The Centre for Internet and Society
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CIS-A2K proposal to Wikimedia Foundation for 2019-2020
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) has submitted its proposal form for the year 2019 - 2020 to the Wikimedia Foundation. CIS thanks all community members who gave valuable suggestions and inputs for drafting this proposal.</b>
<h2>Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Proposal form</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation registered in India that works in different areas such as <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility" rel="nofollow">accessibility</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/openness" rel="nofollow">openness</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance" rel="nofollow">internet governance</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/telecom" rel="nofollow">telecom</a>, <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/raw" rel="nofollow">research</a>, etc. The organisation's official website may be seen at <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/" rel="nofollow">cis-india.org</a>. Annual reports of the Centre for Internet and Society may be seen <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/about/reports" rel="nofollow">here</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The <a class="text external" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k" rel="nofollow">Access to Knowledge (A2K)</a> program of CIS<sup><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> is dedicated to supporting and serving Indian Wikimedia projects and the communities. In the last few years, CIS-A2K has worked towards creating sustainable programs and building community capacity. The primary objectives of CIS-A2K are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Supporting and serving the Indian Wikimedia communities in all possible ways.</li>
<li>Building institutional partnerships.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Bringing more content under <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_license" title="en:Free license">free license</a></li>
<li>Designing and executing projects with community participation.</li>
<li>Strengthening the Wikimedia volunteers.</li>
<li>Fostering and enabling an appropriate legal and technological ecosystem.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2018–2019 CIS-A2K worked with Kannada, Marathi, Odia, and Telugu communities as Focused Language Area, and Punjabi Wikisource as a Focused Project Area. Some of the major events conducted by CIS-A2K in last 1 year were:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Train the Trainer Program">Train the Trainer</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/MediaWiki_Training" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/MediaWiki Training">MediaWiki Training</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wiki_Advanced_Training/2018" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Wiki Advanced Training/2018">Advanced Wikidata Training</a></li>
<li><span style="text-align: center; ">Wikisource workshop (</span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians/Punjabi_Wikisource_Training_Workshop,_Patiala" style="text-align: center; " title="Punjabi Wikimedians/Punjabi Wikisource Training Workshop, Patiala">Patiala</a><span style="text-align: center; ">, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gujarati_Wikisource_Workshop,_Ahmedabad" style="text-align: center; " title="Gujarati Wikisource Workshop, Ahmedabad">Ahmedabad</a><span style="text-align: center; ">, </span><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Wikisource_training_Bengaluru" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Wikisource training Bengaluru">Bangalore</a><span style="text-align: center; ">)</span></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikigraphists_Bootcamp_(2018_India)" style="text-align: center; " title="Wikigraphists Bootcamp (2018 India)">Wikigraphists Bootcamp</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TWLCon_(2019_India)" style="text-align: center; " title="TWLCon (2019 India)">TWLCon</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Women_TTT_2019" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Women TTT 2019">Women's TTT</a></li>
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing_2018" style="text-align: center; " title="Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing 2018">Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing (WWWW)</a></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Women_TTT_2019" style="text-align: center; " title="CIS-A2K/Events/Women TTT 2019"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K is also working with like-minded organisations and institutions such as <a class="text external" href="https://christuniversity.in/" rel="nofollow">Christ University</a>, Bangalore, <a class="text external" href="https://www.mkcl.org/" rel="nofollow">Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation</a>, <a class="text external" href="http://vigyanashram.com/" rel="nofollow">Vigyan Ashram</a>, <a class="text external" href="http://su.digitaluniversity.ac/" rel="nofollow">Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Holkar Solapur University</a>, Odisha state government etc to improve content on different Wikimedia projects and to bring more content to the projects.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Proposal overview</h3>
<p><strong>1.</strong> Please provide a brief description of your organisation's work in the upcoming funding period.<strong><br /></strong>The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society – Access to Knowledge</a> is submitting the work-plan for the period 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020. Our plans and programs may be divided into the following verticals:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Content Enrichment</strong>, we are proposing activities like edit-a-thons, Wikisource proofread and validation campaign, Wikidata label-a-thons and data-thons, photowalks etc. We'll also work with like-minded institutions and organisations to conduct thematic edit-a-thons or similar activities that will help to improve content on different Indic Wikimedia projects;</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Skill Development Initiatives</strong>, we are proposing to conduct activities like <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Copyright_workshop:_South_India" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Copyright workshop: South India">Zonal Wiki workshops</a>, <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/MWT" title="MWT">MediaWiki Training</a>, and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Advanced_Wikidata_Training_2018" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Advanced Wikidata Training 2018">Wikidata workshop</a> etc. We will also conduct zonal and regional workshops on different Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Partnership</strong>, we will continue our work with the existing partners, and we'll build new partneships. We are proposing activities like outreach, awareness sessions, and workshops for content donation, increasing awareness about the Wiki movement and bridging gender gap;</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">in <strong>Leadership</strong>, we are proposing activities like <a class="mw-redirect" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/TTT" title="TTT">Train-the-Trainer</a>, Wikisource Conference, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/2019/Wikimedia_Summit_India_2019" title="CIS-A2K/Events/2019/Wikimedia Summit India 2019">Wikimedia Summit India</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Intensive_Personalized_Wiki_Training" title="CIS-A2K/Intensive Personalized Wiki Training">Intensive Personal Wiki Training</a>, supporting Indic Wikimedians through <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CIS-A2K/Requests" title="Talk:CIS-A2K/Requests">request page</a> etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>In this work-plan year, CIS-A2K will continue its transition from Focused Language Area (FLA) to Focused Project Area (FPA).</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Focused Language Area: Focused Language Area is an approach of CIS-A2K, where we work with a community with all its projects and activities. In other words, CIS-A2K supports all wiki-activities of a particular language community. So far Kannada, Konkani, Odia, Marathi, Tulu, Telugu have been our FLAs.</li>
