Centre for Internet and Society

Nichole Saad from the Wikimedia Foundation visits Christ University

manasarao — 2017-12-17T19:01:04Z

Nichole Saad, Program Manager, Wikipedia Education Program, Wikimedia Foundation visited Christ University, Bengaluru to conduct a periodic review of the Wikipedia Education Program. The meeting was conducted along with CIS-A2K and Department of Language faculty: Dr. Mallika Krishnaswami, Dr. K.A. Sebastian, Dr. Rathi and Dr. Shivaprasad.

The review kicked off with an introduction to Ms. Saad regarding the work that has been going on at the University. Registrar, Dr. Anil Pinto addressed the gathering of faculty of the Department of Languages and CIS-A2K team members. Student representative Shamama was also present.

Upon giving an introduction to the University itself, Dr. Pinto spoke about the genesis of the Program which was, at its heart, a loss of interest in languages. He spoke of the various ways in which the program has engaged with language: promoting science in regional language, publishing Christ University books on Wikisource, digitising old/ rare books, in addition to editing of articles, creating articles and creating articles in their specialities. On the future of the program, he felt that moving ahead to asking "faculty member in other disciplines if they can accept assignments submitted in languages other than English(despite the fact that the medium of instruction is English)” would be a good way forward. Dr. Pinto continued, “Wikipedia is the best tool available to us to go digital. We are happy that Wikipedia builds in the process and our students also learn.” He said that there were also plans to get all PhD students to go through a Wikipedia workshop to create knowledge specific to their subject.

Speaking next, Tanveer, Program Manager, CIS-A2K, expressed his gratitude to Christ University for enabling CIS-A2K to conduct the Wikipedia Education program at the University. He pointed out that even before the WMF started thinking about the New Readers program, CIS-A2K had engaging students at Christ University who had not previously engaged with Wikipedia. This marked a shifting away from digital learning to critical thinking in knowledge production and creation.

Just as in other WEP programs, there has been an inclination towards a specific topic. For example, Pune University has been working on gender. When this all comes together, it gives a composite view of knowledge production in indian language. There is also the need to escalate the discussion to a core academic level- a fruitful engagement mode with different points of view.

CIS-A2K’s WEP interventions have also been offering certificate courses for students as well as internships in order to understand a) the work their peers have done and b) the value addition they can do. This is exciting because this results in a large outreach and lends to learn and thinking on our feet constantly. As with every intervention, there are challenges that astonish that we need to think about and integrate into our work. In conclusion, he pointed out that the WEP at Christ is a challenge that CIS-A2K relishes.

The attendees further discussed the need to not only keep the community abreast of WEP activities but to also acknowledge and understand the feeling of ownership that comes with working on Wikimedia projects. Another commendable feature of the WEP at Christ remains the fact that students take on the role of campus ambassadors. The outcomes of the program have been documented in the Kannada media with a paper presentation as well. The attendees discussed possible research outputs as well.

Finally, Ms. Saad spoke of the importance of sharing wisdom and experiences in review meetings like these. She said that the focus of the Wikimedia movement is to go to places where people don’t have access and go to marginalised communities and make education accessible to them. This has the potential to change people’s lives as they will get access to information and skills to navigate a digitally literate world. Ms. Saad also spoke about using Wikimedia projects in classrooms. She said, “it can’t happen overnight, can’t become familiar with it right away or comfortable with it. However with pioneers like Christ University in this space, who areopen minded to it, the impact is greater than just number and statistics."

During the later sessions, Ms. Saad conducted activities that enabled students to ponder the following questions:

how can technology enrich the learning of students in India?
what are WEP challenges in India
what are some of the improvements you would need to make WEP better?

