Centre for Internet and Society

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos of Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T07:50:44Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia for the media persons.

Dr. Pavanaja explained how they can use Wikipedia in their daily work for reference. He also explained the necessity to add content to Kannada Wikipedia, correct the articles if they find any factual errors, enhance the existing articles, especially stubs, etc.

The event was organized by Prajavani on April 28, 2014.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wiki-session-for-prajavani-journalists

Subhashish Panigrahi joins Open GLAM Working Group

praskrishna — 2014-05-27T09:40:40Z

Subhashish recently joined the OpenGLAM Working Group (a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content.) as a member and OpenGLAM Local (a local affiliate of OKFN's OpenGLAM project) as an ambassador for India. Both the positions will be voluntary.

OpenGLAM Working Group

The OpenGLAM Working Group is a global network of people who work to open up cultural data and content. We run workshops and provide documentation for cultural institutions wanting to open up their data as well as organise events bringing together groups that are committed to building an open cultural commons. The Working Group Members act as a bridge between different organisations and initiatives, and the global network. We meet every month virtually to discuss relevant updates, pressing issues, and next steps to be taken. If you are interested in joining, please get in touch with openglam@okfn.org.

Read the full details on this page.

Open GLAM Local

OpenGLAM has established several local groups as well as OpenGLAM ambassadors to serve as the local point of contact in their area. They are closely connected to the Local Groups of the Open Knowledge Foundation and work on open culture in these local groups. Subhashish Panigrahi is the local contact in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/open-glam-working-group-members-subhashish-panigrahi

Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2012-10-25T08:42:56Z

CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus are organizing a hackathon for their tech fest — ATMOS on October 26 - 27, 2012, from 6.00 p.m. on October 26 to 6.00 a.m. on October 27.

An all night hackathon to get started in contributing technically to the world’s largest source of free information – Wikipedia. The code that you write (and eventually deploy) will be viewed/used 7,938,026,125 times a month! Write user scripts that fix annoying little things with the way Wikipedia functions. Write bots to import (and accurately maintain) large amounts of information from various sources into Wikipedia. Write tools to make it easier to maintain Wikipedia’s standards and fight spam. Most of all join the awesome Open Source community and have fun!

Pre-requisites:

Preferable working knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript *or* python.

Laptops, which you will have to carry with you.

To register for the event, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad

India and France to Digitise Manuscripts, Artworks & Archives

praskrishna — 2015-12-15T08:15:15Z

The Indian and French governments have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) which will assist in technical knowledge sharing, competency, skill building and cultural exchange between the two countries, as per a PIB release.

This was published by Medianama on October 29, 2015. CIS memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Goa University was mentioned.

The MoU will assist a program on digitisation of old manuscripts and documents, which began in France 7 years ago. The Ministry of Culture will benefit from this and build a national virtual library in India, which will store and share manuscripts, archives and artworks. This library will also link and share all knowledge resources from various Indian and French government institutes and organisations.

The French government is also keen on sorting and deciphering its collection of thousands of Indian documents in Sanskrit, Tamil and other Indian languages with the help of the Indian government, which also incidentally includes correspondence between Rabindranath Tagore and French scholar Sylvan Levin.

NMM digitised over 30 lakh manuscripts last year
In March, we reported that the 12 year old government body National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) had digitised over thirty lakh manuscripts and 18,588,390 pages in all as of 31 December 2014. Mahesh Sharma, Union Minister of State for Culture, Tourism & Civil Aviation said that the National Archives of India (NAI) was set to digitise another 1,100,000 historic records.

Previous digitisation initiatives:

In November 2014, around 55 books written by the Indian author and activist Niranjana in Kannada would be digitized and made available on Kannada Wikisource, allowing Kannada speakers to access these books easily.
In October 2014, the Ministry of Culture launched a national portal for museums. Collections in all museums under its control and those under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) will be digitized and presented on this portal.
In July 2014, the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science and Technology released the draft of Open Access Policy under the Ministry of Science and Technology.
In September 2013, Goa University entered into a 3 year MoU with the Centre for Internet and Society for building the Konkani Wikipedia.
In June 2013, Tata Communications Media Services planned to digitize documents of historical and cultural significance such as films and documentaries from the archives of Doordarshan and Films Division of India which go back to 1947 including speeches of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders.
In May 2013, Punjabi Sahitya Akademi Reference Lab scanned and saved around 1,000 manuscripts, stone-printed scripts, poetry books on computer hard discs, adding that the digitized editions will be available across the globe through the internet.