<li>Focused Project Area: Focused Project Area or FPA is an approach of CIS-A2K introduced in <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Work_plan_July_2018_-_June_2019" title="CIS-A2K/Work plan July 2018 - June 2019">2018–2019 work-plan</a> where CIS-A2K mainly focuses on projects. In 2018–2019 CIS-A2K collaborated with <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians" title="Punjabi Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians</a>, and our focused projects for Punjabi Wikimedians were Punjabi mostly Wikisource and Institutional Partnership. In the same year, we increased our support towards Wikisource communities in India, appointed a Wikisource project advisor, and conducted and supported several Wikisource project events. In November 2018, we conducted a national-level <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Indic_Wikisource_Community_Consultation_2018" title="CIS-A2K/Events/Indic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018">Wikisource consultation</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We'll plan programs and activities accordingly keeping (Wikipedia) and Wikisource and Wikidata in mind. We will focus on these two projects as based on our interaction with Indian Wikimedia community members, we have found several Indic Wikimedia communities want further support and focus on these projects. CIS-A2K earlier put some effort to support these projects, and this work-plan year we will put more effort.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K will continue working towards creating an inclusive Wiki atmosphere in the Indian subcontinent. With an emphasis on creating safe spaces, promoting gender gap bridging activities A2K team would like to work with all the Indian communities, projects and individuals with interesting ideas and for the overall development of Wikimedia movement. Bridging gender gap will remain as a primary focus of CIS-A2K. We'll try to ensure at least 25% of female participants in all the events conducted by CIS-A2K. We'll conduct a quarterly audit, and present the report in our <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter" title="CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter">newsletters</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/ProposalOverview.jpg/@@images/19a87ca1-0e58-47a3-9055-bf2e181221ab.jpeg" alt="Proposal Overview" class="image-inline" title="Proposal Overview" /></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the full proposal on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2018-2019_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Proposal_form">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/ananth-subray-april-15-2019-cis-a2k-proposal-to-wikimedia-foundation-for-2019-2020</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanthWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-15T08:05:23ZBlog EntryWikimedia projects orientation session at Tata Trust's Vikas Anvesh Foundation
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation
<b>Researchers in development sector produce a pool of training material and case studies. However, these do not trickle down to the society and many in the public domain are unaware of the same.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Largely the research is restricted to non-profit organizations or their funding agencies during the project period. If the research carried out in development sector is re-licensed and then linked to Wikipedia articles as references we could see a larger section of the society gaining access to such information. The twin advantages of posting such content is that the information will be searchable online through search engines and the Wikipedia page with numerous hyperlinks leading to different sources will act as a reference resource. Larger sections in the public domain will have access to information which would perhaps be hard to gain access to.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/VAFContent.jpg/@@images/04b6fbcf-bc09-4026-9c0f-6ade9ab1772c.jpeg" alt="VAF Content" class="image-inline" title="VAF Content" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="discreet">Pictured above: Meeting at Vikas Anvesh Foundation office to discuss the possibility of disseminating the research work done, through Wikipedia. Subodh Kulkarni was the resource person for the meeting. [Picture by Sdeora14 licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license].</span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Orientation Session</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Keeping this in view an orientation session was conducted by Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge wing (CIS-A2K) at Tata Trust’s Vikas Anvesh Foundation (VAF) in Pune. CIS-A2K and VAF joined hands to explore possibilities of content enrichment in Wikimedia projects. Dr. Ajit Kanitkar and Subodh Kulkarni were the facilitators for the session attended by eight participants.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Report</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The researchers at VAF presented their publications in the form of study reports, papers in journals and conferences and datasets. Advisor Ajit Kanitkar presented story of 'Gems of Purest Ray Serene', a book about the life stories of twenty-two outstanding Indian social workers. The content of the book is uploaded on VAF's website <a href="http://www.socialworkindia.in/profiles/madhukar-dhas">socialworkindia.in</a> which is freely downloadable. The book is published in Marathi and Hindi language also.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the presentations from VAF, CIS-A2K facilitator presented different Wikimedia projects.In the discussions, it was realised that Wikipedia articles related to social issues and development sector lack reliable references. The research work on VAF website can be linked as references. The publications could be uploaded on Wikisource for wider reach. The images and videos during the work can also be uploaded on Commons.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Follow-up</h3>
<p>VAF will discuss the process of content donation with management and decide on the further steps. The training regarding Wikipedia editing and Commons uploads would be planned.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-april-9-2019-wikimedia-projects-session-at-tata-trust-vikas-anvesh-foundation</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-04-09T00:56:25ZBlog EntrySupporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Report
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report
<b>CIS-A2K team submitted Project Tiger final report. </b>
