The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 651 to 665.
‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging
<b>Wikipedia’s founder member Erik Möller says their principle is not to decide the map of India, but to explain that there is a controversy.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.bangaloremirror.com/article/10/2012111520121115012325828c5530870/%E2%80%98Some-Indian-laws-could-be-challenging%E2%80%99.html">published in Bangalore Mirro</a>r on November 15, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Erik Möller, vice-president engineering and product development, Wikimedia Foundation, is one of the founder members of Wikipedia, along with Jimmy Wales, since it started in 2001. Möller was in Bangalore over the weekend to speak at a technical seminar at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a local chapter of Wikimedia. He spoke about India’s role in the growth of Wikipedia not just in the sub-continent, but globally.</span><span> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>BM: How significant is India in the Wikipedia movement?</b></span><span><b><br />EM:</b> Very significant and growing. I don’t have the data on exact number of editors based in India. However currently, 2.4 per cent of all Wikipedia edits globally are made from India. As a comparison, the UK’s is 6.5 per cent. India has overtaken Australia and (narrowly) Brazil since last year. In the 2011 fundraiser, India reached the top 10 of countries giving to the Wikimedia Foundation, with 39,000 donors from India giving the equivalent of $360,468. The 2012 fundraiser will be launched in a few days. (Interestingly, India is the only developing nation in the Top 10 contributing nations).</span><span><b><br /><br />Does the financial support from India surprise you?</b></span><span><br />Of course not. You are a country of a billion people (laughs). I think Wikipedia appeals to a lot of cultural sensibilities, sharing of knowledge and culture. I think people here want to share.</span><span><b><br /><br />Where does India stand in the future of Wikipedia’s roadmap?</b></span><span><br />India was identified as one of three global priority areas in our 2010-15 strategic plan (alongside Brazil and Arabic language countries). While there are active Wikipedia communities in many Asian countries, India continues to be the Foundation’s main focus area in (non-Arabic) Asia through the “Access To Knowledge (A2K)” programme conducted by CIS as our local partner, funded via a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation.</span></p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span><b>From the standpoint of freedom to internet access, what do you think of Indian laws?</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span>Depending on your interpretation, specific laws in India could be challenging, particularly in areas of mapping (geographically). We are concerned about those things, but have to run with it. We consider ourselves specifically (governed by) US laws from where we are legally published. But then, Wiki is not an advocacy organisation that goes around telling people which politician to vote for. As Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said, it’s very important all people become educated on the issues. It’s not up to us to decide what’s the correct map of India, of course, but it is up to us to explain there is a controversy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span><b><br />Are you constantly bombarded with litigation world over?</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span>Surprisingly not. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span><b><br />What are the big developments happening in Wikipedia?</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify; "><span>We are currently running two pilot projects – Wikidata and Wikivoyage. For example, today you can find out the GDP of each country on Wikipedia but cannot query and arrange countries by GDP size. Wikidata will allow you to do that. Similarly, Wikivoyage will provide matter-of-fact information on local sites that are of interest to travellers.</span></div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-11-19T04:40:46ZNews ItemOdia Wikipedia Gets a New Typing Solution!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-gets-new-typing-solution
<b>Subhashish Panigrahi worked with Yuvi Panda to create a new typing scheme for Odia Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This blog post gives a summary of this development and its outcome.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "> </span></span></p>
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<th style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/Odia_Lekhani_keyboard_layout.png" title="Odia Lekhani Keyboard Layout" height="230" width="599" alt="Odia Lekhani Keyboard Layout" class="image-inline" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">
<p style="text-align: center; "><a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86:Lekhani">Odia Lekhani Phonetic Keyboard Layout</a></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">A new typing scheme <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Lekhani">Lekhani</a> (Odia for a stylus which was used for writing on palm leaves) to be used for <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/">Odia Wikipedia</a>, other sister Wikimedia projects and for offline and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/typing-in-indic-languages-from-mobiles">typing using mobile devices</a> was researched upon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">Indian languagFedora's Phonetic Keyboard Layoutes use various typing schemes (key combinations for output in Indic languages) which could be used for writing, printing, publishing and for any other purpose both for offline and online publication as well as printing. Development for </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Unicode_chart_Oriya" style="text-align: justify; ">Unicode standard</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> in Odia language progressed lately. </span><a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/WikiPatrika/2011-06/Community_News/or" style="text-align: justify; ">Revival of Odia Wikipedia</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> after 2011 helped the use of unicode more on internet because of its extensive content (more than 3100 articles on various topics) and </span><a href="http://facebook.com/groups/OdiaWiki" style="text-align: justify; ">online activities</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> on </span><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Pilot_Designs/Social_Media#Social_Media_Pilot-Odisha" style="text-align: justify; ">social media</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">. Currently there are over different typing schemes available for Odia including the non-unicode typing schemes used mostly by the DTP operators and many newspapers and publication houses. One of the earliest development was the </span><a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/ସହଯୋଗ:ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ_ଟାଇପ_କରିବେ_କେମିତି#Odia_InScript" style="text-align: justify; ">Inscript keyboard layout</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> which follows a global standard for most Indic languages. Inscript is useful and once someone gets his fingers used to typing it is fun. But, most of the beginners find it difficult to type in Inscript. In those cases phonetic keyboards are quite helpful where someone need to press the English keys which corresponds to the Roman characters, e.g. R-a-d-h-aa for "Radha". Based on these sort of logics a keyboard layout was deployed for all the Indic languages on </span><a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam" style="text-align: justify; ">Narayam</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> including Odia. (See </span><a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/ସହଯୋଗ:ଓଡ଼ିଆରେ_ଟାଇପ_କରିବେ_କେମିତି#Odia_Transliteration.29" style="text-align: justify; ">Odia transliteration</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> for details). The primary developer for transliteration was </span><a href="http://junaidpv.in/" style="text-align: justify; ">Junaid PV</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">, a Malayalam Wikipedian who helped for the Indic languages and few other Asian languages. As transliteration follows more a common rule there are many ambiguities and bugs reported after it was deployed on Odia Wikipedia. Even though many rounds of changes there are still bugs which doesn't allow many editors to type accurately. This is one of the reasons when there was a need for a purely phonetic typing scheme which has more affinity to the way an Odia user would type the words using a Roman key board.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; "><span style="text-align: justify; ">The idea for deploying a new phonetic typing scheme was started during </span><a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/India_Hackathon_2011" style="text-align: justify; ">Mumbai Hackathon in 2011</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">. Subhashish brought the proposal in community village pump for ideas and consensus and the basic layout and testing was done. The whole project went into a slumber for a long time! Recently when </span><a href="http://yuvi.in/" style="text-align: justify; ">YuviPanda</a><span style="text-align: justify; "> was in Delhi and met Subhashish the idea of hacking and testing the tool came again. The whole keyboard layout was </span><a href="https://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime/blob/master/rules/or/or-lekhani.js" style="text-align: justify; ">revised and deployed on github</a><span style="text-align: justify; ">. Two main keyboard layouts which were used for keeping the major inputs as standard were Fedora Phonetic keyboard and Apple Oriya Qwerty.</span></span></p>
