Centre for Internet and Society

Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal, Satara

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-10-24T11:52:24Z

A Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was conducted at the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal in Satara on 4 August 2017. The organisation, working on issues of women's rights, gender, justice and violence against women, was given an introduction to editing on Wikipedia. Voluntary organisation Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal is eager to implement innovative projects for the students and field activists. It has decided to integrate Wikimedia Projects and training modules for capacity building of students and movement volunteers. To get the overall introduction of Wikimedia Projects and basic skills, this workshop was organised for faculty and selected students. The edit-a-thon was attended by 10 female and 5 male participants.

Sana Patel, a participant emphasises, "I realised the need to contribute gender related content. It is very important to write about women's issues and laws'. The edit-a-thon resulted in 13 new editors discovering Wikipedia for the first time. 20 articles were improved and five images were uploaded. A follow-up workshop on building content on women-related issues has been planned with the Dalit Mahila Vikas Mandal as well as other like-minded organisations in Satara. Onkar Tapase, a participant opines, "as a journalist, I see a great potential to contribute"

The meta page of the event can be found here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-edit-a-thon-at-dalit-mahila-vikas-mandal-satara

Mini Train-the-trainer and Mediawiki Training for Marathi Wikimedians in Pune

garule — 2016-05-28T02:45:22Z

During May 28-29 in Pune, a two-day long train-the-trainer programme and a Mediawiki training are being organised for the contributors of the Marathi-language Wikimedia projects like Marathi Wikipedia and Marathi Wikisource.

Agenda (for Mediawiki training):

Bug triage
Bots
Mediawiki extensions and scripts
Wikidata

Depending on the community needs, we will balance the depth of each topic.

Agenda (for Train-the-Trainer training):

Discussion with the community to come up with ideas on topics such as planning, organising and reporting outreach
Public speaking
Advanced editing skills
New grants structure.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/mini-train-the-trainer-and-mediawiki-training-for-wikimedians-in-pune

Marathi Wikipedia Workshop & 1lib1ref session at Goa University

subodh — 2019-03-01T00:35:44Z

Marathi language department of Goa University has initiated the process to document the culture of Goa on Marathi Wikipedia and Commons.

As this was the first exposure to Wikimedia projects, a two day extensive training workshop was planned. In the same event, a three hour session in library as part of 1lib1ref session was also conducted. CIS-A2K has partnered Goa University for conducting the event which attracted a footfall of 36 participants.

Primary objectives

The following objectives were broadly covered in the sessions held at Goa University campus on 31 January and 1 February 2019:

Awareness about digital knowledge in Marathi, Open knowledge resources and Wikimedia projects.
Explain participants the history of Wiki movement and the pillars of Wikipedia.
Train the participants in basic editing skills in Wikipedia.
Explore the ways to find reliable and verifiable references.
Present the article structure, manual of style, and categorization.
Explain copyright, Commons guidelines and uploading images on Wikipedia.
Discuss follow-up plan and integration with academic activities.
Add reliable references as part of 1lib1ref session in library.

The Workshop

The practice of Marathi typing in Unicode was carried out through preparing articles as Word document. The students selected the articles on history of Goa, writers and artists of Goa, tourism in Goa and villages in Goa. Participants learnt basic editing skills, adding references and uploading on Commons. They worked first in sandboxes on their new articles. The content addition is in progress. The verified content would be moved to main namespace under the guidance of experienced editors.

The concept of 1lib1ref campaign was shared with Chief Librarian of Goa University. The response was very positive. As a result, in the last two sessions of the workshop on 1 February, the participants added references to the articles. The session was conducted in the library. The library staff and faculty facilitated the process.

Follow-up

The editors are preparing the articles in sandboxes and offline also. It is proposed to conduct another iteration to verify and publish this content in main namespace. The students are also taking the images of issues related to Goan culture. The exclusive session on Commons is also proposed. The librarian has suggested making separate rack of reference books related to Goa culture and heritage for utility. This idea will be explored in the next 1lib1ref iteration in May-June 2019.

