The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
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Wikipedia assignments workshop for Post Graduate students in PAH Solapur University
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-may-3-2019-wikipedia-assignments-workshop-for-pg-students-pah-solapur-university
<b>On May 3, 2019, Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) along with PAH Solapur University conducted a Wikipedia workshop for students from the post-graduate stream in PAH Solapur University. Ten students from Mass Communication department and three faculty members participated in the workshop. Prof. Ravindra Chincholkar and Subodh Kulkarni were the facilitators for the workshop.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K is working in collaboration with PAH Solapur University, Solapur in Maharashtra on Wikimedia projects. The Mass Communication and Journalism departments are involved in content generation on Marathi Wikipedia & Commons for the last two years. In 2019, the department has given assignment in the form of Wikipedia articles for Post graduate course. The primary objectives of the workshop were:</p>
<div id="_mcePaste">
<ul>
<li>To review the articles by students. The articles are given as assignment by Mass Communication department.</li>
<li>IPWT sessions for potential students for quality improvement and retention</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Mass Communication department has involved students in Marathi Day and Independence Struggle edit-a-thons conducted by Marathi Wiki community. After this experience of Wikimedia projects, the faculty decided to give assignments on the theme - Newspapers & notable editors in pre-independence era. The students explored offline & online references for the content. They first prepared the articles in Word document, which were verified by faculty and A2K representative. The manual of style, using citoid for references and Wikipedia pillars were explained. After the verification of content, the articles were uploaded on Marathi Wikipedia. About 40 articles were created by 10 students and two faculty members. As the stories of editors and journalists in the British period were full of sacrifice & adventure, the students got inspiration also. The faculty reviewed the assignment completion process with the stakeholders in the last session. The department has decided to plan the process more systematically in the next academic year. It has also decided to replicate this methodology for other departments in the university.</p>
<hr />
<p><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wikipedia_assignments_workshop_for_Post_Graduate_students_in_PAH_Solapur_University">This was originally published on Wikimedia Blog</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-may-3-2019-wikipedia-assignments-workshop-for-pg-students-pah-solapur-university'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-may-3-2019-wikipedia-assignments-workshop-for-pg-students-pah-solapur-university</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhWikimediaWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia Education2019-06-22T03:21:39ZBlog EntryWikipedia Asian Month — 2016 iteration starts on 1 November
https://cis-india.org/a2k/wikipedia-asian-month-2014-2016-iteration-starts-on-1-november
<b>The second iteration of Wikipedia Asian Month (WAM), a month-long edit-a-thon to create and improve Asia-related articles on Wikipedia, is going to start on 1 November 2016. In this blog post we'll revisit the stats of the 2015 iteration of the event. We'll also talk to Addis Wang, an organizer of WAM, to know more about their progress and preparation.</b>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-10da995a-1453-4b95-cbfe-f4e93e07ab90" dir="ltr"> </p>
<hr /><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> (WAM) is a month-long online edit-a-thon where the participants create or expand Asia-related articles on Wikipedia. The main rules of this initiative are: a) the articles must be created or expanded during the mentioned period (i. e. November), b) new articles must not be stubs and should be at least 3,000 bytes and around 300 words in length, c) the article must follow Wikipedia guidelines such as Neutral point of view, notability, verifiability, copyright etc.
<p dir="ltr">The first iteration of Wikipedia Asian Month was conducted between 1-30 November 2015 and saw enthusiastic participation from Asian Wikipedia communities. These are some statistics from the last iteration of WAM:</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">1,286 editors from 43 different communities participated in 2015 edition of WAM. The following Indic Wikimedia communities participated in the challenge- Assamese, Bengali, English, Gujarati, Kannada, Maithili, Malayalam, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">6,096 articles were created or expanded over-all, and of these 4,306 articles followed all the suggested rules.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">During the Asian Month, 42,067,774 bytes were added on Wikipedia.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">190 new editors participated in this challenge.</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr">Now after the successful first iteration, the organizers of Wikipedia Asian Month are all set to kick off the second iteration of the event. This year's WAM edition will be organized between 1–30 November 2016. Before the beginning of this event, we have taken an interview of <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AddisWang">Addis Wang</a>, a primary organizer of the event.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K: </strong>So, you are all set for another edition of Wikipedia Asian Month. Are you excited?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang</strong>: Yes. I’m excited to see our Asian community collaborate together once again and looking forward to make more contributions in this years’ edition.</p>
<div class="pullquote" dir="ltr"> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K:</strong> Tell us a few things you learnt during the last edition of WAM? Are you going to bring any changes this year?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang:</strong> <span id="docs-internal-guid-10da995a-1477-8ac4-b742-e5e9145b6ccc">The most important thing we will change from the experience of last year is speeding up the postcard processing. We did not start collecting address until we had all the language communities finish the analysis of contributed articles. So this year, we will have multiple rounds of address collection to ensure most people receive their postcards by the end of the year. We will also ask local communities who are making the postcards to finish the process before the end of the November, and be prepared to send postcards in early December.</span></p>
<div class="pullquote" dir="ltr"> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K:</strong> 2016 edition of WAM will start soon. How are the responses so far? Do you feel that this edition will be bigger than the earlier one?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang: </strong><span id="docs-internal-guid-10da995a-1482-2dec-0fcc-d890c0929ead">I think we will have a bigger Edit-a-thon in term of number of new articles, and number of editors participating. Supporting communities were comparatively less than the number of active editors during last WAM. Increasing the number of supporting communities is also one of our goals and we are working to get more communities involved.</span></p>
<div class="pullquote" dir="ltr"> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K: </strong>That’s a good point. How are you going to support such communities?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang: </strong><span id="docs-internal-guid-10da995a-1478-0705-8561-20bc6342b878">We provide easy set-up guideline so there is not much work needed to do to organize the Wikipedia Asian Month. We are also using Central Notice so there will be a good opportunity to get publicity, and opportunity to engage both old and new editors. Making and sending Wikimedia souvenirs could be difficult for many communities, but they can easily achieve these by joining the Wikipedia Asian Month.</span></p>
<div class="pullquote" dir="ltr"> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K: </strong>Let’s talk about Indic Wikipedia communities. You saw very enthusiastic participation from Indic Wikipedia communities, is it not?</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang:</strong> <span id="docs-internal-guid-10da995a-1478-ca47-d0bb-b98014af008a">Yes! As the one of the largest Wikimedia community in the Asia, and maybe the most diverse comunity in the world, Indic community is highly involved into the Wikipedia Asian Month since the idea was proposed during Wikimania 2015. In the last year edition, India is the country that received most postcards sent by Wikipedia Asian Month. Also, Wikipedian Asian Ambassadors of English Wikipedia, who created most articles during the Asian Month, are from India.</span></p>
<div class="pullquote" dir="ltr"> </div>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>CIS-A2K:</strong> Thanks Addis for your time. We wish you all the best.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Addis Wang:</strong> Thank you.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">Collaboration attribution: <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/author/tanvir">Tanveer Hasan</a></p>
<p dir="ltr">Image source: <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WAM_2016_Banner-es.png">Wikimedia Commons</a><br /><br /></p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/wikipedia-asian-month-2014-2016-iteration-starts-on-1-november'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/wikipedia-asian-month-2014-2016-iteration-starts-on-1-november</a>
</p>
No publishertitoCC-SA 4.0Edit-a-thonWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2017-06-28T10:05:20ZBlog EntryWikiorientation at Dr.GR Damodaran College of Science
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiorientation-at-dr-gr-damodaran-college-of-science-1
<b>An orientation session on Wikimedia projects was held on 6-7 December 2019 at Dr. GR Damodaran College of Science. This talk was part of the “Hour of Code” event, which is an International event celebrated across the globe to encourage students to develop their knowledge on Computer Science. This event was supported by Open Knowledge movements like Wikimedia, Mozilla, etc.which would help students to share their knowledge in the form of volunteerships and contributions. The highlights of gender gap research and women based projects such as Women in Red were covered as part of a focussed group discussion.