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<th style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/IndicOriya.png" alt="Indic Oriya Typing" class="image-inline" title="Indic Oriya Typing" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">Fedora's Phonetic Keyboard Layout</td>
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<th style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/AppleQuertyKeyboard.png" title="Apple Querty Keyboard" height="244" width="585" alt="Apple Querty Keyboard" class="image-inline" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">Apple QWERTY Keyboard</td>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Majority of the key combinations have been kept same except for few small changes. The typing scheme is deployed on <a href="http://translatewiki.net/">TranslateWiki.net</a> for <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/ULS">Universal Language Selector</a> and <a href="http://gerrit.wikimedia.org/">gerrit</a> which will be enabled on Odia Wikipedia soon for Narayam. The recent mobile typing tool, "Indic typing tool" which was developed at Delhi office of the Centre for Internet and Society by Yuvi Panda and Subhashish Panigrahi also uses Lekhani as a default typing tool.</p>
<p>Quick links:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:Lekhani">Lekhani</a> typing scheme for Odia</li>
<li>Source file: <a href="https://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime/blob/master/rules/or/or-lekhani.js">https://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime/blob/master/rules/or/or-lekhani.js</a></li>
<li>Check the <a href="https://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime/tree/master/rules/or">github page</a> for other Odia typing tools and <a href="https://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime/tree/master/rules">here</a> for all other languages</li>
<li><a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Community_support/Tools_and_apps/Indic_typing_tool">Typing in Lekhani using mobile phone</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Credits:</p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86:Lekhani">Odia Lekhani Phonetic Keyboard Layout (CC-BY-SA 3.0):</a> Manoranjan Behera</li>
<li>Fedora's Phonetic Keyboard Layout: RedHat</li>
<li>Apple QWERTY Keyboard: Apple Inc.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-gets-new-typing-solution'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wikipedia-gets-new-typing-solution</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-12-12T12:28:57ZBlog EntryTyping in Indic Languages from Mobiles made Easy!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/typing-in-indic-languages-from-mobiles
<b>A new app is up for typing in Indic languages from mobile phones. This is is available online at: http://bitly.com/indictyping and supports on iOS. Android version is to be released soon.</b>
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<p class="quoted"><i>"There are two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors."</i><br /><b>Phil Karlton</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Yuvi Panda smiles saying this. <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Yuvipanda">Yuvi Panda</a>, a former Wikimedia Foundation contractor and developer was here in our Delhi office and I had an opportunity to spend some time discussing some of the technical problems that we have been facing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One of the major setback most people have with their phones is the lack of language support and lack of typing support for Indic languages. Fortunately most of the new generation phones support Indic languages. Three of the major operating systems used currently by most phones are Android, Windows, Blackberry and iOS. Android being an open source operating system has extensive community support and developments which is something we were primarily hopeful while starting this project. Windows phones also have a good number of user base in India and support for Indic languages on Windows is really good. Though iOS has good support for Indic display there is no support for typing. IOS, Windows and Blackberry all being proprietary have really less community support and any tool available on these app market would be proprietary. So, our idea was to start a cross platform app which will use the available jQuery ime used for Indic typing for Indic Wikipedias and sister projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Currently, most of the Indic language Wikipedias use a typing tool called <a href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam">Narayam</a> ( "Narayam" is a Malayalam word which refers to a metal stylus that was used for writing on palm leaves and papyrus in ancient days). By default the typing scheme for most of the language wikipedias is set to transliteration or phonetic. An Indian mobile user would normally type his own language using Roman letters from a mobile. "और दोस्त सब ठीक है?" in Hindi would be typed as "Aur dost sab thik hai?" when someone pings a friend on facebook or sends a text message. Now with the new typing tool you need to type "aur dosta saba thiika hai?" to get the same text in Devanagari script. This typing scheme is almost same like the phonetic typing most people use for regional languages on mobile which is why typing won’t be much of difference. In terms of usability most people would use the typed text either for web search in regional languages, Facebook posts, tweeting or even sending mails and text messages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The detailed procedure for typing using this tool is documented at: <a href="http://goo.gl/HdVJW">http://goo.gl/HdVJW</a>. Indic typing tool is available at: <a class="external-link" href="http://bitly.com/indictyping">http://bitly.com/indictyping</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Scan the QR code below using your QR code application to go "Indic typing tool".</b></p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/QRCodeIndictypingtool.png" title="QR Code for Indic typing tool" height="193" width="193" alt="QR Code for Indic typing tool" class="image-inline" /></p>
<h3>Developer speaks:</h3>
<p>This is a simple tool that lets you type in your native language on mobile phones. Currently only iOS devices are supported.</p>
<p>The tool is a simple wrapper around Wikimedia Foundation <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Language_Engineering_team">Language Engineering</a>'s <a href="http://github.com/wikimedia/jquery.ime">jquery.ime</a> project. It simply adds a much easier to use (on a mobile device) language selector, and makes it available offline (on iOS devices).</p>
<h3>Quick links:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Source code: <a class="external-link" href="https://github.com/yuvipanda/indic-typing-tool">https://github.com/yuvipanda/indic-typing-tool</a></li>
<li>Test the app and report the bugs directly on <a class="external-link" href="https://github.com/yuvipanda/indic-typing-tool/issues">GitHub</a> or on <a class="external-link" href="http://goo.gl/sBiaF">Meta</a>.</li>
<li>Credits: <a class="external-link" href="http://yuvi.in/">YuviPanda</a>, <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Psubhashish">Subhashish Panigrahi</a>, <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Santhosh.thottingal">Santhosh Thottingal</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/typing-in-indic-languages-from-mobiles'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/typing-in-indic-languages-from-mobiles</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessInformation Technology2013-07-17T09:02:46ZBlog EntryReport on Wikipedia Hackathon held in Hyderabad
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hackathon-hyderabad
<b>BITS Hyderabad had a tech fest from October 25 to 27, 2012, and wanted to conduct a technical wiki hackathon. We decided to do it on October 26 — all night.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We had a <a class="external-link" href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpCalViX1FCc0FwT1g2ZFNqN3FrNUE6MQ)">Google form</a> that people filled up with a few simple questions — and picked out 12 from the 70 that signed up. This was important since I was the only one conducting it — and I wanted to keep it to a manageable number. It was an all night event that started at 7 p.m. in the evening and was supposed to go on till 6 a.m. next morning.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Hackathon</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The hackathon started as scheduled around 7.00 p.m. As people trickled in I talked to them individually and mentally sorted them into two groups — 'people who are already programmatically competent enough to contribute code' and people who were not. A lot of people who were not selected but applied also showed up — since we had not sent rejection emails. I got them started on learning either Javascript or Python — and helped push them along. However, a good amount of time was spent with people who already had prior coding experience.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most people worked on Gadgets, and a few on Python — exploring the API. We started off with basics of how to customize your Wikipedia experience with JS and CSS, building a very basic user script that changed colours / added new links. Some of the participants spent the entire night building this and others finished this in a few minutes and were on to the next project. Everyone worked at their own pace — and since there were smaller number of people I was able to (mostly) provide individual attention.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As people started working on stuff past hello world, I introduced them to IRC (#wikipedia-en and #mediawiki) and had them say 'hi' to editors. I also introduced them to a bunch of local hacker channels on IRC — and quite a few of them stayed on.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A fair amount of people left at around midnight — but a 'core' group seemed to have formed that stayed on. We hacked on to the wee hours of the morning, and even took small naps. We wound up at around 6 a.m., and staggered back to the hostels (and then proceeded to have long conversations about Linux, history of programming, and graphical raytracing).</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Outcomes</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We had some students who contributed substantially including <b>Thomas Matthew, Vishwajit Kolathur, Aravind Peddapudi and Varun Chappidi</b>. Most of them have been introduced to the local hacker community via IRC, and I see reports of continuing participation — after accounting for their ongoing exams. They all are technically very competent and have expressed interest in doing Google Summer of Code this year. Among the projects did at the hackathon are:</p>
