Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University

The collaborative project was launched with orientation programme and Wikipedia workshop for the selected students and faculty on 18 & 19 July 2019. The detailed discussions with Vice Chancellor, Registrar, Head of the departments, faculty and administrative staff were held to finalise the terms of collaboration, operational framework and action plan for the academic year. The deliberations are given in the following sections.

Collaborative open knowledge creation by PAHSUS and CIS-A2K

The MoU was done because CIS and PAHSUS have found common cause in free and open knowledge generation and dissemination. This MoU stipulates the scope of collaboration between these two entities and terms and conditions of conducting the collaborative activities.

Terms of Collaboration

1. To promote content generation in Indian language, especially Marathi Wikimedia projects (projects such as Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata etc. https://www.wikimedia.org/) among the institutions under University affiliation.
2. To organise awareness programs and training workshops to achieve this. For consistent and dedicated efforts, mechanism of subject experts and coordinators will be developed.
3. To integrate the academic assignments, projects etc. with knowledge building in Wikimedia projects e.g. Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons.
4. To facilitate content donation in the form of published thesis, University publications to free library - Wikisource. To write well referenced articles based on these research work.
5. To develop platform in University for outreach programs on Digital knowledge, Language & technologies, FOSS, Unicode etc. To involve other stakeholders in knowledge business like publishers, writers, printers, designers in these programs.
6. To take lead in accommodating open knowledge concepts, locally relevant content generation practices while designing the courses.

Operational Framework

1. A core team shall be constituted by representatives of this MoU for realization of the objectives of this MoU.
2. The core team shall prepare an action plan with specific goals for achieving the objectives of the proposal and the MoU. They shall take into consideration the academic, commercial and legal aspects of this co-operation. The action plan or work plan may be modified or improved during the academic year according to the needs-assessment of the students, and the core team’s analysis.
3. The proposed action plan shall be reviewed and approved by representatives of both parties.
4. The core team shall be supported and authorised by the University Administration to take all necessary actions to implement the action plan in an effective, speedy and dynamic manner.
5. Program expense sharing shall be decided on a case to case basis by the core team.

Some highlights of proposed action plan

• Each department of PAHSUS will facilitate creation of 10 Wikipedia articles related to their course by the students. This activity will be taken up in first semester. The articles will be created on user sandbox or on Google Docs. After review, the articles will be moved to Wikipedia mainspace.
• The projects on museum, library and archives will be taken up in the second semester by the groups of students. The photos and other media will be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons and other sister projects after analysing encyclopedic quality of these content.
• PAHSUS will issue a circular for selected affiliated colleges in Maharashtra to participate actively in free knowledge creation and the Wikimedia movement. The technical support will be arranged by both the parties.
• The digitisation of copyright free books in the library will be taken up under ‘Earn & Learn Scheme’. The books will be uploaded in free library - Wikisource.

Orientation Programme

The orientation programme on Wikimedia projects was conducted on 18 July for faculty and students from 4 departments. The objective was to give perspective of content generation in Wiki projects along with academics. Marathi Wikipedian Arvind Bagale shared his Wiki experiences in this session. Around 50 participants attended this session.

Wikipedia Workshop

The Wikipedia workshop for selected students of 3 departments and faculty was organised on 19 July 2019 in the Mass Communication department. Total 15 participants actively contributed to Wikipedia & Commons. Marathi Wikipedian Arvind Bagale facilitated the training process.

Media Coverage

News in Lokmat Newspaper

See the report on Wikipedia page