</b>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Hour of code event</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-873db869-7fff-ba7f-7961-738c71b373c1"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/PvdIcLLPTRrWxRng81lxpZayqHoXiQ6C143wz1JGzJMA5waxIbsvn8DBlxdwCLV0GsEDLigyREWiIbKjkKfGi9Xv4Kaspp-OaBkehQd56As3A3i7GviyO0PBBu9QOMQCquLDRqsR" alt="null" height="200" width="300" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The “<a class="external-link" href="https://hourofcode.com/in">Hour of Code</a>” is an International event conducted across the globe to commemorate the birthday of <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper">Grace Hopper</a>, a computer scientist. In India 1047 events were officially registered and were conducted region-wise. In Coimbatore, Dr.G.R. Damodaran College of Science initiated the first Hour of Code event in the city. The event was attended by 350 students, where 50% of the participants were identified as women, from various departments and 6 Open Source and Knowledge movements’ community members were invited as speakers. Among them were <a class="external-link" href="https://www.wikimedia.org/">Wikimedia</a>, <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/">Mozilla</a>, <a href="https://developers.google.com/community/gdg">Google Developers Groups</a>, <a href="https://developers.facebook.com/developercircles/">Facebook Devcircles</a>, <a href="https://www.womentechmakers.com/">Women Tech Makers</a> and <a href="https://soai.world/">School of AI</a> where all the community representatives pitched to the student gathering on how to contribute to these groups. The students were enthusiastic to initiate Open source clubs and also nominate a Point Of Contact with the guidance of the faculty members.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-2b0e0b9f-7fff-bebd-e541-6eef9130b86d"><strong>Wiki Orientation</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-8680976f-7fff-f4d6-82f6-fd00faecf88b"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8P434MuQgXUVy_K2mnVRRgDwy8WfWUQ0oglLrpUj65Vi5iydeXUOZyMdckIO1_AL4tiwFPvyQp_tnRGKGIvyV9blRM_Hq44u0f-SgAv-8MZKUntdU8kIX_-szR6H4u-Z6GPIj6tT" alt="null" height="200" width="300" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: start;"><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-6.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-6.jpg</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-9c4b5c5d-7fff-ae7c-9ca8-d3b45460fd92"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/3-l8ksMxppChRGdeNXlFbKf6Otxe0EkWpTut1HNGUxXhq-T8ogcmlG5HwFW_rDIxa85BNUvLV2BaG4ExbnDaKRJMeApH7RImubvWbejFVKNen4FL0HBUFyroLzqnXRjDUvE4nuQk" alt="null" height="200" width="300" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: start;"><a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-7.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-7.jpg</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong><span id="docs-internal-guid-cd49061e-7fff-06e1-303e-0810be036596"></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">I was invited as a Chief Guest for the event to talk to students about how they may contribute to Wikimedia and its projects. I presented to the students the various forms of Wiki which would be of interest to coders and non-coders. This also included discussions on <a href="http://wikidata.org/">Wikidata</a>, <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia commons</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program">Wikimedia in Education program</a>. As the participants from the college were mostly from Tamil Nadu, I also emphasised how contribution in Tamil in the Wiki world will be of great help. I discussed with students how contribution to an Open Knowledge movement not only enhances their intellectual stand but also benefits the whole world. Also the founder of Koval labs, Coimbatore was the co-speaker of the day who highlighted about importance of Open source and Computer Science in today's industries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Bridging Gender Gap </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">After the orientation, I invited a few participants to a focussed group discussion about my research on “<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Research/Bridging_gender_gap">Bridging the Gender gap in Indian Wikipedia languages</a>”.A majority of the participants were women, even though the event was open to all. I discussed the research work and the necessity behind this. Apart from this I introduced the students to various women- focussed wiki-based projects such as Women In Red, WikiLoves Women, Wiki Women for Women Well Being (WWWW) etc. I also asked the attendees to express t in the open discussion session on what are the major issues faced by women in technology taking examples from their own lives.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"> <img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/zzlhB5fqWC8PGaE2Bqr3mpJUHc8tGhSssRf4G7lb7Dm5pBGrrW1G7Ca0M5oQAXloQTVwS-MapJQIGw1QVR8LNsgQMzFkuoZ0F5k1RycUSZ5s0oX5kRAkIiVcyziIfYwVRJwU28x3" alt="null" height="200" width="300" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-489f2d13-7fff-cb65-7e89-a4453fd1c656"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-12.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-12.jpg</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The common and major issues with pursuing a career in technology discussed were the inaccessibility to internet and infrastructure to work at home besides the other household responsibilities. Also the freedom to pursue a career in this field is less and not permissible for longer years in these women's lives.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-bf32409e-7fff-bfe5-9b8a-3d6230a1e080"><br /></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Key observations/ learnings</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-fd8e76ba-7fff-2345-8c3c-a763a49aedf3"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/q3PI3c37BgQRc4ML_XVrLgwIqp9PN_zv1adLFdCtBM-IFJCyBBjkcG59ccpRCo1P_mWlMfKj-5BumFUS04l1u6W8Gc1nLMZOaHh6oDg01z5wFtD930qthGW8DMBV3HfmE7KPMQAO" alt="null" height="200" width="300" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-a1d57c54-7fff-99af-34c9-f33c7b995d55"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-9.jpg">https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikiorientation_at_Dr.GR_Damodaran_college_of_arts_and_science,_Coimbatore_-9.jpg</a></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">The key issues of women working on technology in a structured environment (such as an educational institution in this case).</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">The possibilities of initiating a WikiClub at the campus.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Almost 60% was interested in non/less coding contributions/subjects.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Discussed the kinds of projects students can contribute to on Wikipedia. </p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"><br /><br />Press coverage about the event can be seen at <a href="https://youtu.be/5APh01ScHrM">Desathin Nambikai </a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/QEWl8z0Q07Y">The Covai mail news</a> , <a href="https://youtu.be/BkZbDWmvWdQ">Prime Time Tamil </a>, <a href="https://youtu.be/16mqiY_M3NE">Covai news</a> and <a href="http://bit.ly/2PTC3u6"> Updatenews360.com</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiorientation-at-dr-gr-damodaran-college-of-science-1'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikiorientation-at-dr-gr-damodaran-college-of-science-1</a>
</p>
No publisherbhuvanaWikimedia EducationCIS-A2KOpen SourceAccess to KnowledgeWikipedia Education Programwomen and internetWikipedia gender gapteaching2020-01-18T08:11:03ZBlog EntryWikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh
<b>The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations shown keen interest in collaboration.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Open knowledge creation workshops were organised at four places by different organisations working on river issues. To sustain these efforts and mobilise the larger community to build knowledge on rivers, INTACH has decided to collaborate with CIS-A2K to develop long-term plan. This was the first workshop to develop structure of the project, decide the stakeholders and follow-up action plan for the future. The two day workshop was conducted on 29 & 30 July at INTACH office in Pune. Total 20 participants from seven organisations actively contributed to Wikimedia projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Background</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As the water crisis and state of rivers is worsening day by day, the citizen's initiatives are taking more efforts to spread knowledge about it. Centre for Internet & Society representative actively participated in the River Dialogue organised by INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) and SANDRP (South Asian Network of Dams, Rivers and People) on 20–21 April 2018 to introduce the potential of Wikimedia projects to organisations working across Maharashtra state. After this orientation, a follow-up plan is prepared with Prof. Madhav Gadgil in which various groups have expressed their readiness to start content building on water & rivers. Jeevit Nadi organisation took <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Workshop_of_River_activists_for_building_Jal_Bodh_-_Knowledge_resource_on_Water" title="Workshop of River activists for building Jal Bodh - Knowledge resource on Water">first initiative</a> on 28 May 2018 to train team of activists in open knowledge and Wikimedia Projects. Total 15 activists and researchers from Jeevit Nadi, EcoUniv, Jal Biradari (Tarun Bharat Sangh), Ecological Society, Sagarmitra organisations participated in this workshop.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Workshop_of_River_activists_for_building_Jal_Bodh_-_Knowledge_resource_on_Water" title="Workshop of River activists for building Jal Bodh - Knowledge resource on Water">second iteration</a> on 25 July 2018, five participants presented their work, the database and the resources with them. These include photographs, videos, training material and data collected on site. They also worked on category tree and structure of article on river. The media available in the repository were sorted and analysed for uploading. This team has started preparing the database of local issues, maps of rivers and heritage places on the banks for uploading in respective categories.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Workshop_of_Agrani_River_activists,_Dist._Sangli" title="Workshop of Agrani River activists, Dist. Sangli">third iteration</a> for building content on rivers in Sangli district was organised on 7 December 2018 by Jal Biradari & Tarun Bharat Sangh organisation. In this one day workshop, 11 activists working in Agrani river basin participated. They were trained in basics of Wikipedia editing and uploading on Commons. They worked on category tree of Agrani river basin and structure of articles on water related structures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Workshop_of_river_activists_at_Tarun_Bharat_Sangh,_Bhikampura,_Rajasthan" title="Workshop of river activists at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Rajasthan">fourth national level iteration</a> was conducted between 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan for activists of Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan from eight states. The 30 participants were trained in this four day workshop. They started contributing in various languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In collaboration with CIS-A2K, <a class="text external" href="http://www.intachpune.org/" rel="nofollow">INTACH Pune Chapter</a> has taken initiative to organise two day workshop to build knowledge on rivers in Pune district with various organisations.</p>
<h3>Objectives</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many organisations and communities are working for more than 10 years in water sector in an organised way. They have built cumulative knowledge through action and research with an objective to disseminate it to the masses. Hence the 'Project Jalbodh' is being evolved to integrate this approach with the Wikimedia projects for mutually beneficial impact.Knowledge is to be presented in different forms, aspects and in appealing way. The interests and attention of the seeker should be taken into account. Therefore in many areas, the text is to be blended with media, data, graphs, maps etc to give holistic sense of knowledge. The Wikimedia projects can be explored to get this integration.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Facilitators</h3>
<ul>
<li>Supriya Goturkar-Mahabaleshwarkar, Co-convenor & Coordinator, INTACH PUNE CHAPTER</li>
<li>Marathi Wikimedians - Aaryaa Joshi, Kalyani Kotkar</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Details</h3>
<ul>
<li><strong>Date :</strong> 29 & 30 July 2019</li>
<li><strong>Time :</strong> 9.30 am to 5.30 pm</li>
<li><strong>Place :</strong> Pune, Maharashtra, India</li>
<li><strong>Venue :</strong> INTACH Pune office, Kirloskar compound, Erandwane, Pune</li>
