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Content Creation on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia
<b>This is a short study on the nature of content creation related to Punjab on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia, its challenges and opportunities, and observations and potential strategies to address the same. The report has been authored by Satpal Singh, 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><strong><br /></strong></h3>
<h3><strong>Introduction </strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of this study is to understand the challenges for content creation related to Punjab that exists on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. There are articles about Punjabi language and culture on Punjabi Wikipedia but there is a need for better understanding of the nature of this content from the perspective of the readers’ interests, coverage of topics, and quality. A large community of interested Punjabi Wikimedians have been actively working over several years to introduce Wikimedia and related projects to people across the world, including those from their own community. An important part of achieving this goal is to contribute to and build more diverse and bettergood quality content about Punjab on Wikipedia. This short study is therefore an attempt to analyse the nature of existing content, challenges in content creation/curation and outreach, and some observations and strategies to address the same.</p>
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<h3><strong>Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia. It is available in around 290+ languages. There are two Punjabi Wikipedia editions, which are <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%96_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%AB%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE">Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia</a> and <a href="https://pnb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%BE%DB%81%D9%84%D8%A7_%D8%B5%D9%81%DB%81">Western Punjabi Wikipedia</a>. Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia is in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurmukhi">Gurmukhi script</a> and Western Punjabi Wikipedia is in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahmukhi_alphabet">Shahmukhi script</a>. This study focuses on the Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. The Eastern edition domain came into existence on 3 June 2002, but the first three articles were only written in August 2004. There was not much contribution made during the next six years. In July 2012, it had reached 2,400 articles. Then a group of people, largely students from Punjabi University, Patiala started contributing actively on Punjabi Wikipedia, as a result of which it became an active Wikipedia in 2013, and has stayed so until date. There are currently <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8:%E0%A8%85%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%87">35, 351 articles</a> on the Gurmukhi Punjabi Wikipedia, with a number of registered users on Punjabi Wikipedia at <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8:%E0%A8%85%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%87">36,348.</a> [1]</p>
<p dir="ltr">One group of people has been proactively involved in Punjabi Wikipedia for a long time, which is the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians User Group.</a> Apart from this, a number of people from different parts of the world also contribute to Wikipedia. Punjabi Wikimedians got affiliation as a User Group from Wikimedia Foundation in <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_Punjabi_Wikimedians">November 2015</a>. Punjabi Wikimedians was the first affiliated user group from India, and have been involved in several activities and initiatives undertaken towards content creation. They organized <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">WikiConference India in 2016</a> at Chandigarh and their members have participated in various events and conferences. They have also collaborated with other institutions in order to encourage content creation on Punjabi Wikipedia, one example is the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians/GLAM/Punjabi_Sahit_Academy">collaboration with Punjabi Sahitya Academy</a>. Apart from Wikipedia, this user group is also active on <a href="http://pa.wikisource.org">Punjabi Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://pa.wiktionary.org">Punjabi Wiktionary</a>, <a href="http://wikidata.org">Wikidata</a> and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org">Wikimedia Commons</a>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Patiala/1">first meeting</a> of the Punjabi Wiki community was organized in Patiala on 1 February 2015. After that the community conducted various monthly meetups in different parts of the Punjab. People from the community also joined various training programs and events in different parts of India and participated in various conferences in other countries. </p>
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<h3><strong>Research Objectives and Method</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">This study analyses various aspects of how content related to Punjab is created on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. This analysis would help in understanding the gap between what kind of content presently exists and what is needed, from the perspective of Punjabi language contributors and users. The objective of this study is to understand how much content related to Punjab exists on this Wikipedia at present; what is the nature of this content, what are challenges for content creation and possible strategies to address the same. There is a broader understanding that while content is being created proactively, there is still a need to analyse its quality and prevalent gaps if any, which would encourage more contributors and readers to actively engage with Punjabi Wikipedia. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The method for this study consisted of analysis of the existing content on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia, and conversations with selected Wikimedians on their assessment of content on topics related to Punjab. The main topics for this study were articles related to the Punjab region, including culture, literature, and politics. To understand if there are specific challenges to the creation of content on these topics, interviews with a few selected long-time contributors and administrators were conducted, with an emphasis on aspects such as sourcing Punjabi language material, finding references, digitization, tagging etc. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of this study was also to understand where these conversations (undertaken as part of the study) may offer strategies to address knowledge gaps in specific areas of work. Questions were prepared and a total of five interviews of Punjabi Wiki community members were conducted. The people interviewed were chosen on the basis of their involvement and experience of working in the community.</p>
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<h3><strong>Observations and Analysis </strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">There are an estimated 33 million Eastern Punjabi speakers in the world,[2] and it is a widely spoken language in India especially in Punjab state. Over 70% people have access to the internet in Punjab on the phone.[3] The main objective of this study was to understand the nature of existing content on Punjabi Wikipedia, and various challenges in content creation, coverage of topics and quality. The following were some of the main observations and learnings from the study.: </p>
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<p dir="ltr"><strong>Challenges with Lack of Existing Content</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">The conversations with selected Wikimedia contributors and users offered an insight into what Punjabi readers and online contributors think about the content available on the internet in Punjabi language, and how Punjabi Wikipedia is impactful in this scenario, especially in addressing any gaps in this area. It was found during discussions with interviewees that there are less number of Punjabi language websites in the field of language, literature, politics, and general knowledge. Most of the websites are in English language. <a href="https://punjabipedia.org/">PunjabiPedia</a> and Punjabi Wikipedia are encyclopedic websites which are providing knowledge in Gurmukhi script. Apart from this, websites like <a href="https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page">SikhiWiki</a> are providing knowledge in the Roman script and Punjabi newspaper websites are providing their news updates in Gurmukhi script. So, Punjabi Wikipedia is one of the few available sites that offers information on a variety of topics in the local language. As a result, it may have a good viewership, but at the same time, there is also the additional problem of not having good or reliable online sources or references.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Another important point mentioned by people interviewed was that while there are 30,000+ articles on Punjabi Wikipedia and they are categorised across different topics, there is a lack of content about Punjab itself. It was suggested that, therefore, this should be an area of priority for the community to work on. Even the most viewed articles of Punjabi Wikipedia do not meet the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%A1%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%86:%E0%A8%9A%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%B2%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82_%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%88%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A8%E0%A9%87">good article criteria</a> of Wikipedia. For example, the article of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%AC">Harmandir Sahib</a> on Punjabi Wikipedia has not been written according to good article criteria, as it too has no category and it is without proper sections.[4] There are not many references in most of the important articles. Another example is the article of the tenth Sikh Guru, <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%82_%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%98#%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2%E0%A9%87">Guru Gobind Singh</a>, which has only 2 references.[5] Apart from this, articles about cities and villages of Punjab are mostly stub articles. The total number of villages in Punjab is about twelve thousand and a good number of the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%A3%E0%A9%80:%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%AC_(%E0%A8%AD%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4)_%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%85%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A1">articles about these villages</a> are available on Punjabi Wikipedia. They are too small and the need is to expand those articles. There are about 7,000+ articles in the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%A3%E0%A9%80:%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%A2">stub category</a>. So, such articles therefore need more work and improvement in terms of quality.</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><strong>Methods of Creating New Content</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Most of the content on Punjabi Wikipedia is about other countries or regions apart from Punjab or India. One of the reasons for this is that most of the editors are doing content translation, from existing content on English or other regional language Wikipedias into Punjabi Wikipedia. In order to fill the content gap about Punjab there should be content creation specifically on topics related to the state. <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation">Content translation tools</a>, while helpful, have also contributed to the fact that people prefer translation and they use <a href="https://translate.google.co.in/">Google Translate</a> in the content tool. The tool itself is accurate and works fine with Punjabi, but the issue is that most of the people are doing only translation, as it is the easiest way to contribute. Apart from the above, it was also noted by the interviewees that editathons about other countries or cultures, while useful, are not beneficial in the immediate context. Nitesh Gill [6] observes that there should be more discussion among the community members about upcoming events or editathons. She says: “Sometimes two or more events are going on in the same time period and the same contributors take part in those activities. It should be better that with cooperation we can have one event at one time. We will grow in a better way if we do something about this.” </p>
