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Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2012
<b>I have compiled the statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012. As usual, in this report, my aim is to provide my perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">(The period of analysis is editor contributions between December 1, 2011 to December 31, 2012. December to December data is taken to account for the seasonal variations). Read the <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2011/" target="_blank">2011 report here</a> and the <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/indian-language-wikipedias-2010-statistical-report/" target="_blank">2010 report here</a>. The data for this report and analysis is based on the statistical data published at <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">http://stats.wikimedia.org</a>. A special thanks to Erik Zachte for compiling all this information.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Here is my executive summary after analyzing the data for 2012 and my experince with building some wiki communities:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Steady and sustainable growth is available for communities which focus on community building.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Small languages with guidance and support are making huge progress than many big languages.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Lack of support from proper channels at the much needed time had affected the community growth of some communities.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Even though many outreach programs had happened across country, that is not showing up in terms of number of active editors.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Still many language communities (especially big languages) are not open to the idea of reaching out to the speakers of the respective language.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Pageviews of Indic projects continues to increase.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This report is presented in the following sequence. This is done so because I believe that community is central to the Wikimedia movement. Community will give us content which will drive readership.</p>
<ul>
<li>Community</li>
<li>Content</li>
<li>Readership</li>
</ul>
<h2>Community</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As mentioned above, according to me, community is the backbone of Wikimedia movement. But still many communities are not understanding the importance of this. It is important that all language wiki communities give adequate importance to community building to build the free knowledge repository in their language. The following table gives information based on two important parameters about the community. The first parameter shows the highly active editors (more than 100 edits per month) in wiki. The second parameter shows the active editors (more than 5 edits per month).</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/Report.png" alt="Indic Language Statistical Report" class="image-inline" title="Indic Language Statistical Report" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Like last year, Malayalam continues to show an upward growth in terms of the number of active users. It has close to 120 active editors now. The <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/SummaryML.htm">graphical summary shows that mean number</a> of editors is around 100. Malayalam is the biggest wiki community among Indic languages even though Malayalam is only the 11th biggest spoken language in India. The sincere efforts put by Malayalam wikipedians to build its community is the only reason for this. The programs like Malayalam Wiki conference, Education program, CD project, wiki workshops, photo events, Wikimeetups, and many other outreach events started showing its result. If the community continues with these type of efforts then I am sure that the community strength in Malayalam Wikipedia will cross 150 in 2013. Apart from Wikipedia, the importance given to Malayalam Wikisource, Wiktionary, and more recently to Wikivoyage (in incubator) will attract more Malayalam speakers to the Malayalam wiki projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Tamil comes second with close to 80 active editors. However, the number of active editors has gone down from last year. The <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/SummaryTA.htm">graphical summary</a> shows that number of active users was around 70-75 especially during the last two quarters.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Bengali comes third with around 60 active editors. This is a slight increase from the last year’s number of active editors. The involvement of editors from India in Bengali Wikipedia is less. That needs to be changed. Bangladeshi wikipedians are having many outreach programs to build Bengali wiki community. It will be nice if they extend their support to Indian Bengali speakers also as Indian Bengali wikipedians are not growing.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Telugu, Urdu, Gujarati, and Punjabi are the wikipedia languages that show notable increase in the number of active editors. But it will be be a mistake from my part if I am not mentioning that these numbers are not encouraging and the current number of active users is not showing justice to the number of speakers these languages have. This statement is more significant when we consider the fact that some smaller languages are showing a better progress.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">We have seen that <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/02/16/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2011/" target="_blank">last year (2011)</a> the success stories were Odia and Assamese wikipedias. In 2012, the shining star is <a href="http://pa.wikipedia.org" target="_blank"><b>Punjabi</b></a>. The community has grown from one active editor from last year to almost 15 active editors now. As mentioned in my blog posts (<a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/the-first-punjabi-wikipedia-workshop/">post 1</a>, <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-punjabi-university-patiala/">post 2</a>, <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/punjabi-wikipedia-workshop-at-amritsar/">post 3</a>, and <a href="http://shijualex.wordpress.com/2012/10/04/building-community-for-punjabi-wikipedia-my-experience/">post 4</a>) about building Punjabi wikipedia community, the task of building community for Punjabi was very challenging. Initiated in 2002 along with Assamese, Punjabi is one of the first Indic language wikipedia. But nothing much had happened in that wiki until deliberate efforts to build community initiated. The news is now we have an active community in <a href="http://pa.wikipedia.org" target="_blank">Punjabi Wikipedia</a>. From the just one person last year (<a href="http://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guglani" target="_blank">Guglani</a> – who took lots of pain to travel to multiple locations to introduce Punjabi wikipedia), now Punjabi wikipedia has close to 15 active editors. Unlike Odia and Assamese, I have faced so many issues during Punjabi wikipedia community building (mostly conflicts between editors). But I am happy to see that community is slowly coming out of all that. The technical team has <a href="https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=43730">fixed some of the bugs</a> related to typing tool which was very important for Punjabi wikipedia. Punjabi wikipedians require lot support from other wikipedians to sustain the current momentum and grow the community further. My best wishes to Punjabi wikipedians.