and the volunteer community that strives in good faith to preserve the quality of entries. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Copyright violation: <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-C">Ctrl+c</a> and <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut,_copy,_and_paste">Ctrl+v</a> (i.e., <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism">plagiarism</a>) is a major challenge for the higher education sector across the world. Often the students find that copy-pasting the content from various sources is an easy way of doing an assignment. On Wikipedia, plagiarism is taken very seriously and a student editor can get banned from further contribution to Wikipedia, which may de-motivate the entire class. It’s useful for the faculty to give a detailed orientation on this aspect before encouraging the students to take up writing a Wikipedia entry as an assignment. There are numerous resources (text and videos) made available by Wikimedians across the world explaining the problem of plagiarism. These could be used by the faculty. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">If you are encouraging students to write an entry in an Indian language Wikipedia, special attention and support needs to be planned to train the students in typing in that particular Indian language script. Wikipedias have a useful tool called <a class="external-link" href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Universal_Language_Selector">Universal Language Selector</a> (ULS) which makes it very easy for the student to start typing in any script using the transliteration method. There is increasing support for Indian language scripts, however. You could check whether your University computer lab has Unicode compliant computers/systems. This will help the students to work offline on their assignment, if required.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">One of the biggest challenges for a teacher is to get the student to see the value of taking up a Wikipedia entry as an assignment. Some of the students may see this as an additional task or extra-curricular activity and may not put in a committed effort, which could affect the goals you have set for your course. Faculties are encouraged to find various means of integrating/dovetailing the Wikipedia assignment into the curriculum or course. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Faculty may also feel this as an additional burden on them, especially in terms of evaluation of the assignment. There are various tools available to measure most of the assessment parameters set out above, which will not take much time. It is in fact possible to save faculty time if the evaluation is planned meticulously. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">A pragmatic challenge for the faculty would be to deal with a scenario where the entire class submits the assignments on Wikipedia on the last day. This will not only increase burden on the faculty but can also result in a lot of plagiarism. An effective way to address this challenge is to make the Wikipedia entry assignment part of a formative assessment, whereby the student develops the entry over a period of time (e.g. one month or during the course). There are various tools through which you can track the students’ contribution continuously and share feedback with them periodically.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[<a href="#fr*" name="fn*">*</a>].Available at <a class="external-link" href="http://www.tcd.ie/teaching-learning/academic-development/assets/pdf/dublin_descriptors.pdf">http://www.tcd.ie/teaching-learning/academic-development/assets/pdf/dublin_descriptors.pdf</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-as-assessment-tool-in-indian-higher-education-classroom'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-as-assessment-tool-in-indian-higher-education-classroom</a>
</p>
No publisherDr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu VardhanSocial MediaHigher EducationAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpenness2014-01-30T10:06:40ZBlog EntryWikipedia Editathon on India Women's History at CBIT, Hyderabad
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-editathon-on-india-women-history-at-cbit
<b>“Wikipedia Editathon on India Women's History” and “Work-Life Balance: Women in Engineering” were organized parallelly at Chaitanya Bharati Institute of Technology (CBIT), Hyderabad on March 8, 2014. These events had a common session during the morning and a separate sessions in the afternoon.
</b>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The speakers for the morning session included Dr V Malakonda Reddy, Chairman,CBIT, Y Hemalatha, Chief Guest, CBIT staff Members V Hari Leela, Dr D Sandhya Sri and Dr B Chennakesava Reddy. Dr V Malakonda Reddy emphasised that the high position given to women is by no means a gift of the western society. He recalled the historic role played by women in India. Other speakers also stressed on importance of the day and the need for women as leaders and proactive members of the society.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">During the morning session, Vishnu Vardhan, Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for the Internet and Society, recalled that first computer programmer was a woman named Ada Lovelace, which clearly necessitates a need for women to play an even more significant role in the Information technology era. He also spoke about the<a href="http://adainitiative.org/about-us/"> Ada Initiative</a> (<a href="http://adainitiative.org/">http://adainitiative.org/</a>) which supports women in open technology and culture. He concluded by showing the English and Telugu project pages of the ediathons running concurrently and especially encouraged the girl students to participate in the editathon.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">During the second session of the “Wikipedia Editathon on India Women's History”, Vishnu Vardhan explained the concept of “Wiki” and Wikipedia editing basics. On this occasion, a student volunteer Gayathri demonstrated the editing basics of Wikipedia on the stage.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">She was later felicitated. All volunteers wore Wikipedia t-shirts which were provided prior to the event.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The practical session in the afternoon was handled by Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for the Internet and Society. Later, in the evening there was a separate session with student volunteers. During the course of the session, the volunteers led by Ranjit and Ashraf showed CBIT Wiki (<a href="http://www.3mb.in/ES">http://www.3mb.in/ES</a>).They said that contributing to Wikipedia will definitely help them to build their college Wiki. It was pointed out that most of the CBIT students have registered on Wikipedia and many contributions are in the offing. The volunteers also informed that they have also signed up for Wikimedia India mailing list as they want to see more collaboration among the Wikimedia India community in future and be part of it. Prof Swamidas of the Information Technology Department supervised all the day long activities of the event.</p>