<ol>
<li>'Reading mode' gadget</li>
<li>'Reading mode' Chrome Extension that is wikipedia specific</li>
<li>Major work on a '3 hours later' type extension (a tool to produce graphs like (<a class="external-link" href="http://xkcd.com/214">http://xkcd.com/214</a>)</li>
</ol>
<p>The fact that these people went from having no experience with Wiki related programming to being able to build code for it in a few hours time makes me very happy.</p>
<h3>Learnings</h3>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Make sure people know that 'Hack'athon has nothing to do with cracking wifi passwords or breaking into Facebook accounts. We had a 'lot' of people apply thinking that was this despite a clear description. I was told that some of the people evangelizing the event also thought the same — so clearer messaging around this was needed.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Send rejection emails. We missed this, and sent only acceptance emails. A lot of people who weren't accepted turned up and we had to figure a way to engage them.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">More organized followups. Currently all I can do is introduce them to the local hacker community and hope they 'stick'. GSoC is a good spot, but is too infrequent — and too high stakes.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Find more things for them to do. We had to actually stretch a bit to find them things to do — they were all raring to go, but we found it hard to find 'easy' bugs for them to fix that were actually useful to editors. Clearly editors have a lot of things in their mind that would make their lives better — but they are not listed anywhere public. Having a publicly available list of such things would be helpful. (There is a Gadget requests page (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Requests%29">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_User_scripts/Requests)</a>, but it hasn't been updated in ages).</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally, I would like to thank the Centre for Internet & Society for supporting my travel for the event, Thomas from BITS for organizing most of the logistics and Ravi Chandra from the Tor community for helping provide technical mentorship.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hackathon-hyderabad'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hackathon-hyderabad</a>
</p>
No publisherYuvi PandaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2012-12-03T06:37:11ZBlog EntryA Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/mini-hackathon-delhi
<b>Wikipedian Yuvaraj Pandian visited the CIS office in Delhi and helped the Access to Knowledge team conduct a super-ad-hoc mini-hackathon with two other volunteers, Sheel from Delhi and Harsh from Ahmedabad. The aim was to get them a kickstart in developing userscripts/gadgets, and get them to a point where the prior existing documentation makes sense to them. </b>
<p>The ad-hoc plan had three parts:</p>
<ol>
<li>The execution environment (Concept of userscripts vs gadgets, ResourceLoader)</li>
<li>The API concepts (Special:ApiSandbox, concept of 'actions' in the API)</li>
<li>Accessing the API from JS (mediawiki.api module, concept of AJAX)</li>
</ol>
<p>Here is the account of what they did, written by Yuvi:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"We covered all parts of them slowly, with both Harsh and Sheel working at things until they fully understood what they were doing and why whatever they were doing was working.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I introduced them to the environment first by having them execute code in Chrome's JS Console, and then in their own common.js. Once they understood the context in which the code was getting executed, the 'ResourceLoader default modules'<a href="#fn1" name="fr1">[1]</a>documentation started making sense to them, and they could pick up other modules from there.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We then explored the API via the API Sandbox<a href="#fn2" name="fr2">[2]</a>, which is a relatively new (and not very well known) way of letting people play around with the API. It is a massive improvement over the older, non-interactive docs<a href="#fn3" name="fr3">[3]</a>, and both Harsh and Sheel were very excited about being able to discover all the things they could do with the API. A fair amount of time was spent messing around with it on different wikipedias (en, hi and gu) and reading bits of the API Documentation<a href="#fn4" name="fr4">[4]</a> to understand the concepts behind the actions - and for filling in the gaps.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Finally we had them use the API from a userscript to make calls. I went through the entire process line by line, explaining how AJAX works and how asynchronous programming works. We traced the flow of code together to understand how the seamingly nonlinear asynchronous programming model works. Then we dug into a bit of how to use the mw.loader module to make dependencies work, and why the same code that was working in the chrome js console was not working in their common.js.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It ended with them trying to port HotCat to their native language wikipedias. Harsh started to explore more about getting started with MediaWiki dev itself (rather than just gadgets), but the clone took a looooong time and we had run out of time by then. I directed him to a WMF tech open chat happening today, and hopefully that could help!</p>
<hr />
<p>[<a href="#fr1" name="fn1">1</a>].<a class="external-link" href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader/Default_modules">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/ResourceLoader/Default_modules</a><br />[<a href="#fr2" name="fn2">2</a>].<a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ApiSandbox</a><br />[<a href="#fr3" name="fn3">3</a>].<a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php</a><br />[<a href="#fr4" name="fn4">4</a>].<a class="external-link" href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page">https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/mini-hackathon-delhi'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/mini-hackathon-delhi</a>
</p>
No publisherYuvraj PandianAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2012-12-04T07:31:21ZBlog EntryAn Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Academy of Media Learning
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wiki-workshop-at-aml
<b>Odia Wikipedians were invited to Academy of Media Learning (AML), Bhubaneswar for a guest lecture and a workshop on contributing to Odia Wikipedia. The event was organised by the Centre for Internet & Society on November 10, 2012. This is a report about the activities in AML.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Soon after <a href="http://facebook.com/groups/OdiaWiki">Odia Wiki community</a> got <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-november-23-2012-pravuprasad-routray">felicitated by OdishaDiary.co</a> for Youth Achievement Award for their outstanding contribution for Odia language many institutions have started taking the work of the wikipedians with more seriousness. To empower the community with more activities active members took part in a discussion to start more long term projects like "education programs". In early November, a couple of meetups and workshops were organized in different institutions in Odisha. One of those institutions in <a href="http://www.aml.edu.in/">Academy of Media Learning</a>. It is a budding institution for journalism and digital media in the city of Bhubaneswar. The institute is led by the Founder-CEO of this institution <a href="http://nilambarrath.com/">Nilambar Rath</a>, a veteran journalist and news producer and Saumya Parida, Executive Editor and journalist in the Odia media circle. Subhashish Panigrahi of CIS was invited to AML along with other fellow Wikipedians for a guest lecture and workshop about "Contibution to Wikipedia and its Benefits for Students".</p>
<p>Odia wikipedians like <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ansumang">Ansuman Giri</a>, <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ManXiii"><span>Manoranjan Behera</span></a> and <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guguly18">Diptiman Panigrahi</a> also came over for the event.</p>