<p dir="ltr">There is less viewership of those articles which are related to other countries or cultures apart from India, for example the article of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%9F%E0%A9%88%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%9F%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%A8_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%9F%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B5%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%AB%E0%A9%80">Constantine Peter Cavafy</a>. But articles of importance from the perspective of region and culture are not edited for a long time, such as the article about Punjabi storywriter <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%97">Maninder Kang</a>, which is smaller than the article of Constantine Peter Cavafy. For example, Stalinjeet Brar [7] notes that: “The article of former chief minister of Punjab, <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%98_%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B2">Prakash Singh Badal</a> on Punjabi Wikipedia is a relevant article. He is a remarkable personality of Punjab in the history of politics. He left his position in 2017 but the article still shows that he is chief minister of Punjab. This is our major mistake. We have to work on this aspect.” [8] He also added that the statistics of cricketers like Virat Kohli, are not updated. In this regard, we can integrate Wikidata with Wikipedia articles so one change on Wikidata can provide automatically updated data on Punjabi articles. </p>
<p dir="ltr">He also added that an assessment of existing events and initiatives, such as <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Growing_Local_Language_Content_on_Wikipedia_(Project_Tiger_2.0)">Project Tiger</a> would be useful to understand the challenges and opportunities for content creation on Indian language Wikipedias The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project_Tiger_Editathon_2018">first Project Tiger editathon</a> happened from 1 March to 31 May 2018 and the second Project Tiger event was organised from 10 October 2019 to 11 January 2020, which was named “<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Growing_Local_Language_Content_on_Wikipedia_(Project_Tiger_2.0)">Project Tiger 2.0</a>”. Project Tiger coordinators can assess the number of views of those articles which were created during the event and therefore arrive at a potential strategy for our target audience. It is therefore useful to undertake such an analysis and evaluation at the end of big events.</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><strong>Strategies for New Content Creation</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> It was observed that to fill this content gap about Punjab and its culture on Punjabi Wikipedia, the community needs to approach this topic accordingly. It was suggested by every interviewee that we have to organise an editathon to edit top viewed articles. To maintain continuity in this approach, community members should cooperate with each other. Charan Gill [9] noted that we should engage students and professors in different subjects to collaborate and work on these areas with editors. This will be helpful in producing good quality articles. The community needs to engage experts from different areas or fields. Manavpreet Kaur [10] suggests that we should focus on good article criteria when we go to a college or institution to teach students how to edit Wikipedia. For example, she notes that there were very few articles about forensic science when she joined Punjabi Wikipedia and existing content was two or three line articles. She tried to fill this gap and as a professor of forensic science, she engaged her students to edit Wikipedia content related to forensic science. So, we can have this kind of approach to fill the content gap on Punjabi Wikipedia. We should encourage colleges in Punjab and teachers to participate in this free knowledge movement. Wikimedia projects are platforms for Punjabi language community to provide knowledge in their own language. Manavpreet and Nitesh also note that there are less number of women participants in this movement. To fill the gender gap we should also focus on engaging women contributors. According to Manav, the <a href="https://wikidata-game.toolforge.org/distributed/#">Wikidata Game</a> was interesting for her, and noted that especially for new editors these types of games and editing techniques are so valuable in order to engage the younger generations of editors with this movement.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Hardarshan [11] shared his view that to engage the new generation with Punjabi Wikipedia or the broader free knowledge movement we should also work on basic articles related to the technological world. For example, articles on computers and other devices , mobile games etc. He also notes that while Punjabi Wikipedia has articles on advanced topics, most of them are translated, and not new content. But it does not have basic articles of good quality to offer an appropriate understanding of the topic. There is also a problem of translating technical vocabulary into the Punjabi language, which can be addressed by engaging experts and scholars as part of editathons and other initiatives for content creation . This way, the energy and interests of volunteers may also be harnessed with the right methods. Key members from the community can assign articles to newcomers, so that will help in further content creation. Nitesh shared her observation that “I was a beginner type volunteer at one time and later on with experience I have organised various events within my community. So, we should encourage our team members or volunteers. They can be good organisers or leaders of this movement.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">To engage students, there should be more syllabus oriented content on Punjabi Wikipedia. To bring a change in the structure, Stalinjeet suggested that we should not blindly follow policies of other languages like English and French or policies of the Wikimedia Foundation in India. We need to rethink these policies in the context of the needs of the local languages. Prioritization of editathons is also necessary, including coordination and working collaboratively on when to participate in which event. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In addition to the above, it has been noticed that it is difficult for communities with a small number of members to contribute collaboratively, so it is imperative to slowly increase the number of contributors as well. There are various Wikimedia projects that volunteers can join or they can contribute to any project according to their interest. They are not limited only to Punjabi Wikipedia. A good number of people are also active on Punjabi Wikisource as well. The need of the hour therefore, is to engage new people with Wikipedia or with this movement to make good changes to the modes of access to knowledge in Indian languages. Experienced Wikimedians should share their learnings, apart from training that is required for advanced editing.</p>
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<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>
<p>As illustrated by observations above, content creation on (Eastern) Punjabi Wikipedia faces a specific set of challenges. The people interviewed as part of this study have offered various suggestions on what can be done to address these limitations, and improve the quality of content. . Punjabi Wikipedia is an important source of information and knowledge for Punjabi internet readers due to the lack of websites providing content in the language. So, the responsibility of its reliability to provide such content in a sustainable manner is even greater. Work on creating more content on these platforms needs to be undertaken after understanding the response and ways of engagement of the readers. People today want to read less and learn more. Punjabi Wikipedia articles therefore need to be informative and include as many references as possible. A crucial gap here is also the lack of information on how to contribute to Punjabi Wikipedia in a productive and easy way. Good documentation of help pages and more frequent training would help in addressing this shortcoming as well. </p>
<p>In conclusion, the main strategy to address these knowledge gaps, as illustrated by the learnings from this study, is that we should update existing articles on Punjabi Wikipedia at priority, with a focus on expanding top viewed stub articles. A focus on quality of content is therefore more important than quantity. In addition to this, knowledge-sharing by experienced Wikipedians, diverse modes of training and engaging new contributors, and working on strategies for sustainable content creation would go a long way in addressing the content gaps on Punjabi Wikipedia. </p>
<p>Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Content_Creation_on_Eastern_Punjabi_Wikipedia">here.</a></p>
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<h3><strong>References:</strong></h3>
<p>[1] Statistics as of 09 February 2020, 05:32 PM</p>
<p>[2] “Punjabi, Eastern,” Ethnologue, accessed February 9, 2021, https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pan.</p>
<p>[3] Roy, C. Vijay. “In Punjab, over 70% people access the internet on the phone” The Tribune India, May 2, 2019. <a href="https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/business/in-punjab-over-70-people-access-internet-on-phone-766809">https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/business/in-punjab-over-70-people-access-internet-on-phone-766809</a>. Accessed February 9, 2021. </p>
<p>[4] As of 04 March 2021 09:59 AM</p>
<p>[5] As of 04 March 2021 09:59 AM</p>
<p>[6] She is a research scholar from Moga, Punjab and pursuing her Ph.D from University of Delhi in Punjabi literature. She has been contributing on Punjabi Wikipedia from 2015. Her remarkable contribution on Punjabi Wikipedia is that she has completed 1000WikiDays challenge, which means one article every day. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Nitesh_Gill">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Nitesh_Gill</a></p>
<div>[7] Stalinjeet Brar is from Faridkot and has been contributing on Wikimedia projects since August 2014. He is doing his Ph.D in Punjabi language and his research topic is also a comparative study of Punjabi Wikipedia and PunjabiPedia. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Stalinjeet_Brar">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Stalinjeet_Brar</a></div>
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<div>[8] As of 04 March 2021, 09:59 AM</div>
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<div>[9] Charan Gill is an experienced volunteer, aged 76 years old. He has been contributing on Wikimedia projects since 2008 He is the top contributor from Punjabi Wiki Community with more than 59,000 edits on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia.. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Charan_Gill">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Charan_Gill</a></div>
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<div>[10] Manavpreet Kaur is from Forensic science field and completed her Phd in the same subject also. She engaged with Punjabi Wikipedia in 2014 and also as a volunteer she has completed 100WikiDays challenge and has done various forms of outreach for the community. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Manavpreet_Kaur">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Manavpreet_Kaur</a></div>
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[11] </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7a568b89-7fff-2cd8-bd10-780511dc45f6">As a student of secondary school, Benipal hardarshan is one of the youngest Wikimedians from Punjabi Wiki community. He made his first edit in 2014 but is actively contributing from 2016. He is an active administrator on Punjabi WIkisource.. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Benipal_hardarshan">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Benipal_hardarshan</a></span>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia</a>
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No publisherSatpal SinghA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:24:21ZBlog EntryA Comparative Study of Article Creation Campaigns on Wikipedia - Part I
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india
<b>This is a short report on a comparative analysis of two prominent Wikimedia initiatives, Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger, to understand prevailing challenges and opportunities, and strategies to address the same. The report has been authored by Nitesh Gill with inputs from Suswetha Kolluru, and editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020.
