The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 51 to 65.
Wikipedia boom in Marathi, Malayalam and other desi languages
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-august-1-2013-sandhya-soman-wikipedia-boom-in-marathi-malayalam-other-desi-languages
<b>A vibrant vernacular Wikipedia seems to be taking root in India. In the last eight months, the number of Wikipedia entries has grown substantially in 20 Indian languages, says a study by the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).
</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article by Sandhya Soman was <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/tech-news/internet/Wikipedia-boom-in-Marathi-Malayalam-and-other-desi-languages/articleshow/21518534.cms">published in the Times of India</a> on August 1, 2013. T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wiki, the world's largest online encyclopaedia where anyone can write and edit articles, didn't have much content in vernacular till a few years ago. According to the study, Wikis in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi have added thousands of new articles on various subjects from September 2012 to April 2013. A few of these pages were viewed more during this period. Marathi, which had 30 lakh page views per month previously, had another 10 lakh visitors, while Bengali Wikipedia had 14 lakh page views.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While Malayalam Wiki took the top position with an enviable team of 100 plus editors, the number Hindi, Marathi and Sanskrit editors came down. "Marathi has 40,000 articles. But most editors in Mumbai prefer to work on English. Pune has more Marathi editors,' says <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Vishnu-Vardhan">T Vishnu Vardhan</a>, programme director, Access to Knowledge project at CIS.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"In the last two years, the demand for knowledge in Indian languages has grown as we have moved to the motto of 'roti, kapda and internet'," says Vardhan.<br /><br />One of the reasons for growth is that many browsers now support Indian language scripts. But this was not the case in early 2000. Though many wanted to read and type in their own language, there was no browser support, says Shiju Alex, blogger and Malayalam Wiki editor. Moreover, many didn't know how to type in their mother tongues.<br /><br />But once Indian languages were encoded in Unicode, the fonts became accessible. "There was no need to write Malayalam in English and people started blogging in their mother tongues," says Alex. According to Vardhan, communities with better literacy rates seem to have taken the lead online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Telugu Wiki is stronger as internet penetration in <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Andhra-Pradesh">Andhra Pradesh</a> is higher than in places where Bhojpuri or Assamese is spoken."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As with most online language initiatives, the Wiki movement was also fuelled by the diaspora. Tinu Cherian Abraham, a former board member of the <a class="external-link" href="http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Wikimedia-India">Wikimedia India chapter</a>, talks about how an NRI's love for Malayalam kick-started the project.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">But now there are many Wiki foot soldiers in India, including a blind editor of Hindi Wikipedia and an elderly contributor from Kerala whose passion for free knowledge has helped him forget his ailments.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-august-1-2013-sandhya-soman-wikipedia-boom-in-marathi-malayalam-other-desi-languages'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-august-1-2013-sandhya-soman-wikipedia-boom-in-marathi-malayalam-other-desi-languages</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-01T05:28:28ZNews ItemWikipedia at Forefront in Christ University
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-at-forefront-in-christ-university
<b>Wikipedia has entered Indian undergraduate language classroom in Christ University, Bangalore. Recently the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) organized a series of events in Christ University. This blog post provides a brief analysis of the outcome.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Every year, universities worldwide and in India recognise the need to revise their curriculum to provide up-to-date knowledge for their students. Fresh topics are identified and prescribed replacing the ones which have become obsolete. As technology advances, the need for redesigning the syllabus is not just restricted to the theoretical elements of the academic programme, as the need for a paradigm shift in emphasising the practical implications of the acquired knowledge is recognised universally.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In line with this, universities and colleges across the world have introduced innovative ways of making their curriculum more contemporary than traditional and more pragmatic than academic. One of the leading examples of such initiatives was the "<a class="external-link" href="http://bitly.com/wikiucsf">WikiProject Medicine</a>" started by the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/">University of California</a>, San Francisco School of Medicine (<a class="external-link" href="http://medschool.ucsf.edu/">UCSF School of Medicine</a>) which aimed at making quality article writing on medical subjects a quintessential part of the syllabus completion. The result of this exercise was startling — 25,825 articles produced under the project received 189,908,947 hits — a record achievement for any Wikipedia project (Source: <a class="external-link" href="http://bitly.com/wikiprojmed">http://bitly.com/wikiprojmed</a>).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Universities and colleges in India also realise that internet is a boon for educational system. Students often refer to informative websites for their projects and assignments, with Wikipedia articles topping the list of the reference resources that are easily accessible. Although <a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Wikipedia">English Wikipedia</a> is more viewed and referred by the students, of late there has been an increase in both readership and voluntary editorial contributions to the Indic language Wikipedias such as Hindi, Tamil, Kannada and other language versions of Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Keeping in view these developments, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-a2k-mou-christ-university" class="external-link">CIS entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Christ University</a>, Bangalore to make article writing on Wikipedia a core exercise for their continuous internal assessment of its 1600 undergraduate students. The state-of-the-art university which also has a recording studio agreed to host the first of its kind Wikipedia video tutorials in two languages — Hindi and Kannada.