<hr />
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.andhraprabha.com/districts/hyderabad/telugu-wikipedia-womens-day-in-hyd/13521.html">Andhra Prabha</a> (March 8, 2014)</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.andhrabhoomi.net/content/bjp-71">Andhra Bhoomi</a> (March 8, 2014)</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-editathon-on-india-women-history-at-cbit'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-editathon-on-india-women-history-at-cbit</a>
</p>
No publishersyedOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-04-07T01:32:57ZBlog EntryWikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs
https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-7-2014-renuka-phadnis-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-to-add-content-on-lgbts
<b>From Monday, Wikipedia will hold a series of “edit-a-thons” to encourage people to add content to the site about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.</b>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Renuka Phadnis was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/wikipedia-editathons-to-add-content-on-lgbts/article6183874.ece">published in the Hindu</a> on July 7, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">It is inspired by “Wiki Loves Pride”, a global campaign to expand and improve LGBT-related content across Wikimedia projects. The campaign focuses on the June to October period, when LGBTs around the world celebrate their community.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">An “edit-a-thon” is a workshop where people are trained in how to edit the Wikipedia and add content to it, usually focussing on a particular topic.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">The aim is to make Wikipedia inclusive and reflect diversity by creating content on the LGBT discourse: history, culture, rights, equal opportunities and Article 377. The focus is also on generating content in regional Indian languages which do not have equivalents for terms such as “gay”, “lesbian” or “bisexual”. The website <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/ Events/Wiki_Loves _Pride_2014">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/ Events/Wiki_Loves _Pride_2014</a> has listed 11 languages.</p>
<p class="body" style="text-align: justify; ">The edit-a-thon will culminate in two offline events in Bangalore and Delhi on July 19, creating a forum for the community. While anyone can participate in the edit-a-thon, Vishnu, programme director for Access to Knowledge at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, which works on improving Indian language Wikipedias and India-related content on Wikipedia, said, “We hope the [LGBT] community takes the lead.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-7-2014-renuka-phadnis-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-to-add-content-on-lgbts'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-7-2014-renuka-phadnis-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-to-add-content-on-lgbts</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-28T06:41:42ZNews ItemWikipedia Edit-a-thon workshop & Talks on Gender Gap in Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-workshop-talks-on-gender-gap-in-wikipedia
<b>Open Minds (a student group advocating free and open movement) in association with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team is holding a workshop at Chaitanya Bharathi Institute of Science and Technology, Gandipet, Serilingampalle, Andhra Pradesh on March 8, 10.00 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Certificaton: All the participants will be awarded by "participation certificate from Wikipedia"<br />Come meet your fellow editors and help improve Wikipedia articles related to women. Don't know how to edit Wikipedia? That's ok, friendly, experienced editors will be here to help! Everyone is welcome to come edit Wikipedia with us at this event. New editors, those who want to learn how to edit or can teach others how.<br />Speakers :<br />T. Vishnu Vardhan,Programme Director, Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society,Wikipedia.<br />--Muzammi,Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society, Wikipedia.<br />Shedule :<br />Timing Activity<br />10:00 to 10:30 am Registration<br />10:30 to 11:00 am The Politics of Gendered Knowledge . Production in the Age of Internet<br />11:00 t0 11:30 am Wikipedia demonstration + Basics of Wikipedia . Editing (hands on activity)<br />11.30 to 01:30 pm International Women's Day Edit-a-thon<br />01:30 to 02:15 pm Lunch Break<br />02:15 to 05:00 pm International Women's Day Edit-a-thon . . continues<br />What to Bring :<br />Anything! Bring your laptops, smart phones, tablets etc. but above all, your energy and your brains!<br />We’re trying to make this event very hands on, so feel free to bring all your wacky geektronics so that you can participate in all the fun.<br />==Don’t worry if you don’t bring anything since there will still be tons of stuff to do.==</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-workshop-talks-on-gender-gap-in-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-workshop-talks-on-gender-gap-in-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaWikimediaWikipediaEventAccess to Knowledge2014-04-04T07:33:32ZEventWikipedia edit-a-thon in mind? Kindly start here
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-in-mind-kindly-start-here
<b>Are you thinking to conduct a Wikipedia edit-a-thon? You may use this document as an initial guide. Please note: this article is written keeping specially organisations, institutions, and individuals in mind, who are new to Wikipedia world.
