The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 271 to 285.
CIS-A2K Signs MoU with Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada: Coverage in Eenadu
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cis-mou-with-alc-coverage-in-eenadu
<b>This article was published in Enadu on August 15, 2014.</b>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_Enadu.png" alt="Enadu" class="image-inline" title="Enadu" /></th>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cis-mou-with-alc-coverage-in-eenadu'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/cis-mou-with-alc-coverage-in-eenadu</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaTelugu WikipediaOpenness2014-09-09T09:22:23ZNews ItemNow, Christ students will contribute to Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-shruthi-august-5-2014-now-christ-students-will-contribute-to-wikipedia
<b>The department of languages at Christ University has set a precedent by including contribution to Wikipedia as a part of the undergraduate course work.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by H.M.Shruthi was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.deccanherald.com/content/423841/archives.php">published in the Deccan Herald</a> on August 5, 2014.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Introduced last year on a pilot basis, the programme is all set to get a new outlook this year.<br /><br />As a part of the initiative, students are required to submit an article to Wikipedia in an Indian language (the second language subject chosen). The languages offered are Kannada, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit and Tamil.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier, much to the chagrin of lecturers, students were most often found rehashing material online for their assignments. On the contrary, the students will now be contributors for online content. But this is just one of the outcomes. Through this, the department has not only set out to enrich the regional language resources online, but has also turned students into knowledge producers.<br /><br />Speaking about the initiative, Kannada Department HoD, Y S Shivaprasad, finds that students have become passionate about digital resources. “There are at least 500 students. In the first two years of the undergraduate degree, students study second language. Even if 10 per cent of them take it forward later, we can enrich our online Kannada resources.”<br /><br />Since it was the first time last year, the faculty made a list of topics for inclusion in Kannada Wiki. “We were able to bring out 25 good quality articles. Interestingly, this turned out to benefit rural students, as they took a lot of interest in it,” Shivaprasad said, adding that RBI, Yakshagana, poet Raghavanka and Kuppalli were some of the topics covered.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Redesign this year</b><br />As per the redesigned format this time, in their first semester, students will digitise one page of an existing piece of literature in the Indian language concerned. This has been included to help them gain typing skills, apart from strengthening vocabulary.<br /><br /> In the second semester, students will be digitising four or five pages of literature. In the III semester, they will have to write one assignment in the second language of their choice and the fourth semester will be dedicated to an article (in Indian language) on the theme of their choice from any core subject.<br /><br />T Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at Centre for Internet and Society (the university is implementing the programme in coordination with this organisation), sees this as an initiative for production of knowledge in Indian languages. “From the past several years, there have been talks about how there is no production of knowledge in Kannada (or other regional languages). This is a step towards it.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Adding fun to the otherwise hectic course work, the Wiki assignments helped us acquire editing skills and strengthen vocabulary in Kannada,” said Tejas N K, a final year science student at Christ University.<br /><br />Having found his love for it, he has decided to contribute articles even in his final year, though it is not part of his course work this time. “It presents a challenge of learning something new and thinking creatively. More over, it is satisfying to know that the information we compile is of use for people seeking online resources in regional language.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Transformation</b><br />Sharing similar enthusiasm is Komal K J, a final year BCom student, who hopes to contribute articles even after completing her degree. She sees a significant transformation: “Earlier, we were collecting information from Wikipedia. Now, we are contributing for it,” the student said.<br /><br />She has submitted an article to Sanskrit Wikipedia. From formatting the article to inserting images and learning to attribute sources to the information uploaded on Wiki, she takes pride in the responsibility. “It is open for people across the globe to read. Hence, it is a huge responsibility. We have to make sure the information is authentic.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-shruthi-august-5-2014-now-christ-students-will-contribute-to-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-herald-shruthi-august-5-2014-now-christ-students-will-contribute-to-wikipedia</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-08-06T05:33:41ZNews ItemConnecting the Next Two Billion: The Role of FOSS
https://cis-india.org/openness/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-connecting-the-next-two-billion-the-role-of-foss
<b>Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this event organized by ICFOSS at the APrIGF in Noida on August 4, 2014.</b>
<h3>Specific Issues of Discussions & Description</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Connecting the next two billion users on the Internet poses unique challenges that must be addressed. The next two billion users will have very different profiles as compared to the first billion in terms of factors such as geography, demography, gender, disability, technology access, language access, and connectivity devices. In addition, with the coming of the Internet of Things, the users of the Internet may also include devices, sensors and sensor networks. Further, the context of the Internet itself may be changing, particularly in relation to efforts by various State and non-State actors to restrict freedom of access to the Internet and freedom of expression on it.Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) has now assumed greater significance in the light of revelations related to arbitrary surveillance conducted by states. This issue highlights the need to use audited technology and infrastructure to prevent the wanton violation of privacy of citizens. FOSS can be used to build shared community infrastructure that will protect users from privacy abuses. As most of the online applications run on top of free software, there is also a need for greater collaboration between the industry and free software community to ensure security and robustness of software to prevent incidents like the heartbleed bug vulnerabilities. As the next two billion comes online, FOSS assumes great significance for building a safe and secure Internet and robust communication platforms.The panel will discuss the following issues:• Relevance of FOSS as an access enabler and source of robust, cost-effective andfreedom-preserving software• The importance of FOSS in preventing arbitrary surveillance• Co-operation among businesses and free software community to develop secure.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Building community communication infrastructure using FOSS to restrict the dependence on centralised services.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Moderator and Speakers</h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Moderator: </b>Ms. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Mishi" title="Speakers Profile">Mishi Choudhary</a>, Executive Director, SFLC.IN, New Delhi</li>
<li>Dr. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Rahul" title="Speakers Profile">Rahul De</a>, IIM Bangalore <i>(Remote)</i></li>
<li>Dr. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Nagariuna" title="Speakers Profile">G. Nagarjuna</a>, Free Software Foundation of India <i>(Remote)</i></li>
<li>Mr. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Prasanth" title="Speakers Profile">Prasanth Sugathan</a>, Counsel, SFLC.in</li>
<li>Mr. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Satish" title="Speakers Profile">Satish Babu</a>, Director, ICFOSS</li>
<li>Mr. <a href="http://2014.rigf.asia/speakers/#Sunil" title="Speakers Profile">Sunil Abraham</a>, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</li>
<li>
<p class="p1">Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, Media Lab Asia/Govt. of India</p>
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</ul>
<h3>Workshop Organizer</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This workshop will be jointly organised by International Centre For Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), an autonomous institution under the Government of Keralamandated with the objectives of co-ordinating FOSS initiatives within Kerala, as well as linking up with FOSS initiatives in other parts of the world and SFLC.IN, a donor supported legal services organisation that works to protect freedom in the digital world.The details of the contact person for the workshop is given below:Name: Mr.Satish BabuDesignation: DirectorOrganisation: International Center for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For more details <a class="external-link" href="http://2014.rigf.asia/agenda/workshop-proposals/workshop-proposal-8/">see the APrIGF website</a>.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-connecting-the-next-two-billion-the-role-of-foss'>https://cis-india.org/openness/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-connecting-the-next-two-billion-the-role-of-foss</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessFOSSAccess to Knowledge2014-09-10T05:04:58ZNews ItemKannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers
https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-prajavani-coverage
<b>The following is the media coverage for the Kannada Wikipedia presentation at the Central University at Gulbarga on July 30,2014, in Gulbarga edition of Prajavani Kannada daily, dated July 31.</b>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/PrajavaniGulbargaJuly312014.jpg" alt="Prajavani coverage" class="image-inline" title="Prajavani coverage" /></th>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-prajavani-coverage'>https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-prajavani-coverage</a>
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No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessKannada Wikipedia2014-08-06T10:15:09ZNews ItemAccess to Knowledge Bulletin — July 2014
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-july-2014
<b>The Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) newsletter for the month of July 2014: </b>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="University_of_Mysore_Re-releases_Kannada_Vishwakosha_.28Encyclopaedia.29_under_Creative_Commons_Free_License"><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/university-of-mysore-releases-kannada-vishwakosha-under-cc-license" rel="nofollow">University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License</a></span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The University of Mysore and the Centre for Internet and Society co-organized the Open Knowledge Day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license. Kannada Vishwakosha brought out by the <a class="external text" href="http://www.uni-mysore.ac.in/" rel="nofollow">University of Mysore</a> can easily be termed as the best encyclopaedia in Kannada. It has been modelled after the famous Britannica encyclopaedia. Mysore University Vishwakosha has 14 volumes having a total of 13802 pages. The very first volume was brought out in the year 1969 and the final volume was released in 2004. Many famous Kannada authors, scientists, academicians and stalwarts from other fields have worked on creating this encyclopaedia.<br /> <br /> Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded <a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/open-knowledge-day-mysore-media-coverage-zip" rel="nofollow">here</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Announcement">Announcement</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were <a href="https://cis-india.org/wiki/FDC_portal/FDC_recommendations/2013-2014_round2" class="mw-redirect" title="FDC portal/FDC recommendations/2013-2014 round2">awarded Rs. 12,000,000</a> for the next one year.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Articles_.2F_Blog_Entries">Articles / Blog Entries</span></h2>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/prajavani-july-3-2014-article-on-wikipedia-zero" rel="nofollow">Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero</a> (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/article-on-akruti-unicode-converter-in-samaja" rel="nofollow">ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/state-of-odia-language-in-computing-and-future-steps" rel="nofollow">State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign for national Level Seminar on "Computer Application and Odia Language", July 7, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/sambad-july-21-2014-paths-for-development-of-odia-language" rel="nofollow">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia" rel="nofollow">Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia</a> (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-july-27-2014-doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap" rel="nofollow">Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was <a class="external text" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/30/doctors-working-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-gap/">re-published</a> on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odisha-review-june-2014-classical-odia-language-in-digital-age" rel="nofollow">Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.</li>
</ol>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Event_Organized">Event Organized</span></h2>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/events/open-knowledge-day-mysore" rel="nofollow">Open Knowledge Day</a> (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event.</li>
<li>Wikipedia orientation for Christ University UG students, Bangalore</li>
</ol>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Participation_in_Events">Participation in Events</span></h2>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/openness/blog/state-of-odia-language-in-computing-and-future-steps" rel="nofollow">National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language</a> (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014" rel="nofollow">Open Knowledge Festival 2014</a> (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/nama-the-future-of-indic-languages" rel="nofollow"># NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages</a> (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</li>
<li>Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (organized by Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath at PDA College of Engineering, Gulbarga, July 29, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. Thirty-two participants attended the workshop.</li>
<li>Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Students and Research Scholars (organized by Central University of Karnataka, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U. B. Pavanaja gave the presentation and demo. 37 participants attended the presentation.</li>
<li>Talk about Kannada Wikipedia (organized by District Kannada Sahithya Parishath, S.M. Pandit Auditorium, Gulbarga, July 30, 2014). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk as inaugurator of the first session of the Jilla Sahithya Sammelana (district literary festival). About 600 people attended this talk.</li>
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<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="News_and_Media_Coverage">News and Media Coverage</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-7-2014-renuka-phadnis-wikipedia-edit-a-thons-to-add-content-on-lgbts" rel="nofollow">Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs</a> (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-7-2014-bibhuti-barik-font-problem-hits-odia" rel="nofollow">Font problem hits Odia</a> (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-12-2014-r-krishna-kumar-four-volumes-of-kannada-encyclopaedia-digitised" rel="nofollow">Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised</a> (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/prajavani-july-14-2014-four-volumes-of-kannada-encyclopaedia-digitised" rel="nofollow">‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ</a> (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-15-2014-r-krishna-kumar-soon-all-14-volumes-of-kannada-encyclopaedia-to-be-online" rel="nofollow">Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online</a> (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/kannada-prabha-july-15-2014-coverage-of-open-knowledge-day" rel="nofollow">ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ</a> (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/udayavani-july-15-2014-mysore-university-event-coverage-in-udayavani" rel="nofollow">ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ</a> (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/just-kannada-july-15-2014-wikipedia-kannada-vishwakosha-mysore-university-free-internet-kannada-department" rel="nofollow">ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……</a>(Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/web-india-123-july-15-2014-six-kannada-encyclopaedias-released" rel="nofollow">Six Kannada encyclopaedias released</a> (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-july-15-2014-anila-backer-150-rare-books-get-new-lease-of-life-online-courtesy-students" rel="nofollow">150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students</a> (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/spicy-ip-swaraj-paul-barooah-july-15-2014-open-access-students-help-revive-and-digitize-rare-books-for-malayalam-wiki-library" rel="nofollow">Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library</a> (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-narayan-lakshman-july-25-2014-trolled-from-us-congress-wikipedia-bans-edits" rel="nofollow">'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits</a> (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-27-2014-renuka-phadnis-telugu-wikipedia-struggles-to-stay-afloat" rel="nofollow">Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat</a> (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-july-29-2014-svetlana-lasrado" rel="nofollow">The joys of being a Wikipedian</a> (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-vijayavani-coverage" rel="nofollow">Kannada Wikipedia Presentation</a> (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).</li>