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Gujarati and Urdu are the two other communities that made considerable progress in community growth. The efforts put by Gujarati wikipedians to reach out to Gujarati speakers started showing the results. I am sure with the significant attention also given to Gujarati Wikisource (<a href="http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-gu/2012-March/000095.html">which was created last year</a>), more Gujarati speakers will be attracted to Gujarati wiki projects. The involvement of Indians in Urdu Wikipedia is very less. But it is good to notice that Urdu wiki community slowly started growing. May be Wikipedia is one place where Indians and Pakistanis can work together.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The wikipedia languages that haven't shown significant change in number of active editors are Marathi, Odia, Assamese, and Nepali. The respective communities need to start putting efforts to build community by taking lessons from other Indic language wiki communities.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The languages that have considerable reduction in number of editors are Hindi, Kannada, and Sanskrit. Among this, except Sanskrit, all are spoken by at least five crore people. It is not good to see that speakers of these languages are not giving any attention to the wiki projects in their respective language. The case of Hindi is very strange considering the fact that it has support of the central government and many state governments of India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The dormant language communities are Sindhi, Bhojpuri, Kashmiri, and some other small languages. Considering the fact that Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi were also dormant two years before, I am sure if someone is putting effort to build communities for these now dormant communities, these language wiki communities will also grow like it happened for Odia, Assamese, and Punjabi. Now there are multiple entities to support wikimedia movement in India and I hope that someone will take care of this apart from concentrating on the bigger languages.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">In short, the point I want to emphasis is, conscious efforts are required from different stakeholders to grow communities and to sustain that growth for all Indic language wikipedias.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Content</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Number of articles is an important parameter, but it has misguided some wiki communities in the past. Fortunately that trend is coming down.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/SpeakersArticles.png" alt="Language, Speakers & Articles" class="image-inline" title="Language, Speakers & Articles" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">With more than 1,04,000 articles, Hindi continues to be the biggest Indic language wikipedia in terms of the number of articles. Almost 3500 articles were added to Hindi wikipedia in the year 2013.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Tamil and Malayalam had added around 7000 articles which is the "biggest growth" in terms of number of articles. Urdu and Nepali added close to 5000 articles.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">If we consider percentage of increase then Assamese language has shown more than 100 per cent increase in the number of articles.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Some of the important milestones are, Tamil and Telugu crossing 50,000 articles, Malayalam crossing 25,000 articles, and Assamese crossing 1,000 article milestones.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The languages that have shown very slow growth in terms of number of articles are Gujarati, Telugu and Kannada. I assume at least for few of these languages the focus went into enhancing the existing articles and building the community rather than creating thousands of stub articles.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">As mentioned in the past reports, communities don’t need to worry about the number of articles. Also the examples of Bishnupriya Manipuri and Newari Wikipedias shows the after effect of increasing the article count without focusing on building the community.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Readership (page views)</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Unlike the number of editors, the number of page views in wiki is showing an upward trend irrespective of the language.(Please note that the information available in the below table is the total visits (page views) for a language wikipedia for a month from all the platforms combined. It includes visits by readers and editors. This is NOT the list of Number of Unique Visitors to the website).</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/SpeakersReaders.png" alt="Speakers & Readers" class="image-inline" title="Speakers & Readers" /></th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "> This is the one parameter where the figures are showing relative justice to the number of speakers.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Hindi with 78 lakh page views is in the top position.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">The page views for Tamil had increased by more than 50 per cent.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Assamese has more than 100 per cent growth in page views.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Since the support for Indic languages is increasing for smart phone operating systems, I am sure the page views are going to increase further.</li>
</ul>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; ">Conclusion</h2>
<p>I am concluding this report with the following thoughts:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Being the biggest language (or number of speakers) does not automatically build community for an Indic language wikipedia. Efforts from respective language speakers are necessary to build community.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Most Indians who have access to internet and computer still don’t know their respective language typing. This is the biggest road block to build Indic language wiki community.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Do not get obsessed by article counts or readership. These are natural outcomes of community building.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Focus on community building through community interaction (through meetups, talk pages, village pumps, and mailing lists).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Focus on community building through community collaboration (WikiProjects or planning outreach efforts or advocacy).</li>
<li>Focus on community building through doing more outreach, better outreach, and being supportive of newbies.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Stay away from bots and translation tools for article creation as they do more harm than good. Use bots in such a way that it is not affecting the growth of the community.</li>
</ul>
<p>Wishing all of you a wonderful wiki year 2013.</p>
<ul>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2012'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/indic-language-wikipedias-statistical-report-2012</a>
</p>
No publishershijuOpennessFeaturedWikipediaWikimedia2013-02-03T02:40:48ZBlog EntryWikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa
<b>A three hour Wikipedia workshop was organized by the Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi, in the morning of December 14, 2012 at St. Xavier's College in Mapusa, Goa. Over 30 participants attended the session.</b>
<p>The workshop started with a short introductory presentation followed by a learning session on how to edit the Wikipedia. Since there were lesser number of computers, participants were divided in groups of 2 or 3 at the maximum. Each group made at least 3 edits with the help of volunteers present in the room.</p>