Check out our digitisation and government coverage.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/medianama-sneha-johari-october-29-2015-india-and-france-to-digitise-manuscripts-artworks-and-archives

कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर

praskrishna — 2013-10-23T05:11:54Z

News about digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh, appeared in Navprabha daily on October 22, 2013 on front page.

Click to read the original published in Navprabha on October 22, 2013.

गोवा विद्यापीठाचा प्रकल्प असलेला कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश हा लवकरच विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाइन विश्‍वकोशावर संपूर्ण जगासाठी विनामूल्य उपलब्ध होणार आहे. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाच्या डिजिटलायझेशनची प्रक्रिया सुरू झाली असून ती येत्या दोन महिन्यात पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे.

क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे पुन:प्रकाशन करण्याचे हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे जाहीर करण्यात आले होते. अशाप्रकारचा हा देशातील अनोखा प्रयोग ठरेल. यामुळे विश्‍वकोशाचा अभ्यासकांना अधिक मुक्तपणे वापर करता येईल. क्रिएटिव्ह कॉमन्स लायसन्सखाली मूळ मालकाला हक्क राखता येतातच पण वापरकर्त्यांनाही माहितीत भर टाकण्याची, ती अधिक विकसित करण्याची मुभा मिळते.

आता बंगळूरस्थित सीआयएस ही संस्था गोवा विद्यापीठाच्यावतीने कोंकणी विश्‍वकोशाचे चारही खंड डिजिटल माध्यमात परिवर्तीत करून विकिपीडियाद्वारे संपूर्ण विश्‍वात नेण्याचे काम करणार आहे. एकदा हा विश्‍वकोश डिजिटल होऊन विकिपीडिया या ऑनलाईन ज्ञानकोशावर गेल्यानंतर या विकिपीडियावर जगातील इतर भाषांप्रमाणेच कोंकणीतून ज्ञानात्मक मजकूर निर्माण करणे तसेच चटकन संदर्भ उपलब्ध करून देणे अधिक सोपे होणार आहे.

गोवा विद्यापीठासाठी डिजिटलायझेशनचे काम करत असलेल्या सेंटर फॉर इंटरनेट ऍन्ड सोसायटीच्या नितीका टंडन यांनी माहिती देताना सांगितले की, येत्या दोन महिन्यांत विश्‍वकोशाच्या चारही खंडांचे डिजिटलायझेशन पूर्ण करण्याची योजना आहे. त्यासाठी गोवा विद्यापीठातील कोंकणी विभागाच्या विद्यार्थ्यांची तसेच अन्य इच्छुकांची मदत घेतली जाणार आहे.

सीआयएस संस्था विकिपिडीयावर भारतीय भाषांतील मजकूर वाढविण्यासाठी काम करते, अशी माहितीही टंडन यांनी दिली. दिल्ली, पुणे, बेंगलोर येथे असे गट कार्यरत असल्याचे त्या म्हणाल्या. कोंकणी भाषेतून विकिपीडियावर फारच कमी मजकूर उपलब्ध असल्याचे त्यांनी सांगितले. तो वाढविण्यासाठी प्रयत्न करण्यात येत असल्याची माहिती त्यांनी दिली. त्यासाठी हल्लीच गोवा विद्यापीठाच्या कोंकणी विभागातील विद्यार्थ्यांना एक खास कार्यशाळाही घेण्यात आली होती. कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश एकुण चार छापील खंडांत असून या खंडांचे प्रकाशन गोवा विद्यापीठातर्फे ग्रंथरूपात १९९१,१९९७,१९९९ व २००० साली याप्रमाणे झाले होते. पहिल्या दोन खंडांचे संपादन मनोहरराय सरदेसाय यांनी तर खंड तीन व चारचे संपादन डॉ. तानाजी हळर्णकर यांनी केले होते. या चार छापील ग्रंथरूपातील खंडांची पृष्ठसंख्या ८६३, ९३४, ८२४ व १०११ अशी आहे.