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<h3>Introduction </h3>
<div>
<p dir="ltr">The motive of the Wikimedia movement is to aid growth and access to free knowledge across the world. Over the last several years, apart from the online encyclopedia, Wikimedia has also developed and supported many projects, campaigns, events or edit-a-thons simultaneously on its <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_Wikimedia_projects">various sister projects</a> such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikisource and others. Campaigns and contests such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art%2BFeminism">Art & Feminism</a> (2014), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> (2015), <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments">Wiki Loves Monuments</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Butterfly">Wiki loves Butterfly</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> (2015), <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref">#1Lib1Ref</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Project_Tiger_Writing_Contest">Project Tiger</a> (2018) etc. play a crucial role in motivating communities to create new content while working together in an organized manner. </p>
</div>
<p> The objective of this study is to undertake a comparative analysis of two projects/article creation campaigns on Wikipedia, which are <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> (WAM) and Project Tiger. They are both primarily online writing contests. WAM has been organised every year in November since 2015. It is an international edit-a-thon. Project Tiger is a contest which is organised in India. Several Indian language communities take part in this actively. The first iteration of Project Tiger was organized in 2018 and two iterations have taken place till date. While different in terms of the region or area of focus, both campaigns have a common goal of content creation in regional languages. The Indian Wikipedia communities’ contributions are extensive in both projects. It would be interesting to learn from both of them and also understand what works and what needs to be improved in the future.</p>
<div>
<br />
<h3>Research Questions</h3>
<p dir="ltr">As suggested by the title, the aim of this study is primarily to better understand the motivation behind long-term edit-a-thons with the help of WAM and PT. Through a comparative analysis, it will attempt to understand the participants' perspective on contributing to these types of projects, prevailing challenges and opportunities, and the knowledge gaps in content creation as well as in participation.</p>
<br />
<p dir="ltr">The objectives of this study are to :</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Understand the key motivations for volunteers to contribute to article creation campaigns/contests. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Outline the unique aspects of Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger for content creation on Wikipedia, challenges and opportunities and ways to build on the same. </p>
</li></ul>
<h2 dir="ltr"><br /></h2>
<h3>Background </h3>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of the Wikimedia movement is to facilitate the growth of free knowledge, through its various projects and platforms. Before starting Wikipedia, in 2000 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Nupedia">Nupedia</a> was launched and on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#:~:text=Wikipedia%20was%20launched%20on%20January,other%20languages%20were%20quickly%20developed.">15 January 2001</a> Wikipedia was set up as a free encyclopedia. All the Wikimedia projects such as <a>Wikidata</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://www.wiktionary.org/">Wiktionary</a>, etc. are central knowledge hubs. These are the platforms where knowledge from around the world can be found but this means it also requires participation from an active volunteer community across numerous languages. There are many ways to contribute to these platforms as a volunteer. One way is participating in an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_run_an_edit-a-thon">edit-a-thon</a>, where several volunteers can actively work together on the same platform. Edit-a-thons started just after a few years of Wikipedia’s existence. In the beginning, the main objective of the edit-a-thons was content creation; this remains the primary objective, although now they also focus on expanding/adding to existing content, thus contributing towards increasing the number of articles on Wikipedia. A prominent feature of these types of events is the interaction among experienced and new editors. The edit-a-thons can happen online as well as at physical, offline locations. In September 2004, Jimmy Wales proposed the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editing_Weekend">Editing weekends</a>’ concept which was a starting point of edit-a-thons. He started a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_Weekend">discussion</a> about spending the holidays in a common space where editors could edit or learn about Wikipedia. The event itself was not very prominent but managed to start discussions about similar events among volunteers. A few years later, in March 2009 in Sydney, the first GLAM edit-a-thon was organised at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/Powerhouse_Museum_2009-03-13">Powerhouse Museum</a>. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">English Wikipedia</a>, in 2011, an edit-a-thon was organized on cultural partnerships, mainly with the <a href="https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Editathon,_British_Library/January_2011">British Library</a>, with a second series taking place later that same year. After that, it became a popular event among volunteers and every community started to organize these types of events. Gradually, Wikimedians also thought about more such campaigns in the form of edit-a-thons; these events were successful and helped achieve the stated agenda of content creation on Wikipedia. In 2013, a research study was conducted about the edit-a-thon as part of the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Learning_and_Evaluation/Evaluation_reports/2013/Edit-a-thons#Program_basics_and_history">Wikimedia Programme Evaluation</a> report, which noted its history, statistics, budget, inputs, resources and outputs etc. But so far little research has been done on particular edit-a-thons such as Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger and their impact on the growth of content on Wikipedia. </p>
<br />
<h3>Wikipedia Asian Month</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Wikipedia Asian Month is a long-duration edit-a-thon structured around specific topics. The discussion about this edit-a-thon started in 2015 during <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_project_domain">Wikimania</a>. A separate meeting was held for all the Asian language communities where the WAM proposal was presented by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AddisWang">User:Addis Wang</a>, and endorsed by all members present. Before WAM, similar events were already being conducted but this was the first attempt to establish collaboration on a broader level with the Asian language communities. Also before this project, local Wikipedias had only a little content regarding Asia.</p>
<br />
<p dir="ltr">The aim of this project was to create more content related to Asia on the regional Wikipedias, with a focus only on new content. Diversification of content, collaboration and cultural exchange are the main objectives of the project. Small incentives like receiving <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Postcards_in_Wikipedia_Asian_Month#/media/File:Wikipedia_Asian_Month_-_Written_Postcards_at_Wikimedia_Taiwan_-_1.jpg">postcards</a> from countries that participants added content about were introduced to encourage more participation. Postcards and the badge of ‘Wikipedia Brand Ambassador’ were added to motivate the contributors. The Wikipedia Asian Month took initiative to encourage and expand participants and communities. As a member from the Punjabi community, Gaurav, notes, “Wikipedia Asian Month was a boost for the communities or Wikipedians. The prize was just a postcard, although this prize gave positive energy to participants and they created articles just for getting appreciation.” In the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month_2015">first iteration</a>, there were around 42 participating communities out of which 11 were Indian language communities. After the first iteration of WAM, when asked about Indian language communities' participation in 2015, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/wikipedia-asian-month-2014-2016-iteration-starts-on-1-november">Addis Wang replied</a>, “Yes! As one of the largest Wikimedia communities in Asia, and maybe the most diverse community in the world, the Indic community is highly involved in the Wikipedia Asian Month since the idea was proposed during Wikimania 2015. In last year’s edition, India is the country that received the most postcards sent by Wikipedia Asian Month. Also, Wikipedian Asian Ambassadors of English Wikipedia, who created most articles during the Asian Month, are from India.” As noted in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Asian_Month/2019#:~:text=Wikipedia%20Asian%20Month%20is%20an,on%20various%20language%2Dspecific%20Wikipedias.&text=The%20first%20iteration%20of%20this,participants%20have%20diversified%20and%20expanded.">2019 by the campaign coordinators</a> , “In the past three years, over 20,500 high-quality articles have been added in more than 50 language-specific Wikipedias by more than 2,000 Wikipedia editors”, (excluding 2019). In 2020, WAM also happened in the same month, November, just like every year. </p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Project Tiger </h3>
<p>Some years ago Google initiated efforts to<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Announcements/Project_Glow_FAQ"> bridge a gap in Indian language content online</a> . They partnered with the Wikimedia Foundation who in turn collaborated with CIS-A2K and started a pilot project named Project Tiger, in 2018. Also called <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program">Supporting Indian language Wikipedias </a>in 2018, Project Tiger did well and received good participation from all the communities, which led to its second iteration in 2019. Project Tiger is a unique and recent initiative that is aimed at creating locally relevant content on Indic Wikipedias that is most searched for by users online. It is distinct from other contests because it is one of the longest running Wiki edit-a-thons, considering it runs for over 3 months with several Indic communities competing with each other. It is an online writing contest which is organised in India. Several Indian language communities take part in this actively. The project is conducted in two phases i.e, the contest includes hardware support distribution to promising volunteers and a 3-month online writing contest on Indian language Wikipedias.The first phase of the contest is the distribution of hardware support, through which 50 Laptops by Google and internet stipends are offered to 100 experienced and promising Wikimedians, who need infrastructure support to increase contributions on Wikipedia. Once the distribution is done, communities start creating articles from the list of topics provided by Google. Other than the list, the community is encouraged to come up with their own set of articles that is relevant to Wikipedia in their own language. Project Tiger, as the name suggests, is inspired by, and named after, an environmental project in India to <a class="external-link" href="https://ecolawgy.net/project-tiger-in-india-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-project-tiger/">save tigers.</a> Similarly, Wikipedia’s Project Tiger aims at nurturing locally relevant content on Indic language Wikipedias.</p>
<div> </div>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Methods</h3>
<div>