<li><strong>Participants :</strong>20</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2>Day 1</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day one started with introductions by members of organisations - Jeevitnadi (Living River Foundation), Sajag Nagrik Manch, Parisar, Centre for Environment & Education, Jnana Prabodhini, Ecological Society and INTACH. Then workshop conveners Supriya & Subodh explained the background and objectives of the workshop. The concept of 'Project Jalbodh' was elaborated. The keynote address was given by Prof. Madhav Gadgil. He delivered upon the genesis of knowledge in human evolution and need of open knowledge for healthy development of the society. He also discussed the integration of citizen science and Wikimedia projects. The brainstorming on mobilisation of community was done after this address with valuable inputs from Prof. Gadgil.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Introduction to major Wikimedia projects was given in next session. The examples of river and water related content were taken for understanding the context. The agenda for the workshop and the details were finalised through discussion on needs. The participants then started with opening accounts on Wiki followed by basic editing skills and rules of Wikipedia & Commons. They searched for various articles, infoboxes, categories and media related to river available in Wiki projects. The extensive interaction on status of the existing content happened to arrive at gap finding and listing the same. From this thought process, the importance of developing structure for river articles was realised. Then various members with their vast experience collaboratively evolved the structure of article on river in Marathi Wikipedia. According to local context, relevant sections and sub-sections were designed. Separate <a class="text external" href="https://mr.wikipedia.org/s/4dff">project page defining this structure</a> was created on Marathi Wikipedia under the Wiki Project Jalbodh. This was the crucial activity for the project. After this session, the organisations conducted the analysis of the content developed by them which is to be contributed in Wikimedia projects. The planning of next day was done in the last session.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On the second day, the activity started with uploading images on Commons. Along with this, the encyclopedic content available with the organisations was discussed for giving references. The articles were created in the sandboxes by groups on similar themes. The content was created as per the manual of style. Various skills like advanced search options for finding online references, archiving of url's on Wayback machine of Internet Archive were also acquired by the participants. The relevant media repositories were also explored. The category tree for the rivers was also designed. The detailed discussions on building databases, maps and media with community involvement was conducted. In the final session, the roadmap for future activities was prepared. Three model articles on rivers - Mula, Mutha & Pavana - will be completed in the next two months. Follow-up workshops will be conducted bi-monthly which will be hosted by different organisations. The discussion on campaign - Wiki Loves River - developed enthusiasm among the members. The meeting on this theme will be organised in September to plan the campaign.</p>
<hr />
<p>Read the full report on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wikimedia_Workshop_on_Rivers_under_Project_Jalbodh">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-08-05T15:28:41ZBlog EntryWikimedia Workshop at Ismailsaheb Mulla Law College, Satara
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-workshop-at-ismailsaheb-mulla-law-college-satara
<b>A Wikimedia Workshop was on 4 August 2017 at the Ismailsaheb Mulla Law College in Satara to introduce the Wikipedia and its sister projects to the students.</b>
<p>A Wikimedia Workshop was conducted at the the Ismailsaheb Mulla Law College in Satara. The workshop provided an introduction to students on the various Wikimedia projects. The workshop also aimed to equip them with Wikipedia editing skills. However, owing to time constraints the editing component has been postponed. </p>
<p>The workshop saw at an attendance of 30 participants, with 20 women participants. The Principal of the institution, Ms. Sunita Pawar said, "Wikipedia is good platform for students to do online assignments. We are eager to integrate it in academics." A discussion on integrating academic assignments with Wikimedia Projects was conducted to develop the basic theme and concepts. </p>
<p>The meta page of the event can be found <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Workshop_on_Wikimedia_Projects_at_Ismailsaheb_Mulla_Law_College,_Satara">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-workshop-at-ismailsaheb-mulla-law-college-satara'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-workshop-at-ismailsaheb-mulla-law-college-satara</a>
</p>
No publisherSubodh KulkarniCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaMarathi WikipediaMarathi Wikisource2017-10-24T11:52:19ZBlog EntryWikimedia Wikimeet India 2021/Report
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-report
<b>In March 2020, the whole world came to a standstill. What many deemed as a regular ‘flu’ turned out to be the pandemic that brought everyone to their knees. The things that we always did, we could no longer do them. We were all confined to our homes with no choice but to work online. Hanging out with friends, attending weddings, and being a part of the conferences and seminars suddenly became a part of the past. We started using the word unprecedented a lot. </b>
<p align="center"><strong><i>“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change!”</i></strong></p>
<p align="right">- <strong><i>Wayne Dyer</i></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>For the last many months, we have been getting used to this new ‘normal’. Students and teachers are getting accustomed to the classes and tests happening online. What people thought was impossible, has now become possible. No one could have guessed that birthday parties, gatherings, even marriages would be conducted online. We have now got used to being part of webinars, sessions, and conferences online. A2K is not an exception to this. We planned and conducted a national meet named ‘</span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Program">Wikimedia Wikimeet India </a><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Program">202</a><span>1’.</span></p>
<p align="center"><strong><i>“Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success!” </i></strong></p>
<p align="right">- <strong><i>Henry Ford</i></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Background:</strong><span> We, at A2K, have organised many such training sessions and conferences like </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program">Train the Trainer</a><span>, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/MediaWiki_Training">Media Wiki Training</a><span>, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wiki_Advanced_Training/2018">Advanced Wiki Training</a><span>. But due to COVID restrictions it was not possible to organise such an event offline this year. So this year, we decided to organise a virtual meet for the Wikimedians of India. This meet was planned and conducted especially for the Wikimedians who are already working or are interested in working on Wikimedia projects that deal with Indian content.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our main <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021">objectives</a> behind organising this meet were to celebrate the work done by Wikimedians of India, to provide an online platform for wiki-learning and skill-share, to support discussions and interactions, to give training on important and relevant topics, and explore the medium of online training and wiki-event for future use.</p>
<p>After all the planning, our three-day event of Wikimedia Wikimeet took place from 19 February to 21 February, 2021.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Community Engagement:</span></strong> We decided to organise this meet as there seemed to be a scarcity in volunteer’s and user’s contribution. Moreover, we have always believed in giving back to the community. So, we took an initiative to keep the community engaged. Our goal was to encourage volunteers and users to come forward and take lead in Wikimedia activities. To make it easy for our volunteers and the users to select their area of interest, we started <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Request_for_Comments">Request for Comments</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Get_involved">Community Engagement</a>. It is a forum where open discussions can take place about and where participants can share their knowledge, expertise, and experience. The tasks that were conducted under this were Logo Design, Translation, and Knowledge on Hybrid / Blended Learning Model.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Modes of Promotion:</span></strong> This event would not have been a success if not for our participants. We began promoting the event by using our India Mailing list. Our next step was to publicise the event on our social media channels and pages and also in messenger groups. We sent bulk messages on Indic Village Pumps announcing that the Wikimedia Wikimeet was about to take place. Our next step was to start a fortnightly <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Newsletter">newsletter</a> about the event. It was started to notify the people of updates. We encouraged our users to sign up for the newsletter so they would get immediate updates. This way, our volunteers and users knew what was happening with regard to the event and they also came to know what was about to happen in the coming 15 days.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another thing we did was to put up a <a href="https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/11/05/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-lets-focus-on-why/">blogpost</a> on Diff about our event. Our blogpost stated the importance of organising such an event. We have also discussed the background ideas in the same post. Our next <a href="https://diff.wikimedia.org/2020/11/11/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-entering-the-design-stage/">blogpost</a> dealt with the ‘how’ of our event. In it, we discussed the ideas of designing the event. Total 5 <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021#Footnotes">blogposts</a> were written and put up. Another article named <a href="https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/06/18/charaiveti-01-wikimedia-wikimeet-and-beyond-ideas-and-opinions/">Wikimedia Wikimeet and Beyond: Ideas and Opinions</a> was written and posted a few months later.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Organisation Methodology:</span></strong> Every great journey begins with one step. With that in mind, we first decided on the organisation methodology. The team tried its best to maintain transparency from planning and organisation till the execution and the end of the meet. This was the first ever large scale meet that we were planning to organise. Thus, some of the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Resources">resources</a> came in handy in our planning stage. To mention a few, we took inspiration and guidance from <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Celtic_Knot_Conference_2020">Celtic Knot Conference</a>, <a href="https://sites.google.com/stanford.edu/ld42020/track-descriptions?authuser=0">LD4 Conference</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_CEE_Online_Meeting_2020">Wikimedia CEE Online Meeting</a>, <a href="https://summit.creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons Global Summit</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/ItWikiCon/2020">Italy Wiki Conference</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiCite/2020_Virtual_conference">Wikicite Virtual Conference</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Transition/Global_Conversations">Wikimedia Strategy Global Conversation</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next step the core team took was to appoint a program committee. The main function of this <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Program">program committee</a> was to select important submissions and presentations. Following are the 5 members of our program committee:</p>
<p><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kiril_Simeonovski">Kiril Simeonovski</a>: He is the founding member of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Macedonia">Wikimedia Macedonia</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Shared_Knowledge">Shared Knowledge</a> and has been the president of Shared Knowledge since 2014.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Netha_Hussain">Netha Hussain</a>: She has been a volunteer in the Wikimedia Movement since 2010. Nowadays she mostly works in English WIkipedia and Wikidata, but she is also active in Commons, Metawiki, and <a href="https://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Netha_Hussain">Malayalam Wikipedia</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Shyamal">Shyamal</a><span>: He is interested in the natural history of India, environmental consciousness in general, and history of science, especially biology.</span></p>