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During the month of December 2013, 10 videos each were recorded in both Hindi and Kannada for the respective language Wikipedia editing. While the video scripts were prepared by CIS, the students of the Christ University played an active role for the introductory videos and rendered their voices for the other video tutorials which featured various Wikipedia editing screenshots. These videos have been uploaded on the Moodle Learning platform of the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.christuniversity.in/">Christ University website</a>, Wikimedia Commons and the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/cisa2k">"Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K)" Channel on YouTube</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In order to help the students assess their grasp of the knowledge disseminated in each video, each uploaded video on the Christ University website ends with a set of objective questions. Students were also given the right answers along with their scores. The questions were designed by CIS staff in consultation with Christ University professors.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">During December 2013 and January 2014 separate campus ambassadors’ orientation programmes were organized by CIS for Hindi and Kannada second language students at Christ University. A training programme was also held for Urdu students. An orientation programme for Tamil students was organized by CIS at Christ University with support from noted Tamil Wikipedian Bala Sundara Raman. Similarly, an orientation programme for Sanskrit students was organized by CIS at Christ University with the support from Shubha of Sanskrit Bharati.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beginning from January 23 to the first week of February, 2014 is the timeline for Christ University students to finish their assignments. With the video tutorial, training and orientation programmes, constant monitoring by CIS, and with support from Christ University, it is hoped that students will contribute significantly to the five different language Wikipedias — Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit, Tamil and Urdu.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-at-forefront-in-christ-university'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-at-forefront-in-christ-university</a>
</p>
No publishersyedOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2014-02-04T05:08:41ZBlog EntryWikipedia at Avenir
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-at-avenir
<b>A 4 hours Wikipedia event at Avenir, 2013 is being held at Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal on 11th March 2013. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting this event.</b>
<hr />
<p>Read the event page on <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_at_Avenir">Wikipedia</a></p>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Basic_Agenda">Basic Agenda</span></h2>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>1 hour Wikpedia edit-a-thon Workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.</li>
<li>3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts.</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Edit-a-thon">Edit-a-thon</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A 2 hours long Wikipedia editing workshop with Kolkata based Wikipedians.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Why_an_Edit-a-thon">Why an Edit-a-thon</span></h3>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>It helps build the encyclopedia</li>
<li>It builds relationships in the community</li>
<li>It can help new Wikipedians to contribute</li>
<li>It's fun :)</li>
</ol>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Pre-requisites">Pre-requisites</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Bring your own laptops if possible, we will be creating things!</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="What_will_you_have_learnt_at_the_end_of_it.3F">What will you have learnt at the end of it?</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Along with the idea of how to create and edit articles in Wikipedia, you will get to know about Wikipedia, about setting knowledge free, about all those awesome things, that make us believe in this huge repository of knowledge.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Articles_Planned">Articles Planned</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascar_War_Memorial,_Calcutta_%28Kolkata%29" title="en:Lascar War Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata)">Lascar War Memorial, Calcutta (Kolkata)</a></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Facilitators">Facilitators</span></h3>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="text external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Rangan_Datta_Wiki">Rangan Dutta</a></li>
<li><a class="text external" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jayantanth">Jayanta Nath</a></li>
</ol>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="MediaWiki_Workshop">MediaWiki Workshop</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">3 hours long MediaWiki Workshop on Wikipedia-Gadgets and UserScripts with Developers from Wikimedia.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Goal">Goal</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wikipedia community needs small bits of web tech that make the site better for lots of users. We'll take people who know wiki stuff and also a little programming stuff, and have them be able to write code for Wikipedia.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Pre-requisites_2">Pre-requisites</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Please bring your laptops! This is a hands on session, and you'll be creating things!</p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Basic grasp of Javascript, CSS</li>
<li>An account on Wikipedia</li>
<li>A modern browser (preferably Chrome, but Firefox with Firebug will also do)</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="What_will_you_have_learnt_at_the_end_of_it.3F_2">What will you have learnt at the end of it?</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Understanding how user scripts work</li>
<li>Be able to use the MediaWiki API appropriately</li>
<li>Improve your own wiki experience / experience for your language wikipedia by writing scripts</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Lesson_Plan">Lesson Plan</span></h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Environment (JS, Dev Toolbar, Common.js, importScript)</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Facilitators_2">Facilitators</span></h3>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a class="text external" href="http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Yuvipanda">Yuvi Panda</a></li>