<li><a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-prajavani-coverage" rel="nofollow">Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers</a> (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Rahmanuddin Shaikh. One team member Nitika Tandon is based in Delhi. We also have one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana working with us. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed <a class="external text" href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters" rel="nofollow">here</a>. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications <a class="external text" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Requests">here</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="About_CIS">About CIS</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Follow_us_elsewhere">Follow us elsewhere</span></h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Twitter: <a class="external free" href="https://twitter.com/CISA2K" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/CISA2K</a></li>
<li>CIS group on Facebook: <a class="external free" href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india</a></li>
<li>Visit us at: <a class="external free" href="https://cis-india.org" rel="nofollow">https://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Request_for_Collaboration:">Request for Collaboration:</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-july-2014'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-july-2014</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-10-04T14:46:22ZPageKannada Wikipedia Presentation
https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-vijayavani-coverage
<b>The following is a scanned copy of the media coverage for the Kannada Wikipedia presentation at the Kannada Science Writers workshop at Gulbarga on July 29,2014, in Gulbarga edition of Vijayavani Kannada daily, dated July 30.</b>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/VijayavaniGulbargaJuly302014.jpg" alt="Vijayavani" class="image-inline" title="Vijayavani" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-vijayavani-coverage'>https://cis-india.org/news/kannada-wikipedia-presentation-vijayavani-coverage</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessKannada Wikipedia2014-08-06T09:57:48ZNews ItemThe joys of being a Wikipedian
https://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-july-29-2014-svetlana-lasrado
<b>Radha Krishna, an engineer, had always wanted to share information online so that people who wanted to learn more could just log in and benefit by reading his articles. Eight years ago he started his own website for this very purpose. But he found it hard to maintain the site. He then chanced upon Wikipedia, the largest open-source encyclopedia, which was then just becoming popular in the country. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Svetlana Lasrado was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bangalore/The-joys-of-being-a-Wikipedian/2014/07/29/article2354196.ece">published in the New Indian Express</a> on July 29, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">He registered an account on the website and started contributing to it by editing articles and adding references. Krishna, who has contributed over 4000 articles so far, prides himself on being one of the first few Wiki editors from Bangalore.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Komal Khatokar, on the other hand, has not spent as much time on the site as Krishna.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This 19-year-old B Com student of Christ University had to contribute one article to the Indian language Wikipedia last year as part of her assignment in a language of her choice, Sanskrit. She says, “I wrote an article on G V Iyer, who was the first person to direct a movie in Sanskrit.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But it did not stop there. Last May, she took up an internship project with The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), which acts as a catalyst for the Wikipedia movement in India. She wanted to explore the world of Wiki writing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I took part in a project to add articles from the Kannada encyclopedia online. We uploaded over 1200 articles, which will go live on the main website in October.” Komal now edits copies on the site and despite her hectic college schedule, wants to continue contributing to Wikipedia in any way that she can.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Anybody with an Internet access can edit an article on Wikipedia. Globally, the English Wikipedia has over 4 million articles and there are over a million registered users.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">And in Bangalore, from just 10 members five years ago, there are now over 100 registered volunteers who contribute to the website on a daily basis, says Vishnu Vardhan, from CIS and adds, “Now, the maximum number of Wikipedians from India are from Bangalore and majority of the founding members of the Wikimedia India Chapter are also from here.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apart from English content, world over Wikipedia has many regional chapters covering over 200 languages to increase representation of region-specific content. In India, the Access to Knowledge programme developed by CIS works towards the growth of Indian language Wikipedias. In this regard, Vishnu states that Bangalore has a majority of active Kannada Wikipedia volunteers and is the single largest location for active Malayalam Wikipedians. Bangalore is also the second largest location for Telugu Wikipedia community after Hyderabad, he observes. The strong volunteer community is involved in the Wiki movement in ways more than one.</p>
<h3>Different ways to contribute</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jeph Paul is not a Wikipedian in the traditional sense of the word. Why? Because he doesn't contribute or edit articles on the website. What he does is very technical. He develops tools and gadgets for Wikipedia in India to enhance user experience. Jeph got involved when Wikipedia started providing grants of up to $30000 to people who wanted to improve the usability and functionality of the website. Jeph applied and received $500 for his project. His project was simple -- he created a visual representation of how an article evolved. He explains, “There are over 100 editors who pore over just one article and modify it — the edits can be a sentence that is rewritten, a reference link added or citations made. But the changes are a lot and minute. I created a tool where people could see what changes are made and how the article evolves over a period of time.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Besides developing tools and software, Jeph points out that users can generate visual content. For instance, there are some topics such as historical monuments which require visual documentation. Users can submit their visual repository to Wikipedia to enhance text content.</p>
<h3>Wikipedia Caveats</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia, globally ranked sixth among all the websites based on web traffic, has laid down a list of rules and guidelines which users are required to follow. For instance, when one edits articles, one should avoid personal opinions. Komal cites a recent furore when there were slanderous remarks made against actor Ambarish.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“Such personal opinions should be reserved for blogs. Wikipedia is a public domain website. Hence, when you become a contributor, you have a certain responsibility. You should refrain from portraying biased sentiments through your articles,” she observes. Contemplating on this, Komal adds that Wikipedians should not fabricate content. "They should only include what’s already published and authenticate it using a credible source," she adds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another rule that is of utmost importance is compliance with copyright. Radha Krishna explains, “If you want to include information from a website or article, you can't copy the text verbatim. You have to analyse the content and paraphrase it based on your own understanding, citing legitimate references.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When in doubt, the Wikipedians assert, it is always best to take help from other editors and collaborators through the ‘Talk’ option on the website or through monthly meetings.</p>
<p>It's easy to be a Wikipedia contributor:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Register: Although a visitor can edit articles, it is good to register to keep a record of your edits. You will also get an access to Wikipedia’s enhanced editing features.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Start with editing: Click the ‘Edit’ tab on the article’s page to modify the copy -- check typos, grammar, sentence structure and add an explanation. For example, if it is a spelling correction, add 'Typo'. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Preview: After editing, see a preview of the modifications by clicking ‘Show Preview’. </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Save: Then save the changes by clicking the ‘Save Page’ tab.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Format: Wiki uses a markup language called wikitext to format text. Acquaint yourself with this language by reading the online tutorial. For instance, you can change a text to bold or italics by surrounding a word or phrase with multiple apostrophes.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Link: You can add inline citations by linking a word to another Wikipedia page. To do so, put the word in double square brackets. You can also change the display text.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Categorise: Add categories near the bottom of the article by typing the topic using
<span id="text-e20ef4784efe4cdfb79fa179410b228e">
<a class="link-wiki" href="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Category.jpg">Category:</a>
</span>
</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Add footnotes: You can add reference tags around your source using <ref>Your Source</ref>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Add external links: To add a link to an external credible website, type the URL inside a single set of brackets, followed by a space and the text to be displayed.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Talk to other editors: Use talk pages to discuss articles or any issues with other Wikipedians. </li>