<p><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mahir256">Mahir256</a><span>: He is an </span><a>administrator</a><span> on Wikidata, an </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Administrators">administrator</a><span> on </span><a href="https://bn.wikisource.org/wiki/%E0%A6%89%E0%A6%87%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%BF%E0%A6%B8%E0%A6%82%E0%A6%95%E0%A6%B2%E0%A6%A8:%E0%A6%AA%E0%A7%8D%E0%A6%B0%E0%A6%A7%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A8_%E0%A6%AA%E0%A6%BE%E0%A6%A4%E0%A6%BE">Bengali Wikisource</a><span>, and has a native understanding of English language.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Bodhisattwa">Bodhisattwa</a><span>: He has been a volunteer editor in different Wikimedia projects since 2012. He is mostly active on Bengali Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. He is also a part-time coordinator at the </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K">Center for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge</a><span>.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was necessary for the participants of this event to register prior to the event. A <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Registration">registration form</a> was open and made available for the duration of a month. After the deadline of this registration form, another special registration form with criteria was given to the participants. The participants were then selected according to the criteria.</p>
<p>The event took place on <a href="https://zoom.us/">Zoom</a>. We used the official Zoom account of the Center for Internet and Society. The main reason behind registrations was to avoid zoom-bombing. The eligible participants were given the link to join the event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikimedia Wikimeet was a three - day long event. We tried our best to accommodate all the presenters, moderators, attendees, and participants. Time was set according to them. This was a national level event but we were able to involve a few experienced international experts. So we had to take the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as well as the Indian Standard Time (IST) into consideration so that the volunteers, participants, and experts could all attend all the sessions and could engage in fruitful discussions.</p>
<p><strong><span>Selection of Presentations and Sessions:</span></strong> We received 44 submissions for this event and eventually after discussions 29 were selected to be featured in the event. A committee was given the task to select the submissions based on the topics that are crucial to Indic editors. We also had willing participants from the Wikimedia Foundation as presenters to acquaint the members of Indian community and volunteers with the important topics and issues.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We also invited international guests and experts to speak to our Indian Wikimedian community about the topics that are relevant currently and would be crucial for Indic writers and editors in future. We invited the experts from France to talk about their <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Lingua_Libre_-_record_your_language">Lingua Libre</a> project. We also invited the team to talk about Strategy. Our keynote speakers were also invited for this event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Event:</span></strong> After taking all the submissions into consideration, our program committee made a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Program">program schedule</a> for the three-day event. The tracks that were selected by the program committee for the presentations were: Growth of Wikimedia communities and partnerships, Information on technical Aspects and tools, Strategy of Wikimedia movement, GLAM & Content copyrights, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other than that, we tried to follow the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Friendly_space_policy/en">Friendly Space Policy</a> completely. All the rules of the said policy were cleared before the event. The team tried its best to remove the language barrier for our Non-English speakers. We urged the Wikimedians to translate their content in their language for their respective communities. This practice was followed by quite a few Indic Wikimedians.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>30 sessions</strong> were planned in all. Every session had a separate Etherpad link. As this was a virtual event, this facility was provided for the participants as well as the experts to interact during and after the session. Due to shortage of time, the notes and questions were made on the Etherpad. Experts and presenters wrote their answers on the Etherpad as well. All the sessions and presentations were recorded and are now available to everyone on the Commons under the name <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021">Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021</a>.</p>
<p>During this three-day event, around 200 participants joined in at different times. Out of the <strong>30 presentations</strong>, 18 presenters were from India and the remaining were international presenters.</p>
<p>Day 1 (Friday, 19 February, 2021):</p>
<p>There were 9 presentations on Day 1 of the event. After the introduction by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Titodutta">Tito Dutta</a>, the keynote speech was delivered by Asaf Bartov (<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ijon">Ijon</a>). This was attended by <a href="https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wmwmopeningspeech">86</a> participants.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the keynote speech, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Diptanshu_Das">Dipantshu Das</a> shed a light on ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Attracting_experts_to_contribute_to_Wikimedia_movement">Attracting experts to contribute to Wikimedia’</a>. He highlighted that it was the need of the hour. And this work would greatly help communities in India. He talked about urging academicians to contribute to Wikipedia more openly.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next presentation was made by Sudhanshu Gautam and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:AMuigai_(WMF)">Angie Muigai</a>. They talked about ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Growing_Wikipedia%E2%80%99s_reach_in_India_with_a_new_Wikipedia_app">Growing Wikipedia’s reach in India with a new Wikipedia app</a>’ in their presentation, they talked about the importance of making Wikipedia mobile friendly with the increase of internet users in India. They mentioned that there was an opportunity to provide ideas to increase the readership.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The next two presentations under the growth track were: ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Help_your_community_grow">Help your community grow</a>’ and ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Help_your_community_grow">Introducing newcomers from Wikisource to Wikipedia: A case study from Hindi Wikipedia’</a>. The first session was a 20 minutes long presentation followed by a conversation and it was beneficial to welcome and retain new users to Wikipedia and also increase the quality of new users’ edits. The second presentation shed some light on how to retain the new users and volunteers once they join the community after attending sessions and workshops.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On day 1, there were three presentations about the partnerships: ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Engaging_with_partners_in_the_movement!_WMF%27s_approach">Engaging with partners in the movement! WMF's approach</a>’, ‘GLAM Mapping leads to Wikimedian in Residence’, and ‘Discover Structured Data on Commons for you and your partners’.</p>
<p>In the first presentation, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:PDas_(WMF)">Praveen Das</a> underlined the importance of working with various partners from different fields for mutual growth.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next presenter <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:%E0%A4%86%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AF%E0%A4%BE_%E0%A4%9C%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%B6%E0%A5%80">Arya Joshi</a> talked about the GLAM mapping research conducted by CIS - A2K and her work with Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum, Pune. She talked about offline and online documentation of work and creating new opportunities for research.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The final presentation of the day was Discover Structured Data on Commons for you and your partners by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Alicia_Fagerving_(WMSE)">Alicia Fagerving</a>. In this session, the presenter gave recommendations to make optimum use of the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Structured_data">Structured Data on Commons (SDC)</a> to improve workflow. This presentation was followed by a workshop where the participants edited SDC and then there was a discussion.</p>
<p>Day 2 (Saturday, 20 February, 2021):</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Day 2 began with a special morning session and keynote speech by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Katherine_(WMF)">Katherine Maher</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Katherine_(WMF)">Amanda Keton</a>. In her <a href="https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wmwmd02special">speech</a>, Katherine highlighted how Indian community is important to the Wikimedia movement. She also talked about the growth of emerging communities. Groups and Wikimedians who have been doing good work were also recognised. She talked about relaunching the Grant strategy. It was a fruitful session with comments and question - answers.</p>
<p>After the keynote address, there were 3 presentations that dealt with the technical aspect and issues.</p>
<p>The first talk was about <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Gadgets_and_tools_for_a_Wikipedia_Editor">Gadgets and tools for a Wikipedia Editor</a> by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ranjithsiji">Ranjith Siji</a>. He introduced and explained different kinds of scripts and tools required to edit and browse Wikipedia.</p>
<p>The second session was a 60 minute long workshop followed by a conversation about <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Transforming_Data_from_the_Web_with_OpenRefine">Transforming Data from the Web with OpenRefine</a>. It was conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnoeee">Gnoeee</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ranjithsiji">Ranjith Siji</a>. This was a basic level training given to the new users of <a href="https://openrefine.org/">OpenRefine</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last technical presentation was <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Writing_UserScripts_and_gadgets">Writing UserScripts and gadgets</a> by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayprakash12345">Jay Prakash</a>. In his session, the presenter imparted basic to intermediate level training on writing user scripts and explaining how to use it as a gadget on Wiki.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last 4 sessions of the day dealt with Strategy. The first presentation ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/An_update_from_the_Sustainability_Initiative">An update from the Sustainability Initiative</a>’ in this category was made by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gnom">Gnom</a> from Germany. He gave an update on the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_Initiative">Sustainability Initiative</a>. His talk consisted of an update on current developments around environmental sustainability in the Wikimedia movement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next presentation named ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Grants_in_2021_-_What_is_the_process%3F">Grants in 2021 - What is the process?</a>’ was by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:THasan_(WMF)">Tanveer Hasan</a>. As a part of the Community Resources team, the presenter shared a process update and gathered feedback on how to improve the strategy relaunch process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next presentation titled ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Movement_Strategy_and_South_Asia">Movement Strategy and South Asia</a>’ was done by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Anna_Torres_(WMAR)">Anna Torres</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Hillun_Vilayl_Napis_(WMID)">Hillun Vilayl Napis</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Kayusyussuf">Kayode Yussuf</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:THasan_(WMF)">Tanveer Hassan</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MPourzaki_(WMF)">Mehrdad Pourzaki</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:RMerkley_(WMF)">Ryan Merkley</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KVaidla_(WMF)">Kaarel Vaidla</a>. In this session, all the presenters talked about the initiatives that are most relevant and important in 2021 in communities of South Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last session of the day was ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Distributed_leadership_and_global_decision-making_-_the_Interim_Global_Council">Distributed leadership and global decision-making - the Interim Global Council’</a>. It was delivered by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MPourzaki_(WMF)">Mehrdad Pourzaki</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:RMerkley_(WMF)">Ryan Merkley</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KVaidla_(WMF)">Kaarel Vaidla</a>. They talked about global decision making and distributed leadership. Their aim was to acquaint the South Asian communities to the conversations, possibilities, and updates.</p>