</ol>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><span class="mw-headline" id="Register_Yourselves.21">Register Yourselves!</span></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Folks who are interested to join us, are requested to fill up the <a class="text external" href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1qh4B6_0NU_H2XkVUl1jaz3xhEP2tqxr0mFNsSAjg6SI/viewform" rel="nofollow">form</a> and register themselves for the event. We shall send you an invitation via email!</p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Harsh4101991" title="User:Harsh4101991">Harsh Kothari</a></li>
</ol>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Data (API, API Sandbox, actions)</li>
<li>Accessing Data from the Environment (AJAX concepts, mw.API, mw.loader.using)</li>
</ul>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> </ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<ol style="text-align: justify; "> </ol>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-at-avenir'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-at-avenir</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-03-11T04:08:23ZNews ItemWikipedia and Free Culture
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-and-free-culture
<b>Bangalore International Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, hosts a discussion focusing on Wikipedia and free culture, with Jimmy Wales (Founder, Wikipedia) and Sue Gardner (Wikimedia Foundation)</b>
<p>Bangalore International Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Internet and Society, </p>
<p>cordially invites you to an interactive discussion</p>
<p><em><strong>Wikipedia and Free Culture</strong></em></p>
<p>with</p>
<p><strong>Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales</strong></p>
<p><em>Founder, Wikipedia </em></p>
<p>and</p>
<p><strong>Sue Gardner</strong></p>
<p><em>Executive Director, Wikimedia Foundation</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, will deliver a presentation about the history, growth, and prominence of Wikipedia on the internet today. Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has risen quickly to become the largest information resource and free knowledge repository in history, now with over 11 million articles in over 250 unique language editions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation, will speak on the origins of the Wikimedia Foundation, the San Francisco based non profit organisation that operates Wikimedia and other free knowledge projects.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Lawrence Liang, member, Alternative Law Forum, and author of <em>A Guide to Open Content Licences</em>, will steer the discussions.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Date and Time:</strong> Saturday, 13 December 2008, 6.00 pm-8.00 pm</p>
<p><strong>Venue: </strong></p>
<p>Bangalore International Centre Auditorium</p>
<p>TERI Complex,</p>
<p>4th Main, 2nd Cross,</p>
<p>Domlur II Stage,</p>
<p>Bangalore 560 071</p>
<p><strong>Registration: </strong></p>
<p>Please register for the event with the Bangalore International Centre (phone: +91 80 2535 9680).</p>
<h3>Videos<br /></h3>
<iframe src="http://blip.tv/play/AYLV9RMA.html" frameborder="0" height="250" width="250"></iframe><embed style="display:none" src="http://a.blip.tv/api.swf#AYLV9RMA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-and-free-culture'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/wikipedia-and-free-culture</a>
</p>
No publishersachiaOpenness2011-10-21T08:31:01ZEventWikipedia Academy in Mangalore
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-academy-in-mangalore
<b>The one-day workshop will focus on the use of Indian languages in Wikipedia, editing and its application in academics.
</b>
<p>Department of Mass Communications and Al Madhyam of the St. Aloysius College, Mangalore in collaboration with Centre for Internet and<br />Society, Bangalore are holding a State-level Wiki-Academy in Mangalore on 22nd August, 2009. The one-day workshop will focus on the use of<br />Indian languages in Wikipedia, editing and its application in academics.</p>
<p>Registration is free. Register before 21st August for the workshop.Registration is open on the day of the event, as well.</p>
<p>Wikipedia editors will speak about the history of Wikipedia and its role in making information freely available to people in several languages.<br />They will also provide hands-on training on editing and improving articles on Wikipedia.</p>
<p>The talks for this edition will be presented by:<br />Prashanth N S (editor, English Wikipedia)<br />Hari Prasad Nadig (sysop, Kannada Wikipedia)</p>
<p>More details on the program is at:</p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Prashanthns/Wikiconference">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Prashanthns/Wikiconference</a></p>
<p><a href="http://hpnadig.net/sites/hpnadig.net/files/WikiAcademy.pdf">http://hpnadig.net/sites/hpnadig.net/files/WikiAcademy.pdf</a></p>
<p>(Feel free to pass this on to your friends in Mangalore)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-academy-in-mangalore'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-academy-in-mangalore</a>
</p>
No publisherradhaOpenness2011-04-02T15:20:23ZNews ItemWikimedia Technical Workshop at Savitribai Phule Pune University
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university
<b></b>
<p>A Wikimedia Technical Workshop was conducted between 27- 28 November, 2017 at the Department of Mathematics, Savitribai Phule Pune University. The objective of the workshops was us to understand how Wikipedia works and what career opportunities there are related to Wikipedia and how one can contribute to and enrich the open source knowledge for the benefit of all.</p>
<p>On the first day, the students were given an introduction to Wikimedia projects as well as Marathi Wikipedia. They were also taught account creation and given a general introduction to Wikipedia , MediaWiki, and wikis in addition to Wikipedia structure, article structure, name spaces, common.css and common.js pages, and gagdets. In the post-lunch session the participants were given an introduction to gadgets, scripts, tool and bots.</p>
<p>On the second day, the participants continued where they left off by learning about advanced tools and bots like Archive Bot, Sign bot, Anti-vandalism bots as well as Phabricator. Finally, the session ended with talks about future projects and activities. </p>
<p>22 participants attended the event.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikimedia-technical-workshop-at-savitribai-phule-pune-university</a>
</p>
No publishermanasaraoCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaMediawiki training (MWT)WikipediaMarathi WikipediaOpenness2017-12-19T16:03:48ZBlog EntryWikimedia Foundation awards grant to Centre for Internet and Society to expand Access to Knowledge in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-cis
<b>We are pleased to announce that the Wikimedia Foundation has approved a grant to the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) in Bangalore to expand their Access to Knowledge program in India.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This information was <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/08/01/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-centre-for-internet-and-society-to-expand-access-to-knowledge-in-india/">posted</a> by Barry Newstead, Chief Global Development Officer on the Wikimedia Foundation website on August 1, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The grant enables CIS, an established institution with valuable relationships and capabilities, to work with the Wikimedia community of volunteers in India to expand upon <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program">Wikimedia’s Indic language free knowledge projects</a>, including Wikipedia in Indic languages. In addition, the grant aims to generate improvements in India-relevant free knowledge in Wikimedia’s English projects and wider distribution of Wikimedia’s free knowledge within India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is a leading research organization in India working on Internet policy and has undertaken policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, and Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. We are delighted that, in CIS, Wikimedia Foundation has not only found an independent, non-profit grantee but also an organisation that knows our community well and shares the same values as Wikimedia and the free and open source software community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The grant will be for two years. The first year’s grant will be for a total of INR 11,000,000 ($200,000 USD) subject to final budget review. The second year will be for a similar amount plus inflation, subject to a budget review in May 2013. The CIS Access to Knowledge program team will be based in Delhi and will have five staff. CIS has indicated an interest in hiring Indian program consultants who have been advising the Wikimedia Foundation and will conduct a search for a program director.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS will build upon the existing projects in India. There are a number of positive initiatives including community growth partnerships in several Indic languages, support for a new <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/06/wikipedia-education-a-model-from-malayalam-wikipedia/">Malayalam education program</a>, a GLAM ( Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) <a class="external-link" href="http://blog.wikimedia.org/2012/07/24/chronicling-the-crafts-indias-first-glam-initiative/">partnership at the Crafts Museum</a> – New Delhi, new Wikiclubs at the British Council, ongoing efforts to leverage social media, and a dramatic increase in blog coverage of the Indian community’s work. There are also exciting developments on mobile that will be announced soon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wikimedia Foundation looks forward to collaborating with CIS as they move forward to expand their Access to Knowledge program to incorporate work on one of the world’s leading free knowledge resources.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">(Read more about the grant on the <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/India_Program_Announcement_and_FAQ_-_30_July_2012">FAQ page on Meta</a>)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-cis'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-foundation-awards-grant-to-cis</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpenness2012-08-02T12:48:02ZNews ItemWikimedia Diversity Conference
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference
<b>T.Vishnu Vardhan participated in the conference organized by the German Wikipedia community in Berlin (GLS Campus) on November 9 and 10, 2013. He presented on So Many Languages- Challenges and Opportunities for the Wikimedia Movement in India and also led a Round-up session on Geographic diversity and Language pluralism on Wikimedia.</b>
<ul>
<li>This was published on the <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Diversity_Conference">meta page of Wikipedia</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Vishnu's presentation can be <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:So_Many_Languages-_Challenges_and_Opportunities_for_the_Wikimedia_Movement_in_India.pdf">accessed here</a>.</li>
<li>A brief discussion of the round-up session <a class="external-link" href="https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/roundup3">can be seen here</a>.</li>
<li>All the videos can be <a class="external-link" href="http://vimeo.com/album/2618583/sort:preset/format:thumbnail">watched here</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3>Video</h3>
<table class="plain">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center; "><iframe frameborder="0" height="281" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/79974672" width="500"></iframe>
<p><a href="http://vimeo.com/79974672">Wikimedia Diversity Conference 2013: Interview - T Vishnu Vardhan</a> from <a href="http://vimeo.com/wikimediade">Wikimedia Deutschland</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>
</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3></h3>
<h3>Why a Diversity Conference?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Representing the world's knowledge is the mission of the global Wikimedia movement. But we are still in our infancy. Many languages and cultures are not adequately represented in the different Wikimedia projects, many people shy away from participating in our projects and sharing their knowledge with the world. Particularly striking is the low proportion of women. To gain this knowledge and commitment, both to increase the pool of knowledge in the Wikimedia projects and to enable a heterogeneous, colourful, diverse community, is the goal of our work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikimedia Deutschland is planning to make "Diversity" the topic of an international conference in Berlin. Here we will gather to exchange findings, methods, and approaches for incorporating more gender diversity in Wikimedia projects, and for considering gender diversity within the wider context of diversity in general (language, culture, projects, etc).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">New technological innovations such as VisualEditor can have an impact on the formation and composition of authorship, and community projects like <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Teahouse" title="en:Wikipedia:Teahouse">Teahouse</a> or <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiWomen%27s_Collaborative" title="WikiWomen's Collaborative">WikiWomen's Collaborative</a> have been successfully aimed at supporting diverse contributors. Let's gather to share information about what's working and what's not in current initiatives, consider the impact of technical and community developments, and connect in order to turn ideas into action.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Goals of the Conference</h3>
