The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 81 to 95.
Telugu Wikipedia Day 2015: Eenadu Coverage
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-eenadu-coverage
<b>Telugu Wikipedians conducted history photowalk in Dr. YSR state archaeological museum to celebrate Telugu Wikipedia Day 2015 on December 13, 2015. Pavan Santosh supported the community as a representative from CIS-A2K</b>
<p> </p>
<p>Below is the media coverage of the event published by leading newspaper Eenadu (Hyderabad edition) on December 13, 2015.</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Eenadu.jpg/@@images/a1d4f1b7-078d-44f5-b38e-083e80049f4b.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Eenadu Coverage" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-eenadu-coverage'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-eenadu-coverage</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-01-05T06:33:51ZNews ItemTelugu Wikipedia Day 2015, Photo Walk
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-photo-walk
<b>On December 13, 2015, Telugu Wikipedians conducted a historical photowalk in Dr.YSR state archeological museum to celebrate Telugu Wikipedia Day 2015. Pavan Santhosh attended the event as a CIS-A2K representative and facilitated media coverage for the programme.</b>
<p> </p>
<p>One of the popular telugu news channel TV9 covered the event and telecasted the same. Eenadu published a special item on photowalk on December 13, 2015.</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/eenaduspecialitemonphotowalk13dec15.jpg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Eenadu Special" /></p>
<p>Andhra Jyoti published an article on photowalk on December 18:</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/andhrajyothionphotowalk.jpg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Andhra Jyoti Photowalk" /></p>
<p>Eenadu news report on photowalk on December 18:</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/eenadunewsreportonphotowalk.jpg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Eenadu news report" /></p>
<p>Namaste Telangana on Photowalk on December 18:</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/namastetelanganaonphotowalk.jpg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Namaste Telangana" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-photo-walk'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/telugu-wikipedia-day-2015-photo-walk</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KTelugu WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-01-05T06:27:08ZNews ItemTallapaka Pada Sahityam is now on Wikisource
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tallapaka-pada-sahityam-is-now-on-wikisource
<b></b>
<p><a name="cite_ref-Source_of_his_history_1-0"></a>
Tallapaka Pada Sahityam, a
compilation of over fourteen thousand Telugu compositions is now
available on Wikisource. Tallapaka Annamacharya was a 15th-century
Hindu saint and composer who was renowned for singing in praise of
Lord Venkateswara. The Tallapaka lineage began with him, giving rise
to many bards in the Telugu language from the family. The Tallapaka
Pada Sahityam is a compilation of three generations of Tallapaka
poets: Tallapaka Annamacharya,
Tallapaka Peda Tirumalacharya, and Tallapaka China
Tirumalacharya. This compilation, published by Annamayya Library,
Guntur has been uploaded by the library on Wikisource as part of
their efforts to digitize the library archives. These lyrical works,
dealing with a variety of themes, are of immense literary and
cultural significance to Telugu speakers the world over.</p>
<p>Owing to the large
size of the file donated by the library, the works need to be
separated into 29 volumes. These separated files would be uploaded
and indexed on Commons as well. A Unicode version of the work needs
to be published and proofread in addition to their print version.
Telugu Wikimedians are also exploring the possiblity of re-licensing
recitations of the poems by literary connoisseurs. On 9 June, an orientation of these activities was conducted for long time Telugu Wikipedia, <a title="te:user:శ్రీరామమూర్తి" class="extiw" href="https://te.wikipedia.org/wiki/user:%E0%B0%B6%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%80%E0%B0%B0%E0%B0%BE%E0%B0%AE%E0%B0%AE%E0%B1%82%E0%B0%B0%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%A4%E0%B0%BF">te:user:శ్రీరామమూర్తి</a>, who has begun publishing Unicode text and proof-reading on Telugu Wikisource.</p>
<p>The link to the work
is here:</p>
<p><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Tallapaka_pada_sahityam.pdf">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/Tallapaka_pada_sahityam.pdf</a></p>
<p><br />
<br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tallapaka-pada-sahityam-is-now-on-wikisource'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/tallapaka-pada-sahityam-is-now-on-wikisource</a>
</p>
No publisherPavan SanthoshTelugu WikisourceCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaTelugu WikipediaOpenness2017-07-10T13:44:41ZBlog EntryT’puram to host Wikipedia workshop on May 4, 5
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/mathrubhumi-may-1-2016-thiruvananthapuram-to-host-wikipedia-workshop-on-may-4-5
<b>The workshop will be led by Prof. Madav Gadgil and a team of experienced Wikipedia editors. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Thiruvananthapuram: The Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre jointly with the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikipedia fraternity of Kerala, is conducting a two-day workshop on Wikipedia from 4 to 5 May at the Vakkom Moulavi Foundation Trust Hall, Thekkinmoodu. The workshop will provide guidance as how to contribute contents on Kerala or to translate pages in English on Kerala in the Wikipedia encyclopaedia. The workshop will be led by Prof. Madhav Gadgil and a team of experienced Wikipedia editors.</p>
<hr />
<p>This article was published in Mathrubhumi on May 1, 2016. Read the <a class="external-link" href="http://english.mathrubhumi.com/news/kerala/t%E2%80%99puram-to-host-wikipedia-workshop-on-may-4-5-english-news-1.1028276">full article here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/mathrubhumi-may-1-2016-thiruvananthapuram-to-host-wikipedia-workshop-on-may-4-5'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/mathrubhumi-may-1-2016-thiruvananthapuram-to-host-wikipedia-workshop-on-may-4-5</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-05-01T14:01:24ZNews ItemSVG Translation Workshop at KBC North Maharashtra University
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university
<b>The Centre for Internet & Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) wing organized an SVG translation workshop in collaboration with KBC North Maharashtra University, Jalgaon on 14-15 March 2019. The workshop was a part of India level campaign. Total 58 participants attended the workshop and contributed to Commons till 31 March 2019.</b>
<h3>Background</h3>
<p>During the edit-a-thons and thematic workshops, the need for images in Marathi was realised. Many articles on health and science have images with labels in English. The issue was discussed with few institutions. KBC University came forward to start the activity under this campaign.</p>
<h3>Objectives</h3>
<ul>
<li>Orientation of Wikimedia projects</li>
<li>Localisation of SVG images</li>
<li>Commons upload policies and process</li></ul>
<h3>Facilitators</h3>
<ul>
<li>Krishna Chaitanya Velaga -- <a title="User:KCVelaga" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:KCVelaga">User: KCVelaga</a></li>
<li>Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K --<a title="User:Subodh (CIS-A2K)" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Subodh_(CIS-A2K)">Subodh (CIS-A2K)</a> </li>