</ul>
<p>For a detailed tutorial on how to edit an article, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Tutorial</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wiki meets and awareness programmes: Since 2010, the Bangalore Wikipedia community has conducted over 40 meet-ups, according to Vishnu. “This helps increase participation among all volunteers, improves engagement and understanding of the work that is being done on an ongoing basis,” he opines.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Apart from this, their main focus is to get more people to join the fray through ‘Wiki Academy’ which travels to different organisations in the country to get people acquainted to the website and give them hands-on training on editing articles. Radha Krishna explains, “We recently conducted a workshop at C-DOT and Don Bosco Engineering College.” He adds, “Wikipedia has a lot of sister projects too like Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wikisource, Wiktionary, which people are not aware of. We want people to make use of these tools too.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Rules every Wikipedian should follow:</p>
<ul>
<li>Register an account</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Don't share unpublished results</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Don't expound your personal theories or start debates</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Respect other editors</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>If you spot an error, correct it</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Write without using jargons</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Do not violate copyright and attribute statements</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Do not promote yourself</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Do not be biased in your tone of writing. Always cover significant point of views</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Don't be afraid to ask for help</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-july-29-2014-svetlana-lasrado'>https://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-july-29-2014-svetlana-lasrado</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-30T05:19:16ZNews ItemDoctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-july-27-2014-doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap
<b>I interviewed Wikimedian User:CFCF who is managing the entire project to understand how it is going to work and wrote on Global Voices' Rising Voices about it.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in GlobalVoices on July 27, 2014. It can be <a class="external-link" href="http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/07/27/doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap/">accessed here</a>. It was republished in the <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/30/doctors-working-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-gap/">Wikimedia Blog</a> on July 30, 2014.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Internet users from around the world often turn to Wikipedia to answer questions of all kinds. The information offered there includes medical subjects, especially important in parts of the world where access to medical professionals may be limited.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">However, much of this information can be <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-27586356">unreliable</a> and is available only in the most oft-spoken languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A group of experienced Wikipedia editors and medical professionals is trying to change that with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_Task_Force">Medicine Translation Project</a>, an effort to improve health care-related topics in English Wikipedia and translate them into other languages, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_task_force/RTT" target="_blank">including Hindi, Chinese, Persian, Tagalog, Indonesian and Macedonian</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently, the Wikimedia Foundation’s <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Individual_Engagement_Grants">Individual Engagement Grant</a> (IEG), a microgrant supporting work on Wikipedia-related activities, granted 10,000 US dollars to the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Medicine_Translation_Project_Community_Organizing" target="_blank">Medicine Translation Project Community Organizing project</a>, which aims to enhance communication and coordination among the team.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Medical student and Wikipedian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:CFCF">User:CFCF</a> along with two advisors, Dr. James Heilman<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmh649"> (User:Doc James</a>) and Jake Orlowitz (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ocaasi">User:Ocaasi</a>) lead the group. We spoke to founder CFCF over email.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Rising Voices (RV): How did the project get started? What inspired it and how did you identify the needs it would fulfill?</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CFCF</b>: [...] The project itself started off in 2011 when Dr. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jmh649">James Heilman</a> and a number of translators from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translators_Without_Borders">Translators Without Borders</a>: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Enrique_Cavalitto">Enrique Cavalitto</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ildiko_Santana">Ildiko Santana</a> teamed up in an effort to translate medical articles. Since then, the project has exploded into a larger translation forum with hundreds of translators translating articles into almost a hundred different languages. [...]</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">For Wikimedia projects with a large pool of editors, we have been taking help from editors to assess what is needed, and what should be translated. On smaller projects we have simply set the goal to get anything on <a href="http://www.who.int">World Health Organization (WHO)</a>’s<a href="http://www.who.int"> list of essential medicines</a>, as well as anything about neglected <a href="http://www.who.int/topics/tropical_diseases/en/">tropical diseases</a>, also from a <a href="http://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/en/">list</a> by the WHO. As for these articles the project is still in an early phase, but we want to cover basically anything that might be relevant to readers, from cancer to emergency medicine.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>RV: How is the process of translation going? </b></p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr style="text-align: justify; ">
<td class="quoted">
<blockquote><b>CFCF</b>: [...] The problem is that there are so many layers of complications in the translation process. After an article has been written and been subject to review to ensure its quality, the article needs to be prepared and proofed for translation, after which translators need to be found. [...] Many of our translators are medical professionals and have in-depth knowledge in their native languages. On the top of it, they dedicate plenty of time on the content creation and translation. This helps to get good quality translations. What this also means is they they seldom have any knowledge of Wiki markup or Wikipedia. Someone else who knows the language in question has to go through links, templates etc. and fix them, proofread the translated content so it is up to scratch and readable.</blockquote>
</td>
<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/copy_of_WikipediaArticles.png" alt="Wikipedia Articles" class="image-inline" title="Wikipedia Articles" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p><b><b>RV: How do you address this?</b></b></p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CFCF</b>: To fix all this, it is best to have a local Wikipedian who can integrate the text. Most of the work has already been done. But, getting these things right is very crucial, especially on Wikipedias with vast content, where there already is a lot of content to link in.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">I think the resistance we met early in the project's life was not against translation of content. But, because we did not spend enough time getting the translated articles up to shape before sending them live on the target Wikipedia.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">What we saw on the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Wikipedia">Polish Wikipedia</a> was that much of the issues were down to how they used different templates, and after I commissioned a bot to fix this, the articles started going live very quickly. After this, more and more editors became interested in helping out [...]</p>
</blockquote>
<p><b>RV: Are you in conversation with the<a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Zero"> Wikipedia Zero</a> team — a mobile data project focused on Wikipedia access in the developing world — about popularising this with their partners in the developing nations? </b></p>
<blockquote class="quoted" style="text-align: justify; ">CFCF: Currently we are not in touch with the Wikipedia Zero team specifically, even though our works target the same communities. The difference between us and them is that we target developed countries as well as countries where there barely is any mobile connectivity at all, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma">Burma</a> where I do not know if we will be seeing Wikipedia Zero in the foreseeable future [...]</blockquote>