For more info see the Meta report

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-workshop-1lib1ref-session-at-goa-university

Marathi Wikipedia Workshop in Sangli, Maharashtra

Subodh Kulkarni — 2017-08-16T08:40:58Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was recently held in Sangli, Maharashtra

An introductory Marathi Wikipedia workshop was recently held at CSIBER Trust's V.P. Institute of Management Studies and Research, Sangli, Maharashtra. The workshop aimed to introduce Wikipedia and its sister projects to the participants.

In an effort to implement innovative projects for the students, in March 2017, the institution decided to integrate Wikimedia Projects and academic assignments for capacity building of students and faculty. The implementation started with the Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Environment Management at CSIBER Institute in Kolhapur on 30th March. The Institute in Sangli has also adopted the concept for this academic year. This workshop was organised for faculty and selected students who were taught basic editing skills on Wikipedia, searching for the concerned articles, categorisation and translation from other language wikis. Another focus of the workshop was to integrate academic assignments with Wikimedia projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-workshop-in-sangli-maharashtra

Marathi Wikipedia workshop for Sandarbh Science magazine writers

manasarao — 2017-12-19T15:53:30Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was recently conducted for the writers at Sandarbh Science magazine.

On 18 November, a introductory Wikimedia workshop was conducted for the writers at Sandarbh Science magazine.

Sandarbh Society is a registered society and public trust established with the main objective of publication on science and education. They also conduct lectures, demonstrations, workshops and other such activities in addition to networking of school teachers interested in bringing in innovative approaches in education.

The workshop was aimed at introducing Wikimedia projects and creating/editing Wikipedia articles to the writers. Participants were completely unaware about Marathi Wikipedia and editing. They were trained in basic editing skills and search for the concerned articles, categorisation and translation from other language wikipedias. Participants worked on articles and made edits. Images were also added to Commons and into articles. 59 articles were edited. 11 participants took part in the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-workshop-for-sandarbh-science-magazine-writers

Wikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University

manasarao — 2017-12-19T16:03:48Z

A Wikimedia Technical Workshop was conducted between 27- 28 November, 2017 at the Department of Mathematics, Savitribai Phule Pune University. The objective of the workshops was us to understand how Wikipedia works and what career opportunities there are related to Wikipedia and how one can contribute to and enrich the open source knowledge for the benefit of all.

On the first day, the students were given an introduction to Wikimedia projects as well as Marathi Wikipedia. They were also taught account creation and given a general introduction to Wikipedia , MediaWiki, and wikis in addition to Wikipedia structure, article structure, name spaces, common.css and common.js pages, and gagdets. In the post-lunch session the participants were given an introduction to gadgets, scripts, tool and bots.

On the second day, the participants continued where they left off by learning about advanced tools and bots like Archive Bot, Sign bot, Anti-vandalism bots as well as Phabricator. Finally, the session ended with talks about future projects and activities.

22 participants attended the event.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university

Training-the-trainer programme and Mediawiki training at Pune

garule — 2016-08-18T11:14:57Z

A two-day long train-the-trainer and Mediawiki training programme was organised during May 28-29 in Pune to better capacity of Wikimedians both technically, and outreach and community building.

The participants were trained about planning, organising and reporting for outreach programmes, public speaking, advanced editing skills and and the Wikimedia grants structure. Similarly for the Mediawiki training, the major topics covered in the Mediawiki training sessions were Six Wikimedians; bug triage, bots, Mediawiki extensions and scripts, and Wikidata. The sessions were discussed and planned in the Marathi Wikipedia Village Pump in advance. Rahmanuddin Shaik and I facilitated the individual sessions. Thanks to Sanket Oswal, Treasurer, Wikimedia India who shared about the chapter’s ongoing activities, especially the Wiki Loves Earth project. The community members from Nashik shared about their plans for a meetup in the city of Nashik in June.