<li>Prof. Manish Joshi, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon -- <a title="User:Joshmanish" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Joshmanish">Joshmanish</a> </li>
<li>Dr. Snehalata B. Shirude, SOCS KBCNMU, Jalgaon --<a title="User:Snehalata Shirude" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Snehalata_Shirude">Snehalata Shirude</a> </li></ul>
<h3>Agenda</h3>
<ul>
<li>Introduction to Wikimedia projects, Marathi Wikipedia, Commons</li>
<li>Account creation, basic editing skills</li>
<li>Copyrights, Commons upload process</li>
<li>Graphics images, types of formats, features</li>
<li>Installation of fonts, Inkscape</li>
<li>Resources for translation, verification before uploads</li>
<li>Selection of images, tags, categories for upload</li>
<li>Using translated images in local Wikipedia</li></ul>
<h3>Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As the participants were not aware of Wikimedia projects, the first two sessions dedicated to an introduction to various projects. The participants opened accounts on a smartphone and created user pages after logging in on computers. They were introduced to basic skills in Wikipedia editing, giving references/wiki links and adding images from Commons. The Commons platform was explained in detail. The missing images in Marathi language articles and Commons as well were shown. The discussion on these topics resulted in understanding the need for SVG translation exercise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The next session was to download and install the necessary software on each computer. The participants installed Google Input Tools for Marathi typing and also Inkscape. Before translating images on Inkscape, the students first practised Marathi typing on their sandboxes. After this, the main graphics sessions were conducted. Krishna explained various types of formats, differences between raster and vector graphics, the importance of SVGs and actual SVG file translation process. He demonstrated the process for images with different difficulty levels. They were introduced to resources available as a part of the campaign for SVG translation and necessary techniques. The usage of various online resources like encyclopedia and thesaurus available was also explained. The images were selected and working tags were applied by the participants. The faculty facilitated the process of work distribution among the students. The participants were able to upload 100+ images on the first day.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SVGWorkshop.jpg/@@images/6d0456b2-a79a-49eb-abd0-73e551f0fbb0.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="SVG Workshop" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: justify;">Pictured above: Students from Day 1 helping others on Day 2 (Picture by Subodh Kulkarni)</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">On Day 2, around 20 participants newly joined the workshop. This group comprised of teachers, journalists, doctors, and other enthusiastic citizens. Active students from Day 1 facilitated the training of this new batch. Having conducted a session on the previous day greatly helped to facilitate this session easily. The experienced teachers and citizens helped others to get correct translations and terms. This boosted the speed of the work. The images were also used in the articles on Marathi Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">With the help of science teachers, the images were verified before uploading to Commons. Due to active participatory work on the second day, the total images crossed 200 mark. The students continued to contribute till last day of campaign i.e. 31 March. At the end, due to consistent work <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Creations_from_STC19_in_mr">Marathi category</a> reached the highest number with a total of 357 images among <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Creations_from_STC19">all Indian languages</a>. The workshop and further work was well organized and motivated by Prof. Manish Joshi and Prof. Snehalata Shirude from Computer Science department.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Link to the Wikipedia page report<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/SVG_Translation_Workshop_at_KBC_North_Maharashtra_University,_Jalgaon_(14-15_March_2019)"> here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-10-2019-svg-translation-workshop-at-kbc-north-maharashtra-university</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhFeaturedCIS-A2KMarathi WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-26T06:47:40ZBlog EntrySupporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report
<b>CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report. </b>
<h2>Background</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2017–2018, the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation" title="Wikimedia Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a> (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a> (CIS) and the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" title="Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a> chapter (WMIN). This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. The name Project Tiger was chosen to reflect the Indian metaphor of a tiger representing a strong, or brave person (Baagh in Hindi, Puli in Tamil, etc).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through this project, support was provided to active and experienced Wikipedia editors in the form of Chromebook donations, and stipends for Internet access. Additionally, a three-month-long editathon was conducted, as well as a language-based contest on Indic Wikipedia that aimed at addressing existing Wikipedia content gaps.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Needs Assessment</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a part of Project Tiger, CIS-A2K facilitated a <a class="text external" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_-xcSKuBRVmJI5UHoeRE1066qoX6USgqmc_yN89iSAjzO-w/viewform" rel="nofollow">needs assessment</a> process in the month of December 2017, prompting a large number of responses between December 2017 and March 2018. Among these, the highest percentage of responses came from Wikimedians who were associated with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. A notable percentage of responses came from students. Among 190 responses, it was found that 16% of users edit Wikimedia projects on mobile phones. Additionally, out of 189 users, 51.85% said they use laptops for editing. 73 users reported that they share their devices with others to make contributions.</p>
<p>Our learnings from this process are:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">150 users who contribute to Wikipedia belong to the age groups of 20-35 and 35-50. Younger community members can consistently bring in more contributions and have a sustainable presence within the community. Supporting these young Wikimedians is very important.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Users with personal devices can make more contributions to Wikipedia than those without them. Sharing devices between users is a barrier to maximising contributions.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most users are genuinely interested in contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">There is a requirement for skill development activities (Writing skills, tools, gadgets) within the Indian Wikimedia community. Skills development will directly result in increased contribution to Wikimedia projects. Additionally, Wikimedians also showed interest in obtaining easier access to books, journals, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Chromebook Distribution</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K received a large number of requests for Chromebooks and access to the Internet from community members CIS-A2K observed 271 <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support">requests</a> for laptop and internet access (including draft requests, requests from IP address, and withdrawn requests by applicants).