<p class="quoted" style="text-align: justify; "><b>RV: What are your plans to engage with the larger Wikimedia communities that are multilingual and totally diverse?</b></p>
<blockquote>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; "><b>CFCF</b>: We aim to get high quality content in as many languages as we can. It is difficult to translate such deeply technical content, so we are really looking for professional translators, or individuals with some form of medical background so that information loss and corruption of content in translation is minimal.We recruit translators either off-wiki, or on the medical <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject">WikiProjects</a>. We are still looking for translators who feel they are comfortable with such topics, and we especially need them in smaller languages. We are also searching them at <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meta:Babylon">Babylon</a> on Meta Wiki.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Project_Med">WikiProject Med Foundation</a> was the first attempt to get a truly global organization of medical Wikipedia editors. Most medical professionals are fluent in English, and we really try to engage in discussion in other languages when we can, so I think there is a real benefit in creating a global community for medical editors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are not large enough yet that we have all the relevant people on English Wikipedia, and we will probably never be because there are always specialists in other countries with very specific knowledge that we can leverage. That makes international collaboration really great.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">As for the local language integrators, the idea is to have editors who are willing help out and be an intermediary between that community and our translator community. We have<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/Translation_task_force/RTT"> a page</a> where all our finished translations are added. An integrator would patrol that page on a regular basis, inform the respective language Wikipedia that the new translation is ready. The language Wikipedia’s reader community share feedback on the translation quality and suggest for improvement. For us, it is really easy to just add articles without going through them thoroughly. But, that would not work at all. For things to work, we need someone who both knows Wiki markup and the target language so that the integration can go smoothly.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-july-27-2014-doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/global-voices-subhashish-panigrahi-july-27-2014-doctors-and-translators-are-working-together-to-bridge-wikipedias-medical-language-gap</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-08-04T03:29:44ZBlog Entry'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits
https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-narayan-lakshman-july-25-2014-trolled-from-us-congress-wikipedia-bans-edits
<b>Online encyclopaedia Wikipedia has issued a ten-day ban against an anonymous editor of its website located on the premises of the U.S. Congress, after the latter engaged in “disruptive editing,” on a wide range of subjects, from moon-landing conspiracy theories linked to Cuba to naming former U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as an alien wizard. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Narayan Lakshman was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/trolled-from-us-congress-wikipedia-bans-edits/article6249959.ece">published in the Hindu</a> on July 25, 2014. Pranesh Prakash gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many of the seemingly humorous edits were tracked by a Twitter ‘bot’ with the handle @CongressEdits, which is driven by a code to automatically monitor Wikipedia for changes to the site made by accounts with a Congressional IP addresses.<br /><br />Per the Wikipedia ban, only persons editing the site anonymously are barred from making changes, while Congressional staffers who have created named accounts to log into Wikipedia could continue making edits.<br /><br />Yet some reports noted that the changes “have become almost troll-like,” alluding for example to an edit on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which changed the text to say that alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was acting “on behalf of the regime of Fidel Castro.”<br /><br />Another entry revised the biography of Mr. Rumsfeld to describe him as an “alien lizard who eats Mexican babies,” and yet another change suggested that moon-landing conspiracy theories were “promoted by the Cuban government.”<br /><br />Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at the Centre for Internet and Society, said to The Hindu via Twitter that Wikipedia’s ban affected up to 9000 people, while only a few pranksters seem to be indulging in vandalism.<br /><br />“Ironically, it is the public nature of @CongressEdits has led to this increase in attention-seeking vandalism,” he said, adding that such bans, if there are more to come, could “effectively kill projects like @CongressEdits.”</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-narayan-lakshman-july-25-2014-trolled-from-us-congress-wikipedia-bans-edits'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-narayan-lakshman-july-25-2014-trolled-from-us-congress-wikipedia-bans-edits</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-28T10:22:53ZNews ItemOpen Knowledge Festival 2014
https://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014
<b>Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local in Berlin. The event was organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., in Berlin from July 15 to 17, 2014.</b>
<p>Click to read the details on the <a class="external-link" href="http://okfestival2014.sched.org/event/3c54b973ef6fe84c004ec52c4cf621aa#.U9Yd4aPO2aM">website here</a>. See the <a class="external-link" href="http://2014.okfestival.org/about-programme/">official programme here</a>. Download Subhashish's presentation <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/ok-festival.pdf" class="external-link">at this page</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Subhashish presented on the following:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Situation in India</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Wikimedia India chapter and WMF's India program working on first India GLAM project</li>
<li>Good traction of image contribution through Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest</li>
<li>Mass communication and other media institutes slowly taking interest in open audio library</li>
<li>Digitization is a priority across government departments, with funding available</li>
<li>Majority of GLAMs lack knowledge about open culture, need for outreach</li>
<li>Relicensing and book digitization have gained public interest</li>
<li>Goals of the survey</li>
<li>Data</li>
<li>Mapping the sector</li>
<li>Encourage institutions to think beyond their digital strategy</li>
<li>Show institutions what is there for them</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What we have done so far</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Started filing Right to Information (RT) asking state government departments for lists of institutions</li>
<li>Reached out to WMIN (Wikimedia India chapter) for help in creating a list</li>
<li>Difficulty with getting people and contact details</li>
</ul>
<h2>Collaborative Presentation</h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="356" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/37285446" width="427"> </iframe></p>
<div><b> <a href="https://de.slideshare.net/beatestermann/ok-fest2014-glamsurveyworkshop20140717" target="_blank" title="OKFest2014 glam-survey_workshop_20140717">OKFest2014 glam-survey_workshop_20140717</a> </b> from <b><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/beatestermann" target="_blank">Beat Estermann</a></b></div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014'>https://cis-india.org/news/ok-festival-2014</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-28T10:17:38ZNews ItemTelugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat
https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-27-2014-renuka-phadnis-telugu-wikipedia-struggles-to-stay-afloat
<b>For a language that is spoken by 10 crore people, content is sparse.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Renuka Phadnis was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/telugu-wikipedia-struggles-to-stay-afloat/article6255003.ece">published in the Hindu</a> on July 28, 2014. T. Vishnu Vardhan gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Sujatha, a Chennai-based homemaker, has set for herself the task of updating the Telugu Wikipedia with details of all the districts in Andhra Pradesh.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">“I asked others but no one joined me in adding ‘edits’. They said they were too busy,” she says.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">For a language that is spoken by 10 crore people, including a tech-savvy population, content in the 11-year-old Telugu Wikipedia is sparse and growing slowly with 20,000 articles added in the last one decade.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge Programme of Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), said Telugu Wikipedia was lagging behind its other Indian-language counterparts despite there being no other content repository in Telugu.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The reason is not lack of writers in the language. There are 1,000 to 2,000 active Telugu bloggers writing on topics ranging from poetry to politics. In fact, the Telugu Wikipedia was started by such bloggers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But they are reluctant to contribute to the Telugu Wikipedia and prefer blogging because they can see their names after adding the content. Rahimanuddin Shaik, Programme Officer and system operator for Telugu Wikipedia at CIS, said, “You could call it the ‘identity crisis’ of Telugu Wikipedia writers.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2006-07, an attempt was made to induce content in the Telugu Wikipedia by injecting 30,000 ‘articles’ by a bot, a Python-based script. They were one-liners about villages in Andhra Pradesh, introduced with the expectation that people would add more content. That effort did trigger 5,000 articles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Later, in 2013, the Telugu Wikipedia became more collaborative and Hyderabad University associated itself with it by hosting Telugu Wikipedia events on its Golden Threshold campus.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-27-2014-renuka-phadnis-telugu-wikipedia-struggles-to-stay-afloat'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-july-27-2014-renuka-phadnis-telugu-wikipedia-struggles-to-stay-afloat</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaTelugu WikipediaOpenness2014-07-28T07:46:10ZNews ItemClassical Odia Language in the Digital Age
