The Centre for Internet and Society
http://editors.cis-india.org
These are the search results for the query, showing results 591 to 605.
An 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">
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/AMLWorkshop.png" alt="AML Workshop" class="image-inline" title="AML Workshop" /></th>
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<td style="text-align: center; ">A picture of the participants at the Odia Wikipedia workshop at Academy of Media Learning</td>
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<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>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Gujaratityping.png" alt="Gujarati typing" class="image-inline" title="Gujarati typing" /></th>
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<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">
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/G1.png" alt="G1" class="image-inline" title="G1" /></th>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
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<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>
</ul>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<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>
</td>
<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>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<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>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<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>
<hr />
<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>
<p>
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>
</p>
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>
<table class="invisible">
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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>
</td>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<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>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<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>
<table class="invisible">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<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>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p><b>Video</b></p>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="141" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/lOqLqPE-MrE" width="300"></iframe></p>
<p>
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>
</p>
No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2013-01-07T16:30:36ZBlog EntryBengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia
<b>Kannada Wikipedia is one of those Indic language wikipedias which has seen many readers coming up every month. Subhashish Panigrahi summarizes the experiences of some of the very active Kannada wikipedians from the recent Kannada Wikipedia meetup held in Bengaluru on October 7, 2012.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Seven Kannada wikipedians (a couple of them also contribute to Sanskrit Wikipedia) participated in this <a class="external-link" href="http://kn.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B2%B5%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%95%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AA%E0%B3%80%E0%B2%A1%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%AF:%E0%B2%B8%E0%B2%AE%E0%B3%8D%E0%B2%AE%E0%B2%BF%E0%B2%B2%E0%B2%A8/%E0%B3%AB">event</a>. Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi from the Access to Knowledge team of the Centre for Internet & Society and Jessie Wild from the Wikimedia Foundation also participated in the event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After a brief introduction about the theme of the meetup, Omshivaprakash, one of the active contributors for community building who also solves technical issues besides contributing articles explained the history and happenings of Kannada Wikipedia said “the only reason all of us joined together to contribute for Kannada Wikipedia is because we love our mother language, Kannada.” He explained how he reached out to a renowned Kannada writer asking him to document his own writings and books to become active on Kannada Wikipedia and start contributing. In the recent past Kannada community has organized many outreach events. The presentation for each outreach has been translated and customized for effective presentation. In the past they struggled for the six username creation barrier. Om also spoke about the scope of government partnership for including Kannada Wikipedia in the school syllabus (which worked out really well in Kerala) for which he is willing to meet the government officials. Additionally, he also shared the idea of recording an outreach session and presenting it to the government.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Another active wikipedian, Tejas emphasized the importance of having Kannada Wikipedia as part of the syllabus where lecturers and teachers will be learning to teach about Wikipedia in the classroom. As this will be mandatory, both students and teachers will take it seriously and it would be a sustainable practice. To show the results about 4-5 schools could be shortlisted for a pilot program. Tejas also proposed the idea of including Kannada typing in schools because that is something most people are not taught.</p>
<hr />
<p><i> </i></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/wkp2.jpg" alt="bengaluru wikipedia" class="image-inline" title="bengaluru wikipedia" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><i>The above picture shows some participants working on their laptops during the meetup.</i></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The wikipedians further discussed about Kannada Wiktionary and how collaborations will work to bridge the gap of wikipedians who contribute separately for Kannada Wikipedia and Wiktionary. Frequently Used Entries for Localization (FUEL) is a great project for creating content on Wiktionary, which will involve bringing new people to the community. In Bengaluru, CIS and <a href="http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CCAQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsanchaya.net%2F2012%2F05%2Ffuel-kannada-workshop-on-kannada-computing-terminology%2F&ei=8L93UMrzD4iHrAfIsICQCg&usg=AFQjCNFfXFz-D48NPY27lCwY-cx_O4OoSw&sig2=_PkJ_65fL-q5XrczMchblg" target="_blank">Sanchaya</a><i> </i>co-hosted a two-day workshop for discussion regarding the same. Involving more wikimedians for such workshops would be helpful for both the projects, Wikipedia and Wiktionary. “I was always keen to do something for Kannada language on the web, being a software professional nothing leaves me a better chance to work for such a project like Wikipedia in my own language,” expresses Pavithra, another active Kannada Wikipedian who has supported many outreach events and translation projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedians, those who were a few weeks older, spoke about the problems they are facing when searching databases. Even the experienced wikipedians face the same problem. Options, such as having a central place, like a list of templates with little description and templates which could be standardized so that anyone could contribute to the translation and other things which need contribution, were discussed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tejas, a long-term Kannada Wikipedian discussed about the non-standard nature of the South Asian language wiktionaries. If Wiktionary could be standardized it could be easier to ask other communities to collaborate and contribute in their respective languages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Discussion on Sanskrit Wiki projects:</b><br />Abhiram, another wikipedian who initially began with editing Sanskrit WikiSource and then started contributing to Kannada Wikipedia explained the hurdles they faced while spreading the word about Sanskrit WikiSource in Karnataka. Being closely associated to <a href="http://samskritabharati.in/" target="_blank">Samskrita Bharati</a> and contributing largely to the Kannada WikiSource project, Abhiram feels not many people can write in Sanskrit though they can speak because of their fluency in the Devanagari script. People who study Sanskrit lose their grip of it after they pass 10<sup>th</sup> or 12<sup>th</sup> grades. “As Sanskrit is rarely found as a spoken language a lot of ground work and motivation for the contributors are needed to cultivate a community. We could plan for 10 spoken Sanskrit sessions in a month to kick-start before we teach how to edit Sanskrit Wikipedia”, Abhiram added.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherSubhashish PanigrahiOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-11-04T14:03:49ZBlog EntryWikipedia comes to Hyderabad!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report
<b>This post is a report on the series of Wikipedia meets organized in the city of Hyderabad on September 29-30, 2012. These workshops were a a part of the larger effort to help Wikipedia contributors in the same city to meet each other and strengthen the local community. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The city of Hyderabad is not only an IT hub but also home to many English and Indian language Wikipedians. In a recent series of weekend workshops and meet-ups conducted within the city, I had the opportunity to interact with many of them. We conducted a Wikipedia workshop at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, an Odia Wikipedia workshop as well as a general Wikipedia workshop for people interested in contributing to all language Wikipedias. I would like to convey my gratitude to the Computer Science department students at BITS, Hyderabad, Odia Wikipedians Swetapadma and Amaresh and English Wikipedians Tausif and Abhijith for making these events happen despite festivities and protests in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">To provide a brief report on the events, the BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad workshop was organized as a general introduction to Wikipedia. The event was organized with the support of the Computer Science department at the college and saw a presence of more than 60 students. It was 2 hour session where 6 students created their Wikipedia user accounts and entered their names on the BITS project page. They were also shown how Wikis work – live and global.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Students were encouraged to make changes to their college article and they discovered how to view recent changes, page views and other functions. It was a particularly informative session because majority of the group did not know that Wikipedia articles are written by common people from all walks of life! The session ended with a proposal to start a Wiki club for their college. The Odia Wikipedia meetup organized on the same day registered 11 participants while the general meetup on the next day had over 20 participants. In all three workshops, the majority of participants were not aware how one could contribute to Wikipedia articles.</p>
<h3>Next steps:</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was great to see existing Wikipedians discuss the idea of having a Hyderabad SIG (special interest group) to conduct regular meetings, workshops, photo walks and more! Since the participants have shared their email-IDs, we will stay in touch and inform them about upcoming Telugu and English editing workshops. Students at BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad have also requested a Wikipedia workshop and hackathon for their upcoming techfest this month. A Telugu Wikipedia workshop has been proposed for the second week of October.</p>
<hr />
<p>For more information on how to conduct a Wikipedia workshop in your city, you could contact <a href="mailto:noopur@cis-india.org">noopur@cis-india.org</a></p>
<hr />
<p>There was newspaper coverage about this event:</p>
<ul>
<li>Wiki Meetup, <a class="external-link" href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/drumming-session/article3943855.ece">Hindu</a>, September 28, 2012</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-hyderabad-report</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-02-13T11:40:06ZBlog EntryPunjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar
<b>After Ludhiana and Patiala we came to Amritsar, which we all know is home to the Golden Temple and the spiritual centre of Sikh religion, to introduce Punjabi Wikipedia. The workshop was held at the Spring Dale Senior School, Amritsar on August 17, 2012.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">When we decided to conduct a Punjabi Wikipedia introduction workshop at Amritsar, the location was an issue. We tried to contact many institutes (mostly colleges) over phone. We couldn't get the permission. Finally, Punjabi Wikipedian G.S. Guglani directly approached the <a class="external-link" href="http://www.springdaleeducation.com/">Spring Dale senior school </a>management with the request for a space to do the Punjabi Wikipedia introduction workshop. Spring Dale is a famous English medium school in Amritsar. The school principal, Rajiv Sharma not only agreed to host the workshop but also made arrangements to bring selected students and teachers from eight other schools in Amritsar to join the workshop. Actually this was a bonus for us since we asked just a meeting place to host our workshop but not only we got the meeting place, we got assured participation from eight other schools and the permission to use the computer lab to conduct the hands-on wiki editing session.