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the first round of responding to these requests, 26 requests were answered with support. 11 of these 26 Chromebook recipients are female Wikipedians. In the second round of responses, CIS-A2K supported 24 requests. In just two rounds all Chromebooks were distributed among the users. Total Chromebooks are delivered <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops">are 50</a>. The first stage of distribution involved delivery of Chromebooks to Odia Wikimedian <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ssgapu22" title="User:Ssgapu22">Ssgapu22</a>. Subsequently, we prepared a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops/Help" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops/Help">help document</a> intended to make the Chromebooks convenient to use for Indian Wikipedians. Then the Chromebooks were transported to the recipients, either by courier (35–40 Chromebooks), or in person by community advocates at events. CIS-A2K has successfully shipped Chromebooks even to rural areas in India including the border areas of West Bengal. CIS-A2K has made a final third list which serves as a waiting list, with 25 pending requests that are open for support. Support via Chromebooks has created a noticeable increase in all forms of contributions by Wikimedians to the Wikimedia projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the complete report published on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Report">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report</a>
</p>
No publisherGopala Krishna AWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-05-01T05:04:24ZBlog EntryStats for March 2016
https://cis-india.org/openness/stats-for-march-2016
<b>CIS-A2K team closely works with 5 Indian languages, we call as focus language areas.
Here are the stats for the month of March 2016.</b>
<p>We generate stats for each of our focus language area month on month, and it has been used for designing and modifying our strategies from time to time. Though these stats were never published publicly, as we get them at stats.wikimedia.org already and publishing here is just repeating it; it was felt that some more metrics can be added and published month on month here at CIS blog. Also, the data here would be for the last month, while it takes two months for data to get updated at stats.wikimedia.org.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Stub articles created :</p>
<p>Kannada - 3/131</p>
<p>Konkani - 9/38</p>
<p>Marathi - 50/176</p>
<p>Odia - 8/89</p>
<p>Telugu - 59/284</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In Kannada Wikipedia, about 131 new articles were created and of these only 3 are stub class articles. This is because Kannada Wikipedia is implementing a strict policy on not allowing a stub class article. There is an abuse filter created by one of the admins, Harish MG, which does not allow an editor to submit a smaller article than 1000 bytes. While Konkani showed a good progress in creation of new articles and only 9 of these 38 articles were stub class articles.</p>
<p>Marathi and Odia had a 28% and 9% share of total articles created as stubs respectively, while Telugu has about 21% of total articles created as stubs.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Active editors count has gone up in Kannada with 133 active editors during March 2016 - this could be accounted to the post 13th anniversary activities. Four focused editathons were organised as part of the 13th anniversary celebrations. The number of active editors increased in Konkani too. While in Marathi, Odia and Telugu the number was consistent with the previous months' numbers.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Now. lets look at the editing activity.</p>
<p>Kannada had 3279 edits adding about 86.57 MB of data. Konkani Wikipedia saw 920 edits in all, adding 8.41 MB of data. Marathi Wikipedia had 2926 edits with 68.42 MB of data; Odia Wikipedia added 1106 edits and 15.28 MB of data and Telugu Wikipedia had 8559 edits with 122.17 MB of data.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Having a provision of local image upload, Telugu Wikipedia added 53 images to the project while Marathi, one image was added. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/stats-for-march-2016'>https://cis-india.org/openness/stats-for-march-2016</a>
</p>
No publisherrahimCIS-A2KWikimediaWikipediaMarathi WikipediaKonkani WikipediaOdia WikipediaTelugu WikipediaKannada Wikipedia2016-06-07T04:06:03ZBlog EntrySpread awareness through Malayalam Wikipedia: Gadgil
https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-may-5-2016-spread-awareness-through-malayalam-wikipedia
<b>"Contribution of information by people of Rukadi village near Kolhapur to Marathi Wikipedia, by referring to media reports, helped spread the word about mass fish deaths in the region. Similar efforts should be initiated in Kerala so that information about local movements like Plachimada campaign would be available in the public domain," opined environmentalist Madhav Gadgil. He was speaking at the Malayalam Wikipedia workshop hosted by Swadeshabhimani Media Study Centre at Vakkom Moulavi Memorial Hall here on Wednesday.</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/thiruvananthapuram/Spread-awareness-through-Malayalam-Wikipedia-Gadgil/articleshow/52117252.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on May 5, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The scientist spoke at length on how the information technology in general and the Wikipedia in particular, could help create awareness among commoners about the harmful effects of environmental degradation. He added that though Malayalam Wikipedia is ahead of other Indian languages in documenting geographical details, the content doesn't stretch beyond official information. He suggested that controversial information too must be documented with reference to media reports.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Fuad Jaleel, volunteer editor of Malayalam Wikipedia, explained Wikipedia policies on notability and reliability. The two-day workshop is organised in association with Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Malayalam Wikipedia community. On Wednesday, the event focused on identifying topics for wiki-articles and creating basic village/town data by making use of census. Forty participants attending the workshop will contribute articles to Wikipedia on Thursday. Representatives from CIS Bengaluru and members of Malayalam Wikipedia Community will assist them.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"The intention is to add wiki-articles on environmental issues at panchayat level. Malayalam Wikipedia could be used as a medium for citizen journalism. We will organize more workshops and classes," said Ram Kamal, one of the coordinators of Swadeshabhimani centre. V K Damodaran delivered welcome speech and A Suhair presented vote of thanks in the inaugural session.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-may-5-2016-spread-awareness-through-malayalam-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/the-times-of-india-may-5-2016-spread-awareness-through-malayalam-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeMalayalam Wikipedia2016-05-05T15:43:59ZNews ItemSouth India Copyright Workshop
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/south-india-copyright-workshop