<p dir="ltr">The primary method for this study consisted of interviews with community members who participated in either of the projects or who knew about both. These interviews were conducted via phone calls as well as in written form via a questionnaire/survey. The observations from the study are descriptive and include direct quotations (with the permission) of the participant. Due to a shortage of time and availability of community members, only a limited number of interviews have been conducted for the study. These interviewees were selected primarily based on their active participation or their contributions in their regional language Wikipedia. The interviews were conducted with participants from Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Santali, Tamil language communities from India. These interviewees also include the main organizers of WAM. The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fountain_tool">fountain tool</a> developer was also interviewed as part of the study because the tool is a common factor in both the projects. Questionnaires varied depending on the category of respondents, such as participants, contributors, local and international organisers, developer etc. A total of 17 interviews were conducted for both projects. 9 interviews were conducted with the WAM international team, local organisers and participants and 7 interviews with PT organisers and contributors, and one with the fountain tool developer. The interviews were conducted in English, Hindi, Punjabi and Telugu. A consent form was shared with all the interviewees, including permission for recording the interviews. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The data collection was followed by a comparative analysis of Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger. These both are pilot contests which have some similarities, but also some unique aspects. We compared the objectives, scope, process, communication, communities, languages, content, and achievements of these two projects. Data for this was primarily collected through the interviews mentioned above, but also a review of the event pages, and a random sampling of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%B2-%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A4:Nitesh_Gill#Invitation_from_Wikipedia_Asian_Month">talk pages</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">reports and statistics</a> on these projects available on Wikipedia. These two projects have similarities, differences as well as some limitations. This comparison would help in understanding the importance and need for these types of contests. The motive for the comparison is to better understand the strategies of both projects which focus on increasing the content in local languages. These learnings may inform the process of working on the next iteration of these projects. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india-part-ii">Part II</a> of this post will look at some of the observations and learnings from this report. </p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherNitesh Gill and Suswetha KolluruA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-06-11T10:56:40ZBlog EntryResearch Studies on Indian Language Wikimedia Projects 2019-21
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects
<b>This is a compilation of the final reports from a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019-2021, on an array of topics related to Indian language Wikimedia projects. The projects were undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, Bodhisattwa Mandal, Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, Ananth Subray, Satpal Dandiwal and Nitesh Gill, with research oversight and editorial support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and internal review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">See the full report on Wikimedia Commons <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Research_Studies_on_Indian_Language_Wikimedia_Projects.pdf&page=1">here</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Click to download the full report <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects" class="internal-link">here</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia and its many sister projects have been rich sites of study for researchers across the world for many years now. The online encyclopedia presents a microcosm of the real world in terms of the dynamics of knowledge production and use, including content and infrastructure, and community interaction among many other things. Research about Wikimedia projects and platforms has been undertaken in various languages, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, as illustrated by the research index on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, and several important publications over the last several years. Research on Indian languageWikimedia projects and platforms, and on topics related to the sub-continent have also emerged significantly over the last several years.However, as understood in the course of the studies in this compilation as well, awareness about such research within the communities itself remains limited. While there is a lot of important work being undertaken on topics relevant to Indian Wikimedia projects, often by researchers who are Wikimedians themselves, factors such as dissemination beyond academic spaces, and accessibility in terms of language and context seem to also affect their availability to the larger communities, and in terms of implementation of learnings and recommendations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The six short-term research studies undertaken by the Access to Knowledge team over 2019–2021 were therefore initiated as a pilot, an initial foray into the space of research on Wikimedia projects in India. Based on the recommendations of the Wikimedia Foundation, this work was undertaken primarily to tap into new areas of work, while also drawing upon existing expertise at CIS, and in order to build the capacity of the team. With these broader motivations in mind, the research was structured with the following objectives to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities in different aspects of content creation and participation in Indian language Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Develop a better understanding of systemic issues such as gender bias in Indian language communities, access to and reuse of cultural content, open learning in multilingual classrooms, and specific experiences of content creation within Wikimedia communities in India and associated initiatives.</li>
<li>Develop recommendations and best practices towards addressing existing challenges and optimising available resources for the larger free knowledge movement.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The studies in this compilation therefore examine different aspects of Wikimedia platforms and projects in India, in close alignment with existing work in the programme. These include the gender gap in Indian Wikimedia communities, creating multilingual and open educational platforms and resources, focus on specific projects such as GLAM and Wikidata, and efforts and challenges with content creation, access and outreach in specific language communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Working on these studies has been a learning experience, especially given the diverse contexts in which the projects are located, and the capacities and interests of the researchers themselves. The design of the studies was also therefore developed and modified to build on existing capacities within the team, and its learnings from previous years of working with various language communities. Capacity-building for team members on research design, methods, fieldwork and documentation was mostly done through close individual supervision and collaborative work. The methods used were largely qualitative, and ranged from interviews, literature reviews, data visualisations, focused group discussions and comparative analyses. The effort was also to try and capture the scale and diversity of the nature of work being undertaken in different Indian language communities through these projects. There were several challenges as well, beginning with framing the research questions and project design in a way that they were accessible to a wider community of people who would be engaged in contributing their inputs towards the work. Process-related challenges, such as translation of interview questionnaires into Indian languages revealed several interesting gaps, such as the lack of technical terms related to digitization or open access in these languages. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 led to restrictions on field visits, thus effectively hampering in person conversations and easier access to community members.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There have been several learnings in the course of working on these studies, key among them being questions of awareness, relevance and impact. The lack of existing and easily accessible research (including those outside academic work) on several areas of Wikimedia in the Indian context has been a limitation in many ways, offering little in terms of available knowledge and best practices to work with. The limited awareness about, and imagined relevance of research in the regular work of communities has also been an impediment. As illustrated by learnings from a short research needs assessment carried out earlier this year, few community members were aware of research on Wikimedia projects being undertaken in India, and on a global scale. More importantly, there needs to be a conversation on its relevance to their own work, and to the larger movement. An effective communication strategy for research work, in different Indian languages, would perhaps address some of these gaps. A closely related question is also that of impact. The studies in this collection largely focus on short-term impact, through best practices and recommendations that may be developed through the research studies. While this is definitely a pragmatic approach, often the interest in a problem-solution design may look at research purely from an instrumental lens to identify quick solutions and their implementation, without a critical take on exploring and understanding larger, systemic or structural gaps that may be contributing to the problems itself. Going forward, it would be imperative therefore to identify areas of research, and build processes of research design that may address these challenges. Given the dynamic nature of Wikimedia, its platforms and communities, it is important to identify immediate gaps and possible solutions, but also to speak precisely to this aspect of long-term impact and relevance, to both current areas of work and the growth of the larger movement. We hope the studies in this compilation offer some insights towards these, and many more interesting questions related to research on Wikimedia and the free knowledge movement in India.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects</a>
</p>
No publishersnehaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaA2K Research2022-10-21T12:59:55ZBlog EntryBridging the Gender Gap: A Report on Indian Language Wikimedia Communities
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities
<b>This research study documents the gender gap and bias in Indian language Wikimedia projects and communities, with a focus on participation by and content related to women contributors across diverse Wikimedia platforms. The research was undertaken by Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and additional inputs from Ambika Tandon and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>The full report can be read <a href="https://cis-india.org/A2K_BGG_Report_2021" class="external-link">here.</a></h4>
<h4>Also read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Bridging_the_Gender_gap:_A_report_on_Indian_Language_Wikimedia_Communities">here</a>.</h4>
<hr />
<p>This research project is a study of how various language communities in India perceive the gender gap in their own contexts, and how the understanding of this subject has varied over time. Wikimedia characterises ‘gender bias’ on its platforms as the fact “that Wikipedia contributors are mostly male, the fact that relatively few biographies on Wikipedia are about women, and the concept that topics of interest to women are less well-covered.”[1] Studies done over the last several years have shown that ‘this gender gap’ results in not only a lesser number of women participants in Wikimedia events or number of edits by women, but also a range of such disparities in the active participation of men and women on various aspects of Wikimedia projects.These gaps vary depending on socio-cultural factors within diverse language communities, such as access to internet and digital technologies and public spaces by women, skill-building and training, labour and time available for voluntary work and development of friendly and accessible working environments.</p>
<h3>Context and Methods</h3>
<p>Previous research by Ting-Yi Chang (2018) and Eva Jadine Lannon (2013) undertaken with CIS-A2K indicate the existence of these disparities and knowledge gaps in Indian language Wikimedia communities, and emphasise that it is imperative to focus on not only representation but also quality of contributions on Wikimedia by individuals across the spectrum of gender and sexual identities. The research also offers incentives, possible outcomes and sustainable strategies needed to address this issue. In the last few years a lot more work has emerged on this issue in various language communities globally, and in India. Several Indian language communities have started to explore the need for focusing on gender gap and community health initiatives in their own contexts. Observations from these initiatives further reiterate that this gap continues to exist and there is a need to study and better understand the reasons for its prevalence.</p>