दरम्यान, विकिपीडिया संकेतस्थळ हे इंटरनेटवर सर्वाधिक भेट दिले जाणारे चौथ्या क्रमांकाचे संकेतस्थळ आहे.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/navprabha-sameer-janty-october-22-2013-konkani-vishwakosh-wikipedia

Whats & Hows of Wiki

praskrishna — 2013-10-25T07:00:23Z

The Kings School students of class 10 were blessed to have Nitika Tandon & Subhashish Panigrahi of Wikipedia Foundation to conduct a workshop on the whats & hows of Wiki, creating & editing Wiki pages, etc. Our students also got a hands on experience, and they edited the Bibinca page on Wiki.

This was published in the King's School Portal on July 26, 2013. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi are quoted.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-kings-school-july-26-2013-whats-and-hows-of-wiki

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T08:12:50Z

Wikimedia India, the Centre for Internet and Society, and Acharya Narendra Dev College invite you to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India in New Delhi on November 12, 2013 with the Minister of State for Human Resource Development Dr. Shashi Tharoor as the Chief Guest.

What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization headquartered in Mountain View, California, United States, devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

In simple words, Creative Commons helps you share your knowledge and creativity with the world.

Some more facts about Internet licenses

Ever wondered what "Some Rights Reserved" means?

Copyright grants to creators a bundle of exclusive rights over their creative works, which generally include the right to reproduce, distribute, display, make adaptations, perform, sell and so on. The phrase “All Rights Reserved” is often used by owners to indicate that they reserve all of the rights granted to them under the law. When copyright expires, the work enters the public domain, and the rightsholder can no longer stop others from engaging in those activities under copyright, with the exception of moral rights reserved to creators in some jurisdictions. Creative Commons licenses offer creators a spectrum of choices between retaining all rights and relinquishing all rights (public domain), an approach we call "Some Rights Reserved."

Is Creative Commons against copyright?

Absolutely not. CC has responded to claims to the contrary. CC licenses are copyright licenses, and depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators and other rightsholders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses. Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law should not use CC licenses.

Relaunch

Dr. Savithri Singh, Principal, Acharya Narendra Dev College will be the Master of Ceremony and the Moderator for the sessions:

Time	Detail
16.00 16.30	Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Government of India: Initiatives of MHRD around Openly Licensed Content
16.30 16.45	Question and Answer Session
16.45 17.00	Sam Pitroda (TBC), Adviser to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations: Creative Commons and Open Government Data
17.00 17.05	Question and Answer Session
17.05 17.25	Rohini Nilekani, Chairperson, Pratham Books: Creative Commons and Pratham Books Case Study (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.25 17.40	Moksh Juneja, President, Executive Committee, Wikimedia India Chapter: Creative Commons and Wikipedia (Including Question and Answer Session)
17.40 18.00	Lawrence Liang, Co-founder of Alternative Law Forum: Creative Commons and Open Access to Scholarly Journals (Including Question and Answer Session)
18.00	Tea

VIDEO

Registration

Please register here to attend the event: http://ccindia.doattend.com/ Registration is free.
Please carry a soft or hard copy of the confirmation email to the venue.
Seating will be on first come first served basis.

Invite to the Relaunch of Creative Commons India

Link to the meta page on Wiki: http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Events/Creative_Commons_India_launch

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/relaunch-of-creative-commons-india

Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia: Udayavani Coverage

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T07:25:08Z

Udayavani, on November 15, 2013 published about the upcoming tenth anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia.

See the original published by Udayavani here.

ನ.17ರಂದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ

ಕನ್ನಡ ನೆಟ್ಟಿಗರ ಜ್ಞಾನದಾಹವನ್ನು ತಣಿಸುತ್ತಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ 10 ವಸಂತಗಳನ್ನು ಪೂರೈಸಿರುವ ಸಂತಸವನ್ನು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಇದೇ ಭಾನುವಾರ, ನವೆಂಬರ್ 17, 2013ರಂದು ಡಾ. ಎಚ್. ನರಸಿಂಹಯ್ಯ ಸಭಾಂಗಣ, ನ್ಯಾಶನಲ್ ಕಾಲೇಜು, ಬಸವನಗುಡಿಯಲ್ಲಿ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಮಾರಂಭವನ್ನು ಆಯೋಜಿಸಿದೆ.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಮುಖಾಂತರವೇ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ವಿನಿಮಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರು ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿ, ತಾವು ಬರೆದ ಲೇಖನ, ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಮುಖತಃ ಚರ್ಚಿಸುವ ಅವಕಾಶವನ್ನು ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಒದಗಿಸಿದೆ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ, ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಪರಿಚಯ, ಸಂಪಾದಕ ಆಗುವ ವಿಧಾನ, ಲೇಖನ ಬರೆಯುವ ಬಗೆ, ಚಿತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು ಸೇರಿಸುವ ವಿವರಗಳನ್ನು ಈ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮದಲ್ಲಿ ತಿಳಿಸಿಕೊಡಲಾಗುವುದು.