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/nichole-saad-from-the-wikimedia-foundation-visits-christ-university

Christ University Wikipedia Education Program Internship

manasarao — 2017-12-14T08:55:05Z

The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge program, in partnership with Christ University, is announcing its annual internship program for the 1200 students enrolled in the Wikipedia Education Program. The Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University, now in its fourth year, is an effort to bring together educators and students to use Wikipedia as an educational implement. CIS-A2K conducts the internship activity for passionate Christ University students to improve the quality of the articles created or edited by their fellow WEP peers. The internship will largely involve improving upon the articles created by their peers as well as gathering community consensus based on which these articles would be moved to the main namespace.

The students will be working on Wikipedia over the course of 21 days in developing upon the content created by Christ University Wikipedia Education Program participants. The fledgling articles currently housed in the individual “sandboxes” of the WEP participants will be improved upon by the interns through addition of detailed content, images and info-boxes.

The students are selected based on three main criteria: fluency of language(written and spoken), knowledge of Wikipedia and its processes, and their personal interest levels. The applications are open from 13 to 17 December, 2017. Interested students can apply here:

https://goo.gl/forms/Ffxh3T3DRZz8Q25F3

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/christ-university-wikipedia-education-program-internship-1

Wikipedia Orientation Program at Rotary Club of Salem

manasarao — 2017-12-11T15:52:12Z

CIS-A2K in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop for student members of the club.

Over the December 9- 10 weekend, CIS-A2K, in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Salem, Tamil Nadu conducted a two-day Wikipedia orientation workshop. This workshop focussed on teaching the basics of Wikipedia to all the student members of the club. The overwhelming participation of women volunteers was the highlight of the event. The workshop was organised by the Rotary Club while Salem Tamil Sangam also lent its support to the program. The President of the Rotary Club of Salem implored the students to contribute to the Tamil language by involving themselves more deeply with the Wikimedia projects.

With 13 female participants and 10 male participants, the participants were upbeat throughout both days. Veteran Tamil Wikipedian, Tamil Parithi acted as resource person along with CIS-A2K. Mr. Parithi explained the philosophy and history of the free knowledge movement which he felt was essential to the understanding of the wider Wikimedia movement. Usha Sanghamitra, a participant, reflects, "I previously thought some company was doing this but I am glad to note that it is people like you and me that are editing this information and creating such knowledge resources. I will surely take this up and continue to engage with Wikipedia."

A follow-up workshop is on the cards in December 2017.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-orientation-program-at-rotary-club-of-salem

Wikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University

manasarao — 2017-12-19T16:03:48Z

A Wikimedia Technical Workshop was conducted between 27- 28 November, 2017 at the Department of Mathematics, Savitribai Phule Pune University. The objective of the workshops was us to understand how Wikipedia works and what career opportunities there are related to Wikipedia and how one can contribute to and enrich the open source knowledge for the benefit of all.

On the first day, the students were given an introduction to Wikimedia projects as well as Marathi Wikipedia. They were also taught account creation and given a general introduction to Wikipedia , MediaWiki, and wikis in addition to Wikipedia structure, article structure, name spaces, common.css and common.js pages, and gagdets. In the post-lunch session the participants were given an introduction to gadgets, scripts, tool and bots.

On the second day, the participants continued where they left off by learning about advanced tools and bots like Archive Bot, Sign bot, Anti-vandalism bots as well as Phabricator. Finally, the session ended with talks about future projects and activities.

22 participants attended the event.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university

Marathi Wikipedia workshop for Sandarbh Science magazine writers

manasarao — 2017-12-19T15:53:30Z

A Marathi Wikipedia workshop was recently conducted for the writers at Sandarbh Science magazine.

On 18 November, a introductory Wikimedia workshop was conducted for the writers at Sandarbh Science magazine.

Sandarbh Society is a registered society and public trust established with the main objective of publication on science and education. They also conduct lectures, demonstrations, workshops and other such activities in addition to networking of school teachers interested in bringing in innovative approaches in education.