<ul>
<li><b>Establish a sustainable dialogue</b> with collaborators in Wikimedia Chapters, the Wikimedia Foundation and the international communities to frame the issue of diversity in the context of Wikimedia.<br /><br /><i>We aim to build a shared understanding of what diversity means for Wikimedia projects and why it is important</i>.</li>
<li><b>Connect, multiply and create successful initiatives</b> for increasing gender and other types of diversity in Wikimedia.<br /><i><br />We aim to turn ideas into action</i>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Focus of the conference</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are very happy to see all your ideas and it seems that many Wikipedians, Wikimedians and interested people are highly engaged in thinking about many aspects concerning diversity in Wikipedia. This is great!</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To help us organize sessions and accomplish our goals of developing a shared understanding and set of actions for improving diversity, we intend to focus this first conference on two aspects of diversity:</p>
<ol>
<li><b>Gender diversity</b> - the gender gap, LGBT initiatives</li>
<li><b>Geographic diversity</b> - the global south, linguistic and economic diversity</li>
</ol>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We hope that future events will be organized to focus more specifically on other important diversity aspects like age, education, and disabilities.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Timeline</h3>
<ul>
<li>application for scholarships/submission of proposals August 20 - September 20, 2013</li>
<li>official registration August 20 - October 20, 2013</li>
<li>note of acceptance: by October 4, 2013</li>
<li>agenda finalized: end of October 2013</li>
<li>conference: November 9 - November 10, 2013</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Background Information</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In 2013, Wikimedia Deutschland initiated a research and development project <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Deutschland/2013_annual_plan/projects/p9" title="Wikimedia Deutschland/2013 annual plan/projects/p9">"Diversity for Wikipedia"</a> that develops possible courses of action towards more gender diversity. Within the project, gender diversity guidelines, gender diversity action plans and designs are developed. It will implement specific actions aimed at enhancing a welcoming culture, diversity awareness among Wikipedians and participation of female editors. In a co-operation with Beuth University, digital web-based educational material with a focus on gender topics will be developed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Within the framework of developing a diversity concept about what diversity in Wikipedia really means, we will organise this conference to further develop our existing approaches and to elaborate on new ideas. By the end of this year, the project will be in an advanced state and we are looking forward to discuss the different worldwide initiatives with the international communities, Wikimedia Chapters and the Wikimedia Foundation.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Contact</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julia_Kloppenburg_%28WMDE%29" title="User:Julia Kloppenburg (WMDE)">Julia Kloppenburg</a>. You can reach Julia via her <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Julia_Kloppenburg_%28WMDE%29" title="User:Julia Kloppenburg (WMDE)">user page</a> or via <a class="text external" href="mailto:Julia.kloppenburg@wikimedia.de" rel="nofollow">e-mail</a>. For general enquiries and questions concerning scholarships you can contact the organising team at: <a class="text external" href="mailto:diversity@wikimedia.de" rel="nofollow">diversity@wikimedia.de</a> Feel free to get in touch!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-diversity-conference</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-12-02T06:40:02ZNews ItemWikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb
<b>The Access to Knowledge team of the Centre for Internet & Society in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM is organizing meetup at the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore on February 25, 2013 at 2.00 p.m. Vishnu Vardhan will speak on the Access to Knowledge program.</b>
<p> </p>
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<table class="listing">
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/WikimediaMeet_flyer.png/@@images/9dc926ab-c8ae-4b84-8f75-a30bb531d3d9.png" alt="Wikimedia Flyer" class="image-inline" title="Wikimedia Flyer" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p>Register for the event <a class="external-link" href="http://wpmbl54.doattend.com">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent2013-02-14T06:01:28ZEventWikimedia Asia Meeting
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting
<b>T.Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi from the Access to Knowledge team at CIS participated in the Wikimedia Asia meeting in Hong Kong on August 10, 2013. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Note: An unedited transcript of the entire conversation can be downloaded below.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimedia-asia-meeting.txt" class="internal-link">Click to see the file</a> (Plain Text, 7Kb)</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimedia-asia-meeting</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-29T10:14:36ZNews ItemWikimania 2013: Wikipedians represent Indian Languages in Hong Kong
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013
<b>The 7th, 8th and 9th of August 2013 saw over 600 Wikipedians across the world participating Wikimania at Hong Kong. The three day annual international conference for users and contributors of Wikipedia brought many debates about open educational research, open source technologies, gender gap, documenting the history of mankind in a free and open platform like Wikipedia and its sister sites in collaboration with Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums and all of these in 286 world languages. More and more volunteers are joining this movement and it is expanding the media of accessing and disseminating knowledge.