ಕನ್ನಡದ ಖ್ಯಾತ ಲೇಖಕ ಡಾ. ಯು.ಆರ್. ಅನಂತಮೂರ್ತಿ, ಸಂಶೋಧಕ ಡಾ. ಜಿ. ವೆಂಕಟಸುಬ್ಬಯ್ಯ ಮತ್ತು ಪತ್ರಕರ್ತ ರವಿ ಹೆಗಡೆ ಅವರ ಮಾತುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೇಳುವ ಸುಯೋಗ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರಿಗೆ ಲಭಿಸಲಿದೆ. ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಲಿಚ್ಛಿಸುವವರು ಮೊದಲೇ ನೋಂದಾಯಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕು.

ಸ್ಥಳ : ಎಚ್.ಎನ್. ಮಲ್ಟಿಮೀಡಿಯ ಹಾಲ್, ನ್ಯಾಶನಲ್ ಕಾಲೇಜು, ಬಸವನಗುಡಿ

ದಿನಾಂಕ : ನವಂಬರ್ 17, 2013
ಸಮಯ : 9:30ರಿಂದ 13:00

ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ವಿವರ:

9:30-10:00 ನೋಂದಣಿ
10:00 ರಿಂದ 11:00 ಸಭಾ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ
ಸ್ವಾಗತ ಗೀತೆ - ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ಚೈತನ್ಯ
ಸ್ವಾಗತ ಮತ್ತು ನಿರ್ವಹಣೆ - ಡಾ. ಎ. ಸತ್ಯನಾರಾಯಣ
ಪ್ರಸ್ತಾವನೆ - ಡಾ. ಯು. ಬಿ. ಪವನಜ

ಮುಖ್ಯ ಅತಿಥಿಗಳ ಮಾತು

ಡಾ. ಯು. ಆರ್. ಅನಂತಮೂರ್ತಿ
ನಾಡೋಜ ಪ್ರೊ.ಜಿ. ವೆಂಕಟಸುಬ್ಬಯ್ಯ
ರವಿ ಹೆಗಡೆ, ಸಮೂಹ ಸಂಪಾದಕ, ಉದಯವಾಣಿ

ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷದಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ತಮ ಕೆಲಸ ಮಾಡಿದ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಮತ್ತು ನಿರ್ವಾಹಕರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಸ್ಮರಣಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿಕೆ
ಧನ್ಯವಾದ ಸಮರ್ಪಣೆ
11:00 - 11:15 - ಚಹಾ

11:15 - 12:00

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ - ಓಂಶಿವಪ್ರಕಾಶ
ಕ್ರಿಯೇಟಿವ್ ಕಾಮನ್ಸ್ - ಕಿರಣ್ ರವಿಕುಮಾರ
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯನ್ನರುಗಳ ಮಾತು

12:00-13:00 - ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವ (edit-a-thon)
ಲೇಖನಗಳನ್ನು ಸಿದ್ಧ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದು ಲೇಖನ ಸೇರಿಸುವುದು.

ಸಾಧ್ಯವಿದ್ದವರು ಲ್ಯಾಪ್‌ಟಾಪ್, ಇಂಟರ್‌ನೆಟ್ ಡಾಂಗಲ್ ಮತ್ತು ಒಂದು ಸಿದ್ಧಪಡಿಸಿದ ಲೇಖನ ತಂದು ಕೊನೆಯ ಸಂಪಾದನೋತ್ಸವದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾಲ್ಗೊಳ್ಳಬಹುದು. ಬರುವವರು ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಈ ಪುಟದಲ್ಲಿ ನೋಂದಾಯಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳಿ - https://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಸಮ್ಮಿಲನ/ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ

ಎಲ್ಲ ಪ್ರಮುಖ ಸುದ್ದಿಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಒನ್ಇಂಡಿಯಾ ನೋಟ. ನಿರಂತರ ಸುದ್ದಿ ಪಡೆಯಲು Facebook ಮತ್ತು Twitter ಮೇಲೆ ಇರಲಿ ಕಣ್ಣು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-tenth-anniversary-udayavani-november-15

ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T07:34:14Z

A report of the Kannada Wikipedia tenth anniversary celebrations in Prajavani on November 18.

