Centre for Internet and Society

International Space Apps Challenge

praskrishna — 2012-04-10T05:18:14Z

The International Space Apps Challenge is an international codeathon-style event that will take place over a 48 hour period in cities on all seven continents – and in space – on the weekend of April 21-22, 2012. The event embraces collaborative problem solving with a goal of producing solutions to global challenges. The Centre for Internet & Society is organising the event in Bangalore.

Background

On September 20, 2011, President Obama, together with other heads of state, endorsed the principles of the Open Government Partnership – a new multilateral initiative to promote transparency, participation and collaboration between governments and citizens. Since then, 52 countries have joined the global partnership.

NASA is working with organizations around the world on the International Space Apps Challenge as part of the United States’ domestic commitment to the Open Government Partnership.

How it Works?

Participants such as concerned citizens, discipline experts, engineers, scientists, and software code developers attend events hosted in cities around the world. At these events, individuals collaborate with others by forming teams focused on solving a particular challenge. The teams compete with other teams around the world to utilize publicly available data to design innovative “solutions” to a pre-determined series of global “challenges.” The challenges are collected prior to the event from supporting organizations.

Challenges

Challenges are grouped into four broad categories:

Software Development
Open Hardware
Citizen Science Platforms!
Data Visualization!

It’s not just about smart phone applications! The International Space Apps.

Challenge will provide solutions that:

Address strategic exploration needs!
Address strategic social needs (life on Earth)

To date, 50+ challenges have been submitted. These challenges are being vetted with development communities such as the Yahoo! Developer Network to refine them prior to the event.

Benefits

Some benefits of the International Space Apps Challenge include:

Visible demonstration of a government’s interest in using publicly available data, in partnership with others, to address global needs.
Opportunity for citizens in countries with little or no investment in space exploration to contribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and code development.
Promotion of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by encouraging students from around the world to utilize publicly available data for solutions to global challenges.
Encouragement of international partnership and mutual understanding.
Demonstration of commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership.

Sample Event Agenda

	Saturday, April 21
09:00	Registration
10:00	Schedule and logistics announcements
10:30	Subject Matter Expert briefing
11:00	Begin developing
12:30	Lunch break 13:30 Developing continued
16:30	Optional progress briefing, more developing
18:30	Dinner break
20:00	More developing
	Sunday, April 22
10:00	Logistics briefing & updates
10:15	Begin developing
12:00	Submission Deadline
12:00	Lunch break
13:30	Presentations
15:00	Judges Voting
15:30	Awards
16:00	Post event social

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the International Space Apps Challenge?
The International Space Apps Challenge is a 2 day technology development event during which citizens from around the world will work together to solve current challenges relevant to both space exploration and social need.
When will it take place?
The International Space Apps Challenge will take place on all seven continents – and in space - on 21-22 April 2012.
Who is leading the Challenge?
On September 20, 2011, President Obama, together with other heads of state, endorsed the principles of the Open Government Partnership – a new multilateral initiative to promote transparency, participation and collaboration between governments and citizens. Since then, 52 countries have joined the global partnership. NASA is working with other organizations around the world on the International Space Apps Challenge as part of the United States’ domestic commitments to the Open Government Partnership.
Who can participate in the Challenge?
Anyone can participate in the International Space Apps Challenge. It requires individuals with a broad range of skills. We are looking for engineers, technologists, scientists, designers, artists, educators, students, entrepreneurs – anyone who has a passion for changing the world and is willing to contribute.
Why should I participate in the Challenge?
You should participate in the Challenge because the toughest challenges of the world are not one nation’s alone, and this is a unique opportunity to develop technology to reach the human race and make the world a better place. Additionally, the Challenge is an opportunity to:
1. Demonstrate a commitment to the principles of the Open Government Partnership.
2. Exercise a government’s interest in using open data and technology, in partnership with others, to address global needs.
3. Engage citizens in countries with little or no investments in space exploration to contribute to space exploration through open source, open data, and code development.
4. Promote Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education by encouraging students from around the world to utilize open technology for solutions to global challenges.
5. Encourage international partnership and mutual understanding.
What challenges will be addressed at the event?
Challenges are in development from a wide variety of sources inside and outside of NASA. An initial set has been posted on the site and the community is invited to help develop them collaboratively there. New challenges will continue to be added on a weekly basis in anticipation of the event. To discuss contributing additional challenges or datasets, contact alicia.llewellyn-1@nasa.gov.
Where will the Challenge take place?
Locations in which events are currently planned to be held include San Francisco, US; Tokyo, Japan; Melbourne and Canberra, Australia; Jakarta, Indonesia; Exeter and Oxford, UK; Nairobi, Kenya; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; and McMurdo Station, Antarctica. There will be additional events throughout the world and participation by astronauts on the International Space Station.
What is a codeathon?
A codeathon is a unique event that brings together citizens interested in collaborating on the development solutions that address critical challenges. A codeathon celebrates software development in its most positive context—using minimal resources and maximum brainpower to create outside- the-box solutions in response to interesting problems. Codathons are technology development marathons, drawing on the talents and initiative of the best and the brightest software developers, engineers, designers and technologists from around the world, who volunteer their time to respond to real- world problems with solutions than can have immediate impact. The International Space Apps Challenge is a “codeathon-style” event.
Is the event limited to just software development?
No! Participants in the event will collaborate to build software, open hardware, data visualization, and citizen science platform solutions that contribute to space exploration and solve global challenges that focus on improving life on earth.
What happens at the event?
At the events, individuals collaborate with others by forming teams focused on solving a particular challenge. The teams compete with other teams around the world to utilize publicly available space and data to design innovative “solutions” to a pre- determined series of global “challenges.”
What about licensing and IP rights?
All solutions built at the event must be submitted under a license that permits the free and open dissemination of the work. NASA and the other supporting organizations do not own the rights to nor are committed to utilize any solution developed during the event.
Who organizes the events in each city?
Each event is led as a collaboration between organizations who work together to host an event, mobilize the developer community and contribute to the overall success of the International Space Apps Challenge.
How can organizations get involved?
There is still an opportunity to participate in the International Space Apps Challenge and contribute to an event in your country. We are looking for organizations who are interested in supporting events in cities around the world, as well as for subject matter experts who can share their expertise at the event, either in person or remotely. To express interest in supporting an event in your country, contact elizabeth.sabet@secondmuse.com or kristen.m.painting@nasa.gov

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/international-space-apps-challenge

International School at the Digital Media program of the University of Texas at Austin - Portugal Collaboratory (CoLab)

sachia — 2011-04-02T16:08:59Z

Applications are now open for the first International School on Digital Transformation, to be held July 19-24, 2009, at the University of Porto in Porto, Portugal. The School is accepting applications from advanced students and recent graduates from around the world with an interest in how digital technologies are changing societies and the world as a whole.

The International School on Digital Transformation will be an intensive six-day residential program, conducted in English and bringing together emerging and established scholars and professionals from around the world. During the week-long session, innovators in digital communications will serve as teachers and mentors, presenting their current projects and research and participating in discussions with advanced students and professionals beginning careers in the field. Presenters and students will be regarded as peers during the School.

The School will focus on these themes:

• Democratic transformations of society through digital media
• Innovations in transparency and political participation using new online tools
• Grassroots civic activities using digital technologies
• Building effective communities with the Internet
• Reaching out to new users with mobile and online technologies
• Prospects for digital communication in developing regions
• Digital arts and culture in a globalized, online world

The goals of the International School include:

Combining lectures on current research and innovation with practical experience, using accessible, low-cost digital technologies
Providing an informal venue for sharing expertise, perspectives, and best practices and for mentoring advanced students
Fostering a sustainable network of scholars and activists in the field of digital technology, communication and social change

Program

The basic daily schedule will consist of one 90-minute session of lecture and discussion in the morning: free time for teachers and students to interact, converse and explore the city in the afternoon; and two more 90-minute lecture and discussion sessions in the evening, folowed by a communal meal.

The confirmed speakers for the International School on Digital Transformation include:

Sunil Abraham
Director of Policy at the Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India; and current board member of Mahiti Infotech
Patricia Aufderheide
Professor, School of Communication, American University; director,
Center for Social Media at American University
Warigia Bowman
Assistant Professor, Department of Public Policy Leadership,
University of Mississippi
Fiorella De Cindio
Associate Professor, Computer and Information Science Department,
University of Milan
Martha Fuentes-Bautista
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of
Massachusetts at Amherst
Stephanie Hankey/Marek Tuszynski (tentative)
Co-founders and directors, Tactical Technology Collective
Lisa Nakamura (associate faculty)
Professor, Institute of Communication Research; Director, Asian
American Studies Program, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tapan Parikh
Assistant Professor, School of Information, University of California
at Berkeley
Tiago Peixoto
Researcher, European University Institute, Florence, Italy
Alison Powell
SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, Oxford University
Andrew Rasiej
Founder of Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident
Nicholas Reville
Executive director, Participatory Culture Foundation
Scott Robinson
Professor, Department of Anthropology, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana
Jorge Martins Rosa
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences; Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon
Christian Sandvig
Associate Professor, Department of Communication; faculty member,
Project on Public Policy and Advanced Communication Technology,
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Doug Schuler
Program Director, Public Sphere Project, an initiative of Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility
Leslie Regan Shade
Associate Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Concordia University
Maripaz Silva (associate faculty)
Laura Stein
Assistant Professor, Radio-Television-Film Department, University of
Texas at Austin
Siva Vaidhyanathan
Associate Professor, University of Virginia, Media Studies and Law;
Fellow, Institute for the Future of the Book
Katrin Verclas
Co-founder and editor of Mobileactive.org

The International School on Digital Transformation is a program of the University of Texas Austin-Portugal Colaboratory, or CoLab. The co-directors of the School are Drs. Sharon Strover and Karen Gustafson, and Gary Chapman, of the University of Texas at Austin.

The School will be held at the Rectory, a building of the University of Porto in the center of the city. Student housing will consist of nearby hotels, and the cost of the School will include a shared hotel room, two meals per day (breakfast and dinner) and the program itself. The week will also include a cultural activity offered to all School participants.

The estimated cost of the International School on Digital Transformation will be between €300 and €400. Travel to Porto, Portugal, is not supported; students must find and pay for their own travel to Porto.

The student application, and more specific information for students, are available at this link.

Porto, Portugal

Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1996, Porto is known for its spectacular architecture and medieval alleyways, and it is also compact, allowing visitors to easily explore the central city on foot. Porto is on the Douro River and also near the Atlantic Ocean. It is famous for its port wine from the inland Portuguese wine region along the Douro River valley.

