The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 1 to 5.
Research Project on Open Video in India
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-video-research
<b>Open Video Alliance and the Centre for Internet and Society are calling for researchers for a project on open video in India, its potentials, limitations, and recommendations on policy interventions.</b>
<p> </p>
<h3>Project Timeline</h3>
<p>From mid-April to mid-July.<br /><br /></p>
<h3>Summary of Outputs</h3>
<ol><li>A 15-20 page paper surveying the online video environment in India and the opportunities it presents for creative expression, political participation, social justice, and other such concerns. The paper should deal with the structural limitations of the medium (e.g.: limited bandwidth, IP lobbies discourage re-appropriation of cultural materials, online video is inaccessible to the deaf, and so on) and how they can be addressed. Recommendations should be bold but in touch with the real policy and business frameworks of present-day India.</li><li>Several 1-2 page briefs on specific policy matters like: where is jurisdiction being exercised? what are the policy inflections? and, what interventions are needed to solve the structural limitations of the medium?</li></ol>
<p> </p>
<h3>Survey Paper</h3>
<p>The survey paper should describe the online video scenario in India, and three or more policy tensions. The paper should focus on areas of intellectual property rights, network issues, standards, device freedom and interoperability, accessibility, etc. The Open Video Alliance website[ova] for a complete list of relevant issues.</p>
<p>Overall, it should paint both a qualitative as well as a quantitative picture of online video in India, and in which structural improvements are needed (if any) to empower individuals.This paper should not be viewed as a recommendation to policymakers but instead as a general interest document which will inform and appeal to many audiences. While we expect the paper to span several distinct issues, there should be a prevailing narrative to weave them together.<br /><br /></p>
<h3>Basic Assumptions</h3>
<p>We want online video to be a participatory and collaborative social medium powered by open source. We also value the ability of individuals to express themselves using these tools, and the ability of new entrants to challenge incumbents and innovate on top of existing technologies. No time is needed to be spent establishing these values—instead, through this paper we try to identify structural improvements to the online video medium. How do we get from the status quo to the ideal open video environment? What investments must be made? What protections must be put into place for users, producers, etc.? Further, we should be able to make some broad recommendations to governments, foundations, and big institutions.<br /><br />Because the network and IP enforcement environment in India are still malleable, we want to stress that there are many possible shapes that the online video medium could take. Our goal is to shine some light on how a medium that privileges the values outlined above could take shape.<br /><br /></p>
<h3>Suggested Methodology</h3>
<p>First, you would need to carry out a basic survey of the literature. Second, you should talk to various organizations using video, discover what they consider the structural limitations of online video, and what might be considered open video practices: some are legal, some are technical. You would use this data to direct original research and weave your findings into an engaging narrative.<br /><br /></p>
<h3>Next Steps</h3>
<ul><li>You send 2 writing samples, a CV, and letter of recommendation;</li><li>We'll discuss the unifying themes and identify a more detailed timeline;</li><li>We produce a contract;</li><li>We Pick a regular time to meet every other week, to track progress.<br /></li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-video-research'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-video-research</a>
</p>
No publisherpraneshIntellectual Property RightsOpen ContentProjectsSoftware Patents2011-08-23T02:51:36ZBlog EntryPeople are Knowledge – Experimenting with Oral Citations on Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/people-are-knowledge
<b>The Centre for Internet and Society in association with the Wikimedia Foundation has produced a documentary film "People are Knowledge". The film evolved out of a project on Oral Citations in India and South Africa funded by the Wikimedia Foundation, and undertaken by Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board Member Achal Prabhala as a short-term fellowship, to help overcome a lack of published materials in emerging languages on Wikipedia. New Delhi-based filmmaker Priya Sen has directed the film, with additional assistance from Zen Marie who handled the shooting in South Africa. The film explores how alternate methods of citation could be employed on Wikipedia, documenting a series of specific situations with regards to published knowledge, and subsequently, with oral citations. </b>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></p>
<h3>The Problem</h3>