Read the online version published in Prajavani here.

ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು: ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ. ಬಸವನಗುಡಿ ನ್ಯಾಷನಲ್‌ ಕಾಲೇಜು ಡಾ.ಎಚ್‌.ನರಸಿಂಹಯ್ಯ ಸಭಾಂಗಣ ದಲ್ಲಿ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಭಾನುವಾರ ನಡೆಯಿತು.

ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಸ್ವತಂತ್ರ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ. ಈ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ಬಹುಭಾಷೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಲಭ್ಯ ಇದೆ. 2001ರಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಆರಂಭವಾಯಿತು. ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀ ಡಿಯಾ ಆರಂಭವಾದುದು 2003 ರಲ್ಲಿ. ಪ್ರಸ್ತುತ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆವೃತ್ತಿಯು 15,369 ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಕುರಿತಾದ ಪುಟಗಳನ್ನು ಹೊಂದಿದೆ. ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್‌ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ 44 ಲಕ್ಷ ವಿಷಯ ಗಳಿವೆ. ಹಿಂದಿಯಲ್ಲಿ 1 ಲಕ್ಷ, ತೆಲುಗು ವಿನಲ್ಲಿ 53,900, ತಮಿಳುನ ಭಾಷೆ ಯಲ್ಲಿ 56,000, ಮಲಯಾಳಂನಲ್ಲಿ 25,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳಿವೆ.

ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ 80,000 ಸಂಪಾ ದಕರು ಇದ್ದರೆ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವುದು 403 ಮಂದಿ. ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಕ್ರಿಯರಾ ಗಿರುವವರು 40 ಮಂದಿ.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ 2004 ರ ವರೆಗೂ ಒಂದೇ ಲೇಖನ ಇತ್ತು. 2004ರ ಅಂತ್ಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಲೇಖನಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ 176ಕ್ಕೆ, 2005ರಲ್ಲಿ 515ಕ್ಕೆ ತಲುಪಿತು. 2006ರ ಜೂನ್‌ನಲ್ಲಿ 1,000 ಲೇಖನ ಗಡಿ ದಾಟಿತು. ಬಳಿಕ ಪ್ರಕ್ರಿಯೆಗೆ ವೇಗ ಸಿಕ್ಕಿತ್ತು. ಮತ್ತೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಸಮಯ ಕಳೆಯುವಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಗತಿ ಕುಂಠಿತವಾಗಿದೆ.

‘ಮುಂಬೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಲೆಸಿರುವ ಎಚ್‌.ಆರ್‌.ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ವೆಂಕಟೇಶ ಅವರು 10,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಹಾಗೂ ಬಿ.ಎಸ್‌.ಚಂದ್ರಶೇಖರ್‌ ಅವರು 4,000 ವಿಷಯಗಳನ್ನು ಪರಿಷ್ಕರಣೆ ಮಾಡಿದ್ದಾರೆ. ಇಬ್ಬರೂ 80 ವರ್ಷದ ಆಸುಪಾಸಿನವರು. ಇಂತಹ ಉತ್ಸಾಹ ಇತರರಲ್ಲಿ ಮೂಡಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಸಂಖ್ಯೆ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಆಗಲಿದೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಪಂಚ ಜ್ಞಾನ ಒದಗಿಸದಿದ್ದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿ ಯಲ್ಲ’ ಎನ್ನುತ್ತಾರೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಲ್ಲಿ ಒಬ್ಬರಾದ ಯು.ಬಿ.ಪವನಜ.

‘ಕನ್ನಡದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿಚಾರಸಂಕಿರಣ, ಕವಿಗೋಷ್ಠಿಗಳನ್ನು ನಡೆಸಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯುತ್ತದೆ ಎಂಬ ಭ್ರಮೆ ಬಿಡಬೇಕು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತಿಗಳು ವಿಕಿ ಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸೇರಿಸಲು ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಅರಿವಿಲ್ಲವೆಂದು ಮೌನ ವಾಗುವುದು ಸರಿಯಲ್ಲ’ ಎಂದರು.
ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾತ್ಯಕ್ಷಿಕೆ, ಸಂವಾದ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮ ಗಳನ್ನು ಆಯೋಜಿಸಲಾಗಿತ್ತು.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tenth-anniversary-kannada-wikipedia-prajavani-coverage-november-18