Santoshi Tiwari, a Wikimedian from the city of Nashik who was attending a programme like this for the first time feels that there is need for more such programmes more often in multiple cities as there are already 16 Wikimedians from her city who are eager to learn more advanced editing skills. “I learnt about many interesting aspects of the Wikimedia world, like the Wikipedia Adventure game, Wikidata and Wikipedia policies and guidelines

. Until this time, I was contributing to Wikipedia on my own but I started contributing to Wikidata after this event. Now I am enjoying playing the Wikipedia Adventure. I also got the opportunity to meet many Wikimedians in person” shares Santoshi. She explains, “this was good as an introductory event but I would like to participate in sessions that are more detail-oriented. Also, having edit-a-thons during such events will be very useful. With a total of about 19-20 people participating in total, 7 female participants is still a good starting point to have a balanced community. However there should be plans for accommodating more people in the upcoming events”.

Going forward, there are plans to have at least one session in four month in cities where there are higher number of Marathi Wikimedians.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/training-the-trainer-programme-and-mediawiki-training-at-pune

"Marathi Bhasha Gaurav Din" celebrations in Maharashtra

manasa@cis-india.org — 2017-03-10T05:36:48Z

Marathi Language Day was recently commemorated across the state of Maharashtra to celebrate the Marathi language, its literature and culture.

Last week, the state of Maharashtra commemorated Marathi Bhasha Gaurav Din, a day to celebrate the Marathi language, its literature and culture. The celebrations mark the 105th birth anniversary of renowned Marathi poet and writer Vishnu Vaman Shirwadkar who wrote under the pen name Kusumagraj. Most notably, the Maharashtra state government issued a circular, appealing to all educational institutions and government offices to edit one paragraph on Marathi Wikipedia on 27th February(Marathi Language Day). Asmita Pote, a Marathi Wikipedian, believes that this “small step of writing one paragraph on Marathi Wikipedia will give those learning about Wikipedia for the first time, an opportunity to explore further and contribute”.

There were Wikipedia awareness programs and cultural festivities organised across the state’s schools and colleges to mark the week long(27 February to 6 March) celebrations. The Gateway of India in Mumbai held a large-scale cultural program with performances from leading Marathi singers, dancers and poets portraying their cultural heritage through their art. The state government promoted the celebrations on television channels, radio stations and newspapers with interviews of eminent Marathi achievers from different walks of life. These interviews can be found here.

This year’s theme for Marathi Bhasha Gaurav Din was ‘role of computer and internet in language’. The Minister for Education and Marathi Bhasha(among other portfolios), Mr. Vinod Tawde, encouraged citizens to edit on Wikipedia and urged the citizens to use unicode on their social media platforms to facilitate discussions in Marathi. Says Rahul Deshmukh, Marathi Wikipedia administrator, “this is the outcome of efforts channelled over two years. The government understood the need to take Wikipedia to the aam aadmi(common man) in Maharashtra in order to strengthen the language. The primary goal was to expose people to Wikipedia and raise awareness about Marathi Wikipedia.” In thanking the government officials who worked tirelessly for this initiative, he also appeals to other Indic language communities in India to see this as a role model. He believes that this initiative should be taken to other states and state governments as well.

The recent celebrations in Maharashtra have seen significant due to active government involvement. Priya Hiregange, a Marathi Wikipedian, says, “the government raised awareness not just in schools and colleges across the state but also in their own offices, giving training to government officials to write about their department or their organisation’s work on the free encyclopaedia.” The government circular appealing to citizens to edit on Wikipedia saw a great increase in the number of articles and editors. This goes to show that government involvement could immensely benefit the free knowledge movement in regional languages by creating awareness and exposure to these resources. It also sets a positive precedent for other state governments in India to emulate and promote their regional languages. Wikipedia is available in 23 Indic languages. A supportive government could go a long way to ensure the development of the free knowledge movement in India.