During the free afternoons, students and teachers may explore the sidewalk café culture on Santa Catarina Street, a nearby pedestrian shopping area, or walk across the Dom Luís I Bridge spanning the Douro River to the promenade, restaurants, and port houses in Vila Nova de Gaia, directly opposite central Porto. Short river cruises may be taken in barcos rabelos, flat-bottomed boats traditionally used to ferry shipments of port wine.

While Porto is famous for its ancient Roman ramparts and Gothic churches, it is also home to the Casa da Música concert hall, a superb example of modern architecture, finished in 2005, that has become an icon of the city. The Serralves Museum is a major cultural institution which hosts rotating exhibitions of contemporary art and which features a world-class garden.

In the late evenings, Porto hosts a thriving clubbing culture, and the city’s nightspots attract DJs from around the world.

Porto has an international airport and is also served by trains from Lisbon and from Spain. By train, Porto is approximately three and a half hours north of Lisbon.

Please direct questions regarding the program to Karen Gustafson, at kegustafson@mail.utexas.edu.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/international-school-at-the-digital-media-program-of-the-university-of-texas-at-austin-portugal-collaboratory-colab-1

International Open Data Charter: First Public Draft

sumandro — 2015-06-02T15:51:12Z

The first public draft of the International Open Data Charter was released at the International Open Data Conference in Ottawa, Canada, May 28-29, 2015. It is being developed by a range of organisations led by the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Open Data Working Group (co-chaired by Government of Canada and the Web Foundation), the Government of Mexico, the Open Data for Development (OD4D) Network, and Omidyar Network. CIS has contributed comments to a previous version of the draft, and also took part in the pre-release meeting of potential stewards of the Charter on May 26 in Ottawa. Here is the text of the draft Charter. Please visit opendatacharter.net/charter/ to submit your comments.

Consultation Draft, May 2015

Preamble

1) The world is witnessing the growth of a global movement facilitated by technology and digital media and fuelled by information – one that contains enormous potential to create more accountable, efficient, responsive, and effective governments and businesses, and to spur economic growth.

Open data sit at the heart of this global movement.

2) Building a more democratic, just, and prosperous society requires transparent, accountable governments that engage regularly and meaningfully with citizens. Accordingly, there is an ongoing effort to enable collaboration around key social challenges, to provide effective oversight of government activities, to support economic development through innovation, and to develop effective, efficient public policies and programmes.

Open data is essential to meeting these challenges.

3) Effective access to data allows individuals and organisations to develop new insights and innovations that can generate social and economic benefits to improve the lives of people around the world, and help to improve the flow of information within and between countries. While governments collect a wide range of data, they do not always share these data in ways that are easily discoverable, useable, or understandable by the public.

This is a missed opportunity.

4) Today, many people expect to be able to access high quality information and services, including government data, when and how they want. Others see the opportunity presented by government data as one which can provide innovative policy solutions and support economic and social benefits for all members of society. We have arrived at a point at which people can use open data to generate value, insights, ideas, and services to create a better world for all.

5) Open data can increase transparency around what government is doing. Open data can also increase awareness about how countries’ natural resources are used, how extractives revenues are spent, and how land is transacted and managed – all of which promotes accountability and good governance, enhances public debate, and helps to combat corruption.

6) Providing access to government data can drive sustainable and inclusive growth by empowering citizens, the media, civil society, and the private sector to identify gaps, and work toward better outcomes for public services in areas such as health, education, public safety, environmental protection, and governance. Open data can do this by:

showing how and where public money is spent, which provides strong incentives for governments to demonstrate that they are using public money effectively;
supporting citizens, civil society organisations, governments and the private sector to collaborate on the design of policies and the delivery of better public services;
supporting assessments of the impact of public programs, which in turn allows governments, civil society organisations, and the private sector to respond more effectively to the particular needs of local communities; and
enabling citizens to make better informed choices about the services they receive and the service standards they should expect.

7) Open government data can be used in innovative ways to create useful tools and products that help to navigate modern life more easily. Used in this way, open data are a catalyst for innovation in the private sector, supporting the creation of new markets, businesses, and jobs. These benefits can multiply as more private sector and civil society organisations adopt open data practices modelled by government and share their own data with the public.

8) We, the adherents to the International Open Data Charter, agree that open data are an under-used resource with huge potential to encourage the building of stronger, more interconnected societies that better meet the needs of our citizens and allow innovation and prosperity to flourish.

9) We therefore agree to follow a set of principles that will be the foundation for access to, and the release and use of, open government data. These principles are:

Open Data by Default;
Quality and Quantity;
Accessible and Useable by All;
Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens;
Collaboration for Development and Innovation;

10) We will develop an action plan in support of the implementation of the Charter and its Technical Annexes, and will update and renew the action plan at a minimum of every two years. We agree to commit the necessary resources to work within our political and legal frameworks to implement these principles in accordance with the technical best practices and timeframes set out in our action plan.

Principle 1: Open Data by Default

11) We recognise that free access to, and the subsequent use of, government data are of significant value to society and the economy, and that government data should, therefore, be open by default.

12) We acknowledge the need to promote the global development and adoption of tools and policies for the creation, use, and exchange of open data and information.

13) We recognise that the term ‘government data’ is meant in the widest sense possible. This could apply to data held by national, federal, and local governments, international government bodies, and other types of institutions in the wider public sector. This could also apply to data created for governments by external organisations, and data of significant benefit to the public which is held by external organisations and related to government programmes and services (e.g. data on extractives entities, data on transportation infrastructure, etc).

14) We recognise that there is domestic and international legislation, in particular pertaining to security, privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, and personally-identifiable and other sensitive information, which must be observed and/or updated where necessary.

15) We will:

develop and adopt policies and practices to ensure that all government data is made open by default, as outlined in this Charter, while recognising that there are legitimate reasons why some data cannot be released;
provide clear justifications as to why certain data cannot be released;
establish a culture of openness, not only through legislative or policy measures, but also with the help of training and awareness programs, tools, and guidelines designed to make government, civil society, and private sector representatives aware of the benefits of open data; and
develop the leadership, management, oversight, and internal communication policies necessary to enable this transition to a culture of openness.

Principle 2: Quality and Quantity

16) We recognise that governments and other public sector organisations hold vast amounts of information that may be of interest to citizens, and that it may take time to identify data for release or publication.

17) We also recognise the importance of consulting with citizens, other governments, non-governmental organisations, and other open data users, to identify which data to prioritise for release and/or improvement.

18) We agree, however, that governments’ primary responsibility should be to release data in a timely manner, without undue delay.

19) We will:

create, maintain, and share public, comprehensive lists of data holdings to set the stage for meaningful public discussions around data prioritisation and release;
release high-quality open data that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate in accordance with prioritisation that is informed by public requests. To the extent possible, data will be released in their original, unmodified form and at the finest level of granularity available, and will also be linked to any visualisations or analyses created based on the data, as well as any relevant guidance or documentation;
ensure that accompanying documentation is written in clear, plain language, so that it can be easily understood by all;
make sure that data are fully described, and that data users have sufficient information to understand their source, strengths, weaknesses, and any analytical limitations;
ensure that open datasets include consistent core metadata, and are made available in human- and machine-readable formats under an open and unrestrictive licence;
allow users to provide feedback, and continue to make revisions to ensure the quality of the data is improved as needed; and
apply consistent information lifecycle management practices, and ensure historical copies of datasets are preserved, archived, and kept accessible as long as they retain value.

Principle 3: Accessible and Usable by All

20) We recognise that opening up data enables citizens, governments, civil society organisations, and the private sector to make better informed decisions.

21) We recognise that open data should be made available free of charge in order to encourage their widest possible use.

22) We recognise that when open data are released, they should be made available without bureaucratic or administrative barriers, such as mandatory user registration, which can deter people from accessing the data.

23) We will:

release data in open formats and free of charge to ensure that the data are available to the widest range of users to find, access, and use them. In many cases, this will include providing data in multiple formats, so that they can be processed by computers and used by people; and
ensure data can be accessed and used effectively by the widest range of users. This may require the creation of initiatives to raise awareness of open data, promote data literacy, and build capacity for effective use of open data.

Principle 4: Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens

24) We recognise that the release of open data strengthens our public and democratic institutions, encourages better development, implementation, and assessment of policies to meet the needs of our citizens, and enables more meaningful, better informed engagement between governments and citizens.

25) We will:

implement oversight and review processes to report regularly on the progress and impact of our open data initiatives;
engage with community and civil society representatives working in the domain of transparency and accountability to determine what data they need to effectively hold governments to account;encourage the use of open data to develop innovative, evidence-based policy solutions that benefit all members of society, as well as empower marginalised groups; and
be transparent about our own data collection, standards, and publishing processes, by documenting all of these related processes online.

Principle 5: Collaboration for Development and Innovation

26) We recognise the importance of diversity in stimulating creativity and innovation. The more citizens, governments, civil society, and the private sector use open data, the greater the social and economic benefits that will be generated. This is true for government, commercial, and non-commercial uses.

27) We recognise that the potential value of our open data is greatly increased when it can be used in combination with open data from other governments, the private sector, academic, media, civil society, and other non-governmental organisations.

28) We will:

create or explore potential partnerships to support the release of open data and maximise their impact through effective use. This may include local, regional, and global partnerships between governments, civil society, and the private sector;
engage with civil society, the private sector, and academic representatives to determine what data they need to generate social and economic value;
provide training programs, tools, and guidelines designed to ensure government employees are capable of using open data effectively in policy development processes;
encourage non-governmental organisations to open up data created and collected by them in order to move toward a richer open data ecosystem with multiple sources of open data;
share technical expertise and experience with other governments and international organisations around the world, so that everyone can reap the benefits of open data; and
empower a future generation of data innovators inside and outside of government by supporting an environment optimised for increasing open data literacy and encouraging developers, civil society organisations, academics, media representatives, government employees, and other open data users, to unlock the value of open data.

Crossposted from http://opendatacharter.net/charter/.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/international-open-data-charter-first-public-draft

International Open Data Charter: Comments by CIS

sumandro — 2015-09-08T11:01:01Z

The second meeting of Stewards of the International Open Data Charter is in progress in Santiago, Chile, where the revisions made to the Charter based on the comments received during the public consultation period that ended on July 31, 2015, are being re-discussed and finalised by the Stewards. Here we are sharing the comments submitted by us on the first public draft of the Charter published during the International Open Data Conference in Ottawa, Canada, in May 2015. The comments include those submitted by Sumandro and Sharath Chandra Ram.

The draft International Open Data Charter and all the submitted comments can be accessed here: http://opendatacharter.net/charter/

Comments on the Public Draft

Note: The text below contains excerpts from the public draft of the Charter, followed by submitted comments in bold.