<b>A workshop on Copyright was organized by CIS-A2K at Hotel Bhagini Icon in Bengaluru from 19th to 21st October 2018. Seventeen members from 5 language communities (Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Tulu) participated in the workshop. Yann Forget was the master trainer for the workshop.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Before the event participants <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/15AJZmenWY-dOFNhKrvpvFTOLUZ0Sblukl39Sefj9RDo/edit">listed their questions</a>. The workshop participants’ queries covered all aspects of copyright on Commons.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event began with ‘Lightning talk About Copyrights’ by master trainer Yann. He spoke about copyright, what works be copyrighted, and why doesn’t one gets copyright. The session covered important issues like originality, creativity, Default copyrights of Collective works, Compilation works, newspapers and magazines. Case studies of 2D & 3D works of art (paintings, sculptures), Texts, Pictures & videos were elaborated. Yann also elaborated on some critical cases like recordings of musical concerts, complex geometric figures, dictionary content, mathematical theorems and algorithms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop also threw light on what is free license, acceptable licenses, CC-BY-SA with attribution and ‘share alike’ license, etc. Various license tags and templates, non-copyright restrictions, etc. were also deliberated upon during the workshop. A hands-on session on translation of important templates in local languages and verifying files on Commons for description, source, categories, license and other details was also done. Participants were also introduced to uploading YouTube videos on Commons. Websites having copyright free content were also discussed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yann also discussed various aspects of GODL India license policies. A brief session on process of deletion, un-deletion and OTRS volunteers’ structure was also conducted. On Day 2, an exhaustive session on copyright of pictures from sources such as <a href="https://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/">Instagram</a>, <a href="https://pixabay.com/">Pixabay</a>, <a href="http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/">Bollywood Hungama</a>, <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/">Newspaperarchive</a>, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/">NASA</a>, Government websites etc. was conducted. Participants explored specific categories and found out treasures of free images on web. Important templates like <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-Art">PD-Art</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-India">PD-India</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-1996">PD-1996</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Not-PD-US-URAA">Not-PD-US-URAA</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:PD-UK-unknown">PD-UK unknown</a> were explained with proper examples.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The final session was dedicated to Books on Commons. All participating communities were actively involved in digitization and uploading free content on Commons and Wikisource. Nationalization of books by Tamil Nadu state government was taken up for discussion. Tamil Wikipedians spoke about the licensing procedures and problems being faced by community on Commons. Yann stressed on importance of creating Wikidata items for files and categories in Commons with examples.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the concluding session a follow-up plan was framed with active contribution of all members. The major tasks include - Creating a list of authors with death year details in the respective language to decide public domain/copyright free status in India (Works of Indian authors who died 60 years ago), Translation of important 10 policy pages, 8 templates and 2 category pages in local languages and Preparation of check list for users before uploading any content to Commons. Yann Forget played crucial role in developing clear understanding on important issues. The workshop has definitely created cohesive group of Indic Wikimedians striving to build free content on Commons.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/south-india-copyright-workshop'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/south-india-copyright-workshop</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-11-06T01:25:49ZBlog Entry South Asia's Largest Wikimedia Conference Kicks Off in India
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-august-5-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-south-asia-largest-wikimedia-conference-kicks-off-in-india
<b>Wiki Conference India 2016, the largest gathering of the contributors of Wikipedia (the multilingual online encyclopaedia) and its sister projects called Wikimedia projects, begins August 5 in Landran, in the Indian state of Punjab.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The blog post was published by <a class="external-link" href="https://globalvoices.org/2016/08/05/south-asias-largest-wikimedia-conference-kicks-off-in-india/">Global Voices</a> on August 5, 2016.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The conference returns five years after its first iteration in <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/02/wikiconference-india/">2011</a>. This year's event is focused on bringing the contributor communities of South Asian and English-language Wikimedia projects from the Indian subcontinent under one roof.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A few hundred participants including <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/05/27/wikiconference-india-scholarship/">100 scholarship holders</a> from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka will meet at the Chandigarh Group of College campus, where the conference is being held. Organizers have planned a series of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:WikiConference_India_2016_submissions/Accepted">presentations, talks and workshops</a><span class="_Tgc">—</span>related to major topics like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia">gender bias in Wikipedia</a>, technology, global reach, education, volunteer leadership building and engagement and program design<span class="_Tgc">—to occupy participants </span>for all three days.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For the separate technical sessions, a pre-event <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016/Survey">needs assessment survey</a> was conducted widely to collect input about the <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2016/04/27/eight-challenges-indian-language-wikipedias-need-to-overcome/">technical challenges</a> that volunteer contributors are facing. A hackathon is in the works to address some of the major technical challenges of different language communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Indic_Languages#Indic_Language_Wiki_Projects">Wikimedia community in South Asia</a> as a whole and the Wikipedia community, both of which rely on volunteers, are creating a massive repository of freely licensed content in the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.in/subhashish-panigrahi-/why-its-essential-to-grow-indian-language-wikipedias/">Indian languages</a> on the Internet. Currently Wikipedia itself is available in about <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias">293 languages</a>. Other Wikimedia projects<span class="_Tgc">—</span>Wikisource, a free library; Wiktionary, a multilingual online dictionary; and Wikimedia Commons, the world's largest media repository housing hundreds and thousands of images, audio, video and other media files<span class="_Tgc">—</span>will add a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikimedia_projects_by_size">few hundred more projects</a> to this list.