We are starting this post with some basic questions. Please feel free to ask questions by mailing tito "at" cis-india.org</b>
<p>Are you thinking to conduct a Wikipedia edit-a-thon? That's great. In this article I'll explain a few thinks, which might help to plan your ediit-a-thon your better?</p>
<p>First thing first, a few questions:</p>
<ol><li>Do you want to contribute to Wikipedia or other projects? Other than Wikipedia, there are a few other interesting projects such as Wikisource, Wikidata, Wiktionary, Wikimedia Commons. <br /></li><li>Do you want to contribute to other language Wikipedias/projects such as Tamil Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia, Telugu Wikisource, Bengali Wikisource etc., other than the same old English Wikipedia? <br /></li></ol>
<p>If you are planning to do an English Wikipedia edit-a-thon, it is comparatively more difficult, and needs much more preparation. I'll explain some of these things below.</p>
<p>Now let's talk about edit-a-thon structure:</p>
<ul><li>Do you want to do it an offline edit-a-thon? Or is it going to be an online edit-a-thon?</li><li>What is the duration?</li><li>How many people are going to participate? Are they already Wikipedians or new to Wikipedia?</li></ul>
<h2>Help pages: Getting started with Wikipedia<br /></h2>
<p>Let's start by gathering a few help pages' link which will help to get started with Wikipedia:</p>
<ul><li>Introduction to Wikipedia: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Introduction</a> <br /></li><li>CheatSheet: learn how to write using Wikicode <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Cheatsheet">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Cheatsheet</a><br /></li></ul>
<p> </p>
<h2>Policies and guidelines<br /></h2>
<p>It is really important to know about a few policies before you start editing Wikipedia. Please explain these policies and guidelines to edit-a-thon participants as well.</p>
<ol><li><strong>Notability</strong>: we have "notability" policy. What are the topics we can write about? Please read here: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability </a> Now, these are "General Notability Guidelines or in short we call it GNG (please read the "General notability guideline" in the page). Now, we have detailed explanation pages on different notability topics: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Notability_guide">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Notability_guide</a>, please read the pages you need such as <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(people)</a>. Now in every guideline page you'll get something called "basic criteria", and/or "additional criteria". These are the guidelines you need to pass. A good argument goes like this: "The article meets Wikipedia notability because it meets "this", "this", "this", and "this" (or #1, #3, #4, and #5) of the mentioned notability guideline. <br /></li><li><strong>Verifiability</strong>: The next important policy is Verifiability. Please read <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability</a>. Please also read, what are reliable references or how to identify reliable sources: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediaa:Identifying_reliable_sources">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipediaa:Identifying_reliable_sources</a>. There is a fine list of references such as forum posts, personal blogs, eCommerce websites, press releases, user-generated content etc. etc. we should not use as references on Wikipedia.</li><li><strong>Neutral point of view:</strong> Neutral point of view is absolutely important. Please read: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view</a></li></ol>
<h2>Frequently asked questions</h2>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> I do not have references, can I create pages or add information?</p>
<p><strong>Answer:</strong> No, references are important. Specially, on English Wikipedia, where content are reviewed more, reliable secondary references are absolutely needed.</p>
<p><strong>Question:</strong> But, I am writing the "truth".</p>
<p><strong>Answer:</strong> Wikipedia works with :verifiability, and not truth. Please read: <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability,_not_truth">Verifiability, not truth</a></p>
<p><strong>Question: </strong>I can not provide the things you are asking, but I am working for a cause. Can't you help?</p>
<p><strong>Answer: </strong>That's a good question. A2K cares about bridging gender gap, knowledge revolution, and diversity. However, please note, it is a standard practice Wikipedia is not a soapbox or means of promotion, and Wikipedia is also not a place to do advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind. If you really want to advocated about your cause, why not try your own website, blog, or some forums?</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-in-mind-kindly-start-here'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-in-mind-kindly-start-here</a>
</p>
No publishertitoWikimediaEdit-a-thonWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-05-11T08:15:56ZBlog EntryWikipedia edit-a-thon at TEDSummit 2016, Banff, Canada
https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-tedsummit-2016-banff-canada
<b>The TEDSummit 2016, an annual conference of the TED community, is taking place during June 26-30, 2016 at Banff, Canada. Wikimedians Netha Hussain, Ayyappadas along with Abhinav Garule, Programme Associate, CIS-A2K will be conducting a 90-minute long workshop to educate the participants through Wikipedia's guidelines and help them write their first articles.</b>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-d0e3a2f8-487a-1e52-e7fb-8311e3eddffd">A list of articles have been suggested in the event page that participants can create. They can also play with a mock article. Please note, this is an invite-only event and only the conference participants that have registered beforehand can attend this edit-a-thon.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-tedsummit-2016-banff-canada'>https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-tedsummit-2016-banff-canada</a>