The word ‘movement’ can perhaps be replaced by ‘transformation.’ ‘Movement’ tends to suggest some kind of unity of purpose or objective, which is not perhaps what is meant here. Also, is it possible to add ‘transparent’ to ‘accountable, efficient, responsive, and effective’?

Open data sit at the heart of this global movement.

Perhaps ‘transformation’ and not ‘movement’.

Perhaps insert ‘sustainable’ before ‘economic development’. In the second sentence, none of the action phrases (‘enable collaboration’ and ‘effective oversight’ and ‘innovation’ and ‘develop effective, efficient’) are speaking about either democracy or justice. The focus seems to be completely on effectiveness. Phrases like ‘transparent’, ‘accountable’, and ‘participatory’ should be introduced here.

Open data is essential to meeting these challenges.

The above point clarifies why ‘data is essential’ but not why ‘open data is essential’. The connection between democracy and justice on one hand, and open data on the other is not yet articulated clearly.

Along with allowing ‘insights’ and ‘innovations’ to develop, can it also be highlighted that open data make decisions and processes transparent?

This is a missed opportunity.

I agree with above comments that it is perhaps better to articulate this not as ‘missed opportunity’ but to highlight this as the very ‘opportunity’ that the open data agenda is interested in capturing.

This point may also mention that some people are interested in using government data to open up government decisions and processes and make them transparent, which is a necessary condition for making the government accountable.

Perhaps ‘democratic participation’ can be added after ‘sustainable and inclusive growth’. That is: ‘Providing access to government data can drive sustainable and inclusive growth, and democratic participation, by empowering citizens…’

The incentive for private sector and CSOs to open up data is not clear. Overall benefit may rise with them opening up data, but how does a private company / CSO benefit by opening up its data?

Along with ‘stronger’ and ‘more interconnected’, please mention ‘more transparent’ and ‘more democratic’. Also it is not clear what is meant by ‘stronger’. ‘[B]etter meet the needs of our citizens’ does not necessarily suggest a more democratic or just society, but a more effective welfare distribution system. Please add ‘… and empower the citizens to ensure accountability of the government.’

9) We therefore agree to follow a set of principles that will be the foundation for access to, and the release and use of, open government data. These principles are:

Open Data by Default;
Quality and Quantity;
Accessible and Useable by All;
Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens;
Collaboration for Development and Innovation

Does it makes sense to remove the ‘Quantity and Quality’ point and merging it with ‘Accessible and Usable by All’? Data quantity and quality issues, along with those related to publication of data, can all logically follow under the topic of data access and use. For example, highly aggregated data published once a year without documentation is not really usable data.

10) We will develop an action plan in support of the implementation of the Charter and its Technical Annexes, and will update and renew the action plan at a minimum of every two years. We agree to commit the necessary resources to work within our political and legal frameworks to implement these principles in accordance with the technical best practices and timeframes set out in our action plan.

We (at CIS) strongly feel that the Charter should also prescribe that along with the national Action Plan, Open Data Citizen’s Charters are created for various levels and verticals of the government. This will clarify data publication responsibilities and targets at ministerial and sub-national (including city) governmental levels, and will allow for much more effective monitoring (national and international) of the Action Plan implementation process.

‘[A]t a minimum of every two years’ reads a bit unclear. Does it mean that the Action Plan should be renewed only after two years and not before, or that the Action Plan should be renewed every two years or before that?

11) We recognise that free access to, and the subsequent use of, government data are of significant value to society and the economy, and that government data should, therefore, be open by default.

Along with clarifying the scope of ‘government data,’ the idea of ‘open’ in the context of data needs a clear definition as an independent point. The document is getting into ‘open by default’ without clarifying what is ‘open’, including both necessary and sufficient conditions.

12) We acknowledge the need to promote the global development and adoption of tools and policies for the creation, use, and exchange of open data and information.

I agree with Mike Linksvayer. This is a great opportunity for the Charter to connect the open data agenda with the wider open agendas, especially that of free and open source softwares. It is very important that this point promotes ‘global development of free and open source tools’.

Extending the comment by Jose Subero, along with ‘tools’ and ‘policies’, it will be great to have a mention of ‘standards’ here, which is critical for ensuring ‘interoperability’ and thus ‘harmonisation’.

13) We recognise that the term ‘government data’ is meant in the widest sense possible. This could apply to data held by national, federal, and local governments, international government bodies, and other types of institutions in the wider public sector. This could also apply to data created for governments by external organisations, and data of significant benefit to the public which is held by external organisations and related to government programmes and services (e.g. data on extractives entities, data on transportation infrastructure, etc).

It is wonderful that the point promotes a wide understanding of ‘government data’ but at the same time it should also define a necessary core understanding of data, just to ensure that governments do not interpret this point too narrowly.

Further, a focus only on data created by public agencies can perhaps be too narrow (for the necessary/core understanding of ‘government data’). With public services delivered increasingly by private agencies and public-private-partnerships, it is crucial that ‘government data’ should explicitly include any data coming out of a process funded by public money (the process may be carried out by a public agency or not). This is an extremely important point from a developing country perspective.

14) We recognise that there is domestic and international legislation, in particular pertaining to security, privacy, confidentiality, intellectual property, and personally-identifiable and other sensitive information, which must be observed and/or updated where necessary.

From a developing country perspective, it is very important that the Charter does not keep this critical point dependent on domestic and international legislations. International legislation may not be very developed for all of the mentioned topics, and many countries may not have existing domestic legislations on these topics either. The Charter should mention an internationally acceptable list of concerns / criteria for not opening up data. The list may include the topics mentioned here, like privacy and national security. This need not be a list of sufficient criteria, but of necessary ones.

15) We will:

develop and adopt policies and practices to ensure that all government data is made open by default, as outlined in this Charter, while recognising that there are legitimate reasons why some data cannot be released;

'Administrative reforms’ are most often crucial to make government data ‘open by default, and the same should be mentioned along with ‘policies’ and ‘practices’.

provide clear justifications as to why certain data cannot be released;

This is a great point. Perhaps it can be added that all government agencies should produce a list of all data assets maintained by them, point out the ones that cannot be made open, and provide clear justification as to why those cannot be released. This comment pre-empts 19.1. Perhaps this point about providing justification for not releasing data can be merged with 19.1.

develop the leadership, management, oversight, and internal communication policies necessary to enable this transition to a culture of openness.

Along with ‘leadership, management, oversight, and internal communication’, is it possible to add ‘incentives’? This is often overlooked in implementing open data policies.

16) We recognise that governments and other public sector organisations hold vast amounts of information that may be of interest to citizens, and that it may take time to identify data for release or publication.

17) We also recognise the importance of consulting with citizens, other governments, non-governmental organisations, and other open data users, to identify which data to prioritise for release and/or improvement.

18) We agree, however, that governments’ primary responsibility should be to release data in a timely manner, without undue delay.

Points 16-18 seem to suggest that the ‘quantity and quality’ issue is mostly one of prioritisation. This can be misleading. This is perhaps the ‘quantity’ issue, but not at all the ‘quality’ issue.

19) We will:

...
release high-quality open data that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate in accordance with prioritisation that is informed by public requests. To the extent possible, data will be released in their original, unmodified form and at the finest level of granularity available, and will also be linked to any visualisations or analyses created based on the data, as well as any relevant guidance or documentation;

Please add ‘human- and machine-readable’ along with ‘timely, comprehensive, and accurate’.

Put ‘, and’ between ‘, and accurate’ and ‘in accordance’.

‘Relevant guidance or documentation’ should be mentioned before, and not after, ‘visualisations or analyses’.

ensure that accompanying documentation is written in clear, plain language, so that it can be easily understood by all;

Add that the documentation should be ‘comprehensive’, along with being written in plain language.

make sure that data are fully described, and that data users have sufficient information to understand their source, strengths, weaknesses, and any analytical limitations;

Regarding ‘Full description of data’ — Aggregate data must be accompanied by low level raw data along with details of analytical methods used to arrive at figures. This allows for verification as well as alternate views and detection of statistical anomalies.

ensure that open datasets include consistent core metadata, and are made available in human- and machine-readable formats under an open and unrestrictive licence;

Is this the necessary definition of ‘open data’? If so, it should be much higher up.

allow users to provide feedback, and continue to make revisions to ensure the quality of the data is improved as needed; and

This point should clarify if it is talking about making revisions of the data itself (its content), or how it is being published (its form), or both?

apply consistent information lifecycle management practices, and ensure historical copies of datasets are preserved, archived, and kept accessible as long as they retain value.

The ‘as long as they retain value’ part seems vague. Who is going to take this decision about value? Is it possible to rephrase this as ‘as long as they are demanded by data users’?

21) We recognise that open data should be made available free of charge in order to encourage their widest possible use.

Maybe ‘government data’ and not ‘open data’ (open data already means it is available gratis). Also, along with ‘free of charge’ maybe add ‘under open license’, as that is a critical requirement for ‘widest possible use.’

22) We recognise that when open data are released, they should be made available without bureaucratic or administrative barriers, such as mandatory user registration, which can deter people from accessing the data.

I strongly believe that this point should be removed. Registration of the data user can also be very useful for the government agencies to track demand and actual usage of their datasets. Instead of the government agencies doing such kind of tracking as a background process, it is much better if the data usage monitoring of all users is done transparently. Along with perhaps a public dashboard of data usages of the users of an open data portal. As long as the registration barrier does not involve an approval process by the government agency, it can be allowed.

A more general point should be added as part of this principle, regarding no-discrimination (or approval process) among data users interested in accessing and using of open government data.

23) We will:

release data in open formats and free of charge to ensure that the data are available to the widest range of users to find, access, and use them. In many cases, this will include providing data in multiple formats, so that they can be processed by computers and used by people; and

Please add ‘open license’ along with ‘open formats’ and ‘free of charge’.

24) We recognise that the release of open data strengthens our public and democratic institutions, encourages better development, implementation, and assessment of policies to meet the needs of our citizens, and enables more meaningful, better informed engagement between governments and citizens.

Perhaps add ‘, and makes them transparent’ after ‘strengthens our public and democratic institutions’. Please also add ‘monitoring’ along with ‘development, implementation, and assessment’.

25) We will:

implement oversight and review processes to report regularly on the progress and impact of our open data initiatives;

The functioning of these ‘oversight and review processes’ must be open and transparent themselves. The reporting should be public.

engage with community and civil society representatives working in the domain of transparency and accountability to determine what data they need to effectively hold governments to account; encourage the use of open data to develop innovative, evidence-based policy solutions that benefit all members of society, as well as empower marginalised groups; and

This must also include a point regarding the government proactively seeking data demands from citizens, CSOs, academics, and the private sector.