Access to Knowledge Bulletin — September 2013

praskrishna — 2013-12-09T06:37:43Z

The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of September 2013:

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0
Goa University re-released Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access Goa University in collaboration with Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) organised an event on September 26, 2013 at 10 a.m. at the Goa University Conference Hall. Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume encyclopedia published by Goa University. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography, etc. By releasing Vishwakosh under Creative Commons license, Goa University is making it freely available to public and giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. For more on Konkani Vishwakosh re-release see

Announcements

CIS Signs MoU with Goa University: The A2K team at CIS has signed an MoU with the Goa University to digitize the “Konkani Vishwakosh” under the Creative Commons license and build a digital knowledge partnership to enhance digital literacy in Konkani language.

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project: The Centre for Internet and Society in collaboration with the University of Goa is doing a two-month project on digitization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Video

Wikipedians Speak: Piotr Konieczny: This episode brings you a conversation with Piotr Konieczny, a veteran Wikipedian from Poland. He has contributed to over 514 DYK articles on Wikipedia.

Columns and Blog Entries

Recap on Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Startup Goa Blog, September 9, 2013).

ଅବସର ପରର ଦ୍ବିତୀୟ ଜୀବନ, ଅବସର ପରେ ସକ୍ରିୟ ଭାବେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଲେଖାଲେଖି ଜାରୀ ରଖିଥିବା ଜଣେ ଡାକ୍ତରଙ୍କ ସ‌ହ ଭାବାଲୋଚନା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odiapua, September 10, 2013).

Selection of Programme Officer — Pilot Projects, CIS-A2K (by Nitika Tandon, September 10, 2013).

Wikipedia reaches Classrooms in Hyderabad (by Syed Muzammiluddin, September 20, 2013).

Events Organised

A Kannada Wikipedia Workshop in Mysore (University of Mysore, August 6, 2013): This is a report of the workshop conducted last month. Dr. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Indian Language Wikipedia Training Workshop (TISS, Mumbai, August 16, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop. This workshop was organized as part of the CIS-A2K MoU with TISS. This is also part of the Indian Language Mela being organized by Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, TISS.
Indian Language Wikipedia Training Workshop (TISS, Tuljapur, August 24, 2013). Abhishek Suryavanshi was the trainer for this workshop.
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Goa, September 28, 2013). Nitika Tandon conducted this workshop. The details will be posted soon.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Training Workshop in Bangalore (organised by CIS-A2K, Bangalore, October 3 – 6, 2013).

Events Co-organised

Digital Resources in Telugu: A Workshop for Research Scholars (co-organised by CIS-A2K and the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and CILHE, TISS on September 13, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan curated and conducted this day-long event for M.Phil and Ph.D students of the EFL University.
Re-releasing Konkani Vishwakosh & Building Konkani Wikipedia (organised by CIS-A2K and the University of Goa, Conference Hall, Goa University, Taleigao, September 26, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Workshop (co-organised by CIS-A2K and wikipedians John Noronha and Supriya Kankumbikar, September 27, 2013). Nitika Tandon participated in this workshop.
Odisha: Wikipedia workshop at IIMC, Dhenkanal (co-organised by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia community, September 30, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi coordinated the entire event along with members of Odia Wikipedia, Dr Subas Chandra Rout, Mrutyunjaya Kar and Sasanka Sekhar Das. This was covered by Odisha Diary (http://bit.ly/1bna9zd), and eOdisha Samachar (http://bit.ly/1aNJvv4).

Events Participated In

Workshop on e-Content Development (organised by Centre for Staff Training and Development, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad, September 4 – 6, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan gave guest lectures on Open Source to Open Knowledge; Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet; e-Content in Indian languages – History, Challenges and Opportunities; Wikipedia Users to Wikipedia Authors – Exploring Wikipedia as an OER Tool; and e-Content, e-Student, e-Faculty – Reimagining classroom in the digital Age.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Department of Journalism and Mass Communication, SDM College, Ujire, September 15, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on Building Knowledge Bases and Platforms via Mass Collaboration on the Internet (organised by Jadavpur University, School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, and Department of Film Studies, Jadavpur University on September 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/163oEpz.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (organised by St. Aloysius College, AIMIT, St Aloysius College (Autonomous), Beeri, Mangalore, September 13, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was the trainer at this workshop.
Indian Languages Mela (organised by Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education, TISS, Mumbai, September 20-21, 2013). Tejaswini Niranjana, T. Vishnu Vardhan and Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in this event.
'Digital Humanities and Higher Education' (organised by School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, September 2013). Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana gave a talk.