<h2>Background</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2017–2018, the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation" title="Wikimedia Foundation">Wikimedia Foundation</a> (WMF) and Google collaborated to start a pilot project in India, working closely with the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K" title="CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a> (CIS) and the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_India" title="Wikimedia India">Wikimedia India</a> chapter (WMIN). This project, titled Project Tiger was aimed at encouraging Wikipedia communities to create locally relevant and high-quality content in Indian languages. The name Project Tiger was chosen to reflect the Indian metaphor of a tiger representing a strong, or brave person (Baagh in Hindi, Puli in Tamil, etc).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Through this project, support was provided to active and experienced Wikipedia editors in the form of Chromebook donations, and stipends for Internet access. Additionally, a three-month-long editathon was conducted, as well as a language-based contest on Indic Wikipedia that aimed at addressing existing Wikipedia content gaps.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Needs Assessment</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a part of Project Tiger, CIS-A2K facilitated a <a class="text external" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc_-xcSKuBRVmJI5UHoeRE1066qoX6USgqmc_yN89iSAjzO-w/viewform" rel="nofollow">needs assessment</a> process in the month of December 2017, prompting a large number of responses between December 2017 and March 2018. Among these, the highest percentage of responses came from Wikimedians who were associated with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. A notable percentage of responses came from students. Among 190 responses, it was found that 16% of users edit Wikimedia projects on mobile phones. Additionally, out of 189 users, 51.85% said they use laptops for editing. 73 users reported that they share their devices with others to make contributions.</p>
<p>Our learnings from this process are:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">150 users who contribute to Wikipedia belong to the age groups of 20-35 and 35-50. Younger community members can consistently bring in more contributions and have a sustainable presence within the community. Supporting these young Wikimedians is very important.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Users with personal devices can make more contributions to Wikipedia than those without them. Sharing devices between users is a barrier to maximising contributions.</p>
<ul>
<li>Most users are genuinely interested in contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">There is a requirement for skill development activities (Writing skills, tools, gadgets) within the Indian Wikimedia community. Skills development will directly result in increased contribution to Wikimedia projects. Additionally, Wikimedians also showed interest in obtaining easier access to books, journals, etc.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Chromebook Distribution</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS-A2K received a large number of requests for Chromebooks and access to the Internet from community members CIS-A2K observed 271 <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support">requests</a> for laptop and internet access (including draft requests, requests from IP address, and withdrawn requests by applicants).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the first round of responding to these requests, 26 requests were answered with support. 11 of these 26 Chromebook recipients are female Wikipedians. In the second round of responses, CIS-A2K supported 24 requests. In just two rounds all Chromebooks were distributed among the users. Total Chromebooks are delivered <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops">are 50</a>. The first stage of distribution involved delivery of Chromebooks to Odia Wikimedian <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ssgapu22" title="User:Ssgapu22">Ssgapu22</a>. Subsequently, we prepared a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Support/Laptops/Help" title="Supporting Indian Language Wikipedias Program/Support/Laptops/Help">help document</a> intended to make the Chromebooks convenient to use for Indian Wikipedians. Then the Chromebooks were transported to the recipients, either by courier (35–40 Chromebooks), or in person by community advocates at events. CIS-A2K has successfully shipped Chromebooks even to rural areas in India including the border areas of West Bengal. CIS-A2K has made a final third list which serves as a waiting list, with 25 pending requests that are open for support. Support via Chromebooks has created a noticeable increase in all forms of contributions by Wikimedians to the Wikimedia projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Read the complete report published on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Report">Wikipedia page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/supporting-indian-language-wikipedias-program-report</a>
</p>
No publisherGopala Krishna AWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-05-01T05:04:24ZBlog EntryRejuvenating India’s Rivers the Wiki Way
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way
<b>Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organisation working on rejuvenation of rivers in India, has began documentation of rivers on Wiki, especially to draw attention to and mitigate the crisis of toxic deposits facing more than 40 rivers in India. The work was started by Jal Biradari, TBS’s Maharashtra based group, in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team of CIS. Here is the report from the first pilot workshop conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, in Alwar, Rajasthan.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>Events details on Wikimedia <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Workshop_of_river_activists_at_Tarun_Bharat_Sangh,_Bhikampura,_Rajasthan">meta page</a></h4>
<hr />
<h2>The Workshop</h2>
<p>As per a <a href="http://www.indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/file/status_trace_toxic_materials_indian_rivers.pdf">Government of India report</a> 42 rivers in India are polluted with toxic heavy metal deposits in them. To mitigate this crisis Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS), an organization working on rejuvenation of rivers in India began documentation of rivers on Wiki. The work was started by TBS’s Maharashtra based group Jal Biradari in Sangli district with the help of the Access to Knowledge team of CIS (CIS-A2K).</p>
<p>Realizing the potential of the project TBS decided to integrate this as training module in their capacity building workshops conducted at Bhikampura in Rajasthan. The first pilot workshop was conducted by CIS-A2K during 22-25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh Ashram, Bhikampura, Alwar in Rajasthan for 34 participants from eight states of India. Dr. Rajendra Singh, Maulik Sisodiya and Subodh Kulkarni, CIS-A2K were the facilitators. The objectives behind organizing the workshop was to build an open knowledge resource on water related issues in all Indian languages, document the river basins of India, train volunteers working in the sector to work in Wikimedia projects, open street mapping exercises and photo walks along the river and post free content on Commons and Wikisource projects.</p>