The workshop was aimed at introducing Wikimedia projects and creating/editing Wikipedia articles to the writers. Participants were completely unaware about Marathi Wikipedia and editing. They were trained in basic editing skills and search for the concerned articles, categorisation and translation from other language wikipedias. Participants worked on articles and made edits. Images were also added to Commons and into articles. 59 articles were edited. 11 participants took part in the event.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-workshop-for-sandarbh-science-magazine-writers

CIS-A2K signs MoU with Telangana Government

manasarao — 2017-11-08T10:08:20Z

The Centre for Internet and Society recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Telangana Government’s IT, Electronics & Communications Department with an aim to catalyse the development of the Wikimedia movement in Telangana and improve the state of free-licensed digital content in Telugu and Urdu. The Principal Secretary for IT Department Mr. Jayesh Ranjan and renowned Telugu Wikimedian and Theatre Scholar Pranay Raj were present for the occasion. Mr. Konatham Dileep, Director (Digital Media), IT Department and CIS-A2K Telugu Community Advocate Pavan Santhosh were signatories to the memorandum.

This MoU is the result of successive meetings between the Digital Media wing and Telugu Wikipedians, CIS-A2K members and the Wikimedia Foundation. These discussions enabled all stakeholders to come up with a comprehensive plan to develop the free knowledge movement in Telugu and Urdu.

Katta Srinivas, a historian, teach and long time Telugu Wikipedian, says, “As one of the participants in earlier discussions with the government, I am happy to see progress in this respect. Especially, [the planned] photo archives of museums, photos of historical places and other events can be free-licensed as part of these initiatives. This decision can lead other government organizations to take up similar initiatives in India."

Apart from these, some of the planned activities include releasing encyclopedic photos and media content from government archives, increasing awareness about free licenses and Wikipedia among government officials, etc.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-a2k-signs-mou-with-telangana-government

Discussion on Creation of Social Media Guidelines & Strategy for Telugu Wikimedia

manasarao — 2017-10-24T14:42:24Z

Between 1 to 16 September, an online discussion took place on the creation of social media guidelines and strategy for Telugu Wikimedia handles online.

An online discussion of guidelines and policies for the various Telugu Wikimedia social media handles was conducted. User:Pavan santhosh.s suggested a set of strategies and guidelines that can be taken into consideration for an official Social Media Policy of Telugu Wikimedia Projects. These suggestions included defining objectives, guidelines (with do's and don'ts) and strategies for the Social Media Policy. User:Ravichandra supported the idea and suggested another objective(showcasing best quality works of Wikipedia). User:Viswanadh added some strategies (such as writing a series of posts about technical aspects that help Wikipedians). User:Pranayraj1985 suggested some don'ts in handling Wikipedia pages as well as handles while User:Rajasekhar1961 expanded the strategy to other sister projects(Telugu Wikisource and Wiktionary). Finally, User:Chaduvari suggested not to name any page as official to avoid possible conflicts. User:Swaralasika announced consensus and User:Pavan santhosh.s created a page based on the discussion in order for the community to reflect.

User:Pranayraj1985 said, "there are pages & groups for Telugu Wikipedia in Facebook for years. We are using them as major social media promotion channels. I(Pranay) am publishing content related to Telugu Wikipedia in those channels. Some of the community members also been admins of page and group. But once or twice, in Facebook page and group, unrelated posts were published and I informed this to Wikimedians active on Facebook and removed those posts. I am glad that this discussion happened and community came up with guidelines and strategy now. This is very much needed.

The guideline page can be found here.

Although the event was successful in creating guidelines, none of the input included women's voices as there were no female participants. Here's hoping there is a diversity of voices in future discussions.