<p>A follow up session will be organised in January or February of 2013 to organise an edit-a-thon for all the interested and enthusiastic participants.</p>
<p>A special thanks to everyone who helped organising this event, especially to Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick, Debanjan - all from the Wikipedia family and Nitin Volvoikar, the Head of Journalism Department from <a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Xavier%27s_College,_Mapusa,_Goa">St. Xavier's</a>.</p>
<hr />
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/GroupSt.Xavier.png" alt="St.Xavier GLAM" class="image-inline" title="St.Xavier GLAM" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Above is a picture of the whole group of participants at the St.Xavier's College at Mapusa, Goa</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-in-st-xaviers-college-goa</a>
</p>
No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-07-26T11:33:29ZBlog EntryTwo-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/two-day-wiki-workshop-in-goa-university
<b>Last month, on December 12 and 13, 2012, the Access to Knowledge team from the Centre for Internet & Society along with Wikipedia community members organized a two-day workshop for M.A. and Ph.D. students at the Goa University. Nitika Tandon participated in the event and shares with us the developments. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">All efforts invested in discussions and planning the workshop over multiple mail trails, conference calls, one-on-one calls paid off extremely well. Over 35 participants attended the two-days workshop and thoroughly enjoyed the sessions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Most of the participants had already created their usernames before the first session, as it was instructed to them earlier, though there were some participants who created their user accounts during the session. Despite creating a <a href="https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42767">ticket</a> for releasing the IP from the "seven accounts creation limit" we ran into an IP block. This was the second time we encountered such a problem. We will look more closely into this matter for smoother operations in future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It was pre-decided by the organisers that the first session will be theoretical while the second session will be a complete hands-on-traning session. Hence, the first session started with a general introduction about Wikipedia, the five pillars, how Wikipedia works, a brief introduction about the Wikipedia community, and the state of Wikipedia in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The following day participants pre-selected articles that they wanted to edit during the course of the second session. They were taught how to do minor edits, add edit summary, add references, view history and page statistics, and also briefed about the importance of publishing articles, and user talk pages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The two day long workshop came to an end with a meeting organized by all the participants to decide what should be their next steps. The workshop created a lot of enthusiasm in the participants. They got to know how individual researchers and professors build pages on Wikipedia, and they too can start by contributing one page at a time. They also showed keen interest to understand how monthly meet-ups are organised in other cities so that they could also organise meet-ups in Goa starting 2013 (the proposed date was January 16, 2013 — when Wikipedia's anniversary can be celebrated).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The feedback received from the participants was extremely positive. In the meanwhile there have been some discussion about forthcoming workshops — we have already received inquires from five more institutes to organize similar events in Goa. It seems like the initial seeds have been sown for a flourishing Wikipedia community in Goa.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A special thanks to Prof. Alito Siqueira from Department of Sociology Goa University, Harriet Vidyasagar from OLPC, Prof. Gopakumar from Goa University, Debanjan and Frederick from Wikipedia community and the CIS team for making this workshop a huge success.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/two-day-wiki-workshop-in-goa-university'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/two-day-wiki-workshop-in-goa-university</a>
</p>
No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-01-25T06:30:54ZBlog EntryAccess to Knowledge Bulletin — December 2012
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-december-2012
<b>This is the fourth Access to Knowledge newsletter from the CIS team in Delhi! During the month of December we had organised the Marathi wiki workshop, a workshop at NMAIT in Karnataka and a workshop at SRM University in Chennai.</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. The Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program has become the <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">Access to Knowledge (A2K) program</a> of the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). In this issue we bring you updates from the Marathi wiki community and workshops organised in NMAIT in Karnataka and SRM University in Chennai.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at <a href="http://bit.ly/TOcXId">http://bit.ly/TOcXId</a>.</p>
<h3><span style="text-decoration: underline;">CIS Office in Delhi</span></h3>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of three 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">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Education Program</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss">Marathi Wiki Workshop at TISS</a> (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Maharashtra, December 8, 2012). Organised as part of the Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society’s initiative of focusing on Indian languages. Nitika Tandon participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Workshops Organised by CIS:</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait">Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT</a> (NMAIT, Karkala Taluk, Karnataka December 21, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-at-srm-chennai">Wikipedia Workshop at SRM</a> (SRM University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, December 17, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Noopur Raval participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iit-kharagpur">A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur</a> (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p># Blog Entries</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode">Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/new-avenues">New Avenues: Media Wiki Groups</a> (by Noopur Raval, December 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Video</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller">Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012). Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/">About CIS</a></h3>
<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 programs 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><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>Follow us elsewhere</h3>
<ul>