Media Coverage

'Help Konkani Wikipedia come out of incubation' (Deccan Herald, September 13, 2013): The article talks about the relative lack of content in Konkani Wikipedia. “To get it out of incubation, many should write Konkani articles for Wikipedia,” Dr. Pavanaja was quoted as having said.
Konkani Vishwakosh relaunch tomorrow (The Hindu, September 26, 2013). A coverage of the re-release of the Konkani encyclopaedia under Creative Commons license.
Goa University re-releasing Konkani encyclopaedia on Sept 26 (The Times of India, September 24, 2013): Goa University and CIS-A2K re-released the four volume 3632 page Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) in Goa.
Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia (Navhind Times, September 27, 2013).
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months (The Times of India, September 27, 2013): Goa University becomes the first varsity in India to allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university to be used by internet users. Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided, says Vishnu Vardhan.
Konkani Wikipedia in the making (by Prakash Kamat, The Hindu, September 29, 2013): Goa University re-launched a four-volume Konkani encyclopaedia and will upload it on Wikipedia. The process will be completed in six months times, says Vishnu Vardhan.
For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language (by Joanna Lobo, DNA, September 29, 2013): Konkani has 24 lakh speakers as per the Census Department of India 2001 but online documentation is limited. CIS-A2K wants to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia, says Nitika Tandon.
Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months (by Jagran Josh, September 30, 2013).
Goa University Partners CIS India to Build Konkani Wikipedia (by Apurva Chaudhary, Medianama, September 30, 2013).

Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india

Visit us at: https://cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-september-2013

A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia

praskrishna — 2013-12-30T06:01:59Z

Namaste Telangana newspaper has done a Sunday magazine feature on Telugu Wikipedia on the occasion of the 10th anniversary.

Click to download the file.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/feature-on-telugu-wikipedia

Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark!

praskrishna — 2013-12-31T05:10:30Z

Many are not aware of the existence of Odia Wikipedia and other Indian language Wikipedias. But Odia Wikipedia has been growing gradually all these years and has become the most searched website and largest online encyclopedia in Odia language.

The Report by Odisha Diary bureau, Bhubaneswar was published on December 17, 2013. Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Initiated in 2002 Odia Wikipedia saw its first edit in 2004 and suffered from low contribution for almost seven years. But slowly the gloomy scene changed with the first workshop in Bengaluru which started initiating more consecutive Wikipedia training workshops in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Nalconagar, Baleswar, Dhenkanal and many other cities. Over these years after many outreach workshops individuals who are experts in different subject areas and organizations and institutions like Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal and KIIT University have been associated with the Odia Wikipedia editor community.

After Gopal Chandra Praharaj's Purnachandra Ordiya Bhashakosha and Binod Kanungo's Jnanamandal no such progressive encyclopedic compilation was done in Odia. Where the encyclopedias take years for reprinting which is also negligible in regional languages Odia Wikipedia articles get revised every now and then. “This has been possible because of the collaborative writing mechanism of Wikipedia All of us keep editing the articles that refine the content and make it free from biased and incorrect facts.”, says Mrutyunjaya Kar, one of the very active Wikipedians. Some time ago noted linguists like Natabara Satpathy and Deepak Kanungo raised questions about the authenticity and writing standards of the articles on Odia Wikipedia.

"But I think we have overcome those issues of poor quality content. And the very thing Wikipedia got is the gradual growth of articles in terms of amount of information and accuracy. Something that attracted me to Odia Wikipedia is the way one liner stub articles grow to good quality articles in few days", says Subhashish Panigrahi, Programme Officer to Centre of Internet and Society's Access To Knowledge program that is working for the growth of Indian languages. Many of the valuable aspects of Odisha's history, diverse languages, cultural heritage and tourism are being documented and shared for free on the internet which otherwise would not ever come to the limelight.