<p>As part of this study, we interviewed 15 women respondents across 13 different Indian language Wikimedia communities (including English) who contribute to several Wikimedia projects, and conducted 2 Focus Group Discussions(FGDs). The FGDs were conducted with women students from two different arts and science colleges in Tamil Nadu. The interviews and FGDs primarily helped us understand their perceptions about gender gap, the challenges that they and/or their communities experience in terms of gender bias and also the interesting initiatives set up to address these problems, both in terms of content and participation.</p>
<h3>Key Research Areas</h3>
<p>The research focussed on three main thematic areas, namely:</p>
<p><strong>Developing a better understanding of online participation - in terms of content created by women, content about women, and online engagement with communities.</strong></p>
<p>As most of the engagement with Wikimedia projects is an online activity so an analysis of the accessibility of internet and other digital infrastructures, platforms and participation guidelines were discussed. Improvements on providing support and training to access platforms would help in furthering participation to contribute to Wikimedia projects and initiatives. Restrictions on offline meetings due to the COVID 19 pandemic has further spurred a lot of online meetings and engagement. Awareness and training on the use of virtual platforms along with friendly space policies could help in creating a structured online experience on Wikimedia for the women in the community.</p>
<p><strong>Developing a better understanding of women’s offline community participation.</strong></p>
<p>Offline participation by women contributors in Indian language Wikimedia communities is an ideal space for learning new skills, working on collaborative events like edit-a-thons or a general discussion among the members of the community. Preference for independent events, discussions such as women-only forums led by women leaders/mentors were suggested by the interviewees. The difficulty of managing voluntary work with professional and domestic responsibilities, and need for support with travel and participation in offline events are some of the challenges highlighted from the interviews.</p>
<p><strong>Enhancing sustained participation of women contributors - identifying challenges with retention, infrastructural issues etc, and possibilities and strategies to address the same, and creating awareness on how women can be involved with all Wikimedia projects.</strong></p>
<p>We tried to understand what are impediments to sustaining Wikimedia contributions by and about women, and possible strategies to address the same. These include the need to encourage more efforts in areas such as detailed documentation of metrics on gender and diversity, building more awareness within communities about gender gap/bias and building relevant technological and communication skills, and addressing community health and conflict management as an important area of work and engagement.</p>
<h3>Learnings</h3>
<p>The learnings from the study offered insights into several key aspects of the problem of gender gap on Wikimedia, such as the need to encourage sustainable contributions through multiple strategies addressing challenges faced by women and other marginalised groups engaging with Wikimedia projects. This includes efforts to build awareness about gender gap and bias in Indian language communities, undertaking training to address technological and communication gaps and skills, understanding and accommodating the different demands that women editors have on their time and labour with respect to professional, domestic and care work, and according more visibility and recognition towards their efforts on Wikimedia. In addition to this, recognising and actively working towards addressing systemic power asymmetries in online platforms, by creating friendly working environments and encouraging women participants to take ownership and lead initiatives would be imperative to foster long-term and productive engagement with Wikimedia. Based on these observations, the report also offers a set of recommendations, which may also inform existing and emerging efforts to address the problem of gender bias and gender gap on Wikimedia platforms.</p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>[1] “Gender Bias on Wikipedia”, Wikipedia, accessed November 29, 2020. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia&oldid=991093125">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia&oldid=991093125</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities</a>
</p>
No publisherbhuvanaA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:26:52ZBlog EntryUnderstanding the Data Gaps on Wikidata Concerning Heritage Structures of West Bengal
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/understanding-the-data-gaps-on-wikidata-concerning-heritage-structures-of-west-bengal
<b>This is a short study on identifying the data gaps related to heritage structures in West Bengal on Wikidata, and potential strategies to address the same. The report is authored by Bodhisattwa Mandal, 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>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikidata is a free and open repository of structured and linked data, hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation, built collaboratively[1] by human volunteers and robots from all over the world[2]. This platform, with an initial intention to be used within Wikimedia projects as a high quality secondary database [3], first started by centrally linking Wikipedia articles about the same topics in different languages[4][5][6][7][8], but soon it started linking with external databases. </p>
<p><strong id="docs-internal-guid-82468dc9-7fff-a2c3-263c-a0aebac3c1a7"><br /><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></strong></p>
<h2><strong id="docs-internal-guid-82468dc9-7fff-a2c3-263c-a0aebac3c1a7">Introduction to Wikidata</strong></h2>
<p> <span style="text-align: justify;">Wikidata is designed to be structured as a Resource Description Framework or RDF model which describes statements in the form of triplets of subject–predicate–object. In Wikidata, subject–predicate–object is termed as item–property–value. Items on Wikidata can represent every possible object, concept or topic in human knowledge which passes a certain threshold of defined </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link">notability</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and are represented by unique Q numbers. The actual data of an item is called value, which is pre-defined by the data type, be it strings, numbers, dates, url links, coordinates, musical notations etc. or even other items. Properties, represented by unique P numbers, describe the data value of items. The items, properties and values are language independent and thus totally machine-readable, although for human comfort and understanding, one can describe </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Items">items</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> in their own languages by adding or translating</span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Help:Statements"> labels, descriptions or aliases</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Due to the machine-readable triplet structure of Wikidata, the database can be easily queried to find answers, which might not be otherwise possible from a list of unstructured contents such as Wikipedia articles. To retrieve and manipulate RDF data formats in triplets, we require a semantic query language for RDF databases named <a class="external-link" href="https://www.w3.org/TR/rdf-sparql-query/">SPARQL</a>. Through <a class="external-link" href="https://query.wikidata.org/">Wikidata query service</a>, one can use SPARQL and retrieve data and the prevailing gaps on Wikidata and visualize in different ways.</span></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikidata in West Bengal, India</h2>
<div> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Wikidata_items_map_with_difference_India_October_2018_to_May_2019.png/image_preview" alt="Wikidata_items_map_with_difference,_India,_October_2018_to_May_2019" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Wikidata_items_map_with_difference,_India,_October_2018_to_May_2019" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><em><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikidata_items_map_with_difference,_India,_October_2018_to_May_2019.png">Massive imports of coordinates for places in West Bengal happened between October 2018 and May 2019 on Wikidata as reflected by the map generated using Resemble.js</a></em></span></div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Wikidata activities around India have been organized around India for almost 4 years under the </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link">WikiProject India </a><span style="text-align: justify;">umbrella. Targeted approaches to fill data gaps on different topics have been pursued through data-thons and campaigns in these years and community strength has been aimed to increase through workshops and skill sharing initiatives. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Being part of that initiative, the Indian state of West Bengal has seen a lot of activities around Wikidata in recent years. Under the <a class="external-link">WikiProject umbrella</a>, Wikidata volunteers have been working together to build data on different topics related to the state, its demographics, culture, heritage, education, health, politics, language etc. As heritage has been the prime focus of the Wikimedia community members of West Bengal, in this essay, we will identify the data gaps related to the topic through SPARQL query and explore reasons for the same, if any, through interviews of active volunteers who have been working on this area for years.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Wikimedia community members have been working on documenting different forms of heritage since 2011, when they organized <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Takes_Kolkata">Wikipedia Takes Kolkata photo-walk</a> for the first time. Since then, they have organized eight more Wikipedia Takes Kolkata photo-walks, <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Wiki_Exploration">11 Wiki Exploration projects in 9 districts of the state</a>, 2 editions of prestigious Wiki Loves Monuments in India <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2018_in_India">2018 </a>and <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments_2019_in_India">2019</a> and several other documentation projects organized organically or single-handedly and by doing so they have uploaded several thousands of photographs related to heritage structures and GLAM collections on Wikimedia Commons. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">In this essay, we will focus on the photo-walks and explorations which were conducted to document heritage structures of West Bengal. We will focus on two basic types of data which should be there in every dataset on heritage structures, i.e. a) location, and b) image, and we will find out if there is any significant gap there using SPARQL queries. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p>
<h2>Photo-walks and Wiki Explorations in West Bengal</h2>
<div> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Map_of_KMC_graded_heritage_buildings_generated_by_Wikidata_SPARQL_query.png/image_preview" alt="Map of KMC" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Map of KMC" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Map of KMC heritage buildings generated from Wikidata query <a class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tir" rel="nofollow">https://w.wiki/Tir</a></em></div>