<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>*<b>Support Us</b>*</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-december-2012'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-bulletin-december-2012</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaWikimediaWikipediaAccess to Knowledge2013-01-10T13:33:41ZPageA Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi collaborated with Metawings Institute to spread the words about Wikipedia for Indian languages. A one-day workshop was organized to educated the students on contributing to Wikipedia on December 21, 2012. About 170 engineering students took part in this event.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The workshop began with interaction with the students about their understanding. I asked few questions like what is Wikipedia, who edits articles on Wikipedia, is it paid or free, did they ever try to edit Wikipedia, etc. I took them through a presentation to explain basics of Wikipedia, five pillars, notability and copyright issues related to vandalism. One of the students were called to create his user account. Students were showed the simpler sign up process. To explain how articles are edited we introduced errors in the article on Bengaluru and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bangalore&diff=529072240&oldid=529071146">made it the capital of India for few minutes</a>! Students were explained how Wikipedia editors correct mistakes like these in real time and correct facts are published in Wikipedia. A majority of the students asked about the authenticity of articles which is open to anyone. So I got a chance to refresh the page and show how the error introduced was reverted within a few minutes.</p>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/ParticipantsatKarkala.png" alt="Participants at Karkala" class="image-inline" title="Participants at Karkala" /></th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: center; ">Above is a picture of the participants from the Wikipedia Workshop at Karkala</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The session went on with such interaction and students were explained more about the importance of citing references to add credibility to the facts they can add on Wikipedia articles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We also had Dr. Ashok Kumar, prof, Computer science department, a wikipedian and columnist for Kannada newspaper <a href="http://www.udayavani.com/">Udaya Vani</a>. Dr. Kumar <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_Outreach_Document_-_Kannada.pdf">introduced</a> Kannada Wikipedia to the students. At the end of the session I had a discussion with him about organizing more workshops for Kannada Wikipedia and supporting participant students. Special thanks to <a href="http://www.metawinggroups.com/">Metawings</a> for finding the venue and supporting for the event.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-nmait</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-01-04T16:30:28ZBlog EntryNew Avenues: Media Wiki Groups
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/new-avenues
<b>This blog post is a brief recap and snippets of my conversation with Harsh Kothari, a volunteer on Gujarati Wikipedia on what we've been doing to help with MediaWiki groups.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Earlier in December, Harsh posted an e-mail to announce India's first MediaWiki group in Ahmedabad. The group is in its final stage of approval. The e-mail also generated curiosity among community members, some of whom had discussed starting similar technical initiatives earlier on the list.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I came across the idea of MediaWiki groups while Harsh, Yuvi Panda, Sheel and I were trying to conduct a mini hackathon in Delhi. The mini hackathon was a great success and very helpful to Harsh and Sheel. That is when we realized that the best way of repeating such training sessions would be to help foster the interaction of all technical volunteers within a city. Harsh told me Quim Gil from the Wikimedia Foundation had already proposed this and it would be best if I helped him frame a proposal for a MediaWiki group in India. I was told by Yuvi and Harsh that from their discussions on IRC with Quim they all agreed that local groups would serve better than a single national group given the expanse of India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I thought this post would lend some perspective on how we could go about supporting technical outreach in India specifically for two reasons one, because Indian language Wikipedias could massively benefit from increased functionality — new gadgets, referencing and more. Apart from this, as we all might have encountered during our outreach sessions in technical colleges, there is great interest among students in contributing to MediaWiki but not enough resources or people who could spread the word.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A local MediaWiki group could serve multiple purposes supporting the relevant language Wikipedia as well as attracting and fostering a FOSS community in their city. It could also take up the responsibility of conducting events — small and large including hackathons, workshops and more. Especially in the context of smaller cities, towns and large university campuses, setting up a technical group similar to a LUG would be very beneficial. There will definitely be challenges, as questions come by and none of these groups can follow a standard model. But, I believe a major advantage of technical groups would mean faster resolution of bugs, more frequently updated infrastructure and consequently more activity on relevant Wikipedias. I have contributed to the proposal and am helping shape the first group. In case you want to set one up in your city or university, or wish to be put in touch with people who can help please do write to me at <a class="mail-link" href="mailto:noopur@cis-india.org">noopur@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/new-avenues'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/new-avenues</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2013-01-05T01:46:41ZBlog EntryA Wikipedia Workshop at SRM University, Chennai
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-srm-chennai
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society, Delhi in association with Metawings Institute organized a one-day workshop on contributing to Wikipedia at SRM University on December 17, 2012. About 40 students from different engineering colleges in Chennai participated in the workshop. Metawings coordinated for the logistics and for spreading the word among the students.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The three-hour workshop was mostly interactive. Since most students had a fair idea of what Wikipedia is and who writes articles on Wikipedia, they had many queries on who the 'editors' were, who selects them, how one can become an editor, how to determine reliability and authenticity of Wikipedia articles and so on. This was a pattern that I observed in many workshops that we conduct where people who have a level of ease and familiarity with using Wikipedia to get information, have often wondered if the information they are using is reliable or not. This also gives us a chance to explain how their contributions can make the encyclopedia more inclusive, informative and reliable.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">One student was called upon to create a user account and instead of answering his query on patrolling edits, I encouraged him to vandalize a popular article just to see how quickly it is reverted and the correct version is restored. Some students were also interested in knowing about Indian language Wikipedias. So, I invited a student to create his account in Tamil Wikipedia and create his user page subsequently.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the workshop the students wanted to stay in touch and receive more information on Wikipedia projects they could contribute to and filled up contact forms.</p>
<p>Special thanks to Metawings for helping us out with the logistics and to the student coordinators at SRM University for their cooperation!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-srm-chennai'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-workshop-at-srm-chennai</a>