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the noted guests who are addressing the gathering include Wikimedia Foundation's board member <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliate-selected_Board_seats/2016/Nominations/Nataliia_Tymkiv">Nataliia Tymkiv</a>, the organization's newly promoted Executive Director <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Maher">Katherine Maher</a>, Punjabi-language poet <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surjit_Patar">Surjit Patar</a>, and Internet freedom advocate and Centre for Internet and Society's Executive Director <a href="http://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team#sunil">Sunil Abraham</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016/Punjab_Edit-a-thon">Wikipedia edit-a-thon</a> has been running for about a month prior to the conference in 12 Indian language Wikipedias and one European language Wikipedia (Ukrainian Wikipedia). The main languages in this edit-a-thon are Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Konkani, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. The focus of this sprint is to expand the content reach of Wikipedia on Punjab, Punjabi people, and their language and culture as a symbolic gesture to show gratitude to Punjab where the event is happening. Articles about Punjab or Punjab people in other local languages will help many local readers of Wikipedia learn about Punjab in their own language. So far, more than 1,900 article have been created by about 100 Wikipedians. The edit-a-thon will be also running during the conference so that the participants can also contribute to this activity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konkani_language">Konkani language</a> is the official language of the Indian state of Goa and is spoken along the western coast of India. In an <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/08/04/digest-konkani-unite/">interview</a>, The Discoverer, an active contributor to the Konkani-language Wikipedia, explained how Wikipedia can unite native speakers who speak different variations of the same language and write in different scripts:</p>
<p>For Konkani Wikipedia to succeed, it is not just a ‘good idea’ for Konkani speakers writing in various scripts to work together on one Wikipedia, but it’s also a necessity and a challenge at the same time. It’s a necessity, because as things stand, no one script has a strong enough community to run a Wikipedia by themselves. It’s a challenge because not everyone can read every script, and it’s important for all the users of a Wikipedia to be able to understand all the content on that site.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The full interview is <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/08/04/digest-konkani-unite/">here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A team of dedicated organizers who are primarily volunteers and represent several Wikimedia communities from India and three Wikimedia-affiliates<span class="_Tgc">—</span>Wikimedia India, Punjabi Wikimedians and Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge program<span class="_Tgc">—</span>are working together to make this event a success.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">More details about the event could be found in the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">event page</a>, and on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/WikiConferenceIndia2016">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/WikiConIndia">Twitter</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-august-5-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-south-asia-largest-wikimedia-conference-kicks-off-in-india'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-voices-august-5-2016-subhashish-panigrahi-south-asia-largest-wikimedia-conference-kicks-off-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2016-08-08T01:39:25ZBlog EntrySau Dhuni Teen Project: December Edit-a-thon
https://cis-india.org/openness/sau-dhuni-teen-project-december-edit-a-thon
<b>As part of the "Sau Dhuni Teen Project" a multilingual Wikipedia Wikipedia edit-a-thon was organised at the Women's Studies Centre, University of Pune.</b>
<p><strong>Concept note:</strong><br />The digital domain is becoming increasingly significant as a knowledge repository today. Especially relevant in this context is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which contains information on almost every topic under the sun and is used extensively by researchers. The fact that information from the Wikipedia is even used as a starting point of academic writing necessitates thinking about how this information is organized, or in other words, how we conceptualize Wikipedia as a knowledge resource. In the multilingual Indian context, generation of content in the Indian languages is a logical next step. It is with the intention of strengthening this knowledge network in the social sciences, that Women's Studies Centre, Pune University conducts content generation workshops with university researchers. The broad mandate of the digital resource generation workshop is to introduce university students to tools of collaborative knowledge production on the internet and methods for generating new online content in Indian languages under Sau Dhuni Teen Project. Also introductory session on Wiktionary.</p>
<p><strong>Project aim:</strong></p>
<ul><li>Facilitate researchers to think critically about concepts and their associations</li><li>Involve researchers as active editors on the Indian language Wikipedias</li><li>Utilize Wikipedia as a platform to generate Indian language annotations of academic texts in Women's Studies and the Social Sciences</li></ul>
<p>The organisers are also planning to engage the students in annotating one key women's studies text each through follow-up workshops and credit them as contributors to the "Annotated Bibliography project"</p>
<strong>Project outcome:</strong>
<p>9 female participants joined for this edit-a-thon and edited various articles on Marathi Wikipedia. The Marathi Wikimedia community being quite particular about the citations from Marathi-language source was somehow challenging as the participants struggled at times to find much information about many things notable. A simple step by step <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Basic_Guidelines_for_your_Wikipedia_entry.pdf">tutorial</a> was created, printed and shared among the participants. Some of the participants showed interest in participating in the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Train-a-Wikipedian">Train-a-Wikipedian</a> programme that CIS-A2K is planning. Sheena D'Lima engaged with the participants by sharing her learning from <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:MOS">Manual of Style</a> for writing Wikipedia article.</p>
<strong>More information about the event on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K_/Projects/Sau_Dhuni_Teen/December_2016_Edit-a-thon_at_Krantijyoti_Savitribai_Phule's_Women's_Studies_Centre,_Pune_University">Meta.</a></strong>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/sau-dhuni-teen-project-december-edit-a-thon'>https://cis-india.org/openness/sau-dhuni-teen-project-december-edit-a-thon</a>
</p>
No publishergaruleMarathi WikipediaCIS-A2KAccess to Knowledge2015-12-08T10:30:09ZBlog EntrySambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon
<b>A two-day 100 Women Edit-a-thon was held on March 18 and 19, 2017 in collaboration with Odisha’s biggest newspaper publisher Sambad. The event was inspired by BBC’s 100 Women series and edit-a-thons with the same name in December 2016. More than 20 female journalists participated and registered as new Odia Wikipedians. The event served as a highlight of the Women’s History Month in Indian language Wikipedias as well as in the global movement.