<p>The documentation structure for river basin was decided through participatory process. The participants were divided into 6 groups for working on 6 river basins of Arvari district. The resource material available with TBS in the form of maps, reports, training booklets was used to prepare the schematic maps of each river basin. The water bodies such as ponds, manmade structures like dams were also listed.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofRiverActivities.jpg/@@images/e336ea4b-9b8b-4b22-a647-79950225f98e.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on River Activities" /></th>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WorkshopofWaterActivities.jpg/@@images/d96a9ca9-4520-4d09-9eb4-f215492c8839.jpeg" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Workshop on Water Activities" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center;" colspan="2"><em>Activists during the workshop conducted by TBS in Alwar, Rajasthan in December 2018</em><br /><br /></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>After this pre-work, the training on Wikipedia editing started. The participants worked in sandboxes first on their articles. The manual of style, giving offline and online references and categorisation were discussed and practiced on sandboxes. The Commons session started with elaborate discussion on copyrights, licenses and encyclopedic content. The images were uploaded on Commons and used in the articles. The articles in the sandboxes were presented by each working group. Taking into consideration various suggestions, appropriate modifications were done. The finished new articles and the additional content into existing articles were then moved in the main namespace of respective language Wikipedia. TBS has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA. Participants who attended the workshop have started contributing in various languages.<br /><br /></p>
<h2>Participants' Feedback</h2>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“Rivers are essential for existence of life in land. Keeping its sanctity and health is very important. The Wikimedia workshop gave an insight on river pollution issues and the importance of reviving them. As Wikipedia is an open platform it can create a larger impact by reaching out to the society.” - <a title="en:Username:Mrityunjay1010" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Mrityunjay1010">Mrityunjay1010</a></blockquote>
<blockquote style="text-align: justify;" class="quoted">“The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of generalizing the knowledge for common good. The workshop gave me a lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop.” - <a title="en:Username:Simantabharati" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Username:Simantabharati">Simantabharati</a></blockquote>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-rejuvenating-indias-rivers-the-wiki-way</a>
</p>
No publishersubodhCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedHomepage2019-04-01T13:18:33ZBlog Entryಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ತರಬೇತಿಯ ವರದಿ
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c95ca8ccdca8ca1-cb5cbfc95cbfcaaca1cbfcaf-cb6cbfc95ccdcb7ca3-cafc9cca8cc6-cb8caecbecb5cb6-caeca4ccdca4cc1-ca4cb0cacca4cbfcaf-cb5cb0ca6cbf
<b>ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯು ದಿನದಿಂದ ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಬಳಕೆಯಿಲ್ಲದೇ ಕುಂದುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಭಾಗದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಮಾಧ್ಯಮದ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ಸರಿಯಾದ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆಕರಗಳು ಸಿಗುತ್ತಿಲ್ಲ. ಇಂತಹ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ, ಕನ್ನಡವನ್ನು ಉಳಿಸಿ ಬೆಳೆಸುವುದು ಪ್ರತಿಯೊಬ್ಬ ಕನ್ನಡಿಗನ ಕರ್ತವ್ಯ. ಇದನ್ನೆಲ್ಲ ಗಮನದಲ್ಲಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಂಡು, ಸಂತ ಅಲೋಶಿಯಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಆಶ್ರಯದಲ್ಲಿ ದಿನಾಂಕ ೦೯ ಹಾಗೂ ೧೦ ನೇ ಫೆಬ್ರುವರಿ, ೨೦೧೯ ರಂದು ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ತರಬೇತಿಯನ್ನು ನಡೆಸಲಾಯಿತು.
</b>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣವನ್ನು ತಮ್ಮಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಬೇಕೆನ್ನುತ್ತಿರುವ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರು ಹಾಗೂ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳಿಗೆ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಡುವುದು ಹಾಗೂ ತರಬೇತಿ ನೀಡುವುದು ಈ ಸಮಾವೇಶದ ಮುಖ್ಯ ಉದ್ದೇಶವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಮೊದಲ ದಿನ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣವನ್ನು ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಿರುವ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಗಳಿಂದ ಒಬ್ಬ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ ಮತ್ತು ಒಬ್ಬ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರನ್ನು ಆಹ್ವಾನಿಸಿ, ಅವರಿಂದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಪರಿಚಯಿಸಿಕೊಡಲಾಯಿತು. ವಿಶ್ವಕನ್ನಡ ಪತ್ರಿಕೆಯ ಸಂಪಾದಕರಾದ ಡಾ. ಪವನಜ ಅವರು ಸವಿಸ್ತಾರವಾಗಿ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ತಿಳುವಳಿಕೆ ನೀಡಿದರು.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದಿಂದ ಮಹಾದೇವಪ್ಪ ಹೆಚ್. ಹಾಗೂ ಧನ್ಯ ಭಾರದ್ವಾಜ್ ಎಂಬ ಇಬ್ಬರು ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು ಭಾಗವಹಿಸಿ, ಕರ್ನಾಟಕವಲ್ಲದೇ ಅಂತರಾಷ್ಟೀಯ ಮಟ್ಟದಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಸರುವಾಸಿಯಾಗಿರುವ ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಅಚ್ಚುಕಟ್ಟಾದ ಪರಿಚಯ ಮಾಡಿಕೊಟ್ಟರು. ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯದ ವಿ.ಶಿ.ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭದಿಂದ ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗಿನ ಬೆಳೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದ ರೀತಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲ ಅಂಕಿ-ಅಂಶಗಳನ್ನು ಮಹಾದೇವಪ್ಪ ಮಂಡಿಸಿದರೆ, ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳ ನಿಲುವುಗಳನ್ನು ಧನ್ಯ ವಿವರಿಸಿದರು.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">ಇದರೊಂದಿಗೆ, ಉಜಿರೆಯ ಎಸ್.ಡಿ.ಎಮ್ ಹಾಗೂ ಮೂಡಿಬಿದಿರೆಯ ಆಳ್ವಾಸ್ ಸಂಸ್ಥೆಯವರು ಕೂಡ ತಮ್ಮ ವಿ.ಶಿ. ಯೋಜನೆಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ವಿವರಿಸಿದರು. ಹೀಗೆ ಎಲ್ಲ ಬಗೆಯ ಮಾಹಿತಿಗಳನ್ನು ಒದಗಿಸುವ ಮೂಲಕ ಮೊದಲ ದಿನದ ಸಮಾವೇಶ ಮುಕ್ತಾಯಗೊಂಡಿತು.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">ಎರಡನೇಯ ದಿನ, ಪವನಜರ ಮುಂದಾಳತ್ವದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಪ್ರಾಧ್ಯಾಪಕರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಆನ್ಲೈನ್ ತರಬೇತಿಯನ್ನು ನೀಡುವ ಮೂಲಕ ವಿವಿಧ ಕಾಲೇಜುಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ವಿ.ಶಿ.ಯೋಜನೆ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಿಸಲು ಸಹಕಾರ ನೀಡಲಾಯಿತು. ಎರಡು ದಿನಗಳ ಕಾಲ, ಹಾಜರಿದ್ದ ಎಲ್ಲರಿಗೂ ಉತ್ತಮವಾದ ವಸತಿ ಹಾಗೂ ಊಟದ ವ್ಯವಸ್ಥೆಯನ್ನು ಮಾಡಲಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಕೊನೆಗೆ, ಸ್ವಾಗತದಷ್ಟೇ ಆದರದಿಂದ ಎಲ್ಲರನ್ನು ಬೀಳ್ಕೊಡಲಾಯಿತು.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c95ca8ccdca8ca1-cb5cbfc95cbfcaaca1cbfcaf-cb6cbfc95ccdcb7ca3-cafc9cca8cc6-cb8caecbecb5cb6-caeca4ccdca4cc1-ca4cb0cacca4cbfcaf-cb5cb0ca6cbf'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/c95ca8ccdca8ca1-cb5cbfc95cbfcaaca1cbfcaf-cb6cbfc95ccdcb7ca3-cafc9cca8cc6-cb8caecbecb5cb6-caeca4ccdca4cc1-ca4cb0cacca4cbfcaf-cb5cb0ca6cbf</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanthWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-03-07T02:35:05ZBlog EntryWikimedia Summit India 2019
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019
<b>CIS-A2K team is organizing a two-day Wikimedia Summit event for the participants taking part in the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Wikimedia Summit India 2019</b> is an national-level event which intends to prepare representatives of various user groups, affliates, committees, groups, and teams associated to Wikimedia foundation from India who are going to attend in Wikimedia Summit 2019 and helping them understand about Movement Strategy process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wikimedia Summit 2019 (WMSummit 19) will be designed along the needs and status of the Movement Strategy Process and its Working Groups, as well as the participants’ input. The 2019 event will be an important milestone of the Movement Strategy Process.</p>