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odisha-review-june-2014-classical-odia-language-in-digital-age
<b>The essay was published in the June edition of Odisha Review, a magazine published by Government of Odisha's Department of Information and Public Relations. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the original article <a class="external-link" href="http://orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/Orissareview/2014/Jun/engpdf/158-160.pdf">published in Odisha Review here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Odisha’s documentation and archival history dates back to the pre-Kalinga civilization that existed more than 5,000 years back in which today’s Odisha was a major part of it. It, later was more vibrant when Kalinga kingdom and was widespread from Ganga to Godavari, geographically consisting of modern day Odisha entirely and partly Bangladesh, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chattishgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana and part of Tamilnadu and Kerala. The epigraphs of cave painting in Gudahandi and stone inscriptions of Hatigumpha in Udayagiri complex are a few examples of the early documentations that the ancestral Kalingan tribes had made. Furthermore, the early Buddhist poets of Kalinga (popularly known as 64 Sidhapada) wrote “ doha ” (spiritual verses) in Pali language. Pali is the language of all of the Buddhist literature and predecessor of modern Odia, Maithili, Bangla and Assamese language and has deep impact on many other Indic languages. Odia has travelled through a long journey of “Tambapata ” (bronze plate inscription), “Talapatra” (palm leaf manuscripts), printed books since early 18th century and e-books in the modern days. Years of history that have perished during invasions by foreign invaders could have told more about this civilization. Modern Odisha state, so far has been able to uphold the pride of having the largest number of palm leaf manuscripts (over 20,000 manuscripts) in the world. Odia printing and publication industry is spread across all the 30 administrative districts of Odisha and other Indian cities like Kolkata and New Delhi and to some extent in some parts of Surat. A few million books would have been printed starting from the first book “New Testament ” that got printed in 1809.<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In this chronology there comes the new age reading tools “e-books” or electronic books less formally initiated in the eighties by students of Regional Engineering College, Rourkela (Now National Institute of Rourkela) and now crossed a decade.<a href="#fn2" name="fr2">[2] </a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Odia got classical status on 20 February this year after 5 other Indian languages on the basis of its literary heritage of over three millennia. Interestingly, it is older than most of the most spoken languages in the world. Like many other mighty civilizations, traders of this region conquered places and took their language and culture to their occupied colonies. Early traders of Kalingan Sadhabas were trading silk and spices with South Asian countries. With them travelled Kalinga’s language and culture. When all of the other language’s have been able to have a strong presence on the Internet, online content available in Odia is way limited compared to even other Indic languages. It has been almost a decade since Odia support is available in most computers across operating systems. But, the digital desktop publishing (DTP) published resources are still not available in a searchable manner – not on internet or in a computer locally. Currently, the Odia publication industry uses proprietary standard fonts for Odia typing. Akruti, LEAP office, Shreelipi are name to few. All of these were the only means for printing books using desktop publishing at one point of time. But, these encoding systems are out-of-date. The major drawback of these fonts is, they have regular Latin characters replaced by Odia characters. If a document is typed using one such fonts is sent to someone it is difficult to even read or reuse if the person in the receiving end does not have the exact font used for typing. As already mentioned the fonts are commercial and proprietary and it is mandatory to buy them to use. In reality most of the users do not buy and use pirated versions of the software for work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The printed documents typed in one standard is not compatible with the other one. To avoid this problems, an advanced universal standard called “Unicode” was released in early 2000. Unicode has both Odia and Latin characters in a font that allows both the scripts to be displayed correctly at the same time. It is universally compatible and all the operating systems have Unicode fonts installed in the computers. This takes the pain of installing multiple fonts to access any typed text. Searching any text typed in Unicode is as simple as googling something in English. Moreover, documents typed using one Unicode font could be read using another Unicode font. Unfortunately, none of the Odia newspapers have their publications in Unicode at this moment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This, practically does not allow any reader to search, access, reuse and quote any content. Same is the case for all other published resources like books and magazines. More than 80 per cent of the published content are not even released online and also not archived.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Many publishers, intimidated of online content plagiarism have been protecting their publications. Unfortunately, copyright laws in India are not stringently practiced unlike the west. This has given rise to a parallel piracy market for the movies and music over the years. Interestingly, books are not of that much demand as music and movies are. As a result of the lingua-cultural shift to English from native languages regional language publications are not widely sold in the post-colonial Indian book market as compared to the English publications. The case of the use of Odia language as a language of governance is still not put in place. Odia is still to be used as a medium for official communication in all of the government offices. English medium educational Boards have been domineering over the Odisha state Board. Despite of these challenges, number of Odia dailies is slowly growing. There are around 100 newspapers published daily from various regions of Odisha. It is essential to note that news archives, unlike literary writings have much of any kind of high commercial value. So is in the case of scholarly and research publications. If all of these publications could be made available online in digital form that will take Odia literature to the global audience. This triggers the need of A) making sure the forthcoming publications are not just typed in Unicode but made available online, B) digitization of published books and making them available free on internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is essential to take measures to ascertain the forthcoming publications use Unicode standard and digitizing published matter and publishing them online. Online content could be made available in Unicode and has trillion times reach than printed matter. As a vast number of the users use Microsoft’s Windows XP they could either upgrade their operating system or move to completely free and open source and Linux based operating systems like Ubuntu. At this moment, Odia has far less content on internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Odia Wikipedia tops the list of Odia Unicode content websites and is the largest Odia online encyclopaedia with over 8,000 articles. Available for free on or.wikipedia.org, Odia Wikipedia is a community project where any user could create, edit and modify content. The articles being encyclopaedic and referenced from other reliable sources has some level of authenticity. As this is a small project and is developing it needs more voluntary contribution to grow to a larger project that could serve the purpose of an Open Educational Resources (OER) for students. There are a handful of web and news portals maintained by individuals and organizations that have Odia content in Unicode. The other upcoming project is Odia Wikisource which is an online library. Odia books that are useful for the Odia speaking community like classical literature, religious scriptures, dictionaries and lexicons, journals and research papers and manuscripts could go online on this platform. The most important thing about these two projects is that they both have only volunteers as contributors and anyone and everyone could contribute. Any individual or organization who is interested could add a lot of value to Odia language by contributing the process of digitizing content and making them available for free. These projects, additionally are released under Creative Commons Share-Alike licenses that allows free reuse, modification and commercial reproduction of content. Many valuable books could also be part of Odia Wikisource.