</p>
No publishernoopurAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2012-12-27T05:57:34ZBlog EntryAccess to Knowledge Workshop @ NMAMIT, Karkala Taluk, Karnataka
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/a2k-workshop-at-nmamit
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society in collaboration with Metawing Technologies (P) Ltd. is organizing a Wikipedia workshop at NMAMIT, Karkala Taluk, Karnataka on December 21, 2012, from 9.30 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Over 100 students are expected to participate in this workshop. The primary aim of the workshop is to educate them about Wikipedia in Indian languages and tell them how they can contribute to Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is willing to bear the travelling expense for upto two wikipedians to and from Bangalore (or any other place in Karnataka that is close to Karkala).</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/a2k-workshop-at-nmamit'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/a2k-workshop-at-nmamit</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpennessEvent2012-12-19T07:20:31ZEventNon Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode
<b>Odia Wikipedian Manoj Sahukar has designed a new tool which can convert non Unicode ISCII text to Odia Unicode text. A majority of the digitized text and web content of newspapers and books are in non unicode text which now could be used for Wikipedia and other Odia Wiki projects. This opens a new arena for digitized free license books in Odia language.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Akruti Sarala is a known name in Odisha. Every single DTP operator who knows typing uses this font. Until now thousands of books have been created using this font. Even today many mainstream newspapers and magazines use this font for typing. Sadly, no one ever realized the content they are creating would be useless when it comes to sharing and reusing, especially on internet. Because, internet accepts a universal standard called "Unicode" for all the languages. When a book is limited only for printing purpose then use of non Unicode font is absolutely of no problem. But, when one copies text from an e-book created using non Unicode fonts (e.g. Sarala) and pastes it elsewhere strange characters gets displayed instead of Odia characters. This is the same situation for all other non-Latin languages.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Why this happens?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Non Unicode fonts use a funny technique. English/Roman characters are removed and Indian (or any other Non-Latin language) language characters are inserted instead of English characters. So, when you type any key from your keyboard the corresponding Indian language character displays instead of the English character. When you have a particular non Unicode font installed this technique works effectively. But, imagine when you don't have the font in your computer! By default it will show the English characters.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">How Unicode fonts work?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Unicode fonts contain Indian language characters along with English characters. There is no character/glyph displacement. It is a global standard and fixed by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/">The Unicode Consortium</a> for all the languages. When one text is typed in an Indian language it displays the same character on Ubuntu, Windows or Mac operating system. As most of the operating systems come with Unicode fonts included there is nothing to be worried for installing them again.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">How it got started?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Manoj Sahukar, a third year mechanical engineering student who is very enthusiast about the Odia science articles found <a class="external-link" href="https://or.wikipedia.org">Odia Wikipedia</a> and realized that the volunteers are working so hard to write content which could actually be simplified rather than merely writing the same content. There are many science articles which he wanted to read on Wikipedia were not there. Then he realized the gap of the the non availability of Unicode content. This is also one more reason Google doesn't have a button for Odia unlike some of the other Indian languages. "Nothing could be such open and great platform like Odia Wikiepdia if one is searching content in Odia language. My tool is dedicated to the Odia Wikipedians who have been working hard for my language", expressed Manoj in the release note. He shared his interest and ideas with Odia Wikipedian <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%AC%E0%AD%8D%E0%AD%9F%E0%AC%AC%E0%AC%B9%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%B0%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%B0%E0%AD%80:Jnanaranjan_sahu">Jnanaranjan Sahu</a> and started working on building a tool which could convert the available science articles of <a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissabigyanacademy.nic.in/%28S%28zndhkk55ka1ev545zqv5iy55%29%29/publication.aspx">Bigyana Diganta</a> (a sciene magazine published in Odia language by <a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissabigyanacademy.nic.in">Orissa Bigyana Academy</a>) into Unicode. There are many articles which could be used for reference and some of the free content for WikiSource or WikiBooks. Finally he released his tool on internet on 12.12.12, the last one of the repeating dates of this century. It is still in its beta stage and Manoj is working on making it more user friendly. He is also keen on organizing technical events which will bring more individuals to create such open source tools. "My next target is developing OCR (<a class="external-link" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition">Optical character recognition</a>) software in Odia", says an excited Manoj.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">What this tool does?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This tool could be used to convert text typed in non Unicode ISCII fonts to Odia Unicode text. The detailed procedure for using this tool and Unicode conversion is explained in a <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%89%E0%AC%87%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%AA%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86:%E0%AC%93%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%86_%E0%AD%9F%E0%AD%81%E0%AC%A8%E0%AC%BF%E0%AC%95%E0%AD%8B%E0%AC%A1%E0%AC%BC_%E0%AC%95%E0%AC%A8%E0%AC%AD%E0%AC%B0%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%9F%E0%AC%B0#Procedure">tutorial on Odia Wikipedia</a>. The tool is released under GFDL license and is <a class="external-link" href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/odiaconverter/files/OR-TTsaralaUnicodeConverter.exe/download">available for download</a> on <a class="external-link" href="https://sourceforge.net/p/odiaconverter">SourceForge</a>.</p>
<table class="plain" style="text-align: center; " summary="Non Unicode text being copied from a PDF">
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<p><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/NonUnicodetextbeingcopiedfromaPDF.png" title="Non Unicode text being copied from a PDF" height="520" width="609" alt="Non Unicode text being copied from a PDF" class="image-inline" /></p>
<p><span class="contenttype-image">Non Unicode text being copied from a PDF<br /><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/Unicodefontafterconversion.png/@@images/a9b54863-8ec4-4ed9-b68d-1b61a376c0e9.png" title="Unicode font after conversion" height="117" width="613" alt="Unicode font after conversion" class="image-inline" /></span><br />Unicode font after conversion</p>