‘as well as empower marginalised groups’ is too vague. Perhaps it can be made into a separate point, and qualified with what kinds of empowerment is needed – from demanding data, to accessing and using data, to be aware of the data collected from such groups by the government agencies.

be transparent about our own data collection, standards, and publishing processes, by documenting all of these related processes online.

This should be part of point 19.

26) We recognise the importance of diversity in stimulating creativity and innovation. The more citizens, governments, civil society, and the private sector use open data, the greater the social and economic benefits that will be generated. This is true for government, commercial, and non-commercial uses.

The diversity point is almost already made with points 20-21 – widest possible users lead to widest possible use.

28) We will:

...
engage with civil society, the private sector, and academic representatives to determine what data they need to generate social and economic value;

This is also covered under the Principle 3.

provide training programs, tools, and guidelines designed to ensure government employees are capable of using open data effectively in policy development processes;

This should be part of Principle 1.

encourage non-governmental organisations to open up data created and collected by them in order to move toward a richer open data ecosystem with multiple sources of open data;

I agree with ABS. Why not ‘non-governmental organisations and the private sector’?

Also the document shifts back and forth between ‘civil society organisations’ and ‘non-governmental organisations’. If both mean the same in this document, then it should use only one.

General Comments on the Charter

1. Why not merge the Principle 4 and 5 so as to describe an overall situation of engagement and collaboration. The ends can be commercial acts or towards democratic practices, but the existing principles do not make much a difference between the two types of acts.

2. Further, can a new principle be added at the end that would address the implementation process of the Action Plan? Specifically, it should clarify how the implementation itself be an open process, with not only the Action Plan but annual reports regarding the status of implementation. This principle may connect to the work being done by the Implementation WG.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/international-open-data-charter-comments-by-cis

International Open Data Charter, Consultation Meeting, Delhi, July 09, 5:30 pm

sumandro — 2015-07-07T12:12:50Z

This is to invite you to a consultation meeting on the first public draft of the International Open Data Charter, at the CIS office in Delhi, on Thursday, July 09, 2015, at 5:30 pm.

The Charter is being developed by the Open Data Working Group of the Open Government Partnership in consultation with a number of international organisations. Meant for approval and implementation by national governments, the Charter has five key principles:

Open by Default;
Quality and Quantity;
Useable by All;
Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens; and
Collaboration for Development and Innovation.

The first public draft of the International Open Data Charter was published in end of May 2015 at the International Open Data Conference in Ottawa, and can be accessed here: http://opendatacharter.net/charter/.

Organisations and individuals are invited to submit comments directly on the Charter page, before July 31.

CIS, acting as a general steward of the Charter and a consultation lead, is organising this meeting to discuss the context, the drafting process, and the objectives of this document, and to encourage the participants to comment on the existing text of the Charter.

We keenly look forward to your participation in the consultation meeting on Thursday.

The CIS office address is G 15, Top floor, behind Hauz Khas G Block Market, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110016.

If you are coming down Aurobindo Marg from AIIMS and towards IIT, then take the left turn into Chaudhary Dalip Singh Marg and come towards the Hauz Khas Police Station, stop when you see a Southy outlet on your right, and enter through the gate on your left (opposite Southy). The CIS office is on the top floor of the first house on your left. Location on Google Map.

Please share this invitation with all relevant individuals, organisations, and networks.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/international-open-data-charter-consultation-delhi-09072015

International Open Data Charter, Consultation Meeting, Bengaluru, July 28, 5:30 pm

sumandro — 2015-08-21T05:45:53Z

This is to invite you to a consultation meeting on the first public draft of the International Open Data Charter organised by CIS with DataKind and DataMeet at the CIS office in Bengaluru, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, at 5:30 pm.

Open by Default;
Quality and Quantity;
Useable by All;
Engagement and Empowerment of Citizens; and
Collaboration for Development and Innovation.

Organisations and individuals are invited to submit comments directly on the Charter page, before July 31.

We are organising this meeting to discuss the context, the drafting process, and the objectives of this document, and to encourage the participants to comment on the existing text of the Charter.

We keenly look forward to your participation in the consultation meeting on Tuesday.

The CIS office address is Number 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bangalore 560071 (opposite Domlur Club and near the TERI building).

Please share this invitation with all relevant individuals, organisations, and networks.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/international-open-data-charter-consultation-bengaluru-28072015

Integrating Urdu with Modern Technology the Need of Hour

praskrishna — 2014-04-01T11:15:54Z

A report of the Urdu Wikipedia Workshop at Maulana Azad National Urdu University by the Department of Translation Studies on March 6, 2014. Syed Muzamiluddin is quoted.

Advancing technology necessitates integrating language with the concurrent developments. These thoughts were expressed by Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore during the Urdu Wikipedia workshop organised at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad.

Continuing his lecture, Muzammil said Wikipedia is a freely accessible online repository of knowledge available in multiple languages across the world. He emphasised that while other language Wikipedia communities have geared up the momentum and contributed immensely, Urdu still needs its fair share of contributors.

Prof. Zafaruddin, head, Dept. of Translation Studies emphasised that the department desires to see all the students contributing to the Urdu Wikipedia and hence this event has been organised.

Dr Vishnu Vardhan from the Centre for Internet and Society addressed the gathering through the video conference and stressed the significance of Urdu language and the need for proactive contribution on Urdu Wikipedia.

In the later session, the students got the first hand exposure of the Wikipedia editing basics. Since all the participants had opened their accounts prior to the event, they all actively edited articles on the Urdu Wikipedia.

The event coordinator Dr Faheemuddin said that student look forward to this event as the beginning of their long term association with Urdu Wikipedia. The function ended with a vote of thanks by Dr Faheemuddin. Those present at the function included Dr Khalid Mubashir uz Zafar, Dr Mahmood Kazmi, Dr Junaid Zakir, Dr Kahkashan Lateef and Translator Shekh Sadi Arshad.

Read the original published in Urdu language below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/daily-taskeen-march-6-2014-integrating-urdu-with-modern-technology-the-need-of-the-hour

Institute for Internet & Society 2014, Pune

samantha — 2014-04-07T11:31:23Z

Last month, activists, journalists, researchers, and members of civil society came together at the 2014 Institute for Internet & Society in Pune, which was hosted by CIS and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Institute was a week long, in which participants heard from speakers from various backgrounds on issues arising out of the intersection of internet and society, such as intellectual property, freedom of expression, and accessibility, to name a few. Below is an official reporting summarizing sessions that took place.

Day One

February 11, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 9.40 a.m.	Introduction: Sunil Abraham, Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society
10.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.	Introduction of Participants
10.15 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.	Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham
12.00 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.	Tea-break
12.30 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.	Keynote: Bishakha Datta, Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, CIS

This year’s Internet Institute, hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), kicked off in Pune to put a start to a week of learnings and discussions surrounding internet usage and its implications on individuals of society. Twenty two attendees from all over India attended this year, from backgrounds of activism, journalism, research and advocacy work.

Attendees were welcomed by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Program Officer for Media Rights & Access at the Ford Foundation, the event’s sponsor, who started off the day by introducing the Foundation’s initiatives in pursuit of bridging the digital divide by addressing issues of internet connectivity.

Internet Governance & Privacy, Sunil Abraham
The Institute’s first session was led by Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of CIS, and engaged with issues of internet governance and privacy with reference to four stories: 1) a dispute between tweeters from the US and those in South Africa over the use of hashtag #thingsdarkiesays, which is said not to be as racially derogatory as it is in the US; 2) Facebook’s contested policies on photos featuring users breastfeeding, 3) a lawsuit between Tata and Greenpeace over the organization’s use of Tata’s logo in a video game created for public criticism of their environmentally-degrading practices, and lastly, 4) the case of Savita Bhabhi, an Indian pornographic cartoon character which had been banned by India’s High Court and which had served as a landmark case in expanding the statutory laws for what is considered to be pornographic.

Each of these stories has one major thing in common: due to their nature of taking place over the internet, they are not confined to one geographic location and in turn, are addressed at the international level. The way by which an issue as such is to be addressed cuts across State policies and internet intermediary bodies to create quite a messy case in trying to determine who is at fault. Such complexity illustrates how challenging internet governance can be within today’s society that is no longer restricted to national or geographic boundaries.

Sunil also goes on in explaining the relationship between privacy, transparency, and power, summing it up in a simple formula; privacy protection should have a reverse relationship to power—the more the power, the less the privacy one should be entitled to. On the contrary, a direct correlation goes for power and transparency—the more the power, the more transparent a body should be. Instead of thinking about these concepts as a dichotomy, Sunil suggests to see them as absolute rights in themselves—instrumental in policies and necessary to address power imbalances.

The Web We Want, Bishakha Datta
The Institute’s kickoff was also joined by Indian filmmaker and activist, Bishakha Datta, who had delivered the keynote address. Bishakha bridged together notions of freedom of speech, surveillance, and accessibility, while introducing campaigns that work to create an open and universally accessible web, such as the Web We Want and Sexuality and Disability. Bishakha stresses how the internet as a space has altered how we experience societal constructs, which can be easily exhibited in how individuals experience Facebook in the occurrence of a death, for example. Bishakha initiated discussion among participants by posing questions such as, “what is our expectation of privacy in this brave new world?” and “what is the society we want?” to encompass the need to think of privacy in a new way with the coming of the endless possibilities the internet brings with it.

Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet, Nishant Shah
CIS Research Director, Nishant Shah, led a session examining internet as a technology more broadly, and our understandings of it in relation to the human body. Nishant proposes the idea that history is a form of technology, as well as time, itself, for which our understanding only comes into being with the aid of technologies of measurement. Although we are inclined to separate technology from the self, Nishant challenges this notion while suggesting that technology is very integral to being human, and defines a “cyborg” as someone who is very intimate with technology. In this way, we are all cyborgs. While making reference to several literary pieces, including Haraway’s Cyborg: Human, Animus, Technology; Kevin Warwick’s Living Cyborg; and Watt’s small world theory, Nishant challenges participants’ previous notions of how one is to understand technology in relation to oneself, as well as the networks we find ourselves implicated within.

Also brought forth by Nishant, was the fact that the internet as a technology has become integral to our identities, making us accessible (rather than us solely making the technology accessible) through online forms of documentation. This digital phenomenon in which we tend to document what we know and experience as a means of legitimizing it can be summed in the modern version of an old fable: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest, and nobody tweets it, has it fallen?”

Nishant refers to several case studies in which the use of online technologies has created a sense of an extension of the self and one’s personal space; which can then be subject to violation as one can be in the physical form, and to the same emotional and psychological effect—as illustrated within the 1993 occurrence referred to as “A Rape in Cyberspace.”