<p>Imagine a world with every individual having open access to the sum of human knowledge. But there is a problem — the sum of human knowledge is far greater than the sum of printed knowledge. For example, in India and South Africa, the number of books produced every year is nowhere near to the number of books being producing in UK. There is very little citable, printed material to rely on in the indigenous languages of India or South Africa. So it is difficult for the languages of these countries to grow its own Wikipedia. While there are significant media markets for Indian languages within and outside India, there is very little scholarly publishing in any language other than English. On the other hand, South African languages with the exception of English and Afrikaans have had a largely oral existence and only in recent times have started a publishing tradition, which is in nascent stages.</p>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Total Production of Books in UK, South Africa and India as of 2005</b><br /><br />
<p>UK: 161,000 books / 60 million people<br />South Africa: 6100 books/48 million people<br />India: 97,000 books/1100 million people</p>
<i>If we were to measure books produced in 2005 per person per country, the comparison is even more glaring</i>:<br /><br />
<p>UK: 1 book per 372 people<br />South Africa: 1 book per 7869 people<br />India: 1 book per 11,371 people</p>
<p>Source: Wikimedia page on Research: Oral Citations. For more details see <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Oral_Citations">here</a></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></p>
<p>As a result of such disparity, everyday, common knowledge — things known, observed and performed by millions of people — do not enter Wikipedia as facts because they haven’t been written down in a reliably published source. Hence, Wikipedia in countries like India and South Africa lose out on opportunities for growth.</p>
<p>While we are enthused about the rise of “small language Wikipedias”, it may not happen soon. Not with the present rules at least. Even if we were to convince every single person in the South with Internet access to become an active editor on Wikipedia, there is still a problem that they are going to run up against. That problem that currently bedevils everyone working in local languages in Asia and Africa, and nobody seems to have a control over it.</p>
<p>For Wikipedias in languages of the South, citations aren’t a problem when the articles being added are translations (for universally important topics, reliable citations are already there in English and other European languages). Assuming, however, that we all want the sphere of knowledge to be universally expanded — and not merely translated from languages of the North to languages of the South — there are two specific problems with finding citations for important local subject matters.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square; ">
<li>Published, citable resources may simply not exist. This is not just true of Sub-Saharan African languages (many of which use Latin script, have a relatively recent written history, and small or non-existent publishing markets) but also of several South Asian languages (even though they have non-Latin scripts, a relatively ancient written history and thriving publishing markets in news and entertainment).</li>
<li>Even when published scholarly resources exist, they may be inaccessible and thus effectively rendered invisible to Wikipedians. Libraries and archives in India and South Africa are usually not electronically indexed. Furthermore, they are not always conveniently located, and often impose a massive bureaucratic burden on the user to search, see, borrow from or even enter. </li>
</ul>
<div>
<h3>Oral Citations as a Possible Solution</h3>
<p>Hindi Wikipedia has over 65,000 articles, Malayalam Wikipedia has about 15,000, and Northern Sotho Wikipedia has about 600. Many of these articles — especially when concerning subjects that are specific to a particular people or place — have no citations whatsoever. Yet, an editor — often several editors — created the articles in question. How? Simply put, and barring laziness and carelessness where citations are available, the basis of fact therein is orally circulated knowledge. Even today, in several parts of the world, people are knowledge. Therefore, an exercise where oral citations are collected and assembled — in a manner not different to that by which print sources are cited on Wikipedia, i.e., with diverse viewpoints, several sources, a rationale for authenticity — might be one way to capture this knowledge in a form that is recognisable to Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Anthropologists have been doing this for years — in the academy, it is called field work. The average Wikipedians certainly don’t have the capacity to replicate the arduous research programme of a doctoral student but they do have common sense and access to basic telecommunication facilities. So oral citations can:</p>
<ol>
<li>Create externally verifiable authentication for a Wikipedia article that is based on experiential facts, but lacks citations simply because no printed source has recorded these facts to date.</li>