</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1578-bf89-b289-18949346d9c2">Here is a school teacher who lives in Salem, a small industrial town in Tamil Nadu. There lives a school teacher who was born in Sri Lanka and moved to Hong Kong long back. They have never met in real life but have been helping in correcting each others mistakes in Wikipedia articles. These two school teachers have taken their knowledge from the four walls of the classrooms to a larger audience of</span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org"><span> Tamil Wikipedia</span></a><span>. I then realized how language brings people together. This is what I heard from my inner voice when I met </span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D:Parvathisri"><span>S.Parvathi </span></a><span>from Salem and </span><a href="http://ta.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AE%AA%E0%AE%AF%E0%AE%A9%E0%AE%B0%E0%AF%8D:HK_Arun"><span>H.K.Arun</span></a><span> from Sri Lanka during </span><a href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org"><span>Hong Kong Wikimania 2013</span></a><span>, an annual gathering of Wikipedia contributors.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1579-0dad-9740-452c9aae519f">Many still are not aware the existence of Wikipedias in Indian languages. There are 20 South Asian language Wikipedias with more than 2 lakh articles contributed totally by about 1500 voluntary contributors in all these languages. There are hundred more contributors like Arun and Parvathi who create new articles in Tamil Wikipedia, and rectify mistakes by new contributors.</span></p>
<table class="invisible">
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<th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kJKlD2hZ260" width="480"></iframe></th><th></th><th></th><th></th><th></th>
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<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian"><span>Wikipedians</span></a><span> are all volunteers who devote their time for building the greatest repository of knowledge on the internet. Wikipedia articles are free from any copyright infringement so anyone can freely access, share, make modifications and redistribute them. Wikipedians have been able to create this ecosystem of nurturing new editors by teaching them the process of encyclopaedic content generation which not only polishes their writing abilities, but strengthens their communication skills. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Wikimania is fun, it brings wikipedians across the globe speaking diverse languages under one roof where they meet each other and share their ideas and collaborate. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Over 600 wikipedians from various countries participated in this year’s Wikimania including </span><a href="http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Wikimania2013#Attendees"><span>16 from India</span></a><span>. In the open world of Wikipedia collaboration always happen beyond borders; one </span><a href="http://ne.wikipedia.org"><span>Nepali</span></a><span> and four </span><a href="http://bn.wikipedia.org"><span>Bangla</span></a><span> Wikipedians from Bangladesh also joined the Indian Wikipedians to rejoice the triumph of the effort of all the volunteers from the subcontinent. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The fun was not just limited in creating a wall of their dreams, ambitions and action plans to take their own language Wikipedia to more people or discuss how they could write articles that are important to each others languages. It went upto helping each other to fix problems in typing Indian languages and discussing success stories of successful workshops that resulted bring more student </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-0678dac9-1579-9d5b-64e9-70790c72feab">contributors. </span><a href="http://ne.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%AA%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%B0%E0%A4%AF%E0%A5%8B%E0%A4%97%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE:Ganesh_Paudel"><span>Ganesh Paudel</span></a><span>, a Wikipedian from Nepal says, "My hometown is very close to India and we share the same script with Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit and Konkani. India and Nepal both have sizable population speaking Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Sanskrit, Bangla and Hindi. I’m personally interested to collaborate with Indians speaking these languages." I could see the glow in his eyes when he wrote and explained the beautiful curvature of </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjana_alphabet"><span>Ranjana</span></a><span> script to me.</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tinucherian"><span> Tinu Cherian</span></a><span>, another long term Wikipedian who was attending Wikimania for the third time was excitedly live-tweeting the happening at Hong Kong. When I asked how he is feeling after a short break he unfolded his hands and proudly said, "Wikipedia is like religion to me, once a Wikipedian, you are always a Wikipedian!". </span><a href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Netha_Hussain"><span>Netha</span></a><span>, a medical college student from Kerala spoke about bringing more women to contribute to Wikipedia. She calls </span><a href="http://ml.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B4%89%E0%B4%AA%E0%B4%AF%E0%B5%8B%E0%B4%95%E0%B5%8D%E0%B4%A4%E0%B4%BE%E0%B4%B5%E0%B5%8D:Kavya_Manohar"><span>Kavya</span></a><span>, a college lecturer and Malayalam wikipedian who spoke about </span><a href="https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_and_non-conventional_education_-_A_study_from_Indian_cultural_context"><span>Women and non-conventional education</span></a><span> as one of the gems she has discovered in her personal journey. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Wikimania also has Sengai Podhuvan, one of the oldest Indian Wikipedians. His </span><a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/L11_1222_R5_DS/en/US"><span>appeal for Wikipedia fundraising</span></a><span> brought a lot of donations to Wikimedia Foundation. Dr. Podhuvan shared his story of learning using computer, Tamil typing and writing articles about Wikimania this year brought many academicians, education researchers, policy change makers and open source and open knowledge activists across the world to share their ideas, activities going across the world even while </span><a href="https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submissions/Women_and_non-conventional_education_-_A_study_from_Indian_cultural_context"><span>enjoying dinner</span></a><span> in the </span><a href="http://www.sky100.com.hk/"><span>100th floor</span></a><span>. </span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikimania2013</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-09-13T06:03:03ZBlog EntryWikimania 2013: The International Wikimedia Conference