<h3>Meeting with Nilambar Rath and Saumya Parida</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prior to the lecture and workshop, wikipedians discussed about the education program with the faculty members on how it is essential to engage students in such a program. <span>Subhashish explained the older education programs for other language and the recent Odia Wikipedia Education Program initiated at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal. During this meeting Mr. Rath also suggested to include more linguists and Odia language professors in the community who would guide on standards of language, writing style and grammar as Odia Wikipedia is being accessed more on a daily basis by the main stream media. </span></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Workshop</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There were a small set of enthusiast communication students gathered for the event. Subhashish took them through a presentation explaining about Wikipedia, how people like them contribute to Wikipedia and make it grow day by day and how Odia Wikipedia was started. The participants were surprised to see Odia Wikipedia for the first time! Even being communication students and working closely with Odia media they have never came through it. After the presentation he emphasized about the reason why we are focusing on long term support programs like "education program" and how it would be beneficial for students. Students were given a small break for asking queries before a training workshop on editing Odia Wikipedia. One of the students was invited to create his user account. Wikipedians explained how to type in Odia using the typing scheme. Few of the students were invited to edit and make small changes in various articles. Going forward, students were shown Chatasabha and the facebook group page to ask queries online.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/AMLWorkshop.png" alt="AML Workshop" class="image-inline" title="AML Workshop" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center; ">A picture of the participants at the Odia Wikipedia workshop at Academy of Media Learning</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>Picture credit: <a href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ManXiii">Manoranjan Behera</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wiki-workshop-at-aml'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/odia-wiki-workshop-at-aml</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWIPOOpenness2013-07-17T07:06:59ZBlog EntryWikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore is hosting a talk by Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation at its office in Bangalore on November 12, 2012, from 11.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., followed by a lunch discussion.</b>
<h3>Talk Summary</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia's technology platform is rapidly changing, with improvements being deployed every day. Unlike other top websites, Wikipedia is run by a non-profit (Wikimedia Foundation) and all its technology is open source, ready to be improved and extended by you.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Learn about the recent and coming technology changes to Wikipedia and Wikimedia's other projects: the new Visual Editor, improvements to mobile sites and apps, Wikidata, and projects with mysterious codenames like "Echo", "Milkshake", "Agora" and "Flow". Learn how to get involved and ask anything you'd like to know about Wikipedia.</p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Erik Moeller</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Erik Moeller is the Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation, overseeing a department of about 70 people. Erik has been involved in Wikipedia since 2001 and joined the staff of Wikimedia in 2008. He previously worked as a journalist and project manager.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">VIDEO</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYOLvAMA.html?p=1" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYOLvAMA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessLectureEvent Type2012-12-18T06:51:46ZEventGujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition
<b>This was a competition to raise Wikipedia awareness and help students discover the joy of writing articles in their native language and an attempt to connect producers having knowledge in Gujarati to a wide audience of more than four lakh readers. </b>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><a href="http://gu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AA%B5%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%95%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%80%E0%AA%A1%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AF%E0%AA%BE:%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%B0%E0%AA%9A%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B0-%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%B0%E0%AA%B8%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B0/%E0%AA%B6%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B2%E0%AB%87%E0%AA%AF_%E0%AA%A8%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AC%E0%AA%82%E0%AA%A7_%E0%AA%B8%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%AA%E0%AA%B0%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%A7%E0%AA%BE">The Gujarati Wikipedia article writing competition</a> was held among 10 Gujarati medium schools of Ahmedabad city in Gujarat with the support and cooperation of <a href="http://www.theopenpage.co.in/">The Open Page</a> publication and <a href="http://www.gujaratilexicon.com/">Gujarati Lexicon</a> in two phases over a period of two months.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Initial discussions about doing something to promote Gujarati language on the internet started when Shiju Alex, Indian language Wikipedia consultant met Yatrik Patel from <a href="http://www.inflibnet.ac.in/">Inflibnet</a>. With Mr Yatrik Patel's intervention we were able to meet Mr Archit Bhatt, the director of <a href="http://www.tripada.com/TET/ContactUs.aspx">Tripada Education Trust</a> in Ahmedabad. </p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">After a round of presentations from Wikipedians, Gujarati Lexicon and interested schools in August, we charted out a rough sketch of the article competition. Then, this plan was proposed to Gujarati editors online. Again, without the cooperation and encouragement of long term members like Mr Dhaval S Vyas, Mr Ashok Modhvadia, Mr Sushant Savla and Mr Maharshi Mehta, these students would not have had the freedom to make mistakes and learn as they progressed. Apart from these online members, constant guidance and support was provided by Mr Ashok Vaishnav, Mr Harsh Kothari and Mr Konarak Ratnakar. They coordinated with Ms Hemangini Kanth from The Open Page and Ms Shruti from Gujarati Lexicon to materialize the competion.</p>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Structure</h3>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Phase I: Over 200 students from the ten schools were invited to write articles with references on Gujarati literary personalities (poets and writers) on paper. These entries were then collected and checked by Mr Yogendra Vyas, a consultant to <a href="http://www.gseb.org/">GSEB</a> (Gujarat Education Board) and Mr Ashok Vaishnav.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Gujaratityping.png" alt="Gujarati typing" class="image-inline" title="Gujarati typing" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: left; "><i>The above picture shows a student learning Gujarati typing</i></p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Phase II: 20 students were selected from these entries and invited for a workshop on Gujarati typing, introduction to GU WP and were briefed on how to write articles. Once the deadline was over, these on-wiki articles were checked by Mr Dhaval Vyas and Mr Ashok Modhvadia and two winner entries were selected. They were subsequently awarded trophies and certificates in a small ceremony on 21<sup>st</sup> October.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Here is a <a href="http://gu.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AA%B5%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%95%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%80%E0%AA%A1%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AF%E0%AA%BE:%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%B0%E0%AA%9A%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B0-%E0%AA%AA%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%B0%E0%AA%B8%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B0/%E0%AA%B6%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%B2%E0%AB%87%E0%AA%AF_%E0%AA%A8%E0%AA%BF%E0%AA%AC%E0%AA%82%E0%AA%A7_%E0%AA%B8%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%AA%E0%AA%B0%E0%AB%8D%E0%AA%A7%E0%AA%BE/%E0%AA%B2%E0%AB%87%E0%AA%96%E0%AB%8B%E0%AA%A8%E0%AB%80_%E0%AA%AF%E0%AA%BE%E0%AA%A6%E0%AB%80">list of articles</a> written by the students.</p>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Learnings</h3>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Given that this was a pilot program and I have read about only one such prior <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papat_Limpad">attempt in Javanese Wikipedia</a>, we had much to learn:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">It was a wise decision to take primary speakers of Gujarati because their proficiency in spelling, punctuation and vocabulary was good. This may not be possible for students with Indian languages as secondary language.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">While we had estimated a maximum of one month's time, it took us nearly two months to accomplish it because of the huge number of entries. Perhaps, the work should be distributed amongst more people.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The biggest challenge that lies ahead is retaining these editors – we are working to get feedback from students to see how this could have been better and what attracted them about Wikipedia.</li>