<p>Wikimedia Summit India 2019 will serve following goals:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Helping participants understand Ongoing phase in movement strategy process: Some of the participants are participating in Movement strategy process' ongoing phase in different capacities, while others might not have a good understanding about it. This conference aims to improve understanding about strategy process especially regarding 9 strategy Working groups and their scoping.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Preparation for WMSummit 19: The Summit will be an occasion where the affiliates’ and WMF’s leadership will come together to check in on the broader direction of the Strategy Process, with the opportunity to reinforce their co-ownership in this process. All Working Groups will have reached the point in their work where they prepare to draft and discuss first recommendations within their thematic area. From Indian Wikimedia movement's perspective, this offers them an opportunity to share their experience in different thematic areas of strategy process and help the broader movement strategy to have different perspectives. Also, this helps Indian Wikimedia movement to utilize experiences and learnings from different areas of Wikimedia movement and utilize them to grow the movement in India exponantially. Wikimedia Summit India 2019 also aims on gathering the collective and diverse experiences and learnings of Indian Wikimedia movement and understand where they can help in movement strategy process.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Schedule</h3>
<dl><dt>Friday - 15 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>6:30 PM to 8 PM: Introductions</li>
</ul>
<dl><dt>Saturday - 16 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>9:30 AM to 10 AM: Introduction to WMSummit India 2019</li>
<li>10 AM to 11:30 AM: Strategy Process: Necessity, Strategic direction 2030, Timeline</li>
<li>11:30 AM to 1 PM: Reinforcing co-ownership in Strategy process: How communities and affliates can be part of process</li>
<li>1 PM to 1:30 PM: Lunch</li>
<li>1:30 PM to 2:30 PM: Potential Impact of Strategy process</li>
<li>2:30 PM to 5 PM: Introducing various working groups: Working group representatives will be requested to explain over video calls</li>
</ul>
<dl><dt>Sunday - 17 March 2019</dt></dl>
<ul>
<li>10 AM to 10:20 AM: Working group scoping documents' introduction</li>
<li>10:20 AM to 12 PM: Various community learnings and to what working group's scope they matter: Group activity</li>
<li>12 PM to 1 PM:</li>
<li>1 PM to 1:30 PM: Lunch</li>
<li>1:30 to 2:30: Way forward: Consulting their community and framing agenda before WMSummit 2019</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikimedia-summit-india-2019</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaEventAccess to Knowledge2019-03-03T05:31:35ZEventGoa University students update ‘Goa’ Marathi articles on Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-february-20-2019-goa-university-students-update-goa-marathi-articles-on-wikipedia
<b>Faculty and students of Goa University’s Marathi department have updated 164 Marathi articles on Wikipedia related to Goa recently.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was published in the <a class="external-link" href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/gu-students-update-goa-marathi-articles-on-wiki/articleshowprint/68071126.cms">Times of India</a> on February 20, 2019.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">They have also added information related to the state focused on freedom fighters, Marathi literature and cultural heritage, tourism, biodiversity and the environment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The two-day effort was carried out under the supervision of Subodh Kulkarni from the Centre for Internet and Society, the Indian partner of the Wikimedia Foundation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The history of Goan villages collected by students was uploaded on Wikipedia in Marathi Devanagari Unicode. They also participated in #1Lib1Ref campaign supported by Wikipedia Library and uploaded new articles and 25 photos.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Other than editing the 164 Marathi articles, the faculty and students also edited reference for articles on Wikipedia and contributed to important facts about Goa.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Kulkarni served as the resource person for the session, while director of digital learning and initiative at Goa University Prof Ramrao Wagh, head of department of Hindi Vrushali Mandrekar; librarian at GU library Gopakumar, head of department of Marathi Sunita Umraskar, and coordinator of the workshop Vinay Madgaonkar, oversaw the effort.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-february-20-2019-goa-university-students-update-goa-marathi-articles-on-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/times-of-india-february-20-2019-goa-university-students-update-goa-marathi-articles-on-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpenness2019-02-22T02:27:14ZNews ItemMini MediaWiki Training Theni
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-mediawiki-training-theni
<b>CIS-A2k is trying to strengthen the MediaWiki movement in India, and over the last six months, the team has collaborated with different Indian Wikimedians and started a project called Indic-TechCom.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Indic-TechCom provides technical support to the Indic Wikimedia community and as of now has supported community members in <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Indic-TechCom/Tools/IndicOCR">Indic OCR</a> and <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/indic-wsstats/">Indic Wikisource stats</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To increase the awareness on MediaWiki, Indic TechCom members and CIS-A2K decided to reach out to students with the Computer science background and help them understand how to contribute on MediaWiki. As a pilot project, we reached out to Nadar Saraswathi College of Engineering and Technology and organised a two-day long Mini MediaWiki training for the students on 22nd and 23rd of January 2019.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As part of the training, On Day 1, students were explained about MediaWiki and were introduced to Git, GitHub, Phabricator and Gerrit. We helped them to install MediaWiki software on their system and also helped them to understand the structure of MediaWiki.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the second day, students were introduced to the extensions and skins, understanding the structure of extension and special pages. We also taught them how to submit patches through Gerrit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This training had a group of 20 students and 2 faculty members who were supporting the students and guiding them in their native language. The first day of the event started slowly as students were lacking in having the knowledge of Wikimedia and its structure. After setting up the relation of the Wikimedia platform the students were able to understand the use and benefits of MediaWiki. Then the installation of MediaWiki and hosting of own MediaWiki server was done. Seven students were successfully able to install and play with Localsettings.php to get the grip of their sites.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the end of the sessions, two[1][2] students were able to submit the patch to Gerrit and it was approved by Volker_E (Sr. User Experience Engineer, Wikimedia Foundation).</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[1]. <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214470">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214470</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">[2]. <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214468">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T214468</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-mediawiki-training-theni'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/mini-mediawiki-training-theni</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanthWikimediaCIS-A2KWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-02-13T02:34:40ZBlog EntryGoogle Gives Wikimedia Millions—Plus Machine Learning Tools