<div> </div>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Let’s start with the nine consecutive series of Wikipedia takes Kolkata photo-walks which aims to photo-document heritage buildings and structures of Kolkata. To understand the data gap related to the heritage buildings, we will examine the presence of graded heritage buildings and structures enlisted by </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://www.kmcgov.in/KMCPortal/downloads/Graded_List_of_Heritage_Buildings_Grade_I_IIA_IIB.pdf">Kolkata Municipal Corporation</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> (KMC) on Wikidata through different SPARQL queries. Wikidata now contains </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tit">923 heritage buildings and structures listed by KMC</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, but out of them 26.65% have </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tin">images</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and only 18.53% have </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tir">coordinates</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Although 81.47% of the items of the heritage structures were missing coordinates, but they gave fairly good idea about their location, all of the items had municipal wards and streets connected with them, utilizing which, photographers and travellers are expected to explore the sites easily. However, while testing the items of the wards, it was noticed that however all the 144 wards contain coordinates, but they all lack a crucial property which can denote their area of location i.e. the <a class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tix">geoshape data</a>. While coordinates can denote the exact location of certain parts of an area, it is misleading when it comes to a larger area, which requires geoshape to better describe the location. While testing the street data, it was found that both geoshape and coordinate data are lacking for the streets, which makes them extremely difficult to <a class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/V6v">locate</a>.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Map_of_temples_in_West_Bengal_generated_by_Wikidata_SPARQL_query.png/image_preview" alt="Map_of_temples_in_West_Bengal_generated_by_Wikidata_SPARQL_query" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Map_of_temples_in_West_Bengal_generated_by_Wikidata_SPARQL_query" /><br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="text-align: left;">Map of temples in West Bengal generated from Wikidata query </span><a style="text-align: left;" class="external free" href="https://w.wiki/Tj7" rel="nofollow">https://w.wiki/Tj7</a></em></p>
<p> <span style="text-align: justify;">For the last 3 years, Wikimedia volunteers from West Bengal have also been involved in Wiki Exploration projects to remote parts of the state documenting temples, mosques, sculptures etc., many of which have not been documented online before. Few hundreds of heritage structures in 9 districts of the state were documented and thousands of photographs under this project have been uploaded to </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wiki_Exploration_Program">Wikimedia Commons</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Now, if we test the Wikidata presence of the temples situated in West Bengal, it can be noticed that </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/V6w">435 temples have items</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, out of which only 196 items have </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tj8">images</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and only 79 have </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/Tj7">coordinates</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. however 302 of them have their location pin-pointed to the village, ward, town or city level. Similar to the previous case, although there are 40,359 items for villages located in West Bengal, only 0.017% have coordinates while none have </span><a style="text-align: justify;" class="external-link" href="https://w.wiki/TjR">geoshape data.</a></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">From the above two scenarios, it can be easily concluded from the SPARQL queries, that there has been a significant amount of data gap. Both the datasets contain significant lack of location data and images. The second scenario even lacks data on the temples itself.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<h2>Challenges of Contributing to Wikidata in/from West Bengal</h2>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Now, to understand why there are huge gaps in the data, we have interviewed four volunteers from West Bengal who are involved in these two kinds of projects, three of them are Wikimedia contributors for five-ten years and one of them is relatively new to the movement. They all upload heritage photographs to Wikimedia Commons and 2 of them contribute to Wikidata. All of them agreed that due to lack of suitable hardware, they could not document the exact coordinate data while photo-documenting heritage structures. GPS devices or full-frame cameras with built-in GPS are expensive and are not affordable to many. Interviewees have also pointed out that due to lack of proper training on how to document heritage structures properly, photographers and amaetur researchers miss out vital points of documentation and thus increase data gaps. Restricted access to private heritage structures like temples maintained by families or private heritage buildings and their documents, lack of proper existing documentation along with analogue and digital metadata, and rapid destruction of built heritage due to lack of maintenance or improper restoration procedures etc. are also the reasons for data gaps. While answering the question about why photographs are not converted fully into data, they point out that it might be a burden for photographers to learn about data entry in Wikidata, as this is out of their area of interest and workflow. As noted by an interviewee, ‘the nature of work for Wikidata does not match with photographers' workflow.’ However, they also stressed on the need to conduct training programmes on Wikidata for photographers and interested people involved in documentation to let them know the importance of structured data in the area of heritage documentation.</span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"></span></p>
<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">From the observations of this short study, it is recommended that volunteers working on heritage documentation in West Bengal should be supported with suitable hardware to document coordinates. Frequent training programs should be conducted, preferably by experts, for volunteers on how to document heritage structures in a professional way, so that data gaps remain minimal. Training on Wikidata should be conducted for photographers to let them understand the importance of structured data in the field of heritage documentation. It is also recommended to increase interaction among the Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons volunteers, to understand each other's work flow and strategically modify those to provide optimal results.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-6cb506ac-7fff-3519-c2a4-4b192e13b68b">
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">References </h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[1] Vrandečić, Denny (2012).<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2187980.2188242"> "Wikidata: a new platform for collaborative data collection"</a>. Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web - WWW '12 Companion. Lyon, France: ACM Press: 1063.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier"> doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1145%2F2187980.2188242">10.1145/2187980.2188242</a>.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number"> ISBN</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/978-1-4503-1230-1">978-1-4503-1230-1</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[2] Vrandečić, Denny; Krötzsch, Markus (2014-09-23).<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=2661061.2629489"> "Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase"</a>. Communications of the ACM. 57 (10): 78–85.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_object_identifier"> doi</a>:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1145%2F2629489">10.1145/2629489</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[3] Vrandečić, Denny (2012). </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[4] Roth, Mathew (30 March 2012). <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/03/30/the-wikipedia-data-revolution/">"The Wikipedia data revolution"</a>. Wikimedia Foundation Blog.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[5] Pintscher, Lydia (14 January 2013).<a href="http://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/01/14/first-steps-of-wikidata-in-the-hungarian-wikipedia/"> "First steps of Wikidata in the Hungarian Wikipedia"</a>. Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[6] Pintscher, Lydia (30 January 2013).<a href="https://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/01/30/wikidata-coming-to-the-next-two-wikipedias/">"Wikidata coming to the next two Wikipedias"</a>. Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[7] Pintscher, Lydia (15 February 2013). <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/02/13/wikidata-live-on-the-english-wikipedia/">"Wikidata live on the English Wikipedia"</a>. Wikimedia Deutschland Blog. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[8] Pintscher, Lydia (6 March 2013). <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.de/2013/03/06/wikidata-now-live-on-all-wikipedias/">"Wikidata now live on all Wikipedias"</a>. Wikimedia Deutschland Blog.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Notes</strong></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[1] The query results were generated during early 2020. The results may vary at the time of publication of this article. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[2] See<a href="https://cis-india.org/A2K-Wikidata-Annexure" class="external-link"> Annexure I</a> for the interview questionnaire.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">[3] Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Understanding_the_data_gaps_on_Wikidata_concerning_heritage_structures_of_West_Bengal">here</a>.</p>
</span>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/understanding-the-data-gaps-on-wikidata-concerning-heritage-structures-of-west-bengal'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/understanding-the-data-gaps-on-wikidata-concerning-heritage-structures-of-west-bengal</a>
</p>
No publisherBodhisattwa MandalA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:31:40ZBlog EntryMapping GLAM in Maharashtra
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mapping-glam-in-maharashtra
<b>This is a short study on mapping the digital transition in selected Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) institutions in Maharashtra, India, and exploring possibilities and challenges for collaborations with Wikimedia projects. Research was undertaken by Aaryaa Joshi, Dnyanada Gadre-Phadke, Kalyani Kotkar and Subodh Kulkarni; the report has been authored by Subodh Kulkarni 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>
<h2 dir="ltr">Introduction</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The digital turn has been an important development for the cultural heritage sector in India, especially in the last decade, where access to internet and multimedia technologies has led to several advancements in the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) space. This has also encouraged a multiplicity of uses of cultural content in diverse contexts. Several efforts have been undertaken in this space over the last decade, including state initiatives like the <a class="external-link" href="http://museumsofindia.gov.in/repository/">National Museum Collections digital repository</a>, archival efforts at universities such as <a href="http://www.jaduniv.edu.in/">Jadavpur University</a> and private and individual initiatives such as the <a href="https://ruralindiaonline.org/">People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI)</a> and <a href="https://indiancine.ma/">Indiancine.ma</a>. Apart from developments in preservation, curation and content sharing there remain continued concerns related to access, infrastructure and linguistic barriers in this sector. Intellectual property rights, open access and privacy issues have also emerged as important issues for cultural institutions looking to open up their collections to a wider public.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Collaboration with open knowledge production spaces like <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/">Wikimedia</a> and <a href="https://openglam.org/">OpenGLAM</a> then offer important insights into possibilities now available with the digital turn for better public access to cultural content, but also in terms of the development of collaborative archival efforts. Efforts such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM">GLAM-Wiki</a> have been crucial in bridging the gap between cultural institutions and initiatives in the free knowledge movement. There is still however lack of documentation and research on the various kinds of existing collections and archival efforts afoot in India, and how they may benefit from better access through platforms like Wikimedia. This study maps a few of such GLAM institutions in Maharashtra, India, and reviews their collections, challenges and limitations to explore possibilities for better collaboration between cultural and public memory institutions through GLAM-Wiki initiatives.