</b>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-803f-30e6-fcb1-091b0dd13490"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: left;">The name 100 Women was coined for BBC’s annual </span><a style="text-align: left;" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-24371433">series</a><span style="text-align: left;"> featuring inspirational women from around the globe. In December 2016, in coordination with the broadcast of the program, an </span><a style="text-align: left;" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38219838">edit-a-thon</a><span style="text-align: left;"> of the same name was conducted at the headquarters of BBC, including at its Delhi office in India. The edit-a-thons aimed to create and edit biography articles of notable women on Wikipedia(s) to address the under-representation of women online and on Wikipedia - what we call the “</span><a style="text-align: left;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia">Wikipedia gender gap</a><span style="text-align: left;">.”</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gl3RhMZZ86Dgv4hxxX4kbSEiQtD7mY9UnmevcpU0Kb81ottL7v-xFXaejT0CAsy2xy7_B0UcJWITN30j6X-HFENz0U_sFc6m7zPvz-RXie9wGS7HorPm1A3QDTdh3frakCirM74" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_47.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><br />In March, <a href="http://sambad.in/">Sambad</a> became the first major news publisher after BBC to pick up the initiative and the first to hold a 100 Women edit-a-thon for <a href="https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%AA%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%B0%E0%AC%A7%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%A8_%E0%AC%AA%E0%AD%83%E0%AC%B7%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%A0%E0%AC%BE">Odia Wikipedia</a>, commemorating International Women’s History Month. Sambad, an Odia daily, is among the most widely circulated papers in the state of Odisha. Ms. Tanaya Patnaik, Director of Eastern Media (Sambad’s parent company) had enthusiastically agreed to the collaboration in December 2016:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><em> "This is the first 100 Women Editathon in India in collaboration with a media house. We are really proud to host it. A few days ago, I attended a fellowship event on ending gender violence against women, where I spoke about this editathon, and people were excited to know about this event and how we are taking such initiatives to make information about women accessible on the Internet. We will organise such events regularly and will follow up with the journalists to achieve the target of writing 100 articles about Odia Women." </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The edit-a-thon was held at the Sambad headquarters in Bhubaneswar with over 20 female journalists attending the event. The event commenced on March 18, Saturday, with a half-day workshop and introduction session to Wikipedia and the topic of bridging the gender gap. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, founder of the Sambad group, said at the event:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-8040-8da7-bc87-bce4a237ba0d"><em>"Technology is always considered an enemy of language. Now is the time for language and technology to collaborate. New technologies have been developed over the last couple of years. If we can implement these technologies in our own language and accept it as a friend, we can take our language ahead. With the help of Odia Wikipedia, people using smartphones and other smart devices can access the information in their own language."</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">After a round of participants’ self-introduction, Sailesh Patnaik, Community Advocate, CIS-A2K introduced Odia Wikipedia, Odia input tools and how to edit. Some participants were able to create their Wikipedia accounts on the first day. CIS-A2K Research Intern, Ting-Yi Chang, highlighted in her presentation, <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/another-5-years-what-have-we-learned-about-the-wikipedia-gender-gap-and-what-has-been-done-part-1">the reasons for and significance</a> of the Wikipedia gender gap. The event is an important effort to help Odia Wikipedia and its readers combat the gender bias in knowledge creation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">On March 19, Sunday, participants began hands on editing with the help of local Wikimedians from the <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/01/digest-wikitungi/">Bhubaneswar Tungi</a> community. Each participant had chosen a female achiever in advance and had prepared citable sources from the Sambad publications. The chosen figures are influential and important women in Odisha history and society, such as Kalpana Dash, the first Odia mountaineer to scale Mt. Everest, Parbati Ghosh, an accomplished Odia film-maker, Shyamamani Patnaik, a famous Odishi singer,among others. In total, 23 female biography articles were created and improved during the edit-a-thon. In an anonymous survey conducted during the event, over three-quarters of the participants said that they do not find editing difficult and over 80 percent of the participants express interest in writing about women or women-related subjects on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">However, since all the participants were first-time Wikipedians, the edit-a-thon was not without its challenges. Some participants had trouble getting used to the Unicode input method for the Odia script. Many of them are familiar with Shree lipi, an older input method that is not supported by Unicode interfaces such as Wikipedia. Luckily, a Shree lipi-to-Unicode conversion application was available on the computers at the venue; however, the conversion is not always perfect and the process can make editing more time consuming. A handout was given to the participants to help familiarize themselves with the new input method. Additionally, the organizers discovered the need to elaborate on what is considered a reliable source for reference. Participants were reminded during the event that in addition to the sources available at the Sambad office, they can also use other news articles on the Internet as long as they are published by credible news publishers.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr">Despite its challenges, the Sambad 100 Edit-a-thon was able to stand out and succeed because of a combination of the global initiative and a localized focus, the abundance of reliable resources available for editing, support from the Odia Wikipedia community, and the post-event media exposure. For example, the event was inspired by the BBC 100 Women global edit-a-thon series but was planned and carried out in the Odisha context - using Odia script, Odisha figures, and sources in Odisha’s most prominent newspaper. That being said, the existence of verifiable citation is often more crucial than one’s editing skills or writing style in determining the fate of a new article on Wikipedia. Holding the event in the Sambad office in Bhubaneswar not only ensured the availability of necessary facilities but also equipped us with abundant sources that can be cited in the articles.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_e2Bo0_kFrnWhUz9nlDeI-AT7gCHUjAjaPvbuAEvDKtW_5xZnIMJaQjRPsf6FkB6VuJw43uaIL62hR7mq9swkWgm6qO6RYW_WwxNh5oCeFpZcOiC7Zktg0t_GXYV5lOlgR4xoXY" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_41.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The event also served as an example of regional community collaboration. Thanks to the strong support team from the Bhubaneswar WikiTungi community, participants were able to consult (both male and female) tutors throughout the event when questions emerged. The new Wikipedians were invited to join future monthly WikiTungi meetups in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Finally, it is worth noting that a significant part of event was its reach. Sambad helped the event and the movement tremendously not only with their support in event planning and execution, but also with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7X8aIiObY">media exposure</a>. Although the event could only accommodate around 20 participants, raising public awareness through mass media could help more people know about the existence of Odia Wikipedia and the issue of gender gap within.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-806c-5859-14b2-700df1920c8e"><br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Uwag0tq5wKBGkve3txEfql31PzDWnttD11fPGAbbg2CNx9P6294ySt7hHVcJqIuOv-nUnjlDRnhQdRZVk7PJmHuB_KTJIRCAmC3yJMH_lHHXpc0W2cli-aiN78iP14rbF4v4Vtw" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_11.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon</a>