</ul>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/G1.png" alt="G1" class="image-inline" title="G1" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>This competition has given the community a batch of new editors along with valuable content and we hope to retain the momentum by engaging more Gujarati students further.</p>
<p>Click below to download the posters</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-article-competition.pdf" class="internal-link">Wikipedia Article Competition </a></li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/openpage1low.png" class="internal-link">The Open Page</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-11-04T02:12:56ZBlog EntryGujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot
<b>This report analyses a series of meetings and workshops held in Rajkot, a city in Gujarat, India during the month of October 2012.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I visited Gujarat for a few Wikipedia activities – including Wikipedia meets in the cities of Ahmedabad and Rajkot, interacted with students and teachers from various colleges as well as to successfully conclude the <a href="http://gu.wikipedia.org/wiki/વિકિપીડિયા:પ્રચાર-પ્રસાર">Gujarati Wikipedia article writing competition</a>.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">I visited Rajkot on October 17, 2012 with two Wikipedians – Harsh Kothari and Konarak Ratnakar, both from Ahmedabad. We were scheduled to take up a small introductory lecture on contributing to Wikipedia at Christ College, Rajkot in the afternoon and meet up with other Gujarati Wikipedians from Rajkot and Junagadh later in the day. Fortunately, I was able to connect with Rashmikant Makwana, a teacher at TGS (The Galaxy School) in Rajkot. I had first met up with him during the photo walk – Wiki takes Ahmedabad in January 2012. He had shown a great deal of interest in doing something for his school students. Thanks to Mr. Makwana's prompt response and support, we visited three branches of <a href="http://www.tges.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=77">TGES (The Galaxy Education System)</a> and had the opportunity of interacting with over 100 students from secondary and higher secondary divisions.</p>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Interactions with TGES students</h3>
<p align="JUSTIFY">I got to read Mr. Makwana's email only after I reached Rajkot. He wrote that he spoke to a couple of teachers about our visit and their students were very eager to meet us as they had many questions about Wikipedia! I was pleasantly surprised because once we met these students (mostly 11<sup>th</sup> standard, English medium students) we realized they had already tried their hand at editing and even creating articles! So, they had far more advanced queries like how to verify information on Wikipedia, what is the authenticity of information there, questions on notability and so on. Next, we were taken to the <i>vadi branch </i>of the education group. These were children from fifth and sixth standards and who also had questions and better ones about stories of vandalism they had committed on Wikipedia! We told them how Wikipedia was one of the best ways of telling people about their culture, identities, city and language. Besides students, we also met teachers who taught Gujarati, History and Geography.</p>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Interactions with Christ College students</h3>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/GujaratiWikipedian.png/@@images/6d7409d5-a94e-49f6-9172-6508f80d72ba.png" title="Gujarati Wikipedian" height="208" width="156" alt="Gujarati Wikipedian" class="image-inline" /></p>
<p><i>Wikipedians giving lecture</i>.</p>
</td>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p><a href="http://www.christcollegerajkot.edu.in/">Christ College</a> offers a variety of graduate courses. We were connected with their faculty, Mr. Rushabh, by Umesh Joshi from the Open Page publication in Rajkot.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I am thankful to both of them for their support in gathering their MBA students! Harsh Kothari, a Gujarati Wikipedian presented on how one can contribute to Gujarati Wikipedia while Konarak helped them in a live editing session. One question that everyone asked us was – WHY do people edit Wikipedia?</p>
<p>So, we called upon Jitendrasinh Chauhan, a long-term Gujarati Wikipedian. He came up and spoke to them on how he discovered Gujarati Wikipedia and has not only gained in terms of knowledge but also friendships that he has made with fellow editors across the state and overseas! We also explained the importance of learning correct ways of editing to these students who might pursue public relations as their professions.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Meeting Wikipedians</h3>
<p align="JUSTIFY">The trip to Rajkot, apart from meeting a whole bunch of new people, was also about connecting offline with Gujarati Wikipedians. Their warmth and day long support in terms of logistics, context and guidance kept us enthused. I extend my gratitude to Jitendrasinh Chauhan and his friend Harsh, both Wikipedians for their help. They have also helped us establish a dialog with Saurashtra University where we hope to plan a two-day conference centered around Gujarati language and digitization.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/GUWPvisual.png" alt="Gujarati Wikipedia Participants" class="image-inline" title="Gujarati Wikipedia Participants" /><br /><i>Given here is a network visualization infographic highlighting the key points</i>.</p>
<hr />
<h3 align="JUSTIFY">Videos</h3>
<p><b>Gujarati Wikipedia workshop at Christ college - 1</b></p>
<p><b><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_jhc-Ymy5k4" width="300"></iframe></b></p>
<p><b>Gujarati Wikipedia workshop at Christ College - 2</b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Jb6AF89STZU" width="300"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Write about your city on Gujarati Wikipedia </b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YJu2-gOHjaI" width="300"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2012-10-31T08:17:56ZBlog EntryFirst Pune Odia Wikipedia Workshop Organized!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized
<b>The first Pune Odia Wikipedia workshop was organized in Pune on October 27, 2012. Subhashish Panigrahi recollects his experience about the events through this report.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Recently <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org">Odia Wikipedia</a> (<a class="reference external" href="http://or.wikipedia.org">http://or.wikipedia.org</a>) crossed 3000 articles. After being dormant for 8 long years, Odia Wikipedia emerged as one of the active South Asian wikipedias. I visited Pune on October 27, 2012 to participate in an Odia Wikipedia workshop celebrating this success with the wikipedians and also attend the <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune/WikiWomenDay">WikiWomenDay 2012</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Over the last few months Odia Wikipedia has seen many active faces. One of them is Suratha Parhi, a very active Odia wikipedian. Suratha reached out to his friends, colleagues and existing wikipedians staying in Pune to celebrate the success with an Odia Wikipedia workshop. As it was after Durga Puja only a few Odia people in the city were there to attend. We saw a gathering of 10 people at <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pai-ils.com/">PAI International Learning Center</a> for this workshop. Abhishek Suryavanshi from <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune">Wikipedia Club Pune</a> extended his support for organizing the venue for us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Prior to the workshop I interacted with the participants to understand their interests and efficiency with Odia typing. To my surprise two of the participants were good in typing in phonetic and Inscript. Suratha took the audience through a <a class="external-link" href="http://tiny.cc/odia">presentation</a> about Odia Wikipedia explaining the history of Odia language, importance of Wikipedia, how to contribute to Wikipedia, manual of style for writing articles, dos and do nots, rules and regulations and validating articles by adding sources. After the preliminary sessions participants started asking questions about numbers of readers, how to type in Odia, use of Odia Wikipedia and various such questions. Suratha answered their questions with examples and illustrations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To demonstrate editing on Odia Wikipedia we invited one of the participants. We helped her to create her user account and others also created their user accounts on Odia Wikipedia. Then we invited Sudhir Patel, a type designer and technologist working with <a class="external-link" href="http://www.cdac.in/?id=pune">CDAC, Pune</a> to introduce Odia typing and <a class="external-link" href="https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typing_help">how to type easily in Odia</a>. After a small hands-on training for typing, all of the participants were able to start searching for articles they wanted to edit. Some of them created new articles and some edited existing articles. At the end of the session we shared our contacts to stay in touch. We also showed them <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:">Chatasabha</a>, a friendly desk on Odia Wikipedia and demonstrated how they can ask questions and see the answered questions. New wikipedians will be also connected to the <a class="external-link" href="http://facebook.com/groups/OdiaWiki">facebook group</a> to be updated about events and activities. New Wikipedians have decided to meet once again in November for a Odia Wikipedia meetup. Sudhir and Suratha are also planning to organize a introductory session on Odia Wikipedia during the cultural gathering organized by Odia communities.</p>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/o3.png" alt="Orissa Wikipedia Participants" class="image-inline" title="Orissa Wikipedia Participants" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Above is a picture of participants from the Orissa Wikipedia workshop held on October 27, 2012</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p>More pictures on <a class="external-link" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Odia_Wikipedia_Workshop_Pune-1_27_October_2012">WikiCommons</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Press Coverage:</strong><br />OdishaDiary.com, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowEvents.asp?id=37463">Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language</a> (October 31, 2012)</p>