With input from Pavan Santhosh S., Telugu Community Advocate, CIS-A2K.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/discussion-on-creation-of-social-media-guidelines-strategy-for-telugu-wikimedia

Odia Wikisource Turns 3

manasarao — 2017-10-23T05:40:20Z

Odia Wikisource, the Odia language version of Wikisource, an online digital library of free content textual sources run by the Wikimedia Foundation, celebrates three years of contributing to the free knowledge movement this October. Odia Wikisource is a sister project of Odia Wikipedia, the oldest Indian language Wikipedia. The Odia Wikimedia community, a group of active contributors to Odia Wikimedia projects in India, has been working towards digitizing rare books that are no longer under copyright as well as encouraging authors and publishers to free-license their work under the Creative Commons ShareAlike License 4.0. This license allows anyone free use of the work with due attribution. The books are usually digitized into Unicode text by scanning them using Optical Character Recognition technique. This ensures their easy accessibility on the Internet so that people may easily copy, share and use these works for citations and references. If the books are damaged to a degree that they cannot be scanned, volunteers take the painstaking effort to manually type out whole books and manuscripts.

Odia Wikisource contributors/ CCBYSA4.0 User:Psubhashish

The Odia Wikisource project was realized on 20 October, 2014 after a two-year incubation period. Says Pankajmala Sarangi, long time Odia Wikimedian active on Wikisource, "since [2014] more than 300 old and rare books have been digitised and made available online. Before that, searching [for] a book in Odia was not possible even if it existed in pdf or some other format. Now it has become easy and all the books available on Wikisouce are easily searchable." In addition to digitization, the Odia Wikimedia community members conduct regular quality checks of the content from time to time by ensuring proper licensing, attributions and other errors that may be avoided by thorough proof-reading. While these quality checks follow global guidelines that have been localised to help volunteers prevent vandalism of any form, it has not been without its challenges. Ms. Pankajmala explains that the lack of Odia text on operating systems is problematic for access and availability.

Despite the challenges, Odia Wikisource counts amongst its accomplishments the digitization of a twelve volume 14th century Odia classic as well as 16th century palm leaf manuscripts from the Dadhibaman Temple in Bargarh, Odisha. Taking the movement to classrooms, Odia Wikisource was introduced to students of the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to pique the interest of young minds in the preservation of Odia language texts online. The many advantages of Odia Wikisource has also been illustrated to institutions with the Utkal University library encouraging the digitization of their rare books and manuscripts by Odia Wikimedians.

Sangram Keshari Senapati, another active Odia Wikimedian explains that Odia Wikisource is important for the preservation of those books which run a high risk of being lost in the coming years. He says, "our future generation must get a chance to read them." Adding to this, Ms. Pankajmala says, "Sky is the limit for Odia wikisource. We will try to digitise more books, most probably triple the number of existing books. We'll even try to reach more libraries and authors and get more books and further digitize them. The number of wikimedians may also flourish till that time."

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikisource-turns-3

Marathi Wikipedia - Vishwakosh Workshop for Science writers in IUCAA, Pune

manasarao — 2017-12-20T02:42:39Z

A day-long workshop was organised for science writers at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-University_Centre_for_Astronomy_and_Astrophysics Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics], Pune on 7 October, 2017. Eminent astrophysicist-mathematician couple en:Jayant Narlikar|Jayant^[+] and en:Mangala Narlikar|Mangala Narlikar^[+] , and renowned ecologist en:Madhav Gadgil|Madhav Gadgil^[+] were among the dignitaries present at the event.

The workshop was planned in three sessions. Presentations and discussions were conducted in first session, while second session was focused on actual editing demonstrations on Wikipedia. In the same session the new websites based on different subjects developed by Marathi Vishwakosh were presented. The process of content contribution in text, images, audio and video forms was explained in this session. The third session was to explore networking with Dyanmandals formed by :en:Marathi Vishwakosh|Marathi Vishwakosh Nirmiti Mandal^[+] . Insisting the expertise of invited authors to contribute the articles in their own chosen fields in a well-structured format, this session will not only train the authors in content generation but also make them understand the expectations of laymen and common readers.