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; ">Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop. One of the active and long-time Punjabi Wikipedian Guglani Gurdip Singh lead the workshop with the active support from Shiju and Subhasish.</div>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The event started with a formal opening talk in Punjabi by a student of Spring Dale. The Principal of the Spring Dale Senior School Rajiv Sharma introduced the guests to the audience and briefed the participants about the workshop. Guglani took the participants through a brief presentation (<a class="external-link" href="http://bit.ly/Rnki2r">http://bit.ly/Rnki2r</a>) and explained the history and current status of Punjabi Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Few participants were invited to create user account in Punjabi Wikipedia. Guglani demonstrated Punjabi typing and basic wiki editing. There was a question-answer session where participants asked about typing, editing, referencing and many other contribution related questions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img alt="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Punjabi_Wikipedia_Workshop-17Aug2012-10.JPG" class="decoded" height="671" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Punjabi_Wikipedia_Workshop-17Aug2012-10.JPG" width="894" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><i>Participants asking questions in the Question-Answer session</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After a short break and students and teachers gathered in the computer lab. Booklets containing Punjabi typing scheme were distributed among the participants. Guglani, Shiju, and Subha supported them with editing various articles in Punjabi. As none of the students was exposed to Punjabi typing before they took much interest to type Punjabi. We were able to see the surprise in the eyes of the students and teachers when Narayam converted the typed words to Gurumukhi Punjabi. However, all the present typing tools integrated to Punjabi Wikipedia have some issues. After getting inputs from users I logged some bugs to enhance it. Bug 1 (<a class="external-link" href="https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39523">Phonetic keymap update</a>), Bug 2 (<a class="external-link" href="https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39218">My Best Keyboard update</a>). Hope WMF developers will look into it.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the end of the session email addresses were exchanged for future communication. New wikipedians were given pointers to stay in touch and ask questions when they face problems with editing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This workshop involving school childern was really a very good experince for us. I would like to thank the Spring Dale Senior School management for the warm hospitality that they extended to us. We are touched. I could see the possibility of doing programs there.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After conducting three workshops for Punjabi (two workshops (Luhiana and Patiala) involving college students and one workshop (Amritsar) involving school children), I am sure there is bright future ahead for the Punjabi Wikipedia if community can come forward to build the community further. <a class="external-link" href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2011/">From the statistical report of last year</a> we can see that it was only Guglani editing Punjabi Wikipedia. Now Guglaniji and Surinder came forward to build it and we have around 6-7 active users now. For a language with almost 3 crore speakers 7 active users is not an encouraging number. So we need to have more programs to build it further. Hope community will be able to come forward for that.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">More pictures of this workshop is available at: <a class="external-link" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Punjabi_Wikipedia_Workshop-17Aug2012">http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Punjabi_Wikipedia_Workshop-17Aug2012</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Note:</b> Although the workshop was conducted prior to the grant period, the report was written in the month of September, and hence, we are featuring this.</p>
<div style="text-align: justify; "></div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar</a>
</p>
No publisherShiju AlexOpennessAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-10-04T16:11:34ZBlog EntryAccess to Knowledge — September 2012 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-september-2012-bulletin
<b>This is the first newsletter from the Access to Knowledge team of CIS in Delhi. The issue introduces you to the CIS Access to Knowledge program, the team members in Delhi and reports from Workshops conducted by the Wikipedia community.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has awarded CIS a two-year grant of upto INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India:</p>
<hr />
<h3><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">Access to Knowledge Programme</a></h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program has become the Access to Knowledge (A2K) programme of CIS. </li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">CIS Office in Delhi</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of four members: <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Shiju Alex</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Statistical Report</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-jan-june-2012">Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report</a> (January – June 2012) (by Shiju Alex). The data for this report and analysis are based on the statistical data published at <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org">http://stats.wikimedia.org</a>.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia Workshops</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight"><b>Note</b>: Although most of these workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the reports for all of these were written during September, hence we are featuring these:</span></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/first-punjabi-wikipedia-workshop">The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012). </li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-punjabi-university-patiala">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar">Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar</a> (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/report-of-the-wikipedia-workshop-in-british-library">Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/kannada-wiki-workshop-tumkur-university">Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University</a> (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-hyderabad-report">Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad!</a> (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012). There was coverage in the <a href="http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/drumming-session/article3943855.ece">Hindu</a> on September 28, 2012.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Blog Entry</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia">Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia</a> (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h2><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness">Openness</a>, <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a>, and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i> </i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.</i></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Follow us elsewhere</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-september-2012-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-september-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessNewsletter2012-12-14T06:18:01ZPageEditor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia