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Srujanika, a Bhubaneswar based organization in collaboration with National Institute of Technology, Rourkela and Pragati Utkal Sangh, Rourkela has scanned over 760 Odia books. Out of these, over 200 books are hosted in a non-profit project “Open Access to Oriya Books (OAOB)” and hosted at: oaob.nitrkl.ac.in. Organizations like Manik-Smrutinyas and Institute of Odia Studies and Research have re-licensed books of noted author Dr. Jagannath Mohanty and Dr. Debi Prasanna Pattanayak and Subrat Prusty respectively to Creative Commons licenses for free, commercial distribution. Majority of the resourceful magazines like The Utkal Prasanga could be also made available in Unicode standard by changing its copyright terms to Creative Commons licenses. Larger debates are also needed to convince authors and knowledge and information producing organizations/departments like universities and government’s departments (e.g.Information and Public Relations, Department of Mass Education and Department of Statistics.) to migrate from proprietary copyright restrictions to reusable licenses like Creative Commons licenses. This will not only will help for more public-private collaboration and knowledge production but also taking language resources to masses which is discontinued because of lack of updated technological advancement like use of Unicode font and digitizing valuable content. Government portals need Odia localization in Unicode standard so public get access to information in Odia language and this could make e-governance much more easier. Government notifications that often are released publicly are found to be released in image formats. Many such public and private information could just be released in plain text that will increase the searchability, accessibility and reusability million times.</p>
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<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p>[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>].Pattnaik, Pushpashree. Presentation on digitization of Odia books in Utkal University (21 February 2014).</p>
<p>[<a href="#fr2" name="fn2">2</a>].Mohanty, Jagadish, eSabada. eOdissa.com (2009 - 2010).</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odisha-review-june-2014-classical-odia-language-in-digital-age'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odisha-review-june-2014-classical-odia-language-in-digital-age</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2014-07-28T07:41:51ZBlog EntryIndian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works
https://cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works
<b>Sunil Abraham gave his inputs to the blog entry published in Medianama on July 23, 2014.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and Department of Science and Technology (DST), under the Ministry of Science and Technology recently <a href="http://dbtindia.nic.in/docs/DST-DBT_Draft.pdf">released</a> (pdf) the draft of what is termed as Open Access Policy and has invited comments from the public until July 25, reports <a href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/India-to-create-free-access-to-scientific-work-online/articleshow/38818160.cms">The Times of India</a>. Comments can be submitted to madhan@dbt.nic.in.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The objective of this policy is to provide unrestricted access to research work funded by the departments. The draft states that since all funds disbursed by DBT and DST are public funds, it is important that the information and knowledge generated through the use of these funds are made publicly available as soon as possible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As per the draft, DBT/DST will be creating a central repository wherein grantees can either publish their papers in an open-access journal or post the final accepted manuscript to an online repository. This includes papers funded by the two departments in 2012-13 as well as review articles invited by DBT/DST or author initiated that received funding from these departments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The draft suggests that the full text of the research paper and metadata of all research projects fully or partially funded by DBT/DST or the projects that utilised infrastructure built with the support of DBT/DST will have to be made publicly available, failing which they wouldn’t be considered for future grants or fellowship opportunities among others.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The department believes that providing free access to these publications through gratis open access repository will enable increasing the distribution of these publications and will ensure that these research can be read and built upon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Copyright of research papers</b>: The draft also sheds light on copyright issues. It states that research work produced by a scientist as an employee of a government body or private institution the copyright would remain with the respective government body or private institution. However, following the final acceptance of the paper by any journal, it has to be deposited in an open access repository within a period of one week.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The author of the research paper will retain the right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, and publicly display the article in any medium for non-commercial purposes. They can also prepare derivative works from the article, and authorise others to make any non-commercial use of the article with credit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Implications</b>: This is a godsend for students, teachers and institutions that don’t have the means to purchase expensive academic journals. Sunil Abraham, executive director of Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) told TOI that the idea is that taxpayers shouldn’t pay twice to access research funded by taxpayers’ money.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Earlier developments in Open Data</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In August 2013 the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Human Resource Development, the Central Institute of Educational Technology (CIET), and National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) had <a href="http://www.medianama.com/2013/08/223-indian-govt-launches-open-repository-for-school-education/">launched an initiative</a> called <a href="http://nroer.in/home/">National Repository of Open Educational Resources</a> (NROER). The objective was to provide free educational resources to school students under the Creative Common license.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Union Cabinet had <a href="http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=80197">cleared</a> the DST formulated <a href="http://www.dst.gov.in/NDSAP.pdf">National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy</a> (NPDSA) back in February 2012. <a href="http://dst.gov.in/nsdi.html">NPDSA</a> was supposed to increase accessibility and ease sharing of non-sensitive data amongst the registered users and their availability for scientific, economic and social developmental purposes. However, very little has been reported on how NPDSA was utilised since then.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the article <a class="external-link" href="http://www.medianama.com/2014/07/223-government-open-access-policy/">published in Medianama here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works'>https://cis-india.org/news/medianama-july-23-2014-riddhi-mukherjee-indian-govt-looks-to-provide-free-access-to-public-funded-research-works</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2014-07-28T05:34:37ZNews ItemWiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia
https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia
<b>Since Wikipedia’s gender gap first came to light in late 2010, Wikipedians have taken the issue to heart, developing projects with a focus on inclusivity in content, editorship and the learning environments relevant to new editors. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Click to read the original published on <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/07/18/wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia/">Wikimedia blog here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Pride" title="Wiki Loves Pride">Wiki Loves Pride</a> started from conversations among Wikipedians editing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT" title="w:LGBT">LGBT</a> topics in a variety of fields, including history, popular culture, politics and medicine, and supporters of <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_LGBT/Portal" title="Wikimedia LGBT/Portal">Wikimedia LGBT</a> - a proposed <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_user_groups" title="Wikimedia user groups">user group</a> which promotes the development of LGBT-related content on Wikimedia projects in all languages and encourages LGBT organizations to adopt the values of free culture and open access. The group has slowly been building momentum for the past few years, but had not yet executed a major outreach initiative. Wiki Loves Pride helped kickstart the group’s efforts to gather international supporters and expand its language coverage.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Pride Edit-a-Thons and Photo Campaigns Held Internationally</h3>