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<h3 style="text-align: left; ">Quick links:</h3>
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<li>Download from <a class="external-link" href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/odiaconverter/files/OR-TTsaralaUnicodeConverter.exe/download">here</a></li>
<li>Project page on SourceForge: <a class="external-link" href="https://sourceforge.net/p/odiaconverter">https://sourceforge.net/p/odiaconverter</a></li>
<li>Tutorial and technical description on Odia Wikipedia: <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/s/cvm">http://or.wikipedia.org/s/cvm</a></li>
<li>Odia Unicode standard: <a class="external-link" href="http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0B00.pdf">Odia Unicode code chart</a></li>
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<th style="text-align: center; ">Manoj Sahukar talks about his ideas about the usability of Odia Unicode Converter tool<br /> <iframe frameborder="0" height="23" src="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Conversation_with_Manoj_Sahukar_regarding_Odia_Unicode_Converter_tool.ogg?embedplayer=yes" width="300"></iframe> </th>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/non-unicode-iscii-text-can-be-converted-to-unicode</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaOpennessFeaturedWikipediaWikimedia2012-12-21T09:59:18ZBlog EntryMarathi Wiki Workshop at Tata Institute of Social Sciences
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss
<b>The Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is taking up a number of activities and conducting workshops focusing on Indian languages across cities. A series of workshops in Marathi, Kannada and Bangla have been planned with Wikipedia sessions in each of these events.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Marathi workshop was organised on December 8, 2012 at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). It was a three-hour workshop.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Following preparations were made before the session:</p>
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<li style="text-align: justify; ">Yogesh Khandke and Kartik Nadar from Mumbai community visited the venue three days prior to check technical requirements.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Programme participants were suggested to select a subject of their choice and find sufficient resources to add information during the course of the event. This proved to be extremely helpful and an efficient way. Participants didn't spend any time looking for resources during the event; they were already ready with the content they wanted to add.</li>
<li>Programme participants were requested to create usernames before they came for the session.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">A tailored presentation was made ready.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">A <a href="https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42765">ticket</a> was raised to release the IP address of TISS computer labs. Despite the ticket being resolved the IP address got blocked after creation of seven accounts. We will be looking deeper into this problem to make sure that we do not face such issue again.</li>
<li>Multiple conference calls were organised between the conductors — Yogesh, Nikita and Nitika.</li>
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<h3>Details of the event</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The morning session of this workshop focused on digital humanities and social sciences research, and exposed students to different kinds of resources. The afternoon session focused on Wikipedia literacy and Marathi-language computing. There were be about 25 participants (MA and PhD level) and 5 conductors - Yogesh, Nikita, Moksh, Kartik and Nitika.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Nikita gave a brief 40 minutes introduction about Wikipedia using a presentation followed by a hands on session which was led by Yogesh and supported by rest of the conductors. Many of the participants were comfortable with Marathi computing while some were struggling. There were a few participants who were editing in other languages including Hindi and Malayalam. Kartik & Moksh jointly led the session with educating participants about Wikimark ups, page view stats, article and user talk pages. Rest of the conductors pitched in with insightful examples, comments and answers. The participants raised some really interesting questions and were completely involved the workshop. Several participants showed interest to organise similar workshops at other institutes they are connected with.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/marathi-wiki-workshop-at-tiss</a>
</p>
No publishernitikaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopOpenness2013-02-04T04:55:56ZBlog EntryA Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iit-kharagpur
<b>The Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, on December 3, 2012, published an article about the Odia Wikipedia Workshop organized in IIT, Kharagpur, West Bengal.</b>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/OdiaIITKharagpur.png" alt="Odia Wikipedia Workshop IIT, Kharagpur" class="image-inline" title="Odia Wikipedia Workshop IIT, Kharagpur" /></th>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iit-kharagpur'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iit-kharagpur</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-12-05T05:20:38ZNews ItemKolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia!
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kolkata-tasting-the-sweetness-of-wikipedia
<b>Recently, Access to Knowledge team member Subhashish Panigrahi spent some time with wikipedians in Kolkata. Through this blog post he shares his experience and learning from the interaction. This post explores the journey of three wikipedians — Jayanta Nath, Deepon Saha and Ashwin.</b>
<h3>Jayanta Nath and Deepon Saha — Lecture on Bangla Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Jayanta is one of the active contributors in <a class="external-link" href="http://bn.wikipedia.org">Bangla Wikipedia</a>. He has supported community building for Bangla Wikipedia in India. Apart from contributing articles Jayanta supports many wikipedians for fixing technical issues on various language wikis. Deepon is another active wikipedian from Kolkata who contributes mostly to English Wikipedia besides contributing to WikiCommons and Bangla Wikipedia and taking active part in community building in Kolkata and other places. I met both Jayanta and Deepon recently in Kolkata and discussed about Bangla Wikipedia and the role of contributors from India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Over the last few years Bangla Wikipedia has seen enough growth — growth in number of articles, growth in number of outreach, growth in number of contributors and lot more. However, there is something missing in this list, and that is the growth in number of Bangla editors from India. Sadly, though Bangla speaking people constitute a major part of the intellectual sphere. Bangla Wikipedia has not seen many new faces in the recent past from the Indian subcontinent. "English has become like a mother language of most Bengalis in Kolkata and Bengalis residing in other major cities", expresses Jayanta with grief. "Most of the Bengalis speak and are adhered to Bengali language but the use of language is limited only to speaking. And they no more use Bangla in writing. That is what makes it more difficult to tell them about Bangla Wikipedia", adds Deepon. Bangla Wikipedia in India is facing one more major challenge: media coverage. There is not much coverage about Bangla Wikipedia in Bangla media, especially print media. "I was interviewed by the Times of India, Hindu, Telegraph and few other English newspapers but, surprisingly there was not much coverage in Bangla media. There are almost 12 Bangla newspapers being published from Kolkata and in spite of our efforts the outcome is far below expectation", explains Jayanta. Jayanta feels there is much scope for community building for Bangla Wikipedia in rural West Bengal. Unlike urban Bengal, Bangla is the primary medium of both verbal and written communication.