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/wired-january-22-2019-google-wikipedia-machine-learning-glow-languages
<b>Google is pouring an additional $3.1 million into Wikipedia, bringing its total contribution to the free encyclopedia over the past decade to more than $7.5 million, the company announced at the World Economic Forum Tuesday.</b>
<p>The article was <a class="external-link" href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-wikipedia-machine-learning-glow-languages/">published by WIRED</a> on January 22, 2019.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A little over a third of those funds will go toward sustaining current efforts at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia, and the remaining $2 million will focus on long-term viability through the organization’s <a href="https://wikimediaendowment.org/" target="_blank">endowment</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Google will also begin allowing Wikipedia editors to use several of its machine learning tools for free, the tech giant said. What's more, Wikimedia and Google will soon broaden <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program" target="_blank">Project Tiger</a>, a joint initiative they launched in 2017 to increase the number of Wikipedia articles written in underrepresented languages in India, and to include 10 new languages in a handful of countries and regions. It will now be called GLOW, Growing Local Language Content on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It’s certainly positive that Google is investing more in Wikipedia, one of the <a href="https://www.alexa.com/topsites" target="_blank">most popular</a> and generally trustworthy online resources in the world. But the decision isn’t altruistic: Supporting Wikipedia is also a shrewd business decision that will likely benefit Google for years to come. Like other tech companies, including Amazon, Apple, and Facebook, Google already uses Wikipedia content in a number of its own products. When you search Google for “Paris,” a “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/google-search-california-gop-nazism/">knowledge panel</a>” of information about the city will appear, some of which is sourced from Wikipedia. The company also has used Wikipedia articles to train machine learning algorithms, as well as <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-will-link-directly-to-wikipedia-to-fight-conspiracies/">fight misinformation</a> on YouTube.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Even efforts like GLOW—which will now expand to Indonesia, Mexico, and Nigeria, as well as the Middle East and North Africa—can help Google’s own bottom line. When the initiative first launched in India, Google provided Chromebooks and internet access to editors, while the <a href="https://cis-india.org/" target="_blank">Centre for Internet and Society</a> and the Wikimedia India Chapter organized a three-month article writing competition that resulted in nearly 4,500 new Wikipedia articles in 12 different Indic languages. Smartphone penetration in India is <a href="https://newzoo.com/insights/rankings/top-50-countries-by-smartphone-penetration-and-users/" target="_blank">only around</a> 27 percent; as more people in the country start using Android smartphones and Google Search, those articles will make the tech giant’s products more useful. Wikipedia’s <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/01/22/google-and-wikimedia-foundation-partner-to-increase-knowledge-equity-online/" target="_blank">blog post</a> announcing Google’s new investment makes this strategy fairly clear, noting that the company also provided Project Tiger with “insights into popular search topics on Google for which no or limited local language content exists on Wikipedia.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Google is also providing Wikipedia free access to its <a href="https://developers.google.com/custom-search/" target="_blank">Custom Search API</a> and its <a href="https://cloud.google.com/vision/" target="_blank">Cloud Vision API</a>, which will help the encyclopedia’s volunteer editors more easily cite the facts they use. Each time a Wikipedia editor adds a new piece of information to an article, they need to <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/wikipedia-most-cited-authors-no-idea/">cite the source</a> where they learned it. The Search API will allow them quickly look up sources on the web without having to leave Wikipedia, while the vision tool will let editors automatically digitize books so they can be used to support Wikipedia articles too. Earlier this month, Wikimedia also <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/2019/01/09/you-can-now-use-google-translate-to-translate-articles-on-wikipedia/" target="_blank">announced</a> Google Translate was coming to Wikipedia, allowing editors to convert content into 15 additional languages, bringing the total available to 121.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">These machine learning tools will absolutely make it easier for Wikipedia to reach people who speak languages currently underrepresented on the web. But the encyclopedia is also the reason many AI programs exist in the first place. For example, Google-owned Jigsaw has used Wikipedia, in part, to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/02/googles-troll-fighting-ai-now-belongs-world/">train</a> its open source troll-fighting AI. The encyclopedia is also used by hundreds of other AI platforms, particularly <a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/59ydmx/copyright-law-artificial-intelligence-bias" target="_blank">because</a> every Wikipedia article is under Creative Commons—meaning it can be reproduced for free without copyright restrictions. Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa smart assistants use information from Wikipedia to answer questions, for instance. (Both <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-just-donated-1-million-to-wikipedia-2018-9" target="_blank">companies</a> also have <a href="https://annual.wikimedia.org/2017/donors.html" target="_blank">donated</a> to the Wikimedia Foundation as well.)</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Google’s new investments in Wikipedia, specifically in GLOW, will address a genuine problem. The majority of Wikipedia’s tens of millions of articles are in English or European languages like French, German, and Russian. (There are also lots of articles in Swedish and two versions of Filipino, but most of these pages <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-this-author-10-000-wikipedia-articles-is-a-good-days-work-1405305001" target="_blank">were created</a> by a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lsjbot#cite_note-arts-5" target="_blank">prolific bot</a>). As the <a href="https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/opb/pol/S-POL-BROADBAND.18-2017-PDF-E.pdf" target="_blank">estimated half</a> of Earth’s population that still lacks an internet connection comes online, it will be important that reliable information is available in the native languages people speak. That doesn’t mean, though, that in helping solve these issues companies like Google—<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/what-happened-to-facebooks-grand-plan-to-wire-the-world/">or Facebook</a>—don’t also have something to gain.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/wired-january-22-2019-google-wikipedia-machine-learning-glow-languages'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/wired-january-22-2019-google-wikipedia-machine-learning-glow-languages</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2019-02-02T12:52:37ZNews ItemCIS Signs MoU with Odia Virtual Academy