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Research Questions and Method</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The study was framed by the following questions:</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">How has the digital transition in the GLAM sector in Maharashtra, India, impacted the process of creation and access to cultural content?</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">What are possible collaborations with open knowledge efforts like GLAM-Wiki?</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The mapping of GLAM institutions was undertaken through questionnaires/surveys conducted with six GLAM institutions working in Pune district and one in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state. The institutions were identified through existing networks established by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Subodh_(CIS-A2K)">Subodh Kulkarni</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K">CIS-A2K</a> Programme Officer associated with Wikimedia projects working in this area and snowball sampling. The questionnaires were focused on the nature, objective and scope of the collections, funding, provenance, offline and online workflows (including acquiring, preservation, accessioning, digitisation and metadata standards), human resources, infrastructure, IPR policies and public outreach efforts. The questionnaires were administered with the help of the Programme Officer and volunteers working in this language community. The questionnaire with Marathi translation is given in <a href="https://cis-india.org/GLAM-Mapping-Report-A2K" class="external-link">Annexure I.</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The mapping helped to produce a set of recommendations for possible GLAM-Wiki collaborations in the Indian context. This was done through field visits to these institutions, review of the material, and interviews with key resource persons (administrators, faculty and students, archivists, librarians, developers etc.) who manage the collections of cultural content.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The following seven GLAM institutions were visited during the period November 2019 to February 2020. Further visits were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Three Wikimedians — <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%9E%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%AB%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%87">User:ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके</a>, <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%80">User:आर्या जोशी</a> & <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%80_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0">User:कल्याणी कोतकर</a> uploaded images of these collections on <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:GLAM_Mapping_in_Maharashtra">Wikimedia Commons</a>, and added/expanded five related articles on Marathi Wikipedia — <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%87%E0%A4%B3%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%AF">राजा दिनकर केळकर संग्रहालय</a>, <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%87_%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B0">पुणे नगर वाचन मंदिर</a>, <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%AF,_%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9C%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%B0">सार्वजनिक वाचनालय, राजगुरुनगर</a>, and <a href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%9F%E0%A5%87_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%A8_%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B0">आपटे वाचन मंदिर</a>. </p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Observations about Research Method</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The study was done with the help of three active Wikimedians, Aaryaa Joshi (Username:आर्या जोशी), Dnyanada Gadre-Phadke (Username:ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके) & Kalyani Kotkar (Username:कल्याणी कोतकर) interested in GLAM related activities. The questionnaire was developed with their participation. Orientation sessions were conducted to discuss the research design, process and outputs. The potential areas for bringing content into various Wikimedia projects were explained. While these Wikimedians conducted the visits for this mapping voluntarily, the actual expenses on travel, refreshments etc. were reimbursed. These volunteers had to carve out time slots from their regular jobs to complete the task. The timings at institutions and availability of key persons also needed to be considered while planning the visits. Sometimes the volunteers had to take leave from their regular work, which also led to some difficulties.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The first visit was to establish an association with the institution and the persons. The meeting with the authorities at the institution was essential to get the consent forms signed and complete other such formalities, including permissions to conduct interviews. This process delayed the work slightly, but is an important learning in terms of the need to establish a rapport with institutions for such research. The questionnaire was translated into Marathi (the local language) to facilitate the discussions. It was felt that to cover the basic aspects of the collections at an institution, at least 4–5 visits are required with a little gap between visits. This regular frequency will help to build relationships as well as maintain the work flow. The sample size for the present study was small due to some unforeseen constraints such as getting enough number of interested volunteer Wikimedians to undertake some of the research, multiple visits required for each institution which extended the duration of fieldwork, lack of positive responses from the GLAM institutions as well as eventual restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Survey of GLAM in Maharashtra</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">To identify the major institutions in Maharashtra and prepare the list of major GLAM institutions in the state, various government and private official websites as well as publications were studied. It was realised that no website or publication has created a comprehensive district or statewide list of institutions. Information about a few institutions is available online, but these are helpful largely from a tourism point of view. There is no proper selection or thematic categorisation which considers researchers, students, or other communities of interest. The popular tourist routes are given importance. Therefore, there is a need to document all the GLAMs category-wise on platforms freely accessible to the public. Some of the websites are listed in <a href="https://cis-india.org/GLAM%20Mapping%20Report%20A2K" class="external-link">Annexure II</a><a href="https://cis-india.org/GLAM%20Mapping%20Report%20A2K" class="external-link">.</a></p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Description of Surveyed Institutions</h2>
<div> <strong style="text-align: justify;">Apte Vachan Mandir, Ichalkaranji</strong></div>
<div> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Art_gallery_at_Apte_vachan_mandir_Ichalkaranji.jpg/image_preview" title="Art_gallery_at_Apte_vachan_mandir,_Ichalkaranji" align="middle" height="300" width="550" alt="Art_gallery_at_Apte_vachan_mandir,_Ichalkaranji" /></div>
<div>
<div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"> <em> Art Gallery at Apte Vachan Mandir, Ichalkaranji. By <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%9E%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%A6%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%87-%E0%A4%AB%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%87">ज्ञानदा गद्रे-फडके</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Art_gallery_at_Apte_vachan_mandir,_Ichalkaranji.jpg">Art gallery at Apte vachan mandir, Ichalkaranji</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></em></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<p style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://www.aptewachan.org/">Apte Vachan Mandir</a> is a 150 year old library in a small city named Ichalkaranji in Kolhapur district of Maharashtra. The authorities are very cooperative and eager to start digitization of the old/rare books and art gallery. They also need help regarding digitisation and preservation of the century old paintings. The institute is ready to scan the books if equipment and training is provided to their staff. The officials have given the list of 400+ rare books which they are planning to digitise. The official communication has started with the secretary of the institution. The further process stalled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p><strong style="text-align: justify;">Iravati Karve Anthropological Museum, Pune</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.unipune.ac.in/dept/mental_moral_and_social_science/anthropology/antropology_webfiles/Musium.htm">Iravati Karve Anthropological Museum</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> is located in the Savitribai Phule Pune University campus, Pune. The initial visit was conducted and permission was sought for further documentation. The curator and authorities have extended all possible cooperation regarding open knowledge access to the museum collections urther visits could not be undertaken due to the restrictions as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.</span></p>
<div><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.minirailways.com/">Joshi’s Museum of Miniature Railways</a> was founded in 1998 by B. S. Joshi in Pune city. It houses different models of trains, railway stations, tracks with signals, bridges, streets in the cities, circus etc. Light and sound shows are also arranged here. This is a unique collection in India. One can get an experience of scientific concepts, handicraft, technology, history, amusement related artifacts at one place. The authorities of this museum do not feel the need of digitization as it is a live show which gives the best experience. However the documentation of the development process regarding railway models present in the museum is important. They wish to increase the outreach through publicity of the museum on free knowledge platforms to attract visitors to increase the footfall. As it is a privately owned museum, it is getting difficult to maintain it or add new things to it. So, there is scope for some kind of engagement with this museum.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Museum in College of Military Engineering, Pune</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="https://www.irfca.org/gallery/Heritage/CME-Museum/">College of Military Engineering</a> is a premier institute for army training in India established in 1943. The museum houses vintage engineering equipment from the pre-World War I era, which is displayed over a large landscape. The archives of the corps are also maintained in the library section. Permission for an initial visit was received late due to administrative procedures. Further visits for interviews with the key officials were planned but cancelled due to the lockdown following the COVID-19 pandemic. But there is scope to document the rare machinery, engineering structures, military vehicles etc. as it is openly accessible to the public. The institute is also keen to spread this knowledge to young generations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><strong><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copy_of______4.jpg/image_preview" title="Pune nagar vachan" height="300" width="550" alt="Pune nagar vachan" class="image-inline image-inline" /><br /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-ce138273-7fff-3e8c-3337-8f071744d5e6"><em>Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir Library. By <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%95_%E0%A4%95%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0">दिपक कोतकर</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%A3%E0%A5%87%20%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%B0%20%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%A8%20%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B0%20%E0%A4%97%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A5%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2%E0%A4%AF%204.jpg">पुणे नगर वाचन मंदिर ग्रंथालय 4</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="http://www.punenagarvachan.org/">Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir</a> is a historic library in Pune founded in 1848. The library houses a rich collection with rare books in various languages from the 17th century. It also possesses historical manuscripts and valuable diaries. The library management is very up to date on new developments in the field and has already adopted web technologies for catering to members. The catalogues are made available online in <a href="https://koha-community.org/">Koha</a>. They have started digitisation efforts to some extent but need inputs and support. The authorities are eager to collaborate on larger projects to make their resources freely available. The authorities are ready to give the database of books for further integration with Wikimedia projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong id="docs-internal-guid-313b0f93-7fff-7fc2-0133-57e2a7f9c8df">Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a href="http://rajakelkarmuseum.org/about.html">Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum</a> was founded in 1920 by Dinkar Kelkar in Pune city. This museum houses 22,000 rare artifacts from different historical times. The thematic galleries have been developed thoughtfully. The museum has published 8 catalogues on these themes. More details of this museum can be seen on the official website.