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Computer literacy might be a big hurdle when it comes to spreading words about editing Bangla Wikipedia. But it is difficult to predict about the status of government schools, computer and internet penetration before initiating outreach for rural places. Deepon also suggests about making a small survey in Bangla medium schools in Kolkata to understand the scope for any Bangla education program in those schools. We discussed about the internet penetration to measure and assess the state of Bangla on internet and its public usage. Out of the ten Bangla newspapers only two are available in unicode for their online edition. The state of unicode and online usage of Bangla in unicode is much better in Bangladesh which also explains that Bengalis in Bangladesh are using Bangla to a great extent including reading, writing and upon internet.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Typing is another challenge to be tackled. DTP operators, government offices where Bangla typing is used normally use a different typing scheme and non-unicode fonts (mostly old ISCII or ASCII fonts). "We could bring many Bangla enthusiasts to Bangla Wiki projects by simplifying the typing solution and making people aware about the available typing tools. Simple video tutorials and smaller help pages with easy-to-understand guidelines will be helpful and these should be linked from other pages so the new editors will find them and make use of them to learn editing", adds Deepon.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">The Full Story Began with Loads of Curiosity and a Small [Edit] Button!</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Deepon was searching for some information online while he discovered the available information on wikipedia is incorrect. He was searching for a help desk to ask to correct it. Suddenly he discovered the "Edit" button, when he clicked on it a new page opened up with a warning: "You are not logged in. Your <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_address">IP address</a> will be publicly visible if you make any edits. Please <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:UserLogin&returnto=Pune&returntoquery=action%3Dedit">log in</a> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:CreateAccount&returnto=Pune&returntoquery=action%3Dedit">sign up</a> to have your edits associated with a user name, among <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_create_an_account%3F#Summary_of_benefits">other benefits</a>." He clicked, signed up and created a new account and corrected the mistake. That was the first time Deepon made his first edit on Wikipedia and never stopped after that.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Ashwin (User:AshLin): Passion to Contribute to Wikipedia still Flying like Butterflies</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There was no book available in the early 80s when Ashwin wanted to know more about Indian butterflies. There was no article on Wikipedia about Indian butterflies and there were very less available resource on Indian butterflies. Ashwin along with Shyamal and other enthusiasts collaborated to start working on this project which brought many other contributors. The other project he was quite involved was about Indian snakes. One of his key motivations for contributing to Wikipedia was making the resource about Indian butterflies available for others.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ashwin is one of those active contributors from India who are active for the last few years for bringing more editors onboard to write on articles of Indian context, primarily on English Wikipedia. Out of his own passion Ashwin started contributing to several projects like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Lepidoptera">WikiProject Lepidoptera</a> which brought many wonderful articles on Wikipedia. Ashwin is greatly appreaciate for his participation in projects like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:OWIS">WikiProject Offline Wikipedia for Indian Schools</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:INCOTM">Collaborations of the month</a>. Ashwin extended his help to the Pune community when he was in Pune from organizing outreach events to bringing editors onboard to take leadership for new projects. "There is a lot of scope for regional language wikipedians to learn from the English Wikipedia projects. Projects on English Wikipedia involves more people and the lessons would be helpful for other regional language wikipedians and English wikipedians in India are always interested to help", expresses Ashwin. Currently he is in a small wikibreak and will be back soon!</p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kolkata-tasting-the-sweetness-of-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/kolkata-tasting-the-sweetness-of-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaVideoInterviewOpenness2012-12-04T07:19:54ZBlog EntryFirst Odia Wikipedia Education Program to be Rolled Out
http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-odia-wikipedia-education-program-to-be-rolled-out-at-iimc-dhenkanal
<b>Odia Wikipedians gathered at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Dhenkanal on November 8, 2012 to start the first Odia Wikipedia Education Program. This program aims to bring students edit articles on Odia Wikipedia through a series of assessments by professors. The local community members from Nalconagar would be supporting the four month program.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Since March 2011, Odia Wikipedia has started growing in terms of readers, editors and content. Last few months have seen many new faces added to the community who are willing to take part in both offline and online outreach. Though many of the community members are staying out of state, there are community clusters in three different places: Cuttack, Nalconagar and Bhubaneswar. We approached many institutions from these three places and some of them showed interest for an Odia Wikipedia workshop to assess and evaluate students for the education program. We conducted workshops in some of those institutions in the initial level. After successive workshops and meeting with the faculty members, some of the potential institutions were chosen for the education program. One of those colleges was the IIMC in Dhenkanal. We had a meeting with the professor of this organization along with teaching associates and a visiting professor and a full day workshop on editing wikipedia. Odia wikipedians, Mrutyunjaya Kar, Manoranjan Mallick, Srikant Kedia and Kamalakanta Nayak supported for organizing the event.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">IIMC, Dhenkanal is one of the six IIMCs of India and a pioneer in the field of Mass Communication. We met Professor Mrinal Chaterjee along with teaching associates, Sucharita and Bhagaban Sahu, retired professor of Revenshaw University and visiting professor of IIMC. The college is home to 83 students across India. Students enroll for a one year diploma program for Journalism and Mass communication in Odia and English.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The full day session was made to two separate sessions: an introductory session and one hands-on training on editing. Prof. Chaterjee introduced the agenda of the session and why it is needed for the students from a student's point of view. I continued the discussion and presented the key points of wikipedia editing and details of the education program, why and how we are going to start it focussing on the key roles of students and the institution and how it will help them. We announced about the hands on training session post lunch for the interested students. Twenty one students gathered for the second session. Interestingly all of the Odia department students were present and there was one student from English department. Students were briefed about editing. During the workshop we found that majority of them knew a typing layout called "Modular layout" which is used by non-unicode ISCII/ASCII typing softwares like Leap office, I-Lipi, Shreelipi, etc. As this layout is yet to be enabled for Odia we continued explaining about typing using the default typing scheme.</p>