</p>
No publishergaruleWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-06-13T06:44:49ZEventWikipedia Digital Centre now at Andhra Loyola College
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hans-india-january-14-2016-wikipedia-digital-centre-now-at-andhra-loyola-college
<b>Access to Knowledge programme (CIS-A2K) of the Centre for Internet and Society has opened up a Wikipedia Digital Centre at Andhra Loyola College in the city on Wednesday. The centre, which has trained a couple of students in contributing to Wikipedia earlier, has now set up a lab called ‘Wikipedia Digital Centre’ to continue the activity. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Under the programme, organisers of Access to Knowledge train the students from each department such as botany, statistics, physics and Telugu to become Wikimedians so that they offer content in Telugu and other regional languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A two-day-long programme trained nearly 40 students from the college to enable them update the information. The students, as a part of training would work on their respective subjects in languages and will update their works on articles in Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The lab is equipped with 10 computers and will be managed by Andhra Loyola College and CIS together, said one of the organisers Rahmanuddin Shaik. College management and respective faculty were present during the programme.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Read the article published by Hans India on January 14, 2016 <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Andhra-Pradesh/2016-01-14/Wikipedia-Digital-Centre-now-at-Andhra-Loyola-College/200163">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hans-india-january-14-2016-wikipedia-digital-centre-now-at-andhra-loyola-college'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-hans-india-january-14-2016-wikipedia-digital-centre-now-at-andhra-loyola-college</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-02-05T20:49:22ZNews ItemWikipedia comes to Hyderabad!
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report
<b>This post is a report on the series of Wikipedia meets organized in the city of Hyderabad on September 29-30, 2012. These workshops were a a part of the larger effort to help Wikipedia contributors in the same city to meet each other and strengthen the local community. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The city of Hyderabad is not only an IT hub but also home to many English and Indian language Wikipedians. In a recent series of weekend workshops and meet-ups conducted within the city, I had the opportunity to interact with many of them. We conducted a Wikipedia workshop at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, an Odia Wikipedia workshop as well as a general Wikipedia workshop for people interested in contributing to all language Wikipedias. I would like to convey my gratitude to the Computer Science department students at BITS, Hyderabad, Odia Wikipedians Swetapadma and Amaresh and English Wikipedians Tausif and Abhijith for making these events happen despite festivities and protests in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To provide a brief report on the events, the BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad workshop was organized as a general introduction to Wikipedia. The event was organized with the support of the Computer Science department at the college and saw a presence of more than 60 students. It was 2 hour session where 6 students created their Wikipedia user accounts and entered their names on the BITS project page. They were also shown how Wikis work – live and global.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Students were encouraged to make changes to their college article and they discovered how to view recent changes, page views and other functions. It was a particularly informative session because majority of the group did not know that Wikipedia articles are written by common people from all walks of life! The session ended with a proposal to start a Wiki club for their college. The Odia Wikipedia meetup organized on the same day registered 11 participants while the general meetup on the next day had over 20 participants. In all three workshops, the majority of participants were not aware how one could contribute to Wikipedia articles.</p>
<h3>Next steps:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was great to see existing Wikipedians discuss the idea of having a Hyderabad SIG (special interest group) to conduct regular meetings, workshops, photo walks and more! Since the participants have shared their email-IDs, we will stay in touch and inform them about upcoming Telugu and English editing workshops. Students at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad have also requested a Wikipedia workshop and hackathon for their upcoming techfest this month. A Telugu Wikipedia workshop has been proposed for the second week of October.</p>
<hr />
<p>For more information on how to conduct a Wikipedia workshop in your city, you could contact <a href="mailto:noopur@cis-india.org">noopur@cis-india.org</a></p>
<hr />
<p>There was newspaper coverage about this event:</p>
<ul>
<li>Wiki Meetup, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/drumming-session/article3943855.ece">Hindu</a>, September 28, 2012</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-02-13T11:40:06ZBlog Entry