Attendee Participation
Participants remained engaged and enthusiastic for the duration of the day, bringing forth their personal expertise and experiences. Several participants presented their own research initiatives, which looked at issues women face as journalists and as portrayed by the media; amateur pornography without the consent of the woman; study findings on the understandings of symptoms of internet addiction; as well as studies looking at how students engage with college confession pages on Facebook.

Day Two

February 12, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, Independent Consultant
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Practical Lab: Kingsley John
4.45 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.	Wrap-up: Sunil Abraham

Day Two of the Institute entailed a more technical orientation to “internet & society” across sessions. Participants listened to speakers introduce concepts related to wired and wireless internet connectivity devices and their networks, along with the network of internet users and how one may secure him or herself while “online.”

Wireless & Wired Technology, Ravikiran Annaswamy
Senior industry practitioner, Ravikiran Annaswamy had aimed to enable the Institute’s participants to “understand the depth and omnipresent of telecom networks” that we find ourselves implicated within. Ravikiran went through the basics of these networks—including fixed line-, mobile-, IP-, and Next Generation IP-networks—as well as the technical structuring of wired and wireless broadband. Many participants found this session to be particularly enriching as their projects aimed to provide increased access to internet connectivity to marginalized areas in India, and had been without the know-how to go about it.

Network, Threats and Securing Yourself, Kinglsey John
An instructional session on how to protect oneself was given by Kingsley John, beginning with a lesson on IP Addresses—what they are and the different generations of such, and how IP addresses fit into a broader internet network. Following, Kingsley demonstrated and explained email encryption through the use of software, Kleopatra, and how it may be used to generate keys to encrypt emails through Thunderbird mail client.

Evening Discussion

A handful of participants voluntarily partook in an evening discussion, looking at the role of big players in the global internet network, such as Google and Facebook, how they collect and utilize users’ data, and what sorts of measures can be taken to minimize the collecting of such. Due to the widely varying backgrounds of interest among participants, those coming from this technical orientation towards the internet were able to inform their peers on relevant information and types of software that may be found useful related to minimizing one’s online presence.

Day Three

February 13, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Chairperson, Free Software Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Data: Nisha Thompson, Independent Consultant
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society

The third day of the Internet Institute incorporated themes presented by speakers ranging from free software, to freedom of expression, to copyright.

Free Software, Prof. G. Nagarjuna
Chairman on the Board of Directors for the Free Software Foundation of India, Professor G. Nagarjuna shared with the Institute’s participants his personal expertise on software freedom. Nagarjuna mapped for us the network of concepts related to software freedom, beginning with the origins of the copyleft movement, and also touching upon the art of hacking, the open source movement, and what role software freedom plays in an interconnected world.

Nagarjuna looks at the free software movement as a political movement in the digital space highlighting the user’s freedoms associated to the use, distribution, and modification of software for the greater good for all. This is said to distinguish this movement from that of Open Source—a technical and more practical development-oriented movement. The free software movement is not set out to compromise the fundamental issues for the sake of being practical and in that sense, ubiquitous. Instead, its objective is “not to make everybody use the software, but to have them understand why they are using the software,” so that they may become “authentic citizens that can also resonate why they’re doing what they’re doing. We want them to understand the ethical and political aspects of doing so,” Nagarjuna says.

Open Data, Nisha Thompson
Participants learned from Nisha Thompson on Open Data; what it is, its benefits, and how it is involved in central government initiatives and policy, as well as civil society groups—generally for uses such as serving as evidence for decision making and accountability. Nisha explored challenges concerning the use of open data, such as those pertaining to privacy, legitimacy, copyright, and interoperability. The group looked at the India Water Portal as a case study, which makes accessible more than 300 water-related datasets already available in the public space for use from anything from sanitation and agriculture to climate change.

Freedom of Expression, Bhairav Acharya
Bhairav Acharya, a constitutional lawyer, traced the development of the freedom of speech and expression in India. Beginning with a conceptual understanding of censorship and the practice of censorship by the state, society, and the individual herself, Bhairav examines the limits traditionally placed by a nation-state on the right to free speech.

In India, modern free speech and censorship law was first formulated by the colonial British government, which broadly imported the common law to India. However, the colonial state also yielded to the religious and communitarian sensitivities of its subjects, resulting in a continuing close link between communalism and free speech in India today. After Independence, the post-colonial Indian state carried forward Raj censorship, but tweaked it to serve to a nation-building and developmental agenda. Nation-building and nationalism are centrifugal forces that attempt to construct a homogenous 'mainstream'; voices from the margins of this mainstream (the geographical, ethnic, and religious peripheries) and of the marginalised within the mainstream (the poor and disadvantaged), are censored.

Within this narrative, Bhairav located and explained the evolution of the law relating to press censorship, defamation, obscenity, and contempt of court. Free speech law applies equally online. Broadly, censorship on the internet must survive the same constitutional scrutiny that is applied to offline censorship; but, as technology develops, the law must innovate.

Copyright, Nehaa Chaudhari
CIS Programme Officer, Nehaa Chaudhari examined the concept of Copyright as an intellectual property right in discussing its fundamentals, purpose and origins, and Copyright’s intersection with the internet. Nehaa also explained the different exceptions to Copyright, along with its alternatives, such as opposing intellectual property protection regimes, including the Creative Commons and Copyleft. Within this session, Nehaa also introduced several cases in which Copyright came into play with the use of the internet, including Hunter Moore’s “Is Anyone Up?” website, which had showcased pornographic pictures obtained by submission bringing rise to the phenomenon of “revenge porn.” Instances as such blur the lines of what is commonly referred to as intellectual property, and what specific requirements enables one to own the rights to such.

Day Four

February 14, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, Union Bank
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Fieldwork Assignment

Day Four of the Internet Institute introduced concepts of eAccessibilty and Inclusion on the internet for persons with disabilities, along with patents as an intellectual property right. Participants were also assigned a fieldwork exercise as a hands-on activity in which they were to employ what they’ve learned to initiate conversation with individuals in public spaces and collect primary data while doing so.

eAccessibility and Inclusion, Prashant Naik

Prashant Naik started off the day with his session on E-Accessibility and Inclusion. Prashant illustrated the importance of accessibility and what is meant by the term. Participants learned of assistive technologies for different disability types and how to create more accessible word and PDF documents, as well as web pages for users. Prashant demonstrated to participants what it is like to use a computer as a visually impaired individual, which provided for an enriching experience.

Patents, Nehaa Chaudhari
Nehaa Chaudhari led a second session at the Internet Institute on intellectual property rights—this one looking at patents particularly and their role within statutory law. Nehaa traced the historical origins of patents before examining the fundamentals of them, and addresses the questions, “Why have patents? And is the present system working for everyone?” Nehaa also introduced notions of the Commons along with the Anticommons, and perspectives within the debate around software patents, as well as different means by which the law can address the exploitation of patents or “patent thickets”—such as through patent pools or compulsory licensing.

Fieldwork Assignment, Groupwork
Participants were split into groups and required to carry out a mini fieldwork assignment in approaching individuals in varying public spaces in Pune in attempts to collect primary data. Questions asked to individuals were to be devised by the group, so long as they pertained to themes examined within the Internet Institute. Areas visited by groups included the Pune Central Mall, MG Road, and FC Road.

Day Five

February 15, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, Vice President, eGovernments Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Market Concerns: Payal Malik, Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Digital Natives: Nishant Shah
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Fieldwork Presentations

Day Five of the Internet Institute brought with it sessions related to themes of e-governance, market concerns of telecommunications, and so called “Digital Natives.”

eGovernance, Manu Srivastava
Vice President of the eGovernments Foundation, Manu Srivastava led a session on eGovernance—the utilization of the internet as a means of delivering government services communicating with citizens, businesses, and members of government. Manu examined the complexities of the eGovernance and barriers to implementation of eGovernance initiatives. Within discussion, participants examined the nuanced relationship between the government and citizens with the incorporation of other governing bodies in an eGovernance system, as well as new spaces for corruption to take place.

Market Concerns, Payal Malik
Payal Malik, Advisor of the Economics Division of the Competition Commission of India shared her knowledge on market concerns of the telecommunications industry, and exclaimed the importance of competition issues in such an industry as a tool to create greater good for a greater number of people. She demonstrated this importance by stating that affordability as a product of increased access can only be possible once there is enough investment, which generally only happens in a competitive market. In this way, we must set the conditions to make competition possible, as a tool to achieve certain objectives. Payal also demonstrated the economic benefits of telecommunications by stating that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, increase in GDP of 1.3%. She also examined the broadband ecosystem in India and touched upon future possibilities of increased broadband penetration, such as for formers and the education sector.

Digital Natives, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah shed some light on one of the areas that the Centre for Internet & Society looks at within their research scope, this being the “Digital Native.” As referred to by Nishant, the Digital Native is not to categorize a specific type of internet user, but can be said for simply any person who is performing a digital action, while doing away with this false dichotomy of age, location, and geography.

Nishant examines varying case studies in which “the digital is empowering natives to not merely be benefactors of change, but agents of change,” from the Blank Noise Project’s “I NEVER Ask for it…” campaign in efforts to rethink sexual violence, to Matt Harding’s foolish dancing with groups of individuals from all over the world.

As occurrences in the digital realm, however, these often political expressions may be rewritten by the network when picked up as a growing phenomenon, in order to make it accessible to online consumers by the masses. In doing so, the expression is removed from its political context and is presented in the form of nothing more than a fad. For this reason, Nishant stresses the need to become aware of the potential of the internet in becoming an “echo-chamber”—in which forms of expression are amplified and mimicked, resulting in a restructuring of the dynamics surrounding the subject—whether it be videos of boys lipsyncing to Backstreet Boys in their dorm room going viral, or a strong and malicious movement to punish the Chinese girl who had taken a video of her heinously and wickedly killing a kitten after locating her using the Human Flesh Search Engine.

Fieldwork Presentations, Groupwork

To end off the day, participant groups presented findings collated from the prior evening’s fieldwork exercise, in which they were to ask strangers in various public places of Pune questions pertaining to themes looked at from within this year’s Institute. Participants were divided into four groups and visited Pune’s FC Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Central Mall.

Groups found that the majority of those interviews primarily accessed the phone via the mobile. There was also a common weariness of using the internet and concern for one’s privacy while doing so, especially with uploading photos to Facebook and online financial transactions. People were also generally concerned about using cyber cafes for fear of one’s accounts being hacked. Generally people suspected that so long as conversations are “private” (i.e. in one’s Facebook inbox), so too are they secure. Just as well, those interviewed shared a sense of security with the use of a password.