<li>Add to the set of published scholarly resources that document an existing fact, for example, in cases where the published sources are archaic or primarily foreign, and thus complete existing knowledge or correct its biases.</li>
</ol>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span">
<h3>The Experiment</h3>
<p>Achal Prabhala worked with Wikipedians across three languages in two different countries — Malayalam (40 million speakers) and Hindi (250 million speakers) in India and Northern Sotho (5 million speakers) in South Africa to see how oral citations might be received in the language communities they can benefit, discuss this idea with Wikipedians at large, not as a final solution but as a first step in understanding how we may expand our definition of reliable sources of knowledge beyond what is published in print, and what benefits such an expansion may bring and show this is an idea that takes hold, to create a set of clearly laid-out initial templates that others can use and build upon. Four collaborators: Shiju Alex, Mayur, Mohau Monaledi and Achal Prabhala, with additional help from Vijayakumar Blathur were finalised. Parts of the experiment were then filmed as an edited documentary.</p>
<h3>The Pitfalls</h3>
<p>There are numerous potential pitfalls[<a href="#1">1</a>] the most glaring of which is the principle of ‘No original research’. Naturally, we’re going to have to find a way to justify our approach, or work around it, or expand its meaning. Several people will welcome it, several people will object on all kinds of grounds, and several others possibly misusing and misinterpreting oral citations (i.e., without care to authenticity, diversity of opinion) in their work on Wikipedia.</p>
<p>However, this is the right thing to do. The problem is real. The solution being presented is a first step, not a final answer. Sure, people might have a problem with it, and sure, there may be heated objections to it; but overall, if it’s the right thing to do, it should be done, however strange it seems and however unsettling it is.</p>
<p>After all, if the status quo had to be respected absolutely, we wouldn’t have Wikipedia.</p>
</span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></p>
<p><span class="Apple-style-span">Note</span></p>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"> <a name="1">[1]On a side note, Achal says that the pitfall to the pitfall is the status quo: literally thousands of articles without any citations whatsoever, a problem that no one notices because they’re in languages that the majority of current editors on Wikipedia do not understand – and a problem which is often overlooked by language communities in the south in favour of growth.</a></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span"><a name="1"><br /></a></span></div>
<p>For recorded interviews, <a class="external-link" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Oral_Citations_Project">click here</a></p>
<p>Watch the movie below:</p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/26469276?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0" width="250"></iframe></p>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/26469276">People are Knowledge (subtitled)</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/user7786138">Achal R. Prabhala</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/people-are-knowledge'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/people-are-knowledge</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessProjects2012-12-14T10:26:31ZBlog EntryNMEICT Funds Book Conversion Project for the Print Disabled
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nmeict-funding
<b>IIT, Kharagpur, Daisy Forum of India, Inclusive Planet and the Centre for Internet and Society have joined hands to undertake a project for the print disabled. The National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NMEICT) is funding this project.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://www.ignouonline.ac.in/sakshat/">NMEICT</a> has funded a project for converting college level text books into daisy format for the print disabled students. This project is being jointly undertaken by IIT, Kharagpur, the Daisy Forum of India, CIS and Inclusive Planet. The vision of the Mission is to fund education projects using ICT to ensure that knowledge resources are made available to learners in a manner and speed which is attuned to their needs. It seeks to increase enrolment in education at various levels by providing an alternate route to conventional educational practices and bridging the gap with the objective of fully utilizing India's human resource potential.</p>
<p>The present project involves organizations around the country to identify 200 college level text books in Hindi, English and five regional languages for conversion into Daisy over the next year. The converted books will be distributed through CDs and a website to 500 universities and colleges around the country. The details of the stage wise progress of the project, including the methodology, partners, technologies and finances will be updated periodically on the dedicated <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cel.iitkgp.ernet.in/asm/">website</a>.</p>