If you would like to contact Mr. Rahul Deshmukh for guidance on such initiatives for your language, please drop him a line here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-bhasha-gaurav-din-celebrations-in-maharashtra

Marathi Language Day events by CIS-A2K in February 2018

subodh — 2018-03-17T08:58:44Z

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

Online Workshops

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

Media

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

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

Event in Sangli

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

Media Coverage

News in Pudhari
News in Lokmat
News in Samana

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

Wikipedia Workshop in the Theme of "Sau Dhuni Teen" in Pune University

garule — 2016-06-18T18:10:43Z

A Wikipedia workshop is being planned to be organised in the Srimati Savitribai Phule Pune University on the 20th August 2015. Under the scope of “Sau Dhuni Teen” project, the workshop is focused on building resources in Indian languages for women's studies on Wikipedia and equip its participants with the rudiments of contributing to Wikipedia, and to introduce it as a concept to them.

The goal of Wikipedia Workshop is to build resources in Indian languages for women's studies on Wikipedia and equip its participants with the rudiments of contributing to Wikipedia, and to introduce it as a concept to them.

Primary goals

To introduce Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia for research and a concept to new editors.
To Promote Marathi Wikipedia Community & promote the use of regional languages in Wikipedia.
To have an open interaction within the editors, existing as well as new.
To spread the awareness of Wikipedia as a powerful tool.

Expected Attendees : 20-30 (only for university research students)

The event is being organised in collaboration with Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-in-theme-of-sou-dhuni-teen-pune-university

Wikipedia workshop in the theme of “Sau Dhuni Teen” in Pune University

Abhinav Garule — 2016-06-18T18:08:36Z

A two-day Wikipedia workshop was organised in the Srimati Savitribai Phule Pune University on the 20th August 2015. The workshop was focused on enriching Wikipedia with 100 articles related to notable Indian women under the scope of the “Sau Dhuni Teen” project.

To begin with, we announced it in the Marathi Wikipedia village pump prior to the workshop inviting Wikipedians to join. The primary goal of the project was to to introduce Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia for research and a concept to new editors, to promote Marathi Wikipedia and promote the use of Indian languages in Wikipedia.This workshop provided a platform to have an open interaction within the editors, existing as well as new. Interestingly, there was a male:female ratio of 1:10 among the new participants out of which five edited Wikipedia before coming there. Six new accounts were created on that day. Each of the participants created at least one new article which resulted creation of 15 new articles where 28 articles in English, Bangla and Hindi Wikipedias were edited totally. As the participants were new, learning typing using Wikipedia’s native Marathi input method “Aksharantaran” was slightly difficult for some where some found the Google’s input easier. Unavailability of sandboxes (user subpages where users work on a draft Wikipedia article until it is fully ready to be published) in Marathi Wikipedia was a concern as many editors were unsure if their article might be changed and/or deleted during the time when they were editing. During the workshop one good quality article was created and the second one was in progress by the end of the second day. We helped the editors to refer to the existing good quality articles for understanding how to write one.

We are planning to to engage with the participating new editors once or twice in a quarter. The event is being organised in collaboration with Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE).

More details of the workshop could be found in the Meta event page.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-in-the-theme-of-201csou-dhuni-teen201d-in-pune-university

Seminar on "Empowering Marathi Schools", Pune

garule — 2016-06-18T17:59:29Z

A full day seminar is scheduled to be organised to address the issue of the gradual decline of Marathi schools in Maharashtra. CIS-A2K member Abhinav Garule will be attending the event to share how teachers could encourage students to contribute to Marathi Wikipedia.