<p>Videos</p>
<ul>
<li>Suratha Parhi explaining about Odia Wikipedia</li>
</ul>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ib8ULCJ4Xks" width="300"></iframe></p>
<ul>
<li>Sudhir Patel explaining about Odia Typing </li>
</ul>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1cBbYONRlKg" width="300"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2012-11-30T12:44:44ZBlog EntryMalayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update
<b>Three months back, I wrote a blog post (http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/06/wikipedia-education-a-model-from-malayalam-wikipedia/) about the inauguration of the Wikipedia education program in Malayalam Wikipedia. This program is the first of its kind in an Indic language, and Malayalam community is doing the program in collaboration with the IT@School, a project of the Department of General Education, Government of Kerala, setup in 2001, to foster the IT education in schools. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Three months have passed since the last report in English (regular updates in Malayalam) about the program have been shared with the Malayalam wiki community during this period. Here is a brief update about this ongoing program. The <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/06/wikipedia-education-a-model-from-malayalam-wikipedia/">July report</a> was mainly about the inauguration of the project in the Government Higher Secondary School, Anchal West, Kollam, and a few details about the plans of the community regarding this project.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The Wikipedia education program was inaugurated by the IT@School director, Abdul Nasar Kaipanchery on July 14, 2012. After two weeks, we conducted a Malayalam Wikipedia introduction workshop for the students and teachers of Anchal West School. Almost 150 participants including students and teachers attended this workshop. After the workshop students were asked to write an article (on paper in Malayalam) about any topic related to Anchal and submit it to the education program coordinator, Sateesh R. Veliyam, a teacher in that school. Satheesh is also a Malayalam wikipedian. Students were given three weeks to submit the article on paper. Nearly 100 students submitted the articles and the project coordinator (with inputs from other Malayalam Wikipedia community members) shortlisted 34 students for the Wikipedia education program. The selection of the students for this program was based on their writing skills in Malayalam, the interest in this voluntary project, and other skills needed for this time bound Wikipedia education project.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A meeting was conducted with the selected students on August 9 in the school computer lab. As Malayalam Wikipedians knew that the major roadblock for students to start wiki editing in Malayalam would be Malayalam typing (in fact this is the case with all Indic languages) we decided to teach Malayalam typing to students on a priority basis. A printout of the Malayalam Inscript layout was given to the students. The Inscript layout was selected because that is part of the syllabus in Kerala. Students were asked to practice Malayalam typing and learn it within the next two months. From that day onwards students were practising Malayalam typing at school and making a steady progress.</p>
<p>Some recent developments are listed below:</p>
<h3>September 8</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Students are back to school after the Onam vacation. The progress on their Malayalam typing is evaluated. Malayalam Wikipedians, Kannan Shanmugham and Sugeesh visited students and addressed them. They discussed the potential articles that could be created as part of this project. They also helped few students to create their user names in Malayalam Wikipedia. After addressing the students they also visited some famous people in Anchal, other places, and some organizations to collect reference books and other information related to this project. The collection of reference materials from library, personal collections, and from panchayat office is vital for this project as these are the only places from where we can get any reliable information regarding the different topics that students plan to write.</p>
<h3>October 1</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As Malayalam typing and the collection of information and reference materials were in progress we received an important book authored by Dr. P. Vinayachandran which had a lot of information about Anchal. Students who achieved a minimum level of expertise in Malayalam typing and those who had created user accounts started editing in Wikipedia. On October 1, four new articles were created by the students who had learned Malayalam typing.</p>
<h3>October 12</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Shiju Alex visited the school students to see the progress of the project, interacted with them, and welcomed them to Malayalam Wikipedia. Since all of them had acquired a minimum level of expertise in Malayalam typing, we decided to create usernames for all of them. So on that day we created accounts and user pages for all the 34 students who were included in the project.</p>
<h3>October 13</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">All the students who were part of the project reached Kollam to participate in a one-day Malayalam Wikipedia editing workshop. The program started at 10 a.m. Malayalam wikipedians Binu, Sugeesh, Kannan Shanmugham, Ajay Balachandran, Akhil, and Shiju Alex participated in this workshop. It was organized to assist students in getting started with Malayalam Wikipedia, introduce them to basic wiki editing and other related stuff. Apart from providing support for all basic needs, students were also introduced to "talk pages" and the basic policies of Wikipedia which would help them to get started with the project. We finished this one-day workshop at 3.30 p.m. by taking a group photo. A detailed report (in Malayalam) regarding this one day workshop can be read from <a class="external-link" href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AD%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%9E%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%BD_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%B5._%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BC_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%82%E0%B5%BE/%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8B%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D">here</a>.</p>
<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/Itschoolmal_wiki10.JPG/image_preview" alt="Students attending Malayalam wikipedia workshop" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Students attending Malayalam wikipedia workshop" /><br />Students doing Malayalam wiki editing</p>
<h3>October 14</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Malayalam Wikipedians Sateesh, Sugeesh, Shiju, and our new wikipedian Anathu P. Sankar visited the Rehabilitation Plantation Limited [RPL] which is an important institution near Anchal and is one of the article being developed as part of this project. We met a few key people who provided some references about RPL. It was decided that students who were working on the articles related to RPL will visit again to collect more information about the project.</p>
<p>As of today some of the important progress the main progress made on the project are is listed below:</p>
<ul>
<li>All students have created their accounts.</li>
<li>All students have created their user pages.</li>
<li>Most students created or edited articles that they were planning to contribute.</li>
<li>Students with the help of their teacher, Satheesh continue collecting reference materials on topics they plan to write.</li>
<li>Students continue editing in Malayalam whenever they get access to computer and internet.</li></ul>
<p>Some of the things that need to be kept in mind regarding this project are:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The project is done entirely on a voluntary basis. No separate time is allocated for students to participate in this project.</li>
<li>Thirty-four students are part of this and most of them are from ninth standard.</li>
<li>Out of the 34 students, 7 are girl students.</li>
<li>Out of 34 students only 10 students have got computers at home.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Kerala schools are using free software for computers. They use a customized version of Ubuntu in computer labs. It is easy to configure Malayalam typing in that. Technically all 34 students need to depend on the five computers available (computers with internet facility) in the school computer lab to practice Malayalam typing, wiki editing, and do the other tasks related to the project. And the lack of regular access to computer and internet is affecting the smooth progress of the project.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">As separate time is not allocated for this project, students who are