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013
<b>Wikimania is the annual international conference of the Wikimedia movement. It's organized by a different local team each year. In 2013 the conference took place in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Wikimania allows the community and the general public to learn about and share their experiences with free knowledge initiatives all over the world. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</b>
<p><a class="external-link" href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page">Click to read the details published on the Wikimania website</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The previous conferences were held in <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2005.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2005:">Frankfurt, Germany</a> (2005), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2006:">Boston, USA</a> (2006), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2007:">Taipei, Taiwan</a> (2007), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2008.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2008:">Alexandria, Egypt</a> (2008), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2009.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2009:">Buenos Aires, Argentina</a> (2009), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2010:">Gdańsk, Poland</a> (2010), <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2011.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2011:">Haifa, Israel</a> (2011), and <a class="extiw" href="http://wikimania2012.wikimedia.org/wiki/" title="wm2012:">Washington, D.C., USA</a> (2012).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Picture: <a class="external-link" href="http://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_page">Wikimania 2013</a>. Official site, CC-BY-SA 3.0<span class="post-meta-key"></span><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikimania-2013</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-08-29T06:30:54ZNews ItemWiki's worth, on a different turf
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf
<b>An Indian duo–a programmer and a mathematician–have developed a tool to expose anonymous writers and cleanse Wikipedia of rogue editors</b>
<p>Bangalore-based Kiran Jonnalagadda, a Web programming guru, and Hans Varghese Mathews, a mathematician, are the new entrants to the emerging field of Wikipedia research. The duo is credited with building Wiki Analysis, a tool that helps researchers understand the growing phenomenon of astroturfing, the practice of faking grass-roots support on Wikipedia and other websites. Wikipedia is the first Google result for most searches and this has made it a popular destination for those trying to manipulate public opinion on the Internet. Corporations, governments and even pop artists have been caught astroturfing in the past.</p>
<p>Jonnalagadda and Mathews are among 34 researchers from 17 countries attending a two-day conference in Bangalore, WikiWars, which is concluding today. WikiWars is taking a fresh look at many different aspects of the world’s biggest encyclopaedia, the sixth most popular website on the Internet.</p>
<p>The first generation of astroturfing on Wikipedia has been, thus far, largely unsophisticated, with little attention paid to covering up digital evidence. Remember the campaign Avril Lavigne’s fans launched last year that turned her music video Girlfriend into the most viewed clip on YouTube? Wal-Mart Stores Inc. contracted its public relations firm Edelman to maintain a fake website called “Working Families for Wal-Mart”. They pretended to be ordinary citizens who opposed the views of the firm’s labour union.</p>
<p>It is well known that platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, with opaque management procedures, are susceptible to astroturf campaigns. Supporters of open licensing and peer production have always held that Wikipedia and other community-managed platforms are protected thanks to their transparency in policies and practices. But as far as Wikipedia researchers are concerned, the jury is still out.</p>
<p>Microsoft tried to pay technology blogger Rick Jelliffe to work on Wikipedia connected to OOXML (Office Open XML) during the ISO (International Organization for Standardization) approval process in an attempt to influence the global vote. OOXML was the new file format for MS Office documents that urgently needed approval to check the growing popularity of Open Office. A user called “Ril_editor”, active between September 2007 and May 2008, who claimed to be working out of Reliance Industries Ltd’s chief Mukesh Ambani’s offices, tried to expunge pages connected to negative publicity about Reliance. Scientologists were blocked by Wikipedia’s arbitration committee when they were found trying to systematically undermine Wikipedia’s NPOV (neutral point of view) policy. NPOV is Wikipedia’s particular spin on non-partisanship, providing equal space to all opinions. However, some Wikipedia researchers such as Geert Lovink, head of the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, and co-organizer of the WikiWars conference, believes that the dominance of English and textual citation requirements has meant that NPOV is never translated into practice.</p>
<p>An American team based out of the Santa Fe Institute, US, has developed WikiScanner, a public database of IP addresses that helps reveal the organizations behind anonymous edits on Wikipedia. WikiScanner has been used to expose the US Central Intelligence Agency’s manipulation of pages. WikiScanner doesn’t yet work for edits by authenticated users. The WikiScanner team has also developed another tool called Potential Sock Puppetry, which exposes those who use multiple user accounts from the same IP address. However, both tools could be circumvented by purchasing multiple data cards or getting people to work from public access points such as coffee shops and cyber cafés.</p>
<p>It is this gap the Indian duo’s tool tries to plug. The first version of their Wiki Analysis tool clusters users into potential lobbies based on the pages they edit within a date range. The tool’s next version will cluster users into lobbies based on the words they consistently add and delete across pages. Says Jonnalagadda, “Wikipedia is now close to a decade old and has many articles that have existed since its earliest days and have been edited by thousands of individuals.” It is now the primary encyclopaedic destination for Internet users, and that makes it a ripe target for astroturfing. At no point in the history of human civilization have so many collaborated over so long to produce one canonical document on any article of human knowledge.</p>