<p>Day 3 (Sunday, 21 February, 2021):</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last day of the event was dedicated to ‘<a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q42375">International Mother Language Day</a>’. The day began with 2 consecutive sessions by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Diptanshu_Das">Dipantshu Das</a> named ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Copyright,_Copyleft,_and_Wikimedia_movement">Copyright, Copyleft, and Wikimedia movement</a>’ and ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Building_a_diamond_open_access_journal_on_Wikimedia_platform">Building a diamond open access journal on Wikimedia platform</a>’. In the first session, the presenter talked about the importance of intellectual property rights and copyright to the Wikimedia movement. In the second session, the presenter talked about the importance of having diamond open access journals especially in India as the article processing charges for open access journals can be very high in India due to conversion rates.</p>
<p>Next session was a workshop conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayanta_(CIS-A2K)">Jayanta Nath</a> on <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Wikisource_Workshop_-_Basic">Wikisource</a>. Another workshop was conducted at the same time by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rangan_Datta_Wiki">Rangan Datta</a> on <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Wikivoyage_Workshop">Wikivoyage</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next 4 presentations on Day 3 were community based. The first presentation in this series was titled <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Internship_Program_in_Tamil_Wiki_Projects">‘Internship Program in Tamil Wiki Projects</a>’ and was delivered by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Neechalkaran">Neechalkaran</a>. It was a knowledge sharing session on the internship program for college students.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second presentation was made by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Subodh_(CIS-A2K)">Subodh Kulkarni</a> and the title was ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Re-licensing_and_Digitisation_process_in_Maharashtra">Re-licensing and Digitisation process in Maharashtra</a>’. The presenter explained the relicensing process taking place in Maharashtra Marathi community, authors, copyright holders, and organisations.</p>
<p>The third session was conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ziko">Ziko</a> and was named ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Rules_that_every_wiki_needs">Rules that every wiki needs</a>’. In this session, the presenter introduced the topic ‘law and rules every wiki needs’.</p>
<p>The last session in the Community category was ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/100wikidays">100wikidays</a>’ and it was conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ssgapu22">Sangram Senapati</a>. In this session, the presenter shared his story of writing an article for Wiki each and every day for 100 days.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last four presentations of the day were dedicated to language. In the session titled ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Servants_Of_Knowledge_initiative_for_Digital_Archiving_Kannada_%26_other_Indic_language_content">Servants Of Knowledge initiative for Digital Archiving Kannada & other Indic language content</a>’, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Omshivaprakash">Omshivprakash</a> talked about the impact of digitisation of art, history, and culture on language preservation. He primarily talked about the Kannada language.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next session was on ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Spell4Wiki_-_Audio_upload_tool_for_Wikimedia_commons_%26_Multilingual_dictionary_based_on_Wiktionary">Spell4Wiki - Audio upload tool for Wikimedia commons & Multilingual dictionary based on Wiktionary</a>’ by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Manimaran96">Manimaran</a>. In this presentation, he introduced the Spell4wiki app. He also described the features and benefits of using the said app.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Next session was conducted by invited guest experts from France. The session was about ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Lingua_Libre_-_record_your_language">Lingua Libre - record your language</a>’ and ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Lingua_Libre_bot_and_recording_wizard">Lingua Libre bot and recording wizard’</a>. It was conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ad%C3%A9la%C3%AFde_Calais_WMFr">Adélaïde Calais</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Poslovitch">Poslovitch</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Yug">Yug</a>. Lingua Libre is a website created by Wikimedia France to record vocabulary. Its aim is to build a collaborative and multilingual bank. In the session, the two tools used in the Lingua Libre project, the Record Wizard and the Lingua Libre Bot, were also introduced.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last session before the closing keynote speech was ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021/Submissions/Section_Translation:_New_Ways_to_Contribute_on_Mobile_Devices">Section Translation: New Ways to Contribute on Mobile Devices’</a>. It was presented by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Aaharoni-WMF">Amir Aharoni</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NGkountas_(WMF)">NGkountas</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pginer-WMF">Pau Giner</a>. The presenters talked about the content translation extension. Further, they talked about two new features that are to be deployed that can be used by more people in many countries and languages.</p>
<p>The closing keynote speech was given by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tarunno">Tarunno</a>. He spoke about ‘<a href="https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/wmwmclosingspeech">International Mother Language Day - The love for Language and a sound of silence</a>’ The event ended with a closing session by Tito Dutta.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Hurdles we faced:</span></strong> At the beginning, we found it difficult to form a team to organise the event. Due to the pandemic, we were unsure about approaching the wikimedians and were also worried about the participation. As it was a virtual event, the internet was the most important factor in it. Many participants and volunteers faced problems due to low internet connectivity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>Our achievements:</span></strong> This was the first ever national level virtual event conducted in India by A2K. We were able to create a platform for the wikimedians to interact. Though it was initially a national event, we were able to get international guests as well.</p>
<p>We received positive feedback and precious suggestions from the participants. Following are some quotes:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Productive, helpful sessions. Was very helpful to me personally. Good effort by all involved. If I were to suggest improvements, Would have liked slots for conversations, and networking sessions. A "state of nation" like updates by projects would have helped too. “</p>
<p>“Thanks a lot again, this was a very good event.</p>
<p>Online events are not the same as physical ones but it was still very interesting and useful.”</p>
<p>“I was a presenter and presented a workshop on Wikivoyage. It was a nice program and I'm looking forward to more such virtual and physical events.”</p>
<p>We also received some feedback videos that were an appreciation for A2K. Following are a couple of links:</p>
<p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_Wikimeet_India_2021_%E2%80%93_message_from_Manavpreet_Kaur.webm">Manavpreet Kaur</a></p>
<p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimeet_India_2021followup_message_from_Mehrdad_Pourzaki.webm">Mehrdad Pourzaki</a></p>
<p>We also received audio feedback from <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiMeet-2021-Comment.ogg">Ashwin Bandur</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><span>What’s next?!</span></strong>: After all the stumbles and hurdles and achievements we had in Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, we have already started planning for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2022. Tito Dutta has <a href="https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/06/18/charaiveti-01-wikimedia-wikimeet-and-beyond-ideas-and-opinions/">written</a> about the planning for next year’s meet.</p>
<p align="center"><strong><i>“It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.” </i></strong></p>
<p align="right">- <strong><i>Carl Friedrich Gauss</i></strong></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-report'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-wikimeet-india-2021-report</a>
</p>
No publisherNitesh Gill and Tito DuttaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaMalayalam Wikipedia2021-08-20T14:01:55ZBlog EntryWikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university
<b></b>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>22 participants attended the event.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university</a>
</p>
No publishermanasaraoCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaMediawiki training (MWT)WikipediaMarathi WikipediaOpenness2017-12-19T16:03:48ZBlog EntryWikimedia Summit India 2019
https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019
<b>CIS-A2K team is organizing a two-day Wikimedia Summit event for the participants taking part in the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wikimedia Summit India 2019</b> is an national-level event which intends to prepare representatives of various user groups, affliates, committees, groups, and teams associated to Wikimedia foundation from India who are going to attend in Wikimedia Summit 2019 and helping them understand about Movement Strategy process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wikimedia Summit 2019 (WMSummit 19) will be designed along the needs and status of the Movement Strategy Process and its Working Groups, as well as the participants’ input. The 2019 event will be an important milestone of the Movement Strategy Process.</p>
<p>Wikimedia Summit India 2019 will serve following goals:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Helping participants understand Ongoing phase in movement strategy process: Some of the participants are participating in Movement strategy process' ongoing phase in different capacities, while others might not have a good understanding about it. This conference aims to improve understanding about strategy process especially regarding 9 strategy Working groups and their scoping.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Preparation for WMSummit 19: The Summit will be an occasion where the affiliates’ and WMF’s leadership will come together to check in on the broader direction of the Strategy Process, with the opportunity to reinforce their co-ownership in this process. All Working Groups will have reached the point in their work where they prepare to draft and discuss first recommendations within their thematic area. From Indian Wikimedia movement's perspective, this offers them an opportunity to share their experience in different thematic areas of strategy process and help the broader movement strategy to have different perspectives. Also, this helps Indian Wikimedia movement to utilize experiences and learnings from different areas of Wikimedia movement and utilize them to grow the movement in India exponantially. Wikimedia Summit India 2019 also aims on gathering the collective and diverse experiences and learnings of Indian Wikimedia movement and understand where they can help in movement strategy process.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Schedule</h3>
<dl><dt>Friday - 15 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>6:30 PM to 8 PM: Introductions</li>
</ul>
<dl><dt>Saturday - 16 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>9:30 AM to 10 AM: Introduction to WMSummit India 2019</li>
<li>10 AM to 11:30 AM: Strategy Process: Necessity, Strategic direction 2030, Timeline</li>
<li>11:30 AM to 1 PM: Reinforcing co-ownership in Strategy process: How communities and affliates can be part of process</li>
<li>1 PM to 1:30 PM: Lunch</li>
<li>1:30 PM to 2:30 PM: Potential Impact of Strategy process</li>
<li>2:30 PM to 5 PM: Introducing various working groups: Working group representatives will be requested to explain over video calls</li>
</ul>
<dl><dt>Sunday - 17 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>10 AM to 10:20 AM: Working group scoping documents' introduction</li>
<li>10:20 AM to 12 PM: Various community learnings and to what working group's scope they matter: Group activity</li>
<li>12 PM to 1 PM:</li>
<li>1 PM to 1:30 PM: Lunch</li>
<li>1:30 to 2:30: Way forward: Consulting their community and framing agenda before WMSummit 2019</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaEventAccess to Knowledge2019-03-03T05:31:35ZEventWikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation
<b>Researchers in development sector produce a pool of training material and case studies. However, these do not trickle down to the society and many in the public domain are unaware of the same.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Largely the research is restricted to non-profit organizations or their funding agencies during the project period. If the research carried out in development sector is re-licensed and then linked to Wikipedia articles as references we could see a larger section of the society gaining access to such information. The twin advantages of posting such content is that the information will be searchable online through search engines and the Wikipedia page with numerous hyperlinks leading to different sources will act as a reference resource. Larger sections in the public domain will have access to information which would perhaps be hard to gain access to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/VAFContent.jpg/@@images/04b6fbcf-bc09-4026-9c0f-6ade9ab1772c.jpeg" alt="VAF Content" class="image-inline" title="VAF Content" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="discreet">Pictured above: Meeting at Vikas Anvesh Foundation office to discuss the possibility of disseminating the research work done, through Wikipedia. Subodh Kulkarni was the resource person for the meeting. [Picture by Sdeora14 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license].</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Orientation Session</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Keeping this in view an orientation session was conducted by Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) at Tata Trust’s Vikas Anvesh Foundation (VAF) in Pune. CIS-A2K and VAF joined hands to explore possibilities of content enrichment in Wikimedia projects. Dr. Ajit Kanitkar and Subodh Kulkarni were the facilitators for the session attended by eight participants.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The researchers at VAF presented their publications in the form of study reports, papers in journals and conferences and datasets. Advisor Ajit Kanitkar presented story of 'Gems of Purest Ray Serene', a book about the life stories of twenty-two outstanding Indian social workers. The content of the book is uploaded on VAF's website <a href="http://www.socialworkindia.in/profiles/madhukar-dhas">socialworkindia.in</a> which is freely downloadable. The book is published in Marathi and Hindi language also.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the presentations from VAF, CIS-A2K facilitator presented different Wikimedia projects.In the discussions, it was realised that Wikipedia articles related to social issues and development sector lack reliable references. The research work on VAF website can be linked as references. The publications could be uploaded on Wikisource for wider reach. The images and videos during the work can also be uploaded on Commons.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Follow-up</h3>
<p>VAF will discuss the process of content donation with management and decide on the further steps. The training regarding Wikipedia editing and Commons uploads would be planned.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-09T00:56:25ZBlog EntryWikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-june-22-2019-wikimedia-education-saarc-conference-2019
<b>Christ University in association with the Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) organized a conference, from 20 - 22 June 2019, at Christ University, Bengaluru. Forty-nine Wikimedians from four countries (Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India) participated in the event.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The meta report published on Wikimedia Blog can be <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Report">accessed here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K is working with various universities and educational institutions to develop content in Wikimedia projects. One such institutional partner, <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_University">Christ</a> (deemed to be university) has taken the initiative to organize Wikimedia Education <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Asian_Association_for_Regional_Cooperation">SAARC</a> conference in association with CIS-A2K and <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_%26_Education_User_Group">Wikipedia & Education User Group</a>. The participants included one member from Sri Lanka, four members from Nepal, seven members from Bangladesh and 37 members from India. In all 14 language communities were represented.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The broad objectives of the conference were:</p>
<ul>
<li>To know the nature of education programs being conducted.</li>
<li>To share the best practices.</li>
<li>Discuss the challenges like retention and quality.</li>
<li>Explore the methodologies to evaluate & measure the work being done.</li>
<li>Enhancing the community involvement in the education programmes. </li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The applications for participation and thematic submissions were invited from Wikimedians of SAARC countries. The selection committee comprised of representatives from Wikimedia Foundation and community conducted the scrutiny. The scholarships were provided to 49 selected participants. In all 12 submissions on diverse topics were received from different language communities. Wikimedia Foundation’s Partnerships & Global reach team member <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/praveen-das/">Praveen Das</a>, Trust & Safety team member <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/neha-nair/">Neha Nair</a> and advisor for this conference <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/profile/tanveer-hasan/">Tanveer Hasan</a> were also present for some of the sessions during the conference.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following report gives a summary of all the deliberations at the conference.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: center; ">Day 1, 20 June 2019</h3>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SAARC1.png/@@images/3a0bcab1-68dc-4bec-b6c7-67f95415ea01.png" alt="SAARC 1" class="image-inline" title="SAARC 1" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The inaugural session was graced by chief guest Dr. Ramesh Sharma, an expert in open education and Associate Professor of Instructional Design at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._B.R._Ambedkar_University_Delhi">Ambedkar University Delhi</a> along with Dr. Anil Pinto Registrar of Christ University who was instrumental in launching Wikipedia in education for the students. The other persons on the dais were Tito Dutta, Program Manager CIS-A2K, Dr. Mallika Krishnaswami, Dr. John Joseph Kennedy, and Dr. Sebastian K A.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>In this session the speakers stressed upon the advancement of language, to adopt latest knowledge sharing technologies, innovation in education programmes and collaborations with multifaceted institutions to actualize new ideas. The journey of Christ University regarding the Wikimedia education program during the last six years was also elaborated.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The inaugural session was followed by a session on <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/CoC">Code of Conduct</a> and Friendly space policies by the Response Team of CIS-A2K. The objectives, diversity statement, general community guidelines, unacceptable behaviour and process of reporting described in CoC were discussed. <span>To explain the motivation and hierarchy of Wikipedia in Education at Wikimedia movement the following sessions were conducted during the conference.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the keynote address, Dr. Ramesh Sharma revealed many facets of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources">Open Educational Resources</a> (OER) in the field of academic courses, science, mathematics, music, multimedia etc. He shared many experiences of working with <a href="https://oeru.org/">Open Education Resource University (OERU)</a> and appealed for future collaborations. He also deliberated upon some wider topics like Government education policies, licenses and quality improvement framework for OERs. <span>In a remote session with </span><a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:NSaad_(WMF)">Nichole Saad</a><span>, Senior Programme Manager (</span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Education_Program">Wikipedia Education Programme</a><span>) from </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a><span>, she explained the rationale behind the Education in Wikimedia projects and the execution process.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The session on Wikipedia & Education User Group focused on the global user group that supports the work around Wikimedia and Education in various capacities. One of the Board members of user group, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KCVelaga">Krishna Chaitanya Velaga</a> gave an introduction to the user group, its background, vision, and objectives. Later the functioning of the group was also explained including the membership process and the governance. The three focus areas of the group were explained in detail — community, resources, and outreach. Later, the participants were briefed on various ways in which they can get involved with the group. These included joining the newly formed working groups for each focus area, taking up membership, and also attending the monthly open meetings held by the group, and share their stories to the broader community. The session ended with a brief upon areas where community members could seek the support of the group, such as mentorship, securing resources, advocacy, etc.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The participants were introduced to each other through their work. Session on sharing of various programmes being conducted, it’s learning, challenges and way ahead were very informative and stimulating. The participants from different language communities explained the present status of the education programmes being conducted with institutions. The challenges like lack of initiative, the paucity of resources, trust in Wikipedia and consistency were discussed collectively. New and innovative ideas that were not tried so far were also put forth by the members making it an interesting session. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last session of the day one was group work on the theme - ' कल आज और कल ' : Past Present Future. The participants were divided into eight groups. Enthusiasm was very high during discussions on the past, present & future of education programmes with the community. The groups collectively worked on the poster presentations.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: center; ">Day 2, 21 June 2019</h3>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SAARC2.png/@@images/a43660cd-a3af-4b26-af74-c5f4d4f03d32.png" alt="SAARC 2" class="image-inline" title="SAARC 2" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second day started with an interactive session on the topic - The interesting ways of Introducing Wikimedia projects (Wikidata, Wikisource, etc.) into classrooms. The participants shared their experiences with different entry point events other than Wikipedia. Many felt that Wikipedia is complicated to start with. The community also reacted strongly sometimes due to the quality of the articles. This discussion was followed by promoting planned growth process for bridging the gender gap.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference submissions on education projects were presented in two parallel tracks. According to interest, the members attended the various sessions. The highlights of the presentations are given below.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Goals_of_Wikimedia_%252B_Education:_Content,_Retention,_Skills,_etc&sa=D&ust=1562052431065000&usg=AFQjCNFpgNJ-1il11YBcP35HQfrSKzCsUw">Goals of Wikimedia + Education: Content, Retention, Skills</a>:<strong> </strong><span style="text-align: justify; ">The session started off by asking participants about why they do an education programme, and what else can we include as the goals for any EduWiki activity. Different approaches for achieving each of these goals, and how each of these goals affects the rest were discussed. This included a quick brainstorming on how communities should collaborate with the EduWiki activities so that it adds value to its goals. Eventually, the presenter along with the participants realized that retention of users should be prioritized over the other two goals to easily reach all the three goals. Caution points regarding assignments like copyvio, reliable references were also discussed. The scale of the activity and scoping student interest are also an important criterion.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Challenges_of_growing_communities_:_Make_Wikipedia_trustworthy_to_the_educators&sa=D&ust=1562052788058000&usg=AFQjCNFhg4QjQu2bspWs-9FY5lmR5U3zGw">Challenges of growing communities : Make Wikipedia trustworthy to educators</a></strong>: <span>In this session, challenges before Bangla Wikipedia were discussed. There is a need to collaborate with institutions and capacity building of editors to improve the quality of articles. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Non-Conventional_methods_of_knowledge_expansion_by_Education_programs&sa=D&ust=1562055701709000&usg=AFQjCNGNrwgUeDgfA-G2C4U0fMmjse7jJA">Non-Conventional methods of knowledge expansion by programs involving Wikimedia and Education</a>: </strong><span>The formal approaches like giving compulsory tasks for students will not work in the Wikimedia movement. We can expect better outcomes by adopting non-formal methods like digital skills development and team building through collaborative work.</span></p>