Available in 286 world languages Wikipedia is edited by more than 77,000 contributors across the world. Odia Wikipedia has only a small community consisting handful of contributors. We aim to reach out to more people to spread the sum of the entire knowledge in our own language, says another active contributor Shitikantha Dash. Odia Wikipedia could be accessed at: https://or.wikipedia.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-december-17-2013-odia-wikipedia-reaching-5000-article-mark

A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad

subha — 2013-01-22T03:09:25Z

The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team organized a Wikipedia workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology (RKGIT), Ghaziabad in collaboration with Metawings on January 17, 2013. Subhashish Panigrahi summarizes the happenings from the one-day workshop in this blog post.

As part of the soft skill development training program, RKGIT, an engineering college is working on a series of activities to empower the students with practical approach and competence for their professional life. We were invited to conduct a workshop for the students of mechanical engineering and help them understand the real reasons for contributions to Wikipedia as a volunteer.

Some of the focus areas we set for the workshop were:

Number of students not to exceed 60 to make sure that we get enough time and space to interact actively and pay individual attention.

Number of coordinators to support with logistics to conduct the workshop smoothly.
Active participation of teachers.
Arrangement of internet labs with multiple IP addresses for smooth user account creation.

Around 65 mechanical engineering students from second and third year participated in this workshop. We began the workshop with an interactive discussion about their practical relation with Wikipedia as students and the usability and difficulties that they face. I presented about some important facts about Wikipedia and voluntary contribution in different ways. During and after the presentation students asked a lot of questions about the notability and authenticity of articles, collaboration vs. fights among editors, references and its significance, etc.

There was a short break to make way for students to settle in the internet lab for a hands on training session. We faced problems with the LAN and 3G network for mobile broadband which made this session longer than expected. There were problems for creating accounts because of the Internet explorer and X based systems and the students couldn't create their user accounts. So, we had to manage with them contributing anonymously from IP addresses. Despite these unexpected technical problems all of them edited various articles. Some of them tried to vandalize and observe the quick reversal of the vandals.

Subhashish presenting about Wikipedia to the participants

I had a discussion with the director about conducting more such workshops, especially technical workshops where students can code and contribute to MediaWiki.

Quick links:

Presentation used for this workshop: www.slideshare.net/psubhashish/you-can-also-wikipedia
English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org (Click here to create an account on Wikipedia)

Presentation

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/wikipedia-workshop-at-rkgit-ghaziabad

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T06:41:42Z

From Monday, Wikipedia will hold a series of “edit-a-thons” to encourage people to add content to the site about the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on July 7, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.

It is inspired by “Wiki Loves Pride”, a global campaign to expand and improve LGBT-related content across Wikimedia projects. The campaign focuses on the June to October period, when LGBTs around the world celebrate their community.

An “edit-a-thon” is a workshop where people are trained in how to edit the Wikipedia and add content to it, usually focussing on a particular topic.

The aim is to make Wikipedia inclusive and reflect diversity by creating content on the LGBT discourse: history, culture, rights, equal opportunities and Article 377. The focus is also on generating content in regional Indian languages which do not have equivalents for terms such as “gay”, “lesbian” or “bisexual”. The website https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/ Events/Wiki_Loves _Pride_2014 has listed 11 languages.

The edit-a-thon will culminate in two offline events in Bangalore and Delhi on July 19, creating a forum for the community. While anyone can participate in the edit-a-thon, Vishnu, programme director for Access to Knowledge at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore, which works on improving Indian language Wikipedias and India-related content on Wikipedia, said, “We hope the [LGBT] community takes the lead.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-7-2014-renuka-phadnis-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-to-add-content-on-lgbts

Open Knowledge Festival 2014

praskrishna — 2014-07-28T10:17:38Z

Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local in Berlin. The event was organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., in Berlin from July 15 to 17, 2014.

Click to read the details on the website here. See the official programme here. Download Subhashish's presentation at this page.

Subhashish presented on the following:

Situation in India

Wikimedia India chapter and WMF's India program working on first India GLAM project
Good traction of image contribution through Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest
Mass communication and other media institutes slowly taking interest in open audio library
Digitization is a priority across government departments, with funding available
Majority of GLAMs lack knowledge about open culture, need for outreach
Relicensing and book digitization have gained public interest
Goals of the survey
Data
Mapping the sector
Encourage institutions to think beyond their digital strategy
Show institutions what is there for them

What we have done so far

Started filing Right to Information (RT) asking state government departments for lists of institutions
Reached out to WMIN (Wikimedia India chapter) for help in creating a list
Difficulty with getting people and contact details

Collaborative Presentation

OKFest2014 glam-survey_workshop_20140717 from Beat Estermann

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014