<p>“Wikipedia users rarely bother to check how a page was edited, but that information is all there, available to anyone who cares to look. We’re building the tools to help make sense of it,” Jonnalagadda says. Once Wiki Analysis is ready, you will be able to check if, for example, the editors of the climate change page on Wikipedia are more interested in ecology or energy.</p>
<p>Original article on <a class="external-link" href="http://www.livemint.com/2010/01/12210114/Wiki8217s-worth-on-a-diffe.html">Livemint</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-worth-different-turf</a>
</p>
No publishersunilOpenness2012-10-23T08:33:56ZNews ItemWiki Women's Workshop
http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014
<b>As part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day, International Centre Goa (ICG) in association with the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge team is organising a Wiki Women’s Workshop on Sunday, March 9, 2014 from 3.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. at ICG – Dona Paula.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">8th March is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:International_Women%27s_Day">International Women's Day</a> and to celebrate, women in India are organizing edit-a-thons and meetups to create and expand articles of importance to women in Wikipedia in English and various Indian languages. The goal of the month-long event is to encourage more women to contribute to Wikipedia and increase representation of articles related to women in Wikipedia. The event aims at creating new articles, expanding the existing stubs and translating English articles to various <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Indo-Aryan_languages">Indic languages</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The main aim of the event is to get more women aware about Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. Participants would be guided on "How to contribute to Wikipedia?" by a hands-on session and make the knowledge available for free.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Women%27s_Workshop_@_ICG.pdf">Click here to view the poster and registration details</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014'>http://editors.cis-india.org/events/international-womens-day-2014</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessEvent2014-03-05T10:37:57ZEventWiki Women's Day in Goa
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa
<b>International Women's Day (IWD), also called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8, every year. There were a series of Wikipedia events organised this year with the aim of increasing participation of women contributing to Wikipedia. One such event was organised by the Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet and Society and the Wikimedia India Chapter at the Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE), a Secondary Teacher Education College in Panaji, Goa on March 8, 2013.</b>
<p align="JUSTIFY">NIE is a respected institution providing pre- and in-service teacher education to thousands of teachers and about a 100 of them (99 per cent of the participants being women) joined in to learn Wikipedia editing and increase women related content on Wikipedia.</p>
<p align="JUSTIFY">Rohini Lakshane from the Wikimedia India Chapter and Nitika Tandon from Access to Knowledge, CIS lead the session jointly. The session began with the introduction of Wikipedia, Wikipedia volunteers, the five pillars, motivation of volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia tirelessly and a brief of different activities that are being organised to strengthen the Wikimedia movement in India. Most of the students and faculty members were curious about two main things:</p>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">How to integrate the new community of editors in Goa with the larger Indian and global community?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">How can teachers and students use Wikipedia to advance students' knowledge and add useful content to Wikipedia?</li>
</ol>
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NethasVideo.png/@@images/7c6006be-6dee-4a10-b4bf-982ca38cf478.png" title="Netha's Video" height="247" width="330" alt="Netha's Video" class="image-inline" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; ">Participants watching Netha's video</p>
</th>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p>To answer the first part, participants were informed about regular Wiki meet ups in different cities, several city based and language based Wikipedia mailing lists where one can find volunteer friends, active use of user talk pages and village pumps, Wikimedia India Facebook page amongst many others.</p>
<p>To address the second part there was also a brief discussion about wiki project classroom coordination with specific examples from universities around the world. The teachers and faculty members will be sent a detailed outline of the program, list of universities with on-going projects, list of teachers who have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool and are willing to serve as a contact to help others set up a similar teaching courses.</p>
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<p align="JUSTIFY">The session was planned to go on until late evening with hands on editing in the computer lab. But unfortunately, we (Rohini and Nitika) were informed that the session will have to close before the scheduled closing time as participants had to leave. Except for two or three participants coming on stage and making their user accounts and another 3-4 article edits, we couldn't include more editing as a part of the outreach session, primarily due to time constraint. We're hoping that at a small percentage of participants would try actual editing at home and contribute to women related articles and some of them will be successful in using Wikipedia as a teacher's tool. We have their contact details and we'll try and monitor their on Wiki activities and provide them support whenever needed.</p>
<table class="invisible">
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NIEWikipediaWorkshop.png" alt="NIE Wikipedia Workshop" class="image-inline" title="NIE Wikipedia Workshop" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">A picture of participants doing Wiki editing at the NIE workshop in Goa</td>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wiki-womens-day-in-goa</a>
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No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaFeaturedWorkshopOpenness2013-03-19T06:32:25ZBlog Entry