<p><a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Wikimedia_Education_Program_Outreach_Mentorship&sa=D&ust=1562055734241000&usg=AFQjCNH5PyQ2FaIgcLcSvagBbl96sbYPMw"><strong>Wikimedia Program Outreach Mentorship</strong></a>: Proper awareness and detailed planning of resources are the key aspects of outreach programmes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a class="external-link" href="http://www.schoolwiki.in/">School Wiki</a> in Kerala</strong>: State government education department of Kerala has developed School Wiki with Wikimedians in Kerala. In all 15000 articles of schools have been created with their history, location details, alumni, maps, cultural activities, photos and creative works of students like stories, poems and paintings. The innovative project - Folk encyclopedia is also shaping up. The linkages with Malayalam Wikipedia are being established slowly. As the students are now aware of the Wiki environment, there are chances of getting good editors in future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong>Wikipedia in School</strong>: <a href="http://www.tn.gov.in/">State government of Tamil Nadu</a> took the initiative to organise capacity building programme for teachers through the EDUSAT on a mass scale. This Wikipedia training started in 2016 and till now 40,000 teachers are trained. Due to this, teachers became active on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><strong><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Submissions_Retaining_Tulu_Language_and_culture_-_the_ways_and_means">Retaining Tulu Language and </a><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Submissions_Retaining_Tulu_Language_and_culture_-_the_ways_and_means">culture:</a><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Submissions_Retaining_Tulu_Language_and_culture_-_the_ways_and_means"> the ways and means</a></strong>: <a href="https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Karavali_Wikimedians">Karavali Wikimedians user group</a> is active in the coastal part of Southern Karnataka and Northern Kerala. It is focusing on the preservation of language and culture. They have started the first physical Wiki library with 650 books. Other innovative activities are ‘<a href="https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Karavali_Wikimedians/Outreach_Program/Karavali_Wikimedians_to_Home,_Mangalore,_November_20,_2018">Karavali Wikimedians to Home</a>’ and Text-Performance-Documentation and Reconstruction of rare Folk Performing art <a href="https://meta.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/Karavali_Wikimedians/Events/Sidda_Vesha">Sidda Vesha</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/VVIT_WikiConnect:_A_Year_in_Review"><strong>VVIT WikiConnect : A Year in review</strong></a> : The coordinators of Wikiclub presented the activities conducted in the last two years. The focus is on capacity building of active students, leadership development, quality of content and retention. According to the scoping of students’ interest, various events were conducted like Edit-a-thons, Photowalks, Wikidata workshop, 1lib1ref session, Wikimedia Strategy Salon, Mini Media Wiki training, Thematic workshops, etc. The user survey was also done to get the feedback of students.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/Submissions/Wikipedia_Students_Association_at_Alva%27s"><strong>Wikipedia Student Association at Alva's College Moodubidire</strong></a>: The regular Wiki activities have resulted in active Students’ Association at Alva’s College. The major activities are publishing of wall magazine - Wiki Suddi : Mundu and newspaper - Wiki Samachaara, Wikicamp and internship by Department of Journalism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/WEP_in_Indian_Languages_at_Christ_University"><strong>Wikipedia in Education at Christ University</strong></a>: The coordinator presented the journey of six years programme at Christ. The process of engaging students from day one to the last day of the second semester was explained. The students learn digital skills, language typing, writing articles on the topic of interest and respective stream. From writing in the sandbox, they even progress up to documenting case study on research related to Wikipedia. The structure of monitoring and evaluation systems within the department was elaborated. The community engagement aspect was also discussed in detail. The challenges and the preparations for the next curve of WEP Christ were presented.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the last session of the day, groups presented their work through posters visualising ‘Past, Present & Future’ of the education programmes. The interaction and loud thinking provided many ideas to be taken further for implementation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The second day ended with Cultural programme by Christ University students. The vibrant performances of music and dance were enjoyed by the participants.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Day 3, 22 June 2019</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The day started with early morning ‘<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Education_SAARC_conference/BirdWalk">Bird Walk</a>’ at the university campus with rich biodiversity. Seven enthusiasts joined this walk and captured images of 22 different species of birds which is documented on <a href="https://ebird.org/india/view/checklist/S57612668">eBird portal</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last day of the conference started with a remote presentation on OER by Wayne Macintosh (Director <a href="http://oerfoundation.org/">OER Foundation</a>, and UNESCO - ICDE Chair in OER). <span>Wayne started with an overview of demand for education vis-a-vis the infrastructure available in the global south. The fundamentals of OERs, OER Foundation and OER University were elaborated. He stressed the need to start at least two OER courses by every Indian University. They can join the OERu network for free to host the courses. The credit system for various micro courses was explained through examples. He also discussed the </span><a href="https://wikieducator.org/Main_Page">WikiEducator</a><span> programme and appealed Wikimedians to join this evolving community as all courses run using media-wiki software. Regulatory issues for universities to adopt OER courses are to be looked into in Indian context. Dr Ramesh Sharma assured to facilitate in this matter. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The next session, ‘Strategy in Wikimedia and Education’ by Pavan Santhosh intended to help participants understand the importance brewing Strategy and figuring out a Big dream in their programs. This session started with demystifying the word strategy. With examples from the Wikimedia movement that participants can relate, the presenter explained how can a Big dream help prioritizing activities and programs. Later in an interactive part of the session, participants came up with ideas to run a strategy process in their programs and communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Lively group activity - ‘Revolving cafe’ happened after the strategy session. The activity was planned around five themes - <a href="https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/">Program and Events Dashboard</a>, <a>Wikidata</a>, Communication & Blogging, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM">GLAM</a> in Education and Support structures (<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Start">WMF grants</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Requests">CIS Requests page</a>). As the groups were small, the participants utilised this opportunity to clear doubts through one to one dialogue. The session was mutually beneficial for group leaders as well as participants.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the cafe activity, <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/About/Staff">Wikimedia Education Staff</a> member <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SPatnaik_(WMF)">Sailesh Patnaik</a> deliberated upon the outreach and communications aspects. He stressed on using social media effectively and give publicity to innovative activities through newsletters. He also explained about upcoming Greenhouse pilot.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The last session, ‘Wikisource in education’ was conducted by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jayanta_(CIS-A2K)">Jayanta Nath</a>. He explained how Wikisource activity is complementary to the qualitative growth of Wikipedia. The basics of Wikisource like licenses and workflow were discussed in detail. Various ways to combine the education programme with Wikisource were explored in interaction.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference closing ceremony was meaningful with spontaneous feedback from the participants.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-june-22-2019-wikimedia-education-saarc-conference-2019'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-june-22-2019-wikimedia-education-saarc-conference-2019</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhWikimediaWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia Education2019-07-04T02:48:58ZBlog EntryWikimedia Education SAARC conference
https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference
<b>Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) happy to announce that, Wikimedia Education SAARC conference 2019 programme submissions (proposals) are open from today, 25 April 2019. Deadline for applying for scholarship is 20 May 2019. The conference organized by Christ University in association with CIS-A2K will be held from 20 - 22 June 2019 at Christ University in Bengaluru. The event is being co-organized by Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia & Education User Group.</b>
<p id="_mcePaste" style="text-align: justify;">Education is a core function of the Wikipedia project. Many Wiki chapters, the Wikimedia movement, user groups and affiliates are developing education programs across the globe. Wiki has been used as a teaching resource by many teachers. Students are doing assignments on Wiki and adopting modern technologies. The Wikimedia and Education movements have the same goal - to ensure that knowledge is made accessible to every person across the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The CIS-A2K team, for instance, is working with the language department of Christ University and other educational institutions to enrich the content of Indic Wikimedia projects with the help of students. Globally many students and educators are involved in the Wikimedia movement and the Education movement working towards democratising education and increasing accessibility of education materials. We believe that students should not only consume knowledge available on the internet but also be a part of the larger Open Internet movement, and help in creating open knowledge resources. The Wikimedia Education SAARC conference will be the first of its kind conference involving SAARC countries, engaging students, education program leaders, educators and researchers working with the Open Education and free knowledge movement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This conference will allow us to understand the different efforts made by the communities involved in the Wikimedia Education movement. This will help us to create models, templates and documents that can be replicated in by other institutions or programs. We at CIS A2K were inspired to host such a conference through the course of our work with Christ University. This will be one of the many projects that will be able to use the conference as a platform to showcase their work among the global Wikimedia movement.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conference Goals</h3>
<ul>
<li>To generate awareness of Wikipedian Education programs and activities happening in Asia by different community members/languages.</li>
<li>Sharing the knowledge and best practices of how to build "trust relationship" with new partners/teachers and how to improve trust in Wikipedia.</li>
<li>Challenges on student retention and how to engage students in the broader Wikimedia movement.</li>
<li>The best method to evaluate and measure the quality of the work done by students.</li>
<li>To introduce tools like the dashboard, across diverse languages, and other tools which will be useful for tracking, assessment, allocation of the topics and others.</li>
<li>Integration of Wiki activities with academic assignments, regular course syllabus.</li>
<li>To bridge the gap and develop a mutually beneficial liaison between Wiki communities and Wikimedia Education stakeholders.</li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-education-saarc-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminCIS-A2KEventAccess to Knowledge2019-06-22T09:30:46ZEventWikimedia Diversity Conference
https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference
<b>T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the conference organized by the German Wikipedia community in Berlin (GLS Campus) on November 9 and 10, 2013. He presented on So Many Languages- Challenges and Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement in India and also led a Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia.</b>
<ul>
<li>This was published on the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference">meta page of Wikipedia</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Vishnu's presentation can be <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:So_Many_Languages-_Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_the_Wikimedia_Movement_in_India.pdf">accessed here</a>.</li>