</p>
No publisherTing Yi Chang and Sailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-18T10:05:52ZBlog EntryResearch Studies on Indian Language Wikimedia Projects 2019-21
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects
<b>This is a compilation of the final reports from a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019-2021, on an array of topics related to Indian language Wikimedia projects. The projects were undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, Bodhisattwa Mandal, Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, Ananth Subray, Satpal Dandiwal and Nitesh Gill, with research oversight and editorial support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and internal review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">See the full report on Wikimedia Commons <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Research_Studies_on_Indian_Language_Wikimedia_Projects.pdf&page=1">here</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Click to download the full report <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects" class="internal-link">here</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia and its many sister projects have been rich sites of study for researchers across the world for many years now. The online encyclopedia presents a microcosm of the real world in terms of the dynamics of knowledge production and use, including content and infrastructure, and community interaction among many other things. Research about Wikimedia projects and platforms has been undertaken in various languages, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, as illustrated by the research index on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, and several important publications over the last several years. Research on Indian languageWikimedia projects and platforms, and on topics related to the sub-continent have also emerged significantly over the last several years.However, as understood in the course of the studies in this compilation as well, awareness about such research within the communities itself remains limited. While there is a lot of important work being undertaken on topics relevant to Indian Wikimedia projects, often by researchers who are Wikimedians themselves, factors such as dissemination beyond academic spaces, and accessibility in terms of language and context seem to also affect their availability to the larger communities, and in terms of implementation of learnings and recommendations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The six short-term research studies undertaken by the Access to Knowledge team over 2019–2021 were therefore initiated as a pilot, an initial foray into the space of research on Wikimedia projects in India. Based on the recommendations of the Wikimedia Foundation, this work was undertaken primarily to tap into new areas of work, while also drawing upon existing expertise at CIS, and in order to build the capacity of the team. With these broader motivations in mind, the research was structured with the following objectives to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities in different aspects of content creation and participation in Indian language Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Develop a better understanding of systemic issues such as gender bias in Indian language communities, access to and reuse of cultural content, open learning in multilingual classrooms, and specific experiences of content creation within Wikimedia communities in India and associated initiatives.</li>
<li>Develop recommendations and best practices towards addressing existing challenges and optimising available resources for the larger free knowledge movement.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The studies in this compilation therefore examine different aspects of Wikimedia platforms and projects in India, in close alignment with existing work in the programme. These include the gender gap in Indian Wikimedia communities, creating multilingual and open educational platforms and resources, focus on specific projects such as GLAM and Wikidata, and efforts and challenges with content creation, access and outreach in specific language communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Working on these studies has been a learning experience, especially given the diverse contexts in which the projects are located, and the capacities and interests of the researchers themselves. The design of the studies was also therefore developed and modified to build on existing capacities within the team, and its learnings from previous years of working with various language communities. Capacity-building for team members on research design, methods, fieldwork and documentation was mostly done through close individual supervision and collaborative work. The methods used were largely qualitative, and ranged from interviews, literature reviews, data visualisations, focused group discussions and comparative analyses. The effort was also to try and capture the scale and diversity of the nature of work being undertaken in different Indian language communities through these projects. There were several challenges as well, beginning with framing the research questions and project design in a way that they were accessible to a wider community of people who would be engaged in contributing their inputs towards the work. Process-related challenges, such as translation of interview questionnaires into Indian languages revealed several interesting gaps, such as the lack of technical terms related to digitization or open access in these languages. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 led to restrictions on field visits, thus effectively hampering in person conversations and easier access to community members.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There have been several learnings in the course of working on these studies, key among them being questions of awareness, relevance and impact. The lack of existing and easily accessible research (including those outside academic work) on several areas of Wikimedia in the Indian context has been a limitation in many ways, offering little in terms of available knowledge and best practices to work with. The limited awareness about, and imagined relevance of research in the regular work of communities has also been an impediment. As illustrated by learnings from a short research needs assessment carried out earlier this year, few community members were aware of research on Wikimedia projects being undertaken in India, and on a global scale. More importantly, there needs to be a conversation on its relevance to their own work, and to the larger movement. An effective communication strategy for research work, in different Indian languages, would perhaps address some of these gaps. A closely related question is also that of impact. The studies in this collection largely focus on short-term impact, through best practices and recommendations that may be developed through the research studies. While this is definitely a pragmatic approach, often the interest in a problem-solution design may look at research purely from an instrumental lens to identify quick solutions and their implementation, without a critical take on exploring and understanding larger, systemic or structural gaps that may be contributing to the problems itself. Going forward, it would be imperative therefore to identify areas of research, and build processes of research design that may address these challenges. Given the dynamic nature of Wikimedia, its platforms and communities, it is important to identify immediate gaps and possible solutions, but also to speak precisely to this aspect of long-term impact and relevance, to both current areas of work and the growth of the larger movement. We hope the studies in this compilation offer some insights towards these, and many more interesting questions related to research on Wikimedia and the free knowledge movement in India.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects</a>
</p>
No publishersnehaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaA2K Research2022-10-21T12:59:55ZBlog EntryReport of Konkani Wikipedia's progress (July-December 2015)
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-december-2015
<b>Konkani language is one of the 22 languages recognized by Indian union in 8th schedule. As per the 2007 census there are about 7.4 million Konkani speakers.[1] Konkani language has its own Wikipedia created on 15th June 2015. This blog post will try to put out Konkani Wikipedia's growth from a perspective based on Wikimedia stats.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Konkani language has varied scripts used by its speakers. There are more than six different scripts in which Konkani people seem to be writing, of these, Devanagari (same as Hindi, Marathi), Romi (Roman or Latin script) and Kannada script are more popular. The project went out of incubation and became a live Wikipedia project as Goan Konkani Wikipedia (language code <b>gom</b> and is available at <a class="external-link" href="http://gom.wikipedia.org">gom.wikipedia.org).</a>The Konkani community that contributes on Wikipedia is mostly present in Goa with a few contributors living elsewhere.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Below is the last 6 months' statistics of Goan Konkani Wikipedia:</p>
<table style="text-align: justify; ">
<colgroup span="7" width="85"> </colgroup>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="left"><br /></td>
<td align="left">Total Editors</td>
<td align="left">New editors</td>
<td align="left">Active editors</td>
<td align="left">Very active editors</td>
<td align="left">Article count</td>
<td align="left">New article created per month</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">July 2015</td>
<td align="right">124</td>
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">2100</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">August 2015</td>
<td align="right">125</td>
<td align="right">1</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
<td align="right">3</td>
<td align="right">2300</td>
<td align="right">6</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">September 2015</td>
<td align="right">125</td>
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right">4</td>
<td align="right">2400</td>
<td align="right">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">October 2015</td>
<td align="right">125</td>
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="right">5</td>
<td align="right">3</td>
<td align="right">2400</td>
<td align="right">1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="left">November 2015</td>
<td align="right">125</td>
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="right">2</td>
<td align="left"></td>
<td align="right">2400</td>
<td align="left"></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Observations:</b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>As we see the total number editors is at a good state as compared to other language Wikipedia projects that have gone live recently. Also the article count seem to be significant.</li>
<li>But the growth in total number of editors is not that encouraging and needs to be worked upon. This might be probably because of unawareness of Konkani Wikipedia among the native language speakers.</li>
<li>The active editor count has been declining over the 6 months. For the month of December, there has been no activity from the active community on Konkani Wikipedia.</li>
<li>Number of the most active Wikipedians will grow once we proactively engage with the existing community in organising outreach to bring new editors.</li>
<li>There has been no new article created on Konkani Wikipedia in November and December at all. This is an alarming issue.</li>
<li>This is slightly disturbing as we can see from <a class="external-link" href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaGOM.htm">stats tables. <br /></a></li>
<li>Of the 40 or so active Konkani Wikipedians, only 2 of them have done some small activity on Konkani Wikipedia, whereas the rest have not visited the site for almost 3 months.</li>
<li>The community needs to be engaged with more and there is a need for bringing leadership. May be Konkani language encyclopedia Konkani Vishwakosh that was <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/re-release-konkani-vishwakosh-under-cc-by-sa-3.0">relicensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 license</a> by the Goa University will be a useful resource to enhance the Goan Konkani Wikipedia.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Note:</b><br />1. <span class="reference-text">Mikael Parkvall, "Världens 100 största språk 2007" (The World's 100 Largest Languages in 2007), in <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalencyklopedin" title="Nationalencyklopedin">Nationalencyklopedin</a></i></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-december-2015'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/konkani-wikipedia-progress-from-july-to-december-2015</a>
</p>
No publisherrahimKonkani WikipediaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2016-02-05T02:49:29ZBlog EntryRejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way
<b>Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Events details on Wikimedia <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop_of_river_activists_at_Tarun_Bharat_Sangh,_Bhikampura,_Rajasthan">meta page</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2>The Workshop</h2>
<p>As per a <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/status_trace_toxic_materials_indian_rivers.pdf">Government of India report</a> 42 rivers in India are polluted with toxic heavy metal deposits in them. To mitigate this crisis Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India began documentation of rivers on Wiki. The work was started by TBS’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge team of CIS (CIS-A2K).</p>
<p>Realizing the potential of the project TBS decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. The first pilot workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, Alwar in Rajasthan for 34 participants from eight states of India. Dr. Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya and Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K were the facilitators. The objectives behind organizing the workshop was to build an open knowledge resource on water related issues in all Indian languages, document the river basins of India, train volunteers working in the sector to work in Wikimedia projects, open street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river and post free content on Commons and Wikisource projects.</p>
<p>The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofRiverActivities.jpg/@@images/e336ea4b-9b8b-4b22-a647-79950225f98e.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on River Activities" /></th>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofWaterActivities.jpg/@@images/d96a9ca9-4520-4d09-9eb4-f215492c8839.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on Water Activities" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><em>Activists during the workshop conducted by TBS in Alwar, Rajasthan in December 2018</em><br /><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline and online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. TBS has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA. Participants who attended the workshop have started contributing in various languages.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>Participants' Feedback</h2>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“Rivers are essential for existence of life in land. Keeping its sanctity and health is very important. The Wikimedia workshop gave an insight on river pollution issues and the importance of reviving them. As Wikipedia is an open platform it can create a larger impact by reaching out to the society.” - <a title="en:Username:Mrityunjay1010" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Mrityunjay1010">Mrityunjay1010</a></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of generalizing the knowledge for common good. The workshop gave me a lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop.” - <a title="en:Username:Simantabharati" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Simantabharati">Simantabharati</a></blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedHomepage2019-04-01T13:18:33ZBlog Entry