<p>The pilot project commenced on 1st April 2010 and will finish on 31st March, 2011.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nmeict-funding'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/nmeict-funding</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccessibilityProjects2011-08-23T04:52:37ZBlog Entrye-Accessibility: A Wiki Project
https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-a-wiki-project
<b>Envisaged and funded by the National Internet Exchange of India, and executed by the Centre for Internet and Society, a Wiki site pertaining to issues of disability and e-accessibility has recently been launched. </b>
<p></p>
<p>Such a project is most timely as India has a
large percentage of disabled persons in its population— estimated to be over seven
per cent as per the Census of 2001. Taken
in figures, this amounts to roughly 70-100 million persons with disabilities in
the territory of India. Out of this number, a mere two per cent of persons with
disabilities residing in urban areas have access to information and assistive
technologies.</p>
<p>Regrettably, there still remains a
lack of awareness on how information and services can be best delivered to
persons with disabilities. Parents, teachers, government authorities and society
at large remain equally unaware of the options technology today presents to
enable persons with disabilities live independent and productive lives. Therefore, the wiki aims foremost to serve as
a resource for persons with disabilities and their families, NGO’s, as well as
the members of education and legal communities--providing valuable information surrounding
disability and electronic accessibility. </p>
<p>Covered in 125 article wiki project includes a broad collection of
articles pertaining to topics of accessibility for users, developers, organizations,
developments in India, and accessibility for nations. With hopes of expansion, wikipage can be accessed and
edited collaboratively at<a class="external-link" href="http://accessibility.cis-india.org/"> http://accessibility.cis-india.org.</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-a-wiki-project'>https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-a-wiki-project</a>
</p>
No publisherrebeccaAccessibilityProjects2011-08-23T04:51:08ZBlog EntryCollaborative Projects Programme
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme
<b></b>
<p>The Centre for Internet and Society recognises collaboration and
consultation as its primary mode of engaging with research and
intervention. The <strong>Collaborative Projects Programme (CPP)</strong> is CIS’
platform for partnering (intellectually, logistically, financially,
and administratively) with other organisations, individuals and
practitioners in projects which are of immediate concern to the work
that CIS is committed to.</p>
<p>The Collaborative Projects Programme also expands the scope of
research to produce a synergy between research and praxis. The
CPP is, in many ways, the in-house research that CIS undertakes, in
collaboration and consultation with other organisations, institutions
and individuals who have a stake and a say in the field of Internet
and Society. The CPP is not bound by any theme of programmatic
modalities and is envisioned more as a way for CIS to extend its
field and establish a strong network with other exciting spaces in
the Global South.</p>
<p>The Collaborative Projects Programme can include, but is not
limited to, organising of large conferences or workshops; developing
tools for better research and advocacy; data mining towards a
specific goal that complements CIS’ vision; producing original
monographs/publications/books targeted at different audiences;
experimenting with new technologies to affect policy and usage;
implementing pilot studies and instances of existing ideas;
developing schemes to integrate education and technology; public
intervention and awareness campaigns geared towards particular
outcomes; celebrating certain aspects of internet technologies;
engaging with digital natives; and creating new environments of
learning and participation online.</p>
<p>The CPP is <strong>NOT</strong> a grant making programme. However, we are
interested in partnering on new and innovative ideas and would
welcome conversations with people and organisations in the field. If
you have an interesting idea that you think fits our larger vision,
please contact us and we can begin the discussions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>List of Projects under the Collaborative Projects Programme:</strong></p>
<p>1. The Promise of Invisibility: Technology and the City - A seven month research project initiated by Nishant Shah, in collaboration with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, enabled by a grant from the Asia Scholarship Foundation, Bangkok.</p>
<p>2. Disability, Learning and Digital Participation - in partnership with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.inclusiveplanet.org/">Inclusive Planet</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/collaborative-projects-programme</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceFamilyDigital NativesPublic AccountabilityObscenitye-governanceCyborgsCyberculturesProjectsNew PedagogiesCommunitiesDigital subjectivitiesDigital Pluralism2011-08-23T03:04:56ZPage