This day long seminar is organised by Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan, Mumbai

Organiser's Agenda: Day by day number of students in Marathi Schools is decreasing. Yashwantrao Chavan Pratishthan (यशवंतराव चव्हाण प्रतिष्ठान) and Marathi Shala Tikavalya Pahijet (Facebook Group) have planned to organise this seminar to discuss about addressing these issues. Former Director of Education of the Government of Maharashtra has been invited to chair the seminar and share learning that could help solve problems of the Marathi schools. Abhinav is planning to share how the teachers could use Wikipedia as a learning tool and encourage their students to edit and learn about various topics of interest.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/seminar-on-empowering-marathi-schools-pune

Marathi Language Fortnight Workshops 2019

subodh — 2019-03-01T00:39:33Z

Maharashtra is a state which is rich in diversity in terms of language and culture seen in its various regions such as Konkan, Marathwada, Western Maharashtra, Northern Maharashtra and Vidarbha. Awareness needs to be created to make Wikimedia movement inclusive and diverse in these geographical regions as well as in their social strata.

Collaboration for organizing events

The Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) launched the concept of organizing state-wide workshops to spread awareness and train editors in the nitty-gritties of Wikipedia editing and creating digital content. The campaign is now regularly conducted by Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha (RMVS), the language department of Maharashtra government with support from CIS-A2K and various institutions.

These events were conducted during the Marathi language fortnight (1 – 15 January 2019) upto Marathi Language Day on 27 February 2019. The objectives of the event such as creating awareness about digital knowledge in Marathi, open knowledge resources and Wikimedia projects; explaining the history of Wiki movement; training participants in basic editing skills in Wikipedia; exploring ways to find reliable references; presenting article structure, were broadly covered in the sessions. Trainers also explained participants on copyright, community guidelines, uploading images, and so on.

CIS-A2K had collaborated with the state language department from 2017 onwards. In the first series of workshops, three events were conducted. In the second series in 2018 six workshops out of a total 17 workshops were conducted across the state. In the year 2019, the awareness spread to more educational institutions located in different regions of the state. In the third series, CIS-A2K conducted five workshops out of total 21 workshops conducted. CIS facilitated the process and supported some workshops remotely.

The Workshops

The first workshop was conducted at Chintamanrao College of Commerce at Sangli. The awareness session about open knowledge sources and Wikimedia projects was organized for students and faculty in the beginning of workshop. After this one hour session, actual skill training in Wikipedia editing was done for three hours for 24 participants. They created the account and learnt the editing and image upload on Commons. The practice was done in sandboxes before working in main namespace. The students of pre-university course and graduate course attended the workshop. The commerce and management related articles were edited.

The second workshop was conducted at Shivaji University, Kolhapur. The Marathi language department took the initiative to organize this workshop for the second consecutive year. The participants were selected from 4 colleges affiliated to university. The faculty was also actively involved. The introductory session was attended by 50 students. The editing training of three hours was conducted in computer lab, in which 24 new users participated. The editors practiced the manual of style, providing links and references, etc. on their sandboxes before working on the main namespace articles. The editors mostly worked on locally relevant topics.

The third workshop was conducted in Dayanand College at Solapur. This institution organized this event for the second consecutive year. The thematic discussion on history of Solapur was facilitated by a senior editor of Sakal newspaper. The plan for documentation of local festival - Gadda Yatra and history of Solapur was discussed. It is proposed to start this activity with thematic workshop. Total 15 new and old users participated in the workshop.

The fourth workshop was conducted at Mass Communication & Journalism department of Solapur University. The faculty of this department took the initiative to organize this event for the second time. Total 25 new and old users participated in the workshop. The participants edited the articles related to journalism and also uploaded the images on Commons. Some editors completed the task of adding references to articles. After the meeting with the faculty, group of post graduate students were assigned 50 articles about reputed Marathi newspapers. They will complete this task as part of their online academic submissions.

The fifth wokshop was conducted at SSSKR Innani College at Karanja Lad in district Washim. This was the first Wikipedia programme in this region of the state. As it was the first Wiki event, we decided to organise a two day workshop. The management and faculty participated actively in this workshop. In the workshop, references and images were added to existing articles about local heritage, tourist places and personalities. The images were uploaded to newly created categories - Karanja Lad and SSSKR Innani College on Commons. Over 100 members participated in this two day event, while 45 users edited actively on Wikimedia projects.