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<p>We decided to run a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014" title="en:Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride 2014">campaign</a> in June (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_pride#LGBT_Pride_Month" title="w:Gay pride">LGBT Pride Month</a> in the United States), culminating with a multi-city edit-a-thon on June 21. We first committed to hosting events in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City">New York City</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland,_Oregon">Portland</a>, Oregon (our cities of residence), hoping others would follow. We also gave individuals the option to contribute remotely, either by improving articles online or by uploading images related to LGBT culture and history. This was of particular importance for users who live in regions of the world less tolerant of LGBT communities, or where it may be dangerous to organize LGBT meetups.</p>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/SanFrancisco.png" alt="San Francisco" class="image-inline" title="San Francisco" /></th>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">In addition to New York City and Portland, offline events were held in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia">Philadelphia</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.C.">Washington, D.C.</a>, with online activities in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston">Houston</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle">Seattle</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul">Seoul</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa">South Africa</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver">Vancouver</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna">Vienna</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw">Warsaw</a>. Events will be held in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore">Bangalore</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi">New Delhi</a> later this month as part of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_Internet_and_Society_%28India%29" title="en:Centre for Internet and Society (India)">Centre for Internet and Society’s</a> (CIS) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_to_knowledge_movement" title="en:Access to knowledge movement">Access to Knowledge</a> (A2K) program. Other Wikimedia chapters have expressed interest in hosting LGBT edit-a-thons in the future.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Campaign Results</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014/Results" title="en:Wikipedia:Wiki Loves Pride 2014/Results">The campaign’s “Results” page</a> lists 90 LGBT-related articles which were created on English Wikipedia and links to more than 750 images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Also listed are new categories, templates and article drafts, along with “Did you know” (DYK) hooks that appeared on the Main Page and policy proposals which may be of interest to the global LGBT community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The campaign also attracted participation from Wikimedia projects other than Wikipedia. <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a> hosted an <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photo_challenge/2014_-_June_-_Wiki_Loves_Pride_2014" title="commons:Commons:Photo challenge/2014 - June - Wiki Loves Pride 2014">LGBT photo challenge</a>, which received more than 50 entries and an <a>LGBT task force</a> was created at <a>Wikidata</a>. So far the group, which also seeks to improve LGBT-related content, has gathered 10 supporters and has adopted a rainbow-colored variation of the Wikidata logo as its symbol.</p>
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<th><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/PortlandPride.png" title="Portland Pride" height="268" width="356" alt="Portland Pride" class="image-inline" /></th>
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<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Continuing Efforts</h3>
<p>Our hope is that the campaign will continue to grow and evolve, galvanizing participation in more locations and in different languages. Wiki Loves Pride organizers will continue to provide logistical support to those interested in hosting events and collaborating with cultural institutions.</p>
<p>Contiguous with the events of Wiki Loves Pride, Wikimedia LGBT has an open application to achieve user group status from the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee" title="Affiliations Committee">Wikimedia Affiliations Committee</a> and looks forward to expanding its members and efforts on all fronts.</p>
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<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Another_Believer">Jason Moore</a>, Wikipedian </b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:OR_drohowa">Dorothy Howard</a>, Wikipedian</b></li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="post-meta-key">Copyright notes:</span> <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SF_Pride_2014_-_Stierch_6.jpg">"SF Pride 2014 - Stierch 6.jpg"</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch"> SarahStierch </a>, under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode">CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported</a>, from Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portland_Pride_2014_-_036.JPG">"Portland Pride 2014 - 036.JPG"</a> by <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Another_Believer"> Another Believer </a>, under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode">CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported</a>, from Wikimedia Commons</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia'>https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-blog-dorothy-howard-wiki-loves-pride-2014-and-adding-diversity-to-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherdorothyOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-07-25T10:56:38ZBlog EntryFont problem hits Odia
https://cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-7-2014-bibhuti-barik-font-problem-hits-odia
<b>Focus on search for solution to lack of compatibility. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Bibhuti Barik was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140707/jsp/odisha/story_18587707.jsp#.U9IESqgu5R8">published in the Telegraph</a> on July 7, 2014. Subhashish Panigrahi gave his inputs.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The available Odia fonts that could be used for digital publications have compatibility problems. The fonts, which number around 10, have been developed for specific purposes and cannot be used in all applications.<br /><br />Computer application researchers, linguistics, information technology experts and educationists, who met at a workshop here today, urged the state government and the IT industry to ensure the smooth use of Odia fonts.<br /><br />These fonts are available on different software tools, but if one purchases one of them to install on his or her computer, it fails to open in another system. Since this happens due to lack of compatibility, it also discourages users to use Odia fonts in official work and day-to-day life.<br /><br />“I think the use of Odia language in computers is restricted only to desktop publication (DTP). As the compatibility factor has come as a major handicap, the use is becoming more restricted in day-to-day life. The state government should come forward to facilitate a software so that the fonts can be used through a uniform system,’’ said linguist and founding director of the Mysore-based Central Institute of Indian Languages, Debi Prasanna Pattanayak.<br /><br />Subhashish Panigrahi, a Bangalore-based IT professional who is now working on a project for Wikipedia Foundation, said: “Different fonts in Odia came to existence quite late and all were based on the skeleton of Latin fonts so that when one types an English font on the keyboard, the screen shows an Odia font. Later, unicode fonts were developed, which were not only compatible to the Internet, but had elements common with other Indian languages as well.”<br /><br />Odia publishers did not agree to use the unicode fonts as they were using customised softwares. For this reason, the published books and literature fails to reach the Internet.<br /><br />In 2011, Srujanika, a city-based organisation, developed a converter to use fonts from other categories to unicode type.<br /><br />Sujata Patel, chief operating officer of Pune -based Tech Z Solution, said: “The affordability of Odia tools and fonts is a major concern. As they are developed by non-Odia professionals, the aesthetic aspect of Odia fonts and characters are not being taken into consideration.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Subrat Prusty, member secretary Institute of Odia Studies and Research, said: “Odia is yet to come to the computer screen on different software tools which are used for tables, Internet applications, medical, engineering and business applications.”<br /><br />“Despite having hundreds of engineering colleges, two technical universities and 10 universities we are yet to use Odia in computers,” Prusty added.<br /><br />Researchers from US, Singapore, IITs, central universities, IT professionals, linguists, artistes, educationists and students of computer applications took part in the workshop that was organised at the computer science department of the Institute of Technical and Education and Research of Sikhya O Anusandhan University.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-7-2014-bibhuti-barik-font-problem-hits-odia'>https://cis-india.org/news/the-telegraph-july-7-2014-bibhuti-barik-font-problem-hits-odia</a>
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