Day Six

February 16, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Access: Muthu Madhan (TBC)
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Case Studies Groupwork
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Case Studies Presentations

As the Institute came closer to its end, participants got the opportunity to hear from speakers on topics pertaining the Wikipedia editing in addition to Open Access to scholarly literature. Participants also worked together in groups to examine specific case studies referenced in previous sessions, and then presented their conclusions.

Wikipedia, Dr. Abhijeet Safai
The Institute was joined by Medical Officer of Clinical Research at Pune’s Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, who led a session on Wikipedia. Having edited over 3700 Wikipedia articles, Dr. Abhijeet was able to bring forth his expertise and familiarity in editing Wikipedia to participants so that they would be able to do the same. Introduced within this session were Wikipedia’s different fundamental pillars and codes of conducts to be complied with by all contributors, along with different features and components of Wikipedia articles that one should be aware of when contributing, such as how to cite sources and discuss the contents of an article with other contributors.

Open Access, Muthu Madhan
Muthu Madhan joined the Internet Institute while speaking on Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature. Within his session, Muthu examined the historical context within which the scholarly journal had arisen and how the idea of Open Access began within this space. The presence of Open Access in India and other developing nations was also examined in this session, and the concept of Open Data, introduced.

Case Studies, Groupworks

Participants were split up into groups and assigned particular case studies looked at briefly in previous sessions. Case studies included #thingsdarkiessay, a once trending Twitter hashtag in South Africa which had offended many Americans for its use of “darkie” as a derogatory term; the literary novel, The Hindus, which offers an alternative narrative of Hindu history had been banned in India for obscenity; a case in which several users’ avatars had been controlled by another in a virtual community and forced to perform sexual acts, referred to as A Rape Happened in Cyber Space; and lastly, a pornographic submission website, Is Anyone Up?, for which content was largely derived from “revenge porn.” Each group then presented on the various perspectives surrounding the issue at hand.

The Cyborg, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah led an off-agenda session in the evening looking more closely at the notion of the human cyborg. Nishant deconstructs humanity’s relationship to technology, in suggesting that we “think of the human as produced with the technologies… not who produces technology.” Nishant explores the Digital Native as an attained identity for those who, because of technology, restructure and reinvent his or her environment—offline as well as online. Among other ideas shared, Nishant refers to works by Haraway on the human cyborg in illustrating our dependency on technology and our need to care for these technologies we depend on.

Day Seven

February 17, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Internet Activism: Laura Stein, Associate Professor, University of Texas and Fulbright Fellow
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, Research Director
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Hot Question Challenge

The last day of the week-long Internet Institute examined concepts of Internet Activism and Domestic and International Bodies. Some participants led presentations on topics of personal familiarity, before a final wrap-up exercise, calling upon individuals to share any new formulations resulting from the Institute.

Internet Activism, Laura Stein

Associate Professor from the University of Texas, Laura Stein, spoke on activism on the internet. Laura examined some grassroots organizations and movements taking place on the online and the benefits that the internet brings in facilitating their impact, such as its associated low costs, accessibility and possibility for anonymity. Despite the positive effects catalyzed by the internet, Laura stresses that the “laying field is still unequal, and movements are not simply transformed by technology.” Some of the websites exemplifying online activism that were examined within this session includes the It Gets Better Project, which aims to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, and the national election watch by the Association for Democratic Reforms. Additionally, Laura spoke on public communication policy, comparing that of the US and India, and how this area of policy may influence media content and practice.

Domestic and International Bodies, Chinmayi Arun
As the Internet Institute’s final speaker, Research Director for Communication Governance at National Law University , Chinmayi Arun, explores the network of factors that affect one’s behavior on the internet—these including: social norms, the law, the markets, and architecture. In referring to Lawrence Lessig’s pathetic dot theory, Chinmayi illustrates how individual’s—the pathetic dots in question—are functions of the interactions of these factors, and in this sense, regulated, and stresses the essential need to understand the system, in order to effectively change the dynamics within it. It is worth noting that not all pathetic dots are equal, and Google’s dot, for example, will be drastically bigger than a single user’s, having more leveraging power within the network of internet bodies. Also demonstrated, is the fact that we must acknowledge the need for regulation by the law to some extent, otherwise, the internet would be a black box where anything goes, putting one’s security at risk of violation.

Hot Question Challenge
The very last exercise of the Institute entailed participants asking each other questions on demand, relating back to different themes looked at within the last week. Participants had the chance, here, to bridge together concepts across sessions, as well as formulate their own opinions, while posing questions to others that they, themselves, were still curious about.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune

Innovate / Activate

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T10:18:29Z

The event will be held on 24 and 25 September 2010 at New York Law School.

Registration is now open! Click here to register.

Innovation is unquestionably important to society. Intellectual property regimes seek to provide incentives for such innovation. Understanding the inter-working of intellectual property regimes and innovation may lead to conclusions that such regimes are not working well, or at all, in encouraging innovation. When such failures are perceived, active communities form to address the shortcomings. Many communities have formed around issues such as free speech vs copyright; the importance of fair use; alternative licensing regimes such as Creative Commons or free and open source software; patent protection of software and business methods; and patents vs downstream innovation of critical pharmaceuticals.

While these approaches have been exceedingly important in bringing about needed change, many successful groups have devised strategies that balance the extent to which activists work within existing innovation systems in order to achieve their goals, as they continue to explore the necessity of circumventing those systems. At the same time, the increased production of and focus on IP in all industries has catalyzed the emergence of IP obstacles in areas where IP has traditionally not been a consideration, thus creating new areas for activism. It’s time to reexamine our approaches to improving global welfare by identifying new and existing IP-related challenges to activism, developing strategies for overcoming IP obstacles, and delivering practical solutions to spur social, political, environmental, scientific, technological and legal change.

The Institute for Information Law & Policy at New York Law School is proud to present Innovate / Activate, a two-day unconference, cosponsored by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School, where IP practitioners and activists will share their ideas and experiences in order to transform the landscape of activism.

Event organizers

Read the details on the New York Law School website

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/innovate-activate

Information & Communication Technology in Making a Healthy Information Society with special reference to use of ICTS in Educational Technology

praskrishna — 2014-07-18T09:06:20Z

The Department of Computer Science, Andhra Loyola College in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science, Krishna University will be organizing a UGC-sponsored National Seminar on August 11 and 12, 2014 at Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada.

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge from the Centre for Internet and Society will be giving a key note address at this event.

See the invitation below:

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/information-communication-technology-in-making-a-healthy-information-society-with-special-reference-to-use-of-icts-in-educational-technology

Indo - French Perspectives on Digital Studies

praskrishna — 2017-03-29T05:17:33Z

Anubha Sinha was a speaker at the Indo-French workshop on Open Access at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on March 15, 2017. The event was organized by the Digital Studies Group.

Anubha Sinha broadly spoke on the state of open access in India, the features of the DBT-DST policy, ICAR policy, how to shape the future of open access movement in India and what are the obstacles in the same.

See the workshop schedule here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/news/indo-french-perspectives-on-digital-studies

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages

Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay — 2013-04-22T13:37:08Z

In this blog post, we bring you a visualisation of the page views statistics and the project specific pages that we created last month. The page views indicate the number of unique visits the Wikipedia project concerned has received in one month.

Unlike the basic parameters that we discussed last month, we received the Page Views data only from January 2008 onwards. The project-specific pages allow the user to see all the different variables related to a Indic language Wikipedia project in one page, thus giving a general overview of the activities in that project and their inter-relationships. Instead of comparing multiple projectsn, as in the calendar charts and motion chart discussed in the last post, the project-specific pages focus on understanding one Wikipedia project in detail.

Page Views

The data came in a structure that is useful for human-readability of the data but not so much for visualisation. The first column contained the date value (01/01/2008, 01/02/2008, and so on), followed by a column for each Indic Wikipedia project (Assamese, Bhojpuri, and so on) and one for the total Page Views across projects for the month concerned. The original data file can be accessed here. We re-formatted this data to the following column structure: the first column gives the date value, the second column gives the language of the Wikipedia project, and the third column gives the Page Views value. Further, the Page Views file contained data for 2013 that are not available for any other variables (like Total Articles, Total Editors etc.). So we decided to remove the 2013 values from the Page Views file for easier comparison with other variables. The data file that we finally used for the visualisation can be accessed here.

Calendar (Heatmap) Chart

The first chart that we created was the calendar (heatmap) chart discussed in detail in the last post. For the Page View variable we only had data form 2008. We plotted it as calendar-like heatmap to allow quick cross-project comparisons of trends in readership. The chart can be accessed here.

Project Pages

So far, we have been visualising the data from an overall perspective, constantly asking the question: "How does project A compare to project B?". The Project pages sheds light from a different angle: "How did project A get to this point?". Each of the projects are visualised in isolation around the basic parameters to understand how they have changed/evolved over the years. We wanted to keep this as simple as possible and decided to use straight forward line charts. This also ensures that the patterns are clearly evident. On the right corner of the navigation bar is the project selector. You can search or pick a project and the page will load the charts specific to that project. Each project has a different page, this makes it easier for you to share the project that you are interested in. The chart employs filtering and dynamic scales. Dynamic scales are important because not all the projects have the same rate of growth.

Readership Dashboard

We were not satisfied with creating only the calendar heatmap chart for Page Views. Being a very important variable for anybody trying to understand activities on Indic Wikipedia projects, we wanted to create a more detailed visualisation for the variable. While the project-specific pages do allow for comparing Page Views for a certain Indic Wikipedia with its other variables (such as Total Articles), we wanted to make that comparison even easier. Hence we decided to make a chart combining a line graph showing the movement of Page View for a project across the years and bar graphs showing a separate variable for the same project. Thus we created the Readership Dashboard. The dashboard has two controls: project selector and the parameter selector buttons. Selecting a project from the dropdown will update the line chart showing the movement of page views. Hover over the line graph points to see the date of observation and the corresponding value. The bars behind the line represent the selected parameters. Click on the parameter buttons to load different parameters as the background bar graph. Hover over the bars to see the date and the value. The bar graph is carefully aligned to the line chart such that the visualisation reflects the relation in movement of both. However, please note that the vertical scale of the line graph and the bar graphs are not the same.

Sajjad Anwar is a programmer based in Bangalore. Sumandro Chattapadhyay is a researcher based in Delhi. They often work together.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-wikipedia-visualisation-project-visualising-page-views-and-project-pages

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters

Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay — 2013-03-26T10:04:43Z

Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay bring you a visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia in this first post on Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project. In doing so, the authors look into the different aspects of the past and present activities of Indic Wikipedias, and divide the visualisation into three different focus areas.