Follow-up

After the workshop, quarterly refresher sessions are planned in these institutions. The active students' WhatsApp groups will be formed for support and online training sessions. This cadre of Wiki Guides would facilitate the programs for other students. The meeting with faculty and board of studies would be held for integration of Wikimedia activities with the academic assignments.

More info check out the Meta report.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-language-fortnight-workshops-2019

Content Donation Sessions with Authors

subodh — 2019-04-10T01:28:21Z

CIS-A2K has adopted an integrated approach towards knowledge generation in Marathi language. With the involvement of various stakeholders in different programmes, CIS-A2K facilitated a comprehensive workshop for publishers, printers, designers and writers on 7 September 2018.

The State Govt. Language department, All India Marathi Literary Body & All India Marathi Publishers Consortium took the lead to organize this workshop. In this workshop, noted authors Sunilkumar Lawate and Laxmikant Deshmukh expressed their willingness to donate their books to Wikimedia projects. The awareness about content donation was spread among the writers' community through this workshop.

Objectives

To promote the concept of content donation in Wikimedia projects
To develop repository of reference books on Commons & Wikisource
To facilitate organizations working in developmental sector for developing open knowledge on internet

Report

To promote Marathi language, Marathi language fortnight (1-15 January) and Marathi Day (27 February) was celebrated in Maharashtra. CIS-A2K organized various events on this occasion with state government, publishers, writers and other stakeholders in knowledge business. Some of the authors responded to the appeal to donate their literature in public domain. The following content donations were received in February and March 2019.

Book on Home Composting

Kaustubh Tamhankar, an active citizen from Thane is promoting innovative home composting methods for zero garbage. He has produced some manuals and videos on the process. As the awareness about environment friendly lifestyle is increasing, the author thought of releasing the first manual on Commons. CIS-A2K community advocate (CA) trained him in basics of Wikipedia and Commons. He completed the OTRS process and uploaded the book on zero garbage. He has planned to upload some more manuals and videos in future.

Books by Sunilkumar Lawate

Pictured above: Cover page of the book 'V. S. Khandekar Biography' by Sunilkumar Lawate

Prof. Sunilkumar Lawate is an educationist, social activist and writer in Maharashtra. He participated in the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. He approached CIS-A2K for release of his books in CC-BY-SA on the occasion of Marathi Day on 27 February. CA trained the author in copyrights, Commons upload process and OTRS process in the session held at Kolhapur on 27 February. Prof. Lawate uploaded his 21 books on Commons. These are reference value books on education, child rights, literature, autobiographies, social issues and classic literature. The newspapers covered this event as feature of Marathi day. Because of good media coverage, many responses from other authors in Maharashtra have been received for content donation.

Books by Lek Ladaki Abhiyan

We all know that vast amount of training materials and case studies are produced in development sector. But it is not available to society at large. It is restricted to NGOs, funding agencies, etc. for project period. If it is brought in Wikimedia, it will be searchable for all and will be linked to various articles also as reference resource. CIS-A2K is approaching several such organizations for content donations. CIS-A2K received positive response from Adv. Varsha Deshpande, President of Lek Ladaki Abhiyan, Satara about bridging gender gap activities on Wikimedia projects. Lek Ladaki Abhiyan (LLA) is one of the most active organizations working on Women's issues in Maharashtra. The activities cover wide range of issues viz. stopping child marriages, counselling workshops for adolescents, pre-marriage counselling, child labour issues, legal aid to women facing violence, sting operations for exposing cases of female foeticide, hostel for girls etc.

LLA organization is involved in content generation on women's issues for the last two years with the support of CIS-A2K. The process proved useful for the members and other participants. On the occasion of Women's day on 9th March, LLA re-licensed 8 books and uploaded on Commons. The convener Adv. Varsha Deshpande has authored 6 books. She has taken this noble initiative. The content is spreading across beneficiaries and getting good feedback also. The books cover all the issues mentioned above. The articles created in women's day workshop and books donated by this organization have contributed to reduction in gender gap. LLA would like to lead the movement with other like-minded organizations in urban, rural, tribal areas to facilitate the open knowledge generation on women's issues.