part of this project are working on it either during intervals, lunch
time, during early hours before the start of the school, or by staying
late after the school working hours. Since we have only around five
computers with internet in the school lab, students need to divide and
share the timing among themselves. Many of them come to the school on
Saturdays and Sundays to participate in the project.</p>
<p>Few important links related to this project:</p>
<ul>
<li>The master project page of this program is available<a class="external-link" href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AD%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%9E%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%BD_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%B5._%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BC_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%82%E0%B5%BE"> here</a>.</li></ul>
<ul>
<li>The list of students participating in this program is available <a class="external-link" href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AD%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%9E%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%BD_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%B5._%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BC_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%82%E0%B5%BE/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%A4%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%BE">here</a></li>
<li>The list of articles that students started or enhancing as past of this project is available <a class="external-link" href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AD%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%9E%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%BD_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%B5._%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BC_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%82%E0%B5%BE/%E0%B4%B2%E0%B5%87%E0%B4%96%E0%B4%A8%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%99%E0%B5%BE">here</a></li>
<li>The progress report of the project in Malayalam is regularly updated <a class="external-link" href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%80%E0%B4%A1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AF:%E0%B4%B5%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%AD%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AF%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B8_%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%A6%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A7%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BF/%E0%B4%85%E0%B4%9E%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9A%E0%B5%BD_%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B5%8D_%E0%B4%97%E0%B4%B5._%E0%B4%B9%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%BC_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%86%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B4%A8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF_%E0%B4%B8%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%82%E0%B5%BE/%E0%B4%B1%E0%B4%BF%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%AA%E0%B5%8B%E0%B5%BC%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%9F%E0%B5%8D">here</a></li></ul>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>We will keep you posted about the updates from this project as and when it happens. Malayalam community is planning to complete this project (student editing) by the third or fourth week of November</em>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update</a>
</p>
No publishershijuAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2012-11-09T18:18:20ZBlog EntryBridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-women-day-2012-pune
<b>A2K team members Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval participated in the "WikiWomenDay" organized by Wikipedia Club Pune at PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus on October 28, 2012. Subhashish unfolds the happenings of this full day free fun workshop.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Globally participation of women on Wikipedia is less than 10 per cent. Women wikipedians across the world have joined hands to boost women's contribution to Wikipedia. Recently the A2K team was in Pune for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune/WikiWomenDay">WikiWomenDay 2012</a>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Club_Pune">Wikipedia Club Pune</a>, the first Wikipedia club in India, to encourage women's participation on Wikipedia, had organized a full day fun event on October 28, 2012 at <a href="http://www.pai-ils.com/">PAI International Learning Solutions</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Abhishek Suryavanshi, founder of Wikipedia Club Pune briefed about the agenda of the event. Noopur spoke about the global contribution on Wikipedia in terms of various topics and how male-centered topics were well covered. Few of the male centric articles were taken up for comparison with those of women to make the audience understand the gap of contribution. A good majority of articles which were of interest to men were well written whereas women centric articles were of bad shape due to lack of contribution from women. A visual <a href="http://visual.ly/wikipedias-gender-gap">representation</a> was shown to the participants to explain the statistical information about gender gap on Wikipedia. Apart from article contribution, male editors were found to be more social and discussed more on talk pages which also bring more male editors on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants were introduced to the basics of Wikipedia editing (five pillars, notability, importance of source of references, vandalism) before they were explained about actual editing. Each of the participants were provided with a computer and one of them was invited to create her user account.</p>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>Thereafter Abhishek demonstrated searching an article on Wikipedia and how logging in to Wikipedia allows editors to edit articles which are protected from editing by anyone. One of the logged in editors was asked to make a small edit on an article which surprised many of the participants. They realized that even they can make changes to the articles, for the first time in their life. Then there was a buzz about the credibility of the articles as they all saw that anyone can edit the articles. So the Wikipedia article on Pune was vandalized and Pune was made the capital of India for a few minutes! The page was refreshed after a while and reverted. This was clear enough to demonstrate how active the editor community is on Wikipedia.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center; ">
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WikiLearning.png" alt="Wiki Learning" class="image-inline" title="Wiki Learning" /></p>
Abhishek Suryavanshi demonstrates wiki editing on WikiWomenDay 2012</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most of the errors and typos get corrected quickly as someone or the other notices that there is a mistake and correct it. However, there are many articles, especially articles of Indian context which still have wrong information because the number of Indian editors are less. A series of editing for various favourite articles chosen by new wikipedians opened up the window for them to understand how important their participation could be. Abhishek, Nikita, Noopur and Subhashish helped the editors with editing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After engaging the editors for quite sometime with editing there was a fun quiz session to brush up what was taught. The participants were asked questions based on the previous session.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Winners of the quiz were awarded with Wikipedia stickers and badges.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WP.png" alt="Pune Wikipedia Session" class="image-inline" title="Pune Wikipedia Session" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">A picture of participants learning wiki editing on WikiWomenDay 2012 in Pune</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the participants left after the lunch break. Those who came back then gathered for a Indian language Wikipedia session. Out of the whole audience there were Bengali, Hindi, Marathi and Odia speakers. They all were showed their respective language wikipedias. A demonstration was given to show the typing tool. As the editors were completely new to the Indian language typing, some of them started typing using default <a href="http://mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Narayam">Narayam</a> transliteration tool and some took the help of <a href="http://www.bhashaindia.com/ilit">Microsoft ILIT</a> and <a href="http://www.google.co.in/transliterate">Google Transliterate</a> as well. During this session new wikipedians edited many articles on <a href="http://mr.wikipedia.org/">Marathi</a>, <a href="http://hi.wikipedia.org/">Hindi</a> and <a href="http://bn.wikipedia.org/">Bengali</a> Wikiepdia. After the whole day session there was still some time left for acclaim and fun. The participants were awarded with participation and contribution certificate by the Wikipedia Club Pune. All the new wikipedians registered on Wikipedia Club Pune.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There was a special announcement for Wikipedia Summit India, Anniversary Celebration of Wikipedia Club Pune. Club members celebrated with cutting a special Wikipedia cake. Rishi Aacharya and Ketaki Pole from PAI International Learning Solutions extended their support for this event.</p>