<li>A brief discussion of the round-up session <a class="external-link" href="https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/roundup3">can be seen here</a>.</li>
<li>All the videos can be <a class="external-link" href="http://vimeo.com/album/2618583/sort:preset/format:thumbnail">watched here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3>Video</h3>
<table class="plain">
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<th style="text-align: center; "><iframe frameborder="0" height="281" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/79974672" width="500"></iframe>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/79974672">Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2013: Interview - T Vishnu Vardhan</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/wikimediade">Wikimedia Deutschland</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Why a Diversity Conference?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Representing the world's knowledge is the mission of the global Wikimedia movement. But we are still in our infancy. Many languages and cultures are not adequately represented in the different Wikimedia projects, many people shy away from participating in our projects and sharing their knowledge with the world. Particularly striking is the low proportion of women. To gain this knowledge and commitment, both to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community, is the goal of our work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make "Diversity" the topic of an international conference in Berlin. Here we will gather to exchange findings, methods, and approaches for incorporating more gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, and for considering gender diversity within the wider context of diversity in general (language, culture, projects, etc).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">New technological innovations such as VisualEditor can have an impact on the formation and composition of authorship, and community projects like <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse" title="en:Wikipedia:Teahouse">Teahouse</a> or <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_Collaborative" title="WikiWomen's Collaborative">WikiWomen's Collaborative</a> have been successfully aimed at supporting diverse contributors. Let's gather to share information about what's working and what's not in current initiatives, consider the impact of technical and community developments, and connect in order to turn ideas into action.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Goals of the Conference</h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Establish a sustainable dialogue</b> with collaborators in Wikimedia Chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation and the international communities to frame the issue of diversity in the context of Wikimedia.<br /><br /><i>We aim to build a shared understanding of what diversity means for Wikimedia projects and why it is important</i>.</li>
<li><b>Connect, multiply and create successful initiatives</b> for increasing gender and other types of diversity in Wikimedia.<br /><i><br />We aim to turn ideas into action</i>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Focus of the conference</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are very happy to see all your ideas and it seems that many Wikipedians, Wikimedians and interested people are highly engaged in thinking about many aspects concerning diversity in Wikipedia. This is great!</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To help us organize sessions and accomplish our goals of developing a shared understanding and set of actions for improving diversity, we intend to focus this first conference on two aspects of diversity:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Gender diversity</b> - the gender gap, LGBT initiatives</li>
<li><b>Geographic diversity</b> - the global south, linguistic and economic diversity</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We hope that future events will be organized to focus more specifically on other important diversity aspects like age, education, and disabilities.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Timeline</h3>
<ul>
<li>application for scholarships/submission of proposals August 20 - September 20, 2013</li>
<li>official registration August 20 - October 20, 2013</li>
<li>note of acceptance: by October 4, 2013</li>
<li>agenda finalized: end of October 2013</li>
<li>conference: November 9 - November 10, 2013</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Background Information</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2013, Wikimedia Deutschland initiated a research and development project <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/2013_annual_plan/projects/p9" title="Wikimedia Deutschland/2013 annual plan/projects/p9">"Diversity for Wikipedia"</a> that develops possible courses of action towards more gender diversity. Within the project, gender diversity guidelines, gender diversity action plans and designs are developed. It will implement specific actions aimed at enhancing a welcoming culture, diversity awareness among Wikipedians and participation of female editors. In a co-operation with Beuth University, digital web-based educational material with a focus on gender topics will be developed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within the framework of developing a diversity concept about what diversity in Wikipedia really means, we will organise this conference to further develop our existing approaches and to elaborate on new ideas. By the end of this year, the project will be in an advanced state and we are looking forward to discuss the different worldwide initiatives with the international communities, Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Contact</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julia_Kloppenburg_%28WMDE%29" title="User:Julia Kloppenburg (WMDE)">Julia Kloppenburg</a>. You can reach Julia via her <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julia_Kloppenburg_%28WMDE%29" title="User:Julia Kloppenburg (WMDE)">user page</a> or via <a class="text external" href="mailto:Julia.kloppenburg@wikimedia.de" rel="nofollow">e-mail</a>. For general enquiries and questions concerning scholarships you can contact the organising team at: <a class="text external" href="mailto:diversity@wikimedia.de" rel="nofollow">diversity@wikimedia.de</a> Feel free to get in touch!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference'>https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-12-02T06:40:02ZNews ItemWikimedia contributor shares his Linux story
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story
<b>Computers have fascinated me since childhood, but my first encounter—like many others—was not with Linux. For me, it was with Microsoft Paint. Then, many years later in 2011, it was my Wikipedia mentor, Shiju Alex, who introduced me to Linux. Since then, it's been my life!</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If I recall correctly, Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS (<a href="http://releases.ubuntu.com/10.04/" target="_blank">Lucid Lynx</a>) was my first distro. It was different, light, and fun. And, I would often switch back to Windows for something, then back to Ubuntu. The smoothness—and having a virus-free environment—was wonderful and enticed me to continue on with Linux. Unlike today, Ubuntu was not a graphic-rich distro at the time. I was coding less than I am today, so I was working more with editing images using <a href="http://www.gimp.org/" target="_blank">GIMP</a> and <a href="https://inkscape.org/en/" target="_blank">Inkscape</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Later in 2011, I was in Mumbai for the <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011" target="_blank">Wiki Conference India hackathon</a> and got stuck on some jQuery code. I asked someone to help, so he picked up my Windows-based office notebook to look at the code. That person was noted academician and Wikipedian <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BobCummings" target="_blank">Bob Cummings</a>. After a minute, he looked at me and said, "You are in the wrong OS, boy." On my personal laptop, I was using Linux to create the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia-logo-v2-or.svg" target="_blank">logo</a> for Odia Wikipedia v.2.0, which is used for <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/" target="_blank">Odia Wikipedia</a>, so I defended myself saying, "This is my work computer." He quickly responded, "Well you're in the wrong job, my dear friend."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">That conversation stuck with me, and is one I'll never forget because Bob shook me with a feeling that that there exists a better world outside mine. If I am not a part of that, then I am missing something big.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">So, in 2012, I joined the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/old" target="_blank">Wikimedia Foundation's India Program</a> and moved to New Delhi. That exposed me to more free software activists, and of course Linux advocates. My job demanded me to meet more people; both virtually and in real spaces. I would often bump into someone talking about free software and Linux or someone recommending a specific software program to better do a job without bothering much if a Mac or Windows version is available or not. And slowly, that black window with white text, of the Linux terminal, became home. I worked on fixing bugs with an <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector/Input_methods/or-transliteration" target="_blank">input method</a>, and I was already working under the guidance of fellow Wikimedian Junain PV, which helped me create a<a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Extension:UniversalLanguageSelector/Input_methods/or-lekhani" target="_blank"> fresh new input method</a> on MediaWiki. While designing manuals and handouts for new contributors, though Adobe tools were favorite because of the easiness in use, I enjoyed the perfect rendering of South Asian language scripts in Linux based tools.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">My Wikipedia mentor, Shiju Alex, was part of my transformation. He is a great free software enthusiast and encouraged me to use Linux again when I had lost the desire! Then, I installed Virtual Box on my Macbook and a lot of free and open source software like LibreOffice, <a href="http://www.gimp.org/" target="_blank">GIMP</a>, <a href="https://inkscape.org/en/" target="_blank">Inkscape</a>, and my favorite, <a href="http://audacityteam.org/" target="_blank">Audacity</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Today, I use Ubuntu 14.04.2. At work, my colleagues Sunil Abraham and Rahimanuddin Shaik are a resorvoir of inspiration. The difference with Linux is there is a feeling of contributing something back to the hand that feeds you.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify;" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>This article is part of a series called <a title="My Linux Story" href="https://opensource.com/tags/my-linux-story" target="_blank">My Linux Story</a>. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: <a href="mailto:open@opensource.com">open@opensource.com</a>. Read the original published by <a class="external-link" href="https://opensource.com/life/15/9/my-linux-story-subhashish-panigrahi">Opensource.com</a> on September 3, 2015.<br /></em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" rel="license"> </a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/open-source-september-3-2015-subhashish-panigrahi-wikimedia-contributor-shares-his-linux-story</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaWikimediaWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-06-18T17:08:19ZBlog EntryWikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb
<b>The Access to Knowledge team of the Centre for Internet & Society in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM is organizing meetup at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore on February 25, 2013 at 2.00 p.m. Vishnu Vardhan will speak on the Access to Knowledge program.</b>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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<table class="listing">
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WikimediaMeet_flyer.png/@@images/9dc926ab-c8ae-4b84-8f75-a30bb531d3d9.png" alt="Wikimedia Flyer" class="image-inline" title="Wikimedia Flyer" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p>Register for the event <a class="external-link" href="http://wpmbl54.doattend.com">here</a></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent2013-02-14T06:01:28ZEventWikimedia Asia Meeting
https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting
<b>T.Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi from the Access to Knowledge team at CIS participated in the Wikimedia Asia meeting in Hong Kong on August 10, 2013. </b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Note: An unedited transcript of the entire conversation can be downloaded below.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-asia-meeting.txt" class="internal-link">Click to see the file</a> (Plain Text, 7Kb)</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting'>https://cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-29T10:14:36ZNews Item