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy
<b>On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Odia Virtual Academy (OVA) to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects. This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and we are sharing an overview of the activities and their objectives in this post.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The internet is increasingly significant as a knowledge repository today. Especially relevant in this context is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which contains information on almost every topic under the sun, across many languages spoken globally, and is used extensively all people to seek information and produce knowledge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From past one year (since July 2017), The Government of Odisha has been actively participating in the open knowledge movement by publishing the content of their seven websites and eight social media accounts under Creative Commons 4.0 International license. This active collaboration with Government of Odisha and an active Odia Wikimedia community seeking to create and distribute knowledge in Odia language over the internet has resulted in improving 1,200 articles on different Wikimedia projects, and together has received a near about 16 Million page views. Further, the Government of Odisha adopting an open content policy will provide a significant boost in institutionalising creation, sharing, and re-use of open knowledge resources - including government documents, official statistics, open educational resources, and open cultural resources - in Odia language.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://ova.gov.in/en/" target="_blank">Odia Virtual Academy (OVA)</a> is an organisation established by Government of Odisha for development, promotion and popularization of Odia language, literature, and lexicography for general use. It is an organised initiative to encourage expeditious evolution and popularisation of Odia books, magazines, journals, old songs, manuscripts, assembly speeches, and archival records by digitising and providing internet based resources and opportunities for all odia people living across the globe.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a MoU with the Odia Virtual Academy to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and its activities are structured by the following objectives:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open Content Policy for the Government of Odisha:</b> The open content policy will include guidelines for the use of open licenses and open standards to enable the resource (text, resources or otherwise) publishing entity to share resources in a manner that it can be easily and freely be accessed, shared, and re-used by entities, without asking for prior permission, while ensuring that full attribution to the creator/publisher is provided and the resources are not misused, or the creator/publisher is not misrepresented in the process.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Developing Digital and Open Knowledge Resources in Odia Language:</b> The CIS team will undertake awareness-building, training, and outreach activities to develop Odia language content on Wikimedia ecosystem, as well as to enable content creators from across institutions, with a focus on state government officials at district headquarters and college students. The broad mandate of the digital resource generation workshop is to introduce teachers, students, and interested citizens to tools of collaborative knowledge production on the internet and methods for generating new online content or reintroduce offline content in Odia language.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>‘Revive Odia’ Activities:</b> Odia as a language has a long tradition and has been medium of expression for the native speakers of Odisha. While Odia as a language of communication is not under any immediate threat, its role and responsibility as a language of Knowledge needs to be examined carefully. ‘Revive Odia’ activities have a simple objective: <i>To bring Odia under limelight in the digital domain</i>. Wikimedia projects in Odia language are working actively to increase the presence of Odia language on the Internet. If such projects can be supported new projects can be incubated, Odia will emerge as the language of knowledge production and distribution as well.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Partnerships:</b> Wikimedia ecosystem offer several platforms for using the power and opportunities of internet to (digitally) preserve, enable access to, and creative re-use of historical, cultural, and social artefacts, and channel the expertise of local populations to build narratives around these artefacts. The CIS team is particularly interested in initiating engagement with public GLAM institutions at various locations and levels, and work with academic and research community to build scientific metadata of these objects. The metadata will be used to represent the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Odisha in projects such as Wikidata.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Building and Supporting FOSS for Odia Language:</b> To promote and enable usage of Odia language on the web, the CIS team will facilitate development of an Odia font, an input tool, and a spell-check dictionary - all of which will be released as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) resources.</li>
</ul>
<p>To undertake these activities, CIS will receive a grant of Rs 20,00,000 (~$28,000) from OVA.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy</a>
</p>
No publishersaileshOpen Educational ResourcesCIS-A2KOpen LicenseAccess to KnowledgeOpen DataWikipediaOpen ContentOdia WikipediaOpen AccessWikimedia2018-12-20T00:24:44ZBlog EntryAditya 365
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/aditya-365
<b>Telugu Wikimedian Aditya Pakide successfully completed 365 Wiki Commons Days. Aditya started contributing to project after a Facebook comment by A2K community advocate suggesting that the same picture would get more utilization in Commons and a brief training followed.</b>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Aditya365.jpg/@@images/3076bc5e-519f-4bf3-868f-c782088da581.jpeg" alt="Aditya 365" class="image-inline" title="Aditya 365" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/aditya-365'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/aditya-365</a>
</p>
No publisherpavanCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaTelugu Wikipedia2018-11-07T02:32:27ZBlog EntryVan Bodh Workshop for content development on Forest Resources at Gadchiroli
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/van-bodh-workshop-for-content-development-on-forest-resources-at-gadchiroli
<b>CIS-A2K has collaborated with Tribal Research and Training Institute (TRTI) to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation. These contents will become a part of "Van Bodh Knowledge repository".</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Bombay University has formulated and going to start a "Diploma course in Community Resource Management " with the support of TRTI, Pune from 2nd of oct 2018. This is a historic attempt to impart education of the level of a diploma to rural, especially tribal youth without any condition of academic qualification. The course was conducted at Mendha(Lekha) an hamlet in Dhanora taluk of Gadchiroli District. CIS-A2K has collaborated with TRTI to facilitate development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/van-bodh-workshop-for-content-development-on-forest-resources-at-gadchiroli'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/van-bodh-workshop-for-content-development-on-forest-resources-at-gadchiroli</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaEvent2018-11-06T01:36:39ZEventCommunity Toolkit for Greater Diversity