The mete page of the event is here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/marathi-wikipedia-vishwakosh-workshop-for-science-writers-in-iucaa-pune

Guest Blog: Retd. Col. Ashwin Baindur on Strategy, Wikimedia Strategy Salon, Vijayawada

manasarao — 2017-10-24T11:52:49Z

User:AshLin aka Col Ashwin Baindur (retd) gave a Plenary Speech(in absentia) on Strategy at the Wikimedia Movement Strategy Salon, held in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh on 27 August 2017. It is reproduced here with permission:

Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and my dear Wikimedia friends and colleagues,

I am deeply honoured to be asked to say the opening words for the Movement Strategy Salon being held today at Vijayawada. The problems of ill health prevent me from coming to be with you as I most dearly wish, but I do hope my few words and thoughts will make do instead. Let me introduce myself. I happen to be a retired army officer but I see myself as a citizen of the world, as a Wikipedian whose cherished dream is to make Jimmy Wales dream come true.

“Imagine a world where the sum of all knowledge is available to all mankind!”

The occasion for this conclave or salon is timely. The twenty first century paradigm of Open Culture, of sharing and collective intelligence are well established. Crowdsourcing, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive and so many other important global resources are proof.

Education has received a huge fillip by the vastly increased amounts of data and knowledge on the Internet. Open sourcing has made its mark in the software side of the business world. Just as has open access publishing in Academia. Society as a whole has gained by all these manifestations of open culture.

And today, we are gathered here to begin thinking on the directions for the future of the Wikimedia movement in India.

What does this mean in our case? India is a country of many languages, dialects, people, communities, religions, tribes. Along with this are the collective efforts of 1.3 billion people to make a secular, democratic, economically strong nation. The ability to share learning, understanding, experiences are key to this process. And for this, collaboration is a vital necessity.

As of now the Wikimedia effort in India consists of a potpourri of projects, encyclopedia, quote, text repository and the use of Wikimedia Commons as a media repository. We have to grow this into a large, useful and versatile resource in each of our Indic languages.

The Wikimedians, a small band of volunteers to date, must take along the entire society of India so that we have betterment as a nation by first creating and using these resources. And today’s conclave with kindred souls from society, academia, industry.. is a beginning in this regard.

Now we are here to think what directions this Movement must take. I am envious that I can’t be part of this process with you. However, as a retired military person, let me say a few words on strategy and how it is decided.

All planning occurs at three levels. The most basic of activities to be done are referred to as tactics. Tactics are governed by operational planning which comprises of a worked out plan of how to achieve the overall plan or the goal.

The deciding of this overall plan or goal is referred to as strategy.

To be more specific..

“a high level plan to achieve one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty..”

And when we do this for a long period of the future, it is more appropriately termed as ‘grand strategy".

For this we have to ponder - What is our aim? What are our strengths? What are our challenges? What are our opportunities? What are our resources and what are our constraints? What path should we take to achieve our aim?

These are to be reduced into a few directions which are broad based, actionable and full of potential. A good strategy must open huge opportunities, new fields, new possibilities.

The is not easy to do or quick to make. It will take more than one session, more than one day, week or even a month to get our strategy right.

Most important of all is that we learn to think in the new paradigm of sharing and open culture. We should leave behind the mindset of scarcity, possessiveness and personal benefit and embrace the values of the common good, creation of opportunities and innovation.

On our success in making a good strategy, depends the fate of millions of our children and youth who will either benefit from our decisions or lose opportunities if we are not wise and generous. We have to believe in the future. We have to want to make that future great for our nation.

I wish you the very best in this endeavour. I repeat, that I am envious that I can't be with you today. I pray that the things we decide from today onward in this process of grand strategy for the Wikimedia movement in the decades to come.

At the very end, I would like to thank the Wikimedia movement in India, CIS-India, the organisers of this salon and of course, my young friend Krishna Chaitanya Velaga for this opportunity.

Jai Hind!

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/guest-blog-retd-col-ashwin-baindur-on-strategy-wikimedia-strategy-salon-vijayawada

Learning by doing/ Image By सुबोध कुलकर्णी/ CC BY-SA 4.0

manasarao — 2017-04-16T14:12:30Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Learning_while_doing.jpg