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copy_of__.jpg/image_preview" title="Mastani mahal" height="300" width="550" alt="Mastani mahal" class="image-inline image-inline" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c7c43d70-7fff-a710-c0ff-28420cb2098f"><em>Mastani Mahal restored at Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum,Pune. By <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%80">आर्या जोशी</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%A8%E0%A5%80%20%E0%A4%AE%E0%A4%B9%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B2.jpg">मस्तानी महाल</a>, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-89a616fd-7fff-dc9d-d9c3-37b139766c1d"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">This museum is partially funded by the State Government for some regular maintenance. The funds for development, upgradation, conservation and promotion are to be raised by the institution. A digitisation project has been planned by the museum authorities, and it is progressing as the resources are being arranged. The museum officials are open to share information digitally in the public domain. They believe that they can reach interested masses through Wikimedia Projects. They have given permission to photograph the objects and the various conservation practices in their laboratory. They have expressed their readiness to give free access to libraries and museums for Wikimedians visiting the institution for purposes of research.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Rajgurunagar Public Library, Rajgurunagar</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Rajgurunagar Public Library is a 150 plus year old Public access library with a competitive examination center. The special features are rare books from the 19th century and manuscripts. The management was not aware of Wikimedia projects, Open source cataloging, Unicode data entry systems etc. But after the visit, the officials responded very positively to start digitisation of 25 rare books in collaboration with the Access to Knowledge programme, Centre for Internet and Society and <a href="http://vigyanashram.com/">Vigyan Ashram, Pabal</a>. The task was completed and these books were digitised and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons by creating a <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Books_with_Public_Library,_Rajgurunagar_published_before_1900">separate category</a>. As the manuscripts and other material is getting degenerated, this collection needs to be digitised at the earliest.</p>
<h2>Observations</h2>
<p> <strong style="text-align: justify;">Target audience</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The GLAM institutions, especially museums and libraries are facing a decrease in footfall in recent times. The officials feel that uploading material on the web under free licenses will further aid this trend. At the same time they also express their interest and ideas to attract a new generation to engage with these collections through promotional mobile apps. There are however persistent anxieties about public access to these materials on the web. Some institutions possess unique or rare material such as antiquities, manuscripts, live models or books. The officials fear that the institutions will lose their points of attraction if they are projected on the web with descriptions. On the other hand, the researchers and interested communities are unaware of such treasures with these institutions. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Sustainability</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Sustenance of the institutions is another important point and obstacle in digitisation of collections. The publications of the museums are a source of revenue for them. As the entry fees or subscription charges need to be kept minimal for the visitors, the priced material sold at the counters is the only income source for these institutions. Hence, there is a limitation of online availability and promotion of this material. Finding a sustainable model which also allows for open access to content is a difficult task for a large number of organisations. The financial support to these institutions is not a priority area for Government agencies or philanthropic organisations. Some institutions have successfully attempted for corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding. They need professional inputs for fundraising campaigns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Technical challenges</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">There are also technical challenges with the digitisation process itself. Some of the libraries have not adopted a universal cataloging system. Therefore it is difficult to analyse the data of books according to copyright status and physical conditions. The authorities are eager to dispose of decaying material after digitisation. Some of them have approached State Government departments for funds but got no response. This may be because standard digitisation policies are not in place at a national level, and a lot of institutions are unaware of existing benchmarks and policies. Another hindrance is that the books will not be permitted to be taken outside the institution for scanning because of the physical condition. Awareness and training in archival and records management is a key requirement in these conditions. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Capacity building</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The awareness and capacity building of the personnel at the institutions in the area of free knowledge and digitisation skills is to be enhanced before starting any project. The terminologies and case studies of some projects in local languages are necessary for better understanding of concepts as well as best practices. Some of the good archive projects in Marathi completed by various organisations include digitisation of the complete works of <a href="http://www.vinoba.in/#/books">Vinoba Bhave</a>, <a href="http://prabodhankar.org/samagra-sahitya">Prabodhankar Thakeray</a> and <a href="https://www.savarkarsmarak.com/downloadbooks.php">Vinayak Savarkar</a>. The language department of the State Government of Maharashtra has also digitised and uploaded 129 old books and 555 old magazines on their <a href="https://rmvs.marathi.gov.in/books">website</a>. The other <a href="https://sahitya.marathi.gov.in/%E0%A4%87-%E0%A4%AC%E0%A5%81%E0%A4%95-%E0%A4%A1%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%8A%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%A1">website of the literature & culture department</a> has made available 434 books in PDF, epub and mobi format.</p>
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<h2>Recommendations</h2>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">These recommendations are based on the interactions with the Wikimedians involved in the process, the interviews with key persons from seven GLAM institutions and previous experiences of working with such institutions. The important learnings from this research study are captured in the observations stated above. As the focus of the discussions remained limited to the access to cultural content and possible collaborations regarding Wikimedia Projects, the content creation aspect was not touched upon in detail. The recommendations emerging from this study provide some guidelines for action points for the near future. However, for designing broader strategies for the GLAM sector, a sizable number of institutions in different regions of the state need to be mapped to provide a more comprehensive picture of the sector and its possibilities </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The recommendations regarding various stakeholders in the mapping process are stipulated below -</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>For Wikimedians</strong></p>
<ul><li>Orientation sessions for Wikimedians visiting the institute regarding GLAM related Wikimedia projects, copyright issues, Creative commons licenses and basics of library science should be conducted. The availability of resource material on these topics in local languages will be useful in the interview process.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">For replicating this mapping activity across one state or several states, the selection of Wikimedia volunteers is crucial. The provision for reasonable honorarium per visit should be made for time bound as well as qualitative execution of tasks.</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>For GLAM institutions</strong></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">It was observed that the GLAM institutions are not well aware about the free knowledge platforms like <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/wikimedia-projects/">Wikimedia projects</a> or <a href="https://archive.org/">Internet archive</a>. They are aware about copyright and intellectual property rights, but not about <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> or other licenses available. They wish to make their resources available across the world but are not clear about the methods. The collaboration regarding these aspects is highly appreciated.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Old libraries have a good collection of rare old books. They are finding difficulties in preservation of books as well as facing space constraints. Also for these books, readership is also negligible. Hence there is a need to digitise this valuable reference material before it degenerates.</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>For CIS (or other implementing agency)</strong></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">A comprehensive list of GLAM institutions in the state, with further categorisation into geographical & thematic aspects is to be developed and be made freely accessible for the public at large. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Training in universal metadata structures and unicode systems like Koha is to be arranged for the staff and management members at these institutions. At least the cataloging in universal format should be done on priority to analyse the metadata for copyright free status. A central repository is needed to avoid duplication in scanning. CIS-A2K needs to design strategic plan for this activity.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">For in-depth case studies of potential GLAM-Wiki institutions, <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_residence">Wikimedian in Residence (WiR)</a> programme should be adopted.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Interactions with concerned State and Central Government departments would facilitate the research activity and further collaborations. The findings of the research could be shared with such agencies along with concrete project proposals designed in collaboration with concerned institutions.</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> As illustrated by the observations of this study, the digital turn has brought about significant changes in the cultural heritage sector, but a large part of these still pertain to concerns around access to cultural content. The role of digital technologies and free knowledge platforms like Wikipedia in addressing these issues of access and outreach, and importantly in content creation therefore remains to be explored, through a more comprehensive study of the sector. Further, the study has also been indicative of the potential of collaborative work, and efforts needed towards the same, which may be helpful in also contributing towards a broader strategy for GLAM work with Wikimedia projects in Indian languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Mapping_GLAM_in_Maharashtra,_India">here</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mapping-glam-in-maharashtra'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mapping-glam-in-maharashtra</a>
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No publisherSubodh KulkarniA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:30:59ZBlog Entry