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/community-toolkit-for-greater-diversity
<b>P.P. Sneha participated in a 3 day programme organized by Wikipedia community in Mandrem, Goa from October 5 - 7, 2018. The event was a peer training programmeto strengthen the work in the direction of building greater diversity and inclusion in the Wikimedia community. </b>
<ul>
<li>Click to see the <a class="external-link" href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/files/community-toolkit-for-greater-diversity">agenda of the event</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>More info of the programme can be <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Chinmayisk/Community_toolkit_for_Greater_Diversity/Modules">accessed here</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/community-toolkit-for-greater-diversity'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/community-toolkit-for-greater-diversity</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-10-30T02:08:31ZNews ItemOdia Virtual Academy launched
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched
<b>Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday launched a new web portal of ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ (www.ova.gov.in) to promote the Odia language and literature at the Secretariat here.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2018/oct/27/odia-virtual-academy-launched-1890628.html">published in the New Indian Express</a> on October 27, 2018.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Launching the web portal, the Chief Minister said, “It is a matter of pleasure that the new web portal of the ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ is being dedicated today. Odia language has received the classical status.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A lot of literature has also been created in Odia language. The Academy has taken the responsibility for promotion, preservation and digitisation of the Odia language and literature.” Naveen said the new website will be helpful in the promotion of Odia language at the international level, especially for the Non Resident Odias (NROs). He said youths will also benefit from the Academy.<br /><br />Three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed by the State Government with the University of Chicago library, CDAC and Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru to expedite digitisation of Odia literature and development of Odia software. “This will go a long way in enhancing the visibility of Odia language and literature in the digital space,” he said.<br /><br />So far, as many as 170 books of Odia literature have been placed in the Academy website. The prime objective of the Academy is digitisation of about 2000 rare and copyright free Odia books and establishment of a free digital library, digitisation of various Odia dictionaries available presently for free access, promotion of Odia unicode font faces through standardisation of typing keyboards and making those affordable for public in coming six months and development of primers and uploading those for easy learning.<br /><br />Besides, the Academy’s purpose is to digitise and preserve Odia lexicon, ancient magazines and journals, traditional music, ancient documents, literature on science and history, folk culture, tribal language and literature, history-oriented essays, speech of great personalities, Sri Jagannath culture, temple and its architecture.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-10-29T02:27:23ZNews ItemHistory of Wikipedia Education programme at Christ (Deemed to be University)
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/history-of-wikipedia-education-programme-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university
<b>This article gives the insight of Christ Wikipedia Education Program, how students are involved in different capacities in the program and shares the best practices of the Education Program. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This was originally published in <a class="external-link" href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/News/September_2018/History_of_Wikipedia_Education_programme_at_Christ_(Deemed_to_be_University)">Wikimedia Blog</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia Education programme at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) started as a pilot project in 2013 with a goal of using Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool for the undergraduate students. Both the educators of the WEP and of the university were new to one such approach. Students of five Indian languages--Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Urdu--were chosen were enrolled for the program as students opt for these languages as their second language. During the first and second year, almost all the students created new Wikipedia articles where the majority of the articles were below accepted standard. The difficulty in making students learn about input tools in their languages, Wikipedia basics, and wiki markup pushed for creating "how-to" video tutorials in Hindi and Kannada. Working with Urdu was discontinued after the second year because of program staff exit. Slowly, the program was reoriented in a manner that new students learned native language input and markup for the first two semesters by digitizing books on Wikisource and later by editing Wikipedia articles during the next two semesters. This helped better the output by increasing the quality of articles by nearly 30%. From 2015 the program was further improved by helping students get more hands-on training of input, wiki markup by intensive typing during the first semester, a few advanced options like interacting with each other on user talk page during the second semester, moving to Wikipedia editing and developing articles on Wikipedia sandbox during third semester, and finally moving the articles by peer-review from fellow batchmates, faculty and the larger Wikipedia community. The faculty is involved in the development and on-wiki review process ensuring quality.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The program so far has gone to the level of producing about 70% very good quality articles where nearly 0.6% of the articles are of really poor quality. The female to male ratio is surprisingly equal and at times, there are more female students as compared to the male ones. However, there is little concern in integrating the student-Wikimedians to the larger Wikimedia community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Also, there is little exchange of learning and best practices between cross-language outreach programs across India across several different languages. One of the ways to better this process is making program leaders talk to each other.<br /><br />To know more about us follow on</p>
<p><span><span> </span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><span><span>
<p>Twitter- <a class="free external" href="https://twitter.com/wepchrist" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/wepchrist</a></p>
</span></span></li>
</ul>
<p><span><span> </span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><span><span>
<p>Facebook- <a class="free external" href="https://www.facebook.com/ChristWEP/" rel="nofollow">https://www.facebook.com/ChristWEP/</a></p>
</span></span></li>
</ul>
<p><span><span> </span></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/history-of-wikipedia-education-programme-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/history-of-wikipedia-education-programme-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanthWikipedia Education ProgramWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-10-29T02:20:14ZBlog Entry