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<p style="text-align: center; "><img alt="The Reporter, a bilingual newspaper published by students on college noticeboard" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Odia_WEP_IIMC-10.jpg/223px-Odia_WEP_IIMC-10.jpg" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center; "><span>"The Reporter", a bilingual daily published by students on college notice board</span></p>
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<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="356" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no" src="http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/15366884" width="427"> </iframe></p>
<div><b><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/psubhashish/odia-education-program-proposal-iimc" target="_blank" title="Odia education program proposal IIMC">Odia education program proposal IIMC</a> on Slideshare</b></div>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">After the end of the workshop we had another meeting with the professor and other faculty members to assess and discuss about the further steps. IIMC has a very close student-teacher relation which we observed from the beginning of the workshop. Students were really keen and patient to learn and all of the students who attended the hands-on training session stayed back till the end of the session. Apart from their regular assignments and projects, students also publish a daily bilingual newspaper, "The Reporter".</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">"Writing is a part of their their study and we emphasize much on getting the most of their short program. If Wikipedia could give them a global platform to and larger audience for their work to be read, reviewed and enhanced then why not adding it to their task list?", expresses Prof. Chatterjee. The only hurdle which students are going to face in the initial phase is typing in Odia. So, modular layout needs to be added in "Narayam", the typing tool integrated in Odia Wikipedia. To begin with this program an Odia Wikipedia club was formed at Nalconagar which would primarily support this program at the ground level.</p>
<h3><span>Video</span></h3>
<p><iframe frameborder="0" height="250" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nm7dRQ7LmVI" width="300"></iframe></p>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Read a detailed four month work plan for this program on Odia Wikipedia: <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/s/cgk">Read in English</a> | <a class="external-link" href="http://or.wikipedia.org/s/cgj">Read in Odia</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Presentation for Odia Education Program: <a class="external-link" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Odia_Education_Program_proposal_IIMC.pdf">On Commons</a> | <a class="external-link" href="http://bitly.com/iepiimc">Source file</a></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Commons picture gallery: <a class="external-link" href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Odia_Wikipedia_Education_Program">See here</a></li>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-odia-wikipedia-education-program-to-be-rolled-out-at-iimc-dhenkanal'>http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/first-odia-wikipedia-education-program-to-be-rolled-out-at-iimc-dhenkanal</a>
</p>
No publishersubhaHigher EducationAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaWorkshopVideoOpenness2012-12-14T12:17:04ZBlog EntryAccess to Knowledge Bulletin — October 2012 Bulletin
http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-october-2012-bulletin
<b>This is the second bulletin from the Access to Knowledge team of CIS in Delhi. This issue features education program updates of the Assamese, Malayalam and Gujarati Wiki communities, a hackathon held at BITS, Hyderabad, press coverage of the Odia Wikipedia workshop in Pune, and reports of workshops organised in Bangalore, Ghaziabad and Pune during the month of October.</b>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Education Program Updates</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program">Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update">Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates</a> (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot">Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition">Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Workshop Reports</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia">Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad">Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/wiki-women-day-2012-pune">Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized">First Pune Odia Wikipedia Organized!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Event Organised</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad">Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad</a> (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Press Coverage</h3>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowEvents.asp?id=37463">Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language</a> (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Team Updates</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 three members based in Delhi: <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">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</li>
<li>We are seeking applications for the post of <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-programme-director">Programme Director</a> (Access to Knowledge) for New Delhi office.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Shiju Alex</a>, Programme Manager, Access to Knowledge is leaving the organisation. November 16, 2012 will be his last working day. We wish him success in all his future endeavours. </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>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-october-2012-bulletin'>http://editors.cis-india.org/about/newsletters/access-to-knowledge-october-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOpennessNewsletter2012-12-14T08:19:52ZPageવિકિપીડિયા ગુજરાતી માં પણ છે
http://editors.cis-india.org/news/article-in-cybersafar
<b>We've recently been featured in the Gujarati magazine on technology: Cybersafar. The below article was written by Harsh Kothari.</b>
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<th><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/copy_of_GujaratiMedia1.png/@@images/401bbaa9-3311-4b52-9e9b-0ecdb54b3b15.png" alt="Gujarati Media Coverage" class="image-inline" title="Gujarati Media Coverage" /><br /></th>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/news/article-in-cybersafar'>http://editors.cis-india.org/news/article-in-cybersafar</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaOpennessWikipediaAccess to KnowledgeWikimedia2012-12-07T10:36:20ZNews Item