<h3>Meeting with Wikipedia Club Pune members</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There was a meeting with some of the Wikipedia Club Pune members on October 27, 2012 at PAI International Learning Solutions. It was attended by Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval. Abhishek Suryavanshi, founder of the club brought a proposal about the Wikipedia India Summit, anniversary celebration of Wikipedia Club Pune which is planned in the first quarter of 2013. Importance of a India level summit, plans and agenda, logistics and partnership and sponsorship options were discussed during this meeting. There will be public announcement regarding this summit.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-women-day-2012-pune'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-women-day-2012-pune</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2012-11-10T08:30:09ZBlog EntryWikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad
<b>CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus are organizing a hackathon for their tech fest — ATMOS on October 26 - 27, 2012, from 6.00 p.m. on October 26 to 6.00 a.m. on October 27.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">An all night hackathon to get started in contributing technically to the world’s largest source of free information – Wikipedia. The code that you write (and eventually deploy) will be viewed/used 7,938,026,125 times a month! Write user scripts that fix annoying little things with the way Wikipedia functions. Write bots to import (and accurately maintain) large amounts of information from various sources into Wikipedia. Write tools to make it easier to maintain Wikipedia’s standards and fight spam. Most of all join the awesome Open Source community and have fun!</p>
<h3>Pre-requisites:</h3>
<ul>
<li>Preferable working knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript *or* python.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Laptops, which you will have to carry with you.</li>
</ul>
<p><span style="text-align: start; float: none; ">To register for the event, click </span><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpCalViX1FCc0FwT1g2ZFNqN3FrNUE6MQ" style="text-align: start; " target="_blank">here</a><span style="text-align: start; float: none; ">.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent Type2012-10-25T08:42:56ZEventLaunch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program
<b>The Assamese Wikipedia community has shown a rapid growth in the past six months from 20 active editors in January 2012 to 29 active editors in June 2012. The absolute numbers might seem low but in terms of percentages its an overwhelming increment of 45 per cent.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This increment can partly be credited to the photography and article contest, conducting workshops at various educational institutions and organic community growth.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Though Assamese Wikipedia is still a small project with about 1600 articles, the Assamese Wikipedians have the drive, willingness and zest to get more editors and multiply their community. Their enthusiasm and determination has led them to start with an Assamese Wikipedia Education Program. The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 masters students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guwahati_University">Guwahati University</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The day before the launch some of the Assamese Wikipedia editors including Jyoti and Durbhajyoti met to design and alter the Wikipedia Education Program for Assamese Wikipedia. It was decided that the entire program will be divided in four different stages which are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stage 1: Introduction to Wikipedia + Introduction to Education Program + Assamese typing</li>
<li>Stage 2: Editing Assamese Wikipedia</li>
<li>Stage 3: Advanced editing including adding references, headers, TOC and wiki markups</li>
<li>Stage 4: Concluding the Education Program</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In accordance with each of these stages there will be set of deliverables expected out of the students which are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li>Deliverable 1: Create Wikipedia user accounts and user pages</li>
<li>Deliverable 2: Submit a two-page typed article in Assamese</li>
<li>Deliverable 3: Students will select one article each and start editing their articles</li>
<li>Deliverable 4: Students will continue enhancing their articles and will start adding references, wiki markups and pictures, if desired.</li>
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Assam1.jpg/@@images/e24483a8-26fa-40d2-b814-2b3769562139.jpeg" alt="Assam Wikipedia Workshop 1" class="image-inline" title="Assam Wikipedia Workshop 1" /></p>
<p>Assamese Wikipedia Education Program initiated in Guwahati University</p>
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<td style="text-align: justify; ">On Oct 14, 2012 at 11 a.m., the program was initiated with an introduction about Assamese Wikipedia and Wikipedia Education Program. Students were completely thrilled with the idea of them contributing to Wikipedia articles and created their usernames during the session. Since students were not familiar with Assamese typing a larger part of the session was dedicated to teach students on how to type in Assamese using Rudali. As a deliverable, students will be submitting two-page article typed in Assamese on paper before the first week of November. Thereafter, a second in-class session will be organized where students will be taught editing Assamese Wikipedia.</td>
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Assam2.jpg/@@images/531afaa1-f266-4bab-805d-280bfa654302.jpeg" alt="Assam Wikipedia 2" class="image-inline" title="Assam Wikipedia 2" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Students learn Assamese typing using typing tool Rudali.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">All the students have willingly enrolled themselves in the program and have not been forced by the faculty members. Indeed, three students were not studying in Guwahati University but still wanted to be a part of the Assamese Education Program. A loud cheer and good wishes to the Assamese Wikipedia community!</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Video</b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Gn2cJStjQSM" width="300"></iframe></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program</a>
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No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2013-07-26T11:43:37ZBlog EntryWikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad
<b>The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet & Society was approached by Gaurav Prashar, Assistant Dean at Inmantec College, Ghaziabad to organize a Wikipedia workshop. Accordingly, a workshop was organized on October 17, 2012.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was quite overwhelming to see the amount of effort the institution had put in to organize this event. It took place in a large auditorium which was well equipped with all modern facilities like projector, internet, good sound system, each student had a laptop with access to stable internet connection.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Over 120 participants attended the workshop including MCA, BCA, BBA students and faculty members. The workshop included a brief introduction about - what is Wikipedia, who edits Wikipedia, why do they edit Wikipedia, how can one contribute to Wikipedia articles. The presentation was followed by a hands on editing training session where some participants created usernames and tried minor editing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During the session participants also created a new article, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inmantec" target="_blank">Inmantec</a>, and have taken it as a challenge to edit and improve this article over the period of next one month.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/W1.png/@@images/6a6632cb-31a7-4770-ad54-1114320a449c.png" alt="workshop ghaziabad1" class="image-inline" title="workshop ghaziabad1" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Participants listening to the proceedings at the Wikipedia workshop</p>
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<p><br />The session was highly interactive and students asked a lot of queries regarding other projects supported by Wikimedia Foundation, when and who started Wikipedia, the demographics of existing Wikipedia editors, edit wars, collaborative editing, how they can participate in other activities organized by the A2K team and more.</p>
<p>Towards the end of the session many students showed interest to organize a follow up workshop where they could get to know about Wikipedia Clubs and how they could initiate one at Inmantec college.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Overall, the workshop was a huge success. The A2K team will be in regular touch with the participants through mail and Facebook to provide editing support. The participants will also be sent regular invites about Wikipedia events organised in NCR. The follow up session might be organized sometime in the month of November. Please watch out for more updates.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/W2.png/@@images/c4fecf43-4bc7-44cb-ac49-f96ef8e1e54f.png" alt="w2" class="image-inline" title="w2" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Presentation being given during Wikipedia workshop held in Ghaziabad</p>
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<p><b>Video</b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="141" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lOqLqPE-MrE" width="300"></iframe></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad</a>
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No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2013-01-07T16:30:36ZBlog Entry