Introduction

Understanding how the Indic or the Indian language Wikipedia projects are growing is something that we have been interested in for quite sometime. We were delighted to come across this opportunity from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Wikimedia Foundation. We divided our analyses into three focus areas: (1) basic parameters, (2) geographic patterns of edits, and (3) exploring the topics that receives the greatest number of edits. The existing infographics and data visualisations that we found about Indic Wikipedias mostly engaged on the first area, and also emphasised on yearly aggregates. We thought a more granular, that is monthly, understanding and a focus on the geographic and thematic spread of the edits would be very helpful to further appreciate the activities.

We began by collecting data about the following basic parameters:

Number of Editors
Number of Articles
Page Views
Number of Active Editors
Number of New Articles
Number of New Editors
Edit Size

Acquiring the data

We explored the MediaWiki API, ToolServer and the Wikimedia Statistics Portal. These are several ways of obtaining data about Wikipedia in general. Depending on the use case, such as the quantity of data required or the need for customised/selective data scraping, any one or more of these methods of data gathering can be chosen. The API had limitations in terms of how much data you can access, and it is meant to be used to access actual Wikipedia entries. We, however, were looking for metadata about the entries/articles (such as when it was first created, when and how many times it was edited, etc.) and not the actual entries/articles, that is the actual contents of Indic Wikipedias. ToolServer is an excellent way of running custom scripts. Although, this takes for granted that user (of ToolServer) has substantial command over the back-end infrastructures and processes that Wikipedia runs on. We wrote a few scrapers to extract metadata about Indic Wikipedia projects from the ToolServer but not exactly being experts in the Wikipedia back-end systems, we found scraping from ToolServer rather time-and effort-intensive. The statistics portal is a well organised and an accessible place for collecting data for analyses. However, we came across several missing parameters and projects, that is the statistic portal did not have all the parameters and Wikipedia projects we were interested in. In our search for Indic Wikipedia datasets so far, we realised that the Wikimedia Analytics Team (WAT) puts a lot of effort in writing scripts and collecting various data at different levels. Wikimedia developer Yuvi Panda and the Access to Knowledge team at CIS, aware of our difficulty in obtaining the data, also pointed us towards the WAT. While we were already scraping data on some of the parameters, we approached the WAT whose prompt and very supportive response much accelerated our work process. The fantastic Wikimedia developers, especially Evan Rosen (a big ‘thank you’ for him) shared the needed data, which we cleaned up and archived at the Github repository for the project.

We obtained data for the period from January 2001 to December 2012. It appears that the Indic Wikipedia projects began their activities around 2005. A big part of cleaning the data involved identifying when each of the projects started and dropping data. There are 20 Indic Wikipedia projects with 4,98,964 articles, 5,689 editors and over 3,35,49,102 readers.

Deciding upon chart types

We spent quite some time discussing different methods of visualising the data. The major difficulty is that there are too many entities to be plotted. As each language must be plotted as a separate entity — point, line, circle, etc. — the chart has a tendency to become cluttered and illegible. Even if we take only one variable — say New Editors — there will still be 20 points or lines to be plotted. Hence, using any of the conventional charts becomes difficult. For example, if we chose a line chart with New Editors on the Y-axis and months on the X-axis, there will be 20 lines each of a different colour, representing different languages. Also, the five-six year monthly timeline translates into 60-72 temporal data points.

We have adopted two strategies, and related chart types, to address this difficulty.

Firstly, we used a monthly calendar-like heatmap chart that limits the temporal spread of data to one year for each section of the chart and uses a positionally uniform set of columns for each language so as to make reading the chart easier. Limiting each chart section to 12 months allow the user to focus on more granular movements of the variable concerned, say the number of New Editors per month. By representing each languages on an unique column, and not by an upwards-and-downwards moving line as in a line chart, makes it easier for the user to follow movements in each language (where movement is shown by the intensity of colour, as characteristic of heatmaps) without the need to have a separate coloured entity — point, line, circle — for each language.

Secondly, we used a motion chart, as made famous by Dr. Hans Rosling, that removes the temporal axis from X- and Y-axes of the chart and uses animated transition to represent temporal change. Motion chart has the unique ability to handle as many as five variables in an organised manner, using the following visual elements: X-axis, Y-axis, Z-axis (animated temporal transitions), size of bubbles, and colour of bubbles. It is, however, recommended that represented variables be limited to a maximum of four for easier legibility. In our case, we have used the X- and Y-axes to plot various related variables (which can be selected by the user) such as New Editors and New Articles, the Z-axis to represent time, and the colour of the bubbles to represent a third optional variable (also can be selected by the user). Since different Indian language Wikipedia projects often take a wide range of values for most variables, using the size of the bubble to represent any of those variables is avoidable. Further, the motion chart gives the user a lot of controls to explore the various projects and variables according to their interest and especially to compare particular projects and variables to each other.

Discussing the chart types with the Access to Knowledge team, we decided to use simpler line charts — emphasising upon single Indic Wikipedia projects — on the language-specific pages that we will be creating next.

Calendar charts


Calendar heatmap chart of New Editors across Indic Wikipedia projects, 2008-2011. Source: http://bit.ly/XDb3fa

We visualised three parameters using the calendar heatmap strategy: (1) New Articles, (2) New Editors, (3) Active Editors.

The New Articles Calendar shows new articles posted on every Indic Wikipedias for every month since 2004. It was interesting to note the few number of articles in 2012 for all the languages. The first language to have the most number of new articles is Bengali. Hindi picks up around same time with fewer number of articles. Except Urdu and Nepali, every other language dropped in the number of new articles. However, we should remember that a lower number of new articles does not necessarily indicate at low overall activity in the project concerned.

Like the new articles, we wanted to explore the patterns in the number of new editors across all of the Indic Wikipedia projects. As you run through the new editors calendar chart, it is evident that there is consistent growth in the editor base for few projects like Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam. If one takes a step back and compares this with the number of new articles chart, something is not very clear -- in some of the projects, there is a growth in the number of editors but not many new articles are posted. We are very keen to understand why this has happened.

If we look at the active editors calendar, Tamil started with 2 active editors in January 2004 and with few ups and downs grew to about 115 active editors in December 2012. Malayalam started slow in late 2004 with 2 editors and grew to 155 active editors in December 2012. We are sure the viewers should be able to find out more patterns by studying the charts closely and comparatively.

Motion chart

We developed a motion chart comparing five variables: (1) Active Editors (> 5 edits per month), (2) New Editors, (3) Total Editors, (4) New Articles, and (5) Total Articles. When the visualisation is opened, Total Editors is plotted on the X-axis, Total Articles is plotted on the Y-axis, the colour of the bubbles indicate the Active Editors (Blue is low and Red is high) and the sizes of the bubbles are kept the same for easier comparison.

The user can click on the drop down menus at the X- and Y-axes, and next to the size and colour variables, and make them represent different variables.

We chose to configure the X- and Y-axes to show the data in logarithmic scales and not in linear scales. Since most projects experience small increments over time and there exists a wide difference between the most and the least popular/active projects, the logarithmic scale is better suited to represent the changes in the given data. The user has the option to select linear scale at the end of both X- and Y-axes (click on "Log").

As evident in the visualisation, the Newari project and the Hindi-Malayalam project cluster show very interesting contrasting dynamics — while both achieve similar Total Articles numbers, the latter is much more editor-heavy. This suggests a smaller but more active editor community for the Newari project.

Please click on the image of the motion chart below to open the interactive version in a separate window. The code can be accessed at the project repository on Github.


Motion chart comparing multiple variables across Indic Wikipedia projects, 2001-2011. Source: http://bit.ly/Yw4Wzq

Sajjad Anwar is a programmer based in Bangalore. Sumandro Chattapdhyay is a researcher based in Delhi. They often work together.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-wikipedia-visualisation-project-visualising-basic-parameters

Indic Language Wikipedias as Open Educational Resources

subha — 2014-06-04T03:32:57Z

The Open Education Working Group sees supporting multilingual activities such as translation to and from languages which are not often used as one of its key future roles. Subhashish Panigrahi’s post while dwelling upon the growth of Indic Wikimedia communities critically examines Wikipedia as an educational resource.

The article by Subhashish Panigrahi was published in Open Education Working Group website on May 27, 2014.

Subhashish Panigrahi is an an educator and open source activist based in Bangalore, India. He is a long time Wikimedian and is involved in many activism and policy level debates around open education. Currently he is working at the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access To Knowledge program where he is working on designing implementation projects for catalyzing growth of Indic Wikimedia communities and content acquisition.

In the past, he has worked on building partnership with universities, language research organizations, government departments, GLAM institutions and individuals for bringing more scholarly and encyclopedic content on language, culture and history under free licenses. He is excited about experimenting on new methodologies in education, building interactive educational resources and bringing knowledge producing institutions, resourceful experts and scholars under one roof. He has been involved in various language related conferences and spoken in both policy and implementation discourses around open knowledge and open source.

Since the inception of four Indic language Wikipedias: Assamese, Malayalam, Odia and Punjab in 2002, the focus of Wikimedia Foundation has been diverse in many aspects.

Wikipedia’s focus oriented from Latin to non-Latin projects which was high-risk but revolutionary specifically in four of the aforementioned languages besides the other language Wikipedias that came a little later. It is quite obvious that the number of contributors to the Indic language Wikimedia projects were very few. Indic input in Unicode standard was less popular. Wikipedia struggled back then and still continues to struggle in terms of getting voluntary contributions and quality content because of these reasons.


Above: A screen shot of Assamese Wikipedia page

In its initial phase of community building the language projects faced difficulties in teaching people about typing in their own scripts. It was a painful exercise – starting from scratch to building language input tools and tutorials, conducting outreach for mass-awareness and educating them of the importance of building content for their future generation and other such activities. Today, about 12 out of the 20 Indic language Wikipedias are active in terms of growth in the size of the contributor community and quality content. However, since the available resources are more or less limited in general and also lacking more in regional languages, there has been dependence on text books as useful educational resources. There is a complete dearth of peer reviewed journals and research documents in Indic languages. If there are some, they have not been digitized and some of the digitized resources are not available in accessible formats. With this there is a need to rethink about the potential to open Wikipedia up for more contribution from the academia and researcher communities.


Odia Wikipedia workshop, IIMC, Dhenkanal 18-19 November 2013 [Source Wikmedia Commons]

Conventionally educational resources are created by subject experts in a limited time frame and reviewed for factual accuracy. Wikipedia, on the contrary could be edited by anyone at any point of time and the content is ever changing. Many-a-times stub class articles get created. Not all of the articles are also of good quality. All of these result in a mixed spectrum of articles of varied quality. So, the entire Wikipedia, per se cannot be taken as OER.. It is quite challenging to get dedicated volunteers to devote their time to enhance the quality and keep the articles updated.