Books by Laxmikant Deshmukh

Laxmikant Deshmukh is former IAS and writer in Maharashtra. He was president of All India Marathi Literary Festival in 2017 at Badoda. He was co-organizer for the FOSS & Wikimedia workshop conducted in September 2018. From that event, he has been promoting open knowledge concept and Wikimedia projects. The training session at Pune was held on 16 March for re-licensing his 4 works. The books are on socio-economic issues of Maharashtra.

Link to the Wikipedia page report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-donation-sessions-with-authors

SVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University

subodh — 2019-04-26T06:47:40Z

The Centre for Internet & Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) wing organized an SVG translation workshop in collaboration with KBC North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon on 14-15 March 2019. The workshop was a part of India level campaign. Total 58 participants attended the workshop and contributed to Commons till 31 March 2019.

Background

During the edit-a-thons and thematic workshops, the need for images in Marathi was realised. Many articles on health and science have images with labels in English. The issue was discussed with few institutions. KBC University came forward to start the activity under this campaign.

Objectives

Orientation of Wikimedia projects
Localisation of SVG images
Commons upload policies and process

Facilitators

Krishna Chaitanya Velaga -- User: KCVelaga
Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K --Subodh (CIS-A2K)
Prof. Manish Joshi, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon -- Joshmanish
Dr. Snehalata B. Shirude, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon --Snehalata Shirude

Agenda

Introduction to Wikimedia projects, Marathi Wikipedia, Commons
Account creation, basic editing skills
Copyrights, Commons upload process
Graphics images, types of formats, features
Installation of fonts, Inkscape
Resources for translation, verification before uploads
Selection of images, tags, categories for upload
Using translated images in local Wikipedia

Report

As the participants were not aware of Wikimedia projects, the first two sessions dedicated to an introduction to various projects. The participants opened accounts on a smartphone and created user pages after logging in on computers. They were introduced to basic skills in Wikipedia editing, giving references/wiki links and adding images from Commons. The Commons platform was explained in detail. The missing images in Marathi language articles and Commons as well were shown. The discussion on these topics resulted in understanding the need for SVG translation exercise.

The next session was to download and install the necessary software on each computer. The participants installed Google Input Tools for Marathi typing and also Inkscape. Before translating images on Inkscape, the students first practised Marathi typing on their sandboxes. After this, the main graphics sessions were conducted. Krishna explained various types of formats, differences between raster and vector graphics, the importance of SVGs and actual SVG file translation process. He demonstrated the process for images with different difficulty levels. They were introduced to resources available as a part of the campaign for SVG translation and necessary techniques. The usage of various online resources like encyclopedia and thesaurus available was also explained. The images were selected and working tags were applied by the participants. The faculty facilitated the process of work distribution among the students. The participants were able to upload 100+ images on the first day.

Pictured above: Students from Day 1 helping others on Day 2 (Picture by Subodh Kulkarni)

On Day 2, around 20 participants newly joined the workshop. This group comprised of teachers, journalists, doctors, and other enthusiastic citizens. Active students from Day 1 facilitated the training of this new batch. Having conducted a session on the previous day greatly helped to facilitate this session easily. The experienced teachers and citizens helped others to get correct translations and terms. This boosted the speed of the work. The images were also used in the articles on Marathi Wikipedia.

With the help of science teachers, the images were verified before uploading to Commons. Due to active participatory work on the second day, the total images crossed 200 mark. The students continued to contribute till last day of campaign i.e. 31 March. At the end, due to consistent work Marathi category reached the highest number with a total of 357 images among all Indian languages. The workshop and further work was well organized and motivated by Prof. Manish Joshi and Prof. Snehalata Shirude from Computer Science department.

Link to the Wikipedia page report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university