<b>Nitika Tandon tells us about the Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telegu Wikipedia, how it will run, its necessity and the future steps. </b>
<h3>What is Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Editor Growth & Contribution Program is an online outreach program that will help raise the number of active editors on Telugu Wikipedia. The program will provide an entrance point for newcomers to Wikipedia, enabling them to contribute to its contents and share the knowledge they possess, while participating and communicating with existing Wikipedia community members. Such a program will serve as a compliment to off-wiki outreach activities already underway.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the Telugu Wikipedians like Arjuna, Dr. Rajshekhar, Sujatha are in the initial stage of discussing the possibility and ways of running an Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">How will the program run?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The idea is to run outreach banners using the local site notice on Telugu Wikipedia for three consecutive months. These banners will be in the form of short bios/stories of Telugu Wikipedians who agree to be featured in the editor campaign. Most Wikipedia visitors are unaware of the fact that regular folks write articles on Wikipedia and not scholars or paid writers. These personal stories from active Wikipedians could feature their motivation to contribute, their passion for building and developing Wikipedia, their early experience with Wikipedia as an editor, their invitation to site visitors to become Wikipedia editors, etc. Such personal stories will add a human touch to Wikipedia and will help new visitors related to real life stories. <br /><br />Each of these banners will link to a landing page. The landing page will start with a question at its top saying “What would you like to do in Wikipedia?” followed by six buttons each listing an answer to this question, and linking to the corresponding tutorial page. These six buttons will be: create your username, create your userpage, edit an existing article (fix a typo), add a reference, create a new article, and send a message.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Landing page will be designed in a simple way to avoid any visual distraction for the visitor. Each button will provide a detailed graphical explanation on how to perform each of those actions. To understand the workings of the program in greater detail please <a class="external-link" href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Outreach_Programs/Editor_Growth_&_Contribution_Campaign">click here</a> (this program design is just a rough draft and may change as required).</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Why Telugu Wikipedia?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As per <a class="external-link" href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaTE.htm">Wikimedia Stats</a> Telugu speaking population is around 8 crore. Telugu Wikipedia has about 18 lakh page views per month and 21 active editors (5+ edits in a month). In a community with such large numbers of speakers but extremely low number of Wikipedia editors, there seems to be a lot of scope and opportunity to increase Wikipedia's reach and awareness amongst Telugu speaking population and more so amongst reader of Telugu Wikipedia to start improving and expanding Wikipedia articles and foster the growth of Telugu Wikipedia community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Telegu.jpg" alt="Telegu Wikipedia" class="image-inline" title="Telegu Wikipedia" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Telugu Wikipedia at a glance July 2012</i></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Number of speakers of other Dravidian languages like Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil is relatively low but have higher number of page views and active editors as compared to Telugu as seen in the table on the right. KA, ML and TA Wikipedia communities have run different programs over time to increase it's reach, spread more awareness and invite new editors. Some of these programs were TamilWiki Media Contest, Tamil Wikipedia Contribution Campaign, Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program, Kannada Medical Project, etc. Telugu Wikipedia requires a similar high impact project that can help them grow their community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/languages.jpg" alt="Indic Languages" class="image-inline" title="Indic Languages" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>Comparison of Telugu Wikipedia with other langauge Wikipedias</i>.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Cross pollinating ideas</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Tamil and Arabic Wikipedia communities have already experimented with Editor Growth & Contribution Program and have produced amazing results. Ravi from Tamil Wikipedia and Haitham from Arabic Wikipedia were actively involved in running the contribution programs on their respective language Wikipedias and have offered help to run similar project on Telugu Wikipedia and provide regular guidance and support.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Next steps ahead</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Strong community support will be required to run such a program. The larger Telugu Wikipedia community will plan a meet up sometime in October in Hyderabad to take this program forward. Special thanks to Dr. Rajshekhar who has offered to organise this meet-up.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/editor-growth-and-contribution-on-telegu-wikipedia</a>
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No publisherNitika TandonOpennessAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-09-29T12:13:04ZBlog Entry