The ever changing nature of Wikipedia could be a potential opportunity to look at it as an educational resource that is more dynamic and upgradable in nature. Some of the subjects such as science or humanities in our education syllabi have content that is perpetually true in nature. If well written, then these kind of articles could be taken as OER as these do not need constant change. However, many other study programs including the applied disciplines are not up to date because of the conventional mode of education. There is a need to revamp the educational system and bring a more dynamic and informative system. Wikipedia, for sure will be a good platform for specific areas of education like these. However, this could be attained only if there are a group of contributors while implementing mass-scale WikipediaEducation Programs.

While working with two different batches of masters students of journalism at Indian Institute of MassCommunication at Dhenkanal in Odisha, I experienced the multitude of such fast pace of information flow that does not exist in many other disciplines. In general, people working on current issues of the world remain in a high information zone. If such talents could be tapped by bringing Wikipedia into their zone of action, then something great could be leveraged. Similarly, many researchers and people that are involved in work related documentation could be tapped when looking at specific subject areas for creating a subset of educational resource building exercise from Wikipedia.


Screenshot of the Chatasabha which is a help desk on Odia Wikipedia

The drawback in the existing text book compilation process is that a fixed number of people might make it a monotonous process. Things like visual appeal and user experience, the layers of reuse, remix and reproduction that Wikipedia offers will be lacking. The process of bringing Indic language Wikipedias into the curricula also unleashes the opportunity of creating an inclusive community of experts and passively absorbing information from the existing resources including books that are currently the only educational resources. The constant discourse that a language or academic community that are subsets of a Wikipedia community, cross-pollination of ideas, information, experiments from inter-related and interdisciplinary collectives adds many additional layers of complexity to the way information get on to Wikipedia. This very complexity makes it stand out as a completely different system altogether that learns, changes the ways of approach, preserves learning and presents itself is an institution.

So far, most of the Indic languages Wikipedias are the largest reservoirs of knowledge despite the challenges of sustaining the contributing community. To take them to a new level needs the risk of allowing potential vandals of taking it to the larger audience as a contributor and taking to the knowledge seeking mass as an Open Educational Resource. As Wikipedia itself, this would be another happening journey if the challenges and mistakes are accepted. Otherwise, bringing the right balance and opening up the existing system might just take centuries and that is alarming for this society that cannot wait inside the cocoon of being completely perfect but outdated and afford to walk slower.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-education-working-group-may-27-2014-subhashish-panigrahi-indic-language-wikipedias-as-open-educational-resources

Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012

shiju — 2013-02-03T02:40:48Z

I have compiled the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012. As usual, in this report, my aim is to provide my perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.

(The period of analysis is editor contributions between December 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012. December to December data is taken to account for the seasonal variations). Read the 2011 report here and the 2010 report here. The data for this report and analysis is based on the statistical data published at http://stats.wikimedia.org. A special thanks to Erik Zachte for compiling all this information.

Here is my executive summary after analyzing the data for 2012 and my experince with building some wiki communities:

Steady and sustainable growth is available for communities which focus on community building.
Small languages with guidance and support are making huge progress than many big languages.
Lack of support from proper channels at the much needed time had affected the community growth of some communities.
Even though many outreach programs had happened across country, that is not showing up in terms of number of active editors.
Still many language communities (especially big languages) are not open to the idea of reaching out to the speakers of the respective language.
Pageviews of Indic projects continues to increase.

This report is presented in the following sequence. This is done so because I believe that community is central to the Wikimedia movement. Community will give us content which will drive readership.

Community
Content
Readership

Community

As mentioned above, according to me, community is the backbone of Wikimedia movement. But still many communities are not understanding the importance of this. It is important that all language wiki communities give adequate importance to community building to build the free knowledge repository in their language. The following table gives information based on two important parameters about the community. The first parameter shows the highly active editors (more than 100 edits per month) in wiki. The second parameter shows the active editors (more than 5 edits per month).

Like last year, Malayalam continues to show an upward growth in terms of the number of active users. It has close to 120 active editors now. The graphical summary shows that mean number of editors is around 100. Malayalam is the biggest wiki community among Indic languages even though Malayalam is only the 11th biggest spoken language in India. The sincere efforts put by Malayalam wikipedians to build its community is the only reason for this. The programs like Malayalam Wiki conference, Education program, CD project, wiki workshops, photo events, Wikimeetups, and many other outreach events started showing its result. If the community continues with these type of efforts then I am sure that the community strength in Malayalam Wikipedia will cross 150 in 2013. Apart from Wikipedia, the importance given to Malayalam Wikisource, Wiktionary, and more recently to Wikivoyage (in incubator) will attract more Malayalam speakers to the Malayalam wiki projects.
Tamil comes second with close to 80 active editors. However, the number of active editors has gone down from last year. The graphical summary shows that number of active users was around 70-75 especially during the last two quarters.
Bengali comes third with around 60 active editors. This is a slight increase from the last year’s number of active editors. The involvement of editors from India in Bengali Wikipedia is less. That needs to be changed. Bangladeshi wikipedians are having many outreach programs to build Bengali wiki community. It will be nice if they extend their support to Indian Bengali speakers also as Indian Bengali wikipedians are not growing.
Telugu, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi are the wikipedia languages that show notable increase in the number of active editors. But it will be be a mistake from my part if I am not mentioning that these numbers are not encouraging and the current number of active users is not showing justice to the number of speakers these languages have. This statement is more significant when we consider the fact that some smaller languages are showing a better progress.
We have seen that last year (2011) the success stories were Odia and Assamese wikipedias. In 2012, the shining star is Punjabi. The community has grown from one active editor from last year to almost 15 active editors now. As mentioned in my blog posts (post 1, post 2, post 3, and post 4) about building Punjabi wikipedia community, the task of building community for Punjabi was very challenging. Initiated in 2002 along with Assamese, Punjabi is one of the first Indic language wikipedia. But nothing much had happened in that wiki until deliberate efforts to build community initiated. The news is now we have an active community in Punjabi Wikipedia. From the just one person last year (Guglani – who took lots of pain to travel to multiple locations to introduce Punjabi wikipedia), now Punjabi wikipedia has close to 15 active editors. Unlike Odia and Assamese, I have faced so many issues during Punjabi wikipedia community building (mostly conflicts between editors). But I am happy to see that community is slowly coming out of all that. The technical team has fixed some of the bugs related to typing tool which was very important for Punjabi wikipedia. Punjabi wikipedians require lot support from other wikipedians to sustain the current momentum and grow the community further. My best wishes to Punjabi wikipedians.
Gujarati and Urdu are the two other communities that made considerable progress in community growth. The efforts put by Gujarati wikipedians to reach out to Gujarati speakers started showing the results. I am sure with the significant attention also given to Gujarati Wikisource (which was created last year), more Gujarati speakers will be attracted to Gujarati wiki projects. The involvement of Indians in Urdu Wikipedia is very less. But it is good to notice that Urdu wiki community slowly started growing. May be Wikipedia is one place where Indians and Pakistanis can work together.
The wikipedia languages that haven't shown significant change in number of active editors are Marathi, Odia, Assamese, and Nepali. The respective communities need to start putting efforts to build community by taking lessons from other Indic language wiki communities.
The languages that have considerable reduction in number of editors are Hindi, Kannada, and Sanskrit. Among this, except Sanskrit, all are spoken by at least five crore people. It is not good to see that speakers of these languages are not giving any attention to the wiki projects in their respective language. The case of Hindi is very strange considering the fact that it has support of the central government and many state governments of India.
The dormant language communities are Sindhi, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri, and some other small languages. Considering the fact that Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi were also dormant two years before, I am sure if someone is putting effort to build communities for these now dormant communities, these language wiki communities will also grow like it happened for Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi. Now there are multiple entities to support wikimedia movement in India and I hope that someone will take care of this apart from concentrating on the bigger languages.
In short, the point I want to emphasis is, conscious efforts are required from different stakeholders to grow communities and to sustain that growth for all Indic language wikipedias.

Content

Number of articles is an important parameter, but it has misguided some wiki communities in the past. Fortunately that trend is coming down.

With more than 1,04,000 articles, Hindi continues to be the biggest Indic language wikipedia in terms of the number of articles. Almost 3500 articles were added to Hindi wikipedia in the year 2013.
Tamil and Malayalam had added around 7000 articles which is the "biggest growth" in terms of number of articles. Urdu and Nepali added close to 5000 articles.
If we consider percentage of increase then Assamese language has shown more than 100 per cent increase in the number of articles.
Some of the important milestones are, Tamil and Telugu crossing 50,000 articles, Malayalam crossing 25,000 articles, and Assamese crossing 1,000 article milestones.
The languages that have shown very slow growth in terms of number of articles are Gujarati, Telugu and Kannada. I assume at least for few of these languages the focus went into enhancing the existing articles and building the community rather than creating thousands of stub articles.
As mentioned in the past reports, communities don’t need to worry about the number of articles. Also the examples of Bishnupriya Manipuri and Newari Wikipedias shows the after effect of increasing the article count without focusing on building the community.

Readership (page views)

Unlike the number of editors, the number of page views in wiki is showing an upward trend irrespective of the language.(Please note that the information available in the below table is the total visits (page views) for a language wikipedia for a month from all the platforms combined. It includes visits by readers and editors. This is NOT the list of Number of Unique Visitors to the website).

This is the one parameter where the figures are showing relative justice to the number of speakers.
Hindi with 78 lakh page views is in the top position.
The page views for Tamil had increased by more than 50 per cent.
Assamese has more than 100 per cent growth in page views.
Since the support for Indic languages is increasing for smart phone operating systems, I am sure the page views are going to increase further.

Conclusion

I am concluding this report with the following thoughts:

Being the biggest language (or number of speakers) does not automatically build community for an Indic language wikipedia. Efforts from respective language speakers are necessary to build community.
Most Indians who have access to internet and computer still don’t know their respective language typing. This is the biggest road block to build Indic language wiki community.
Do not get obsessed by article counts or readership. These are natural outcomes of community building.
Focus on community building through community interaction (through meetups, talk pages, village pumps, and mailing lists).
Focus on community building through community collaboration (WikiProjects or planning outreach efforts or advocacy).
Focus on community building through doing more outreach, better outreach, and being supportive of newbies.
Stay away from bots and translation tools for article creation as they do more harm than good. Use bots in such a way that it is not affecting the growth of the community.

Wishing all of you a wonderful wiki year 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2012