Centre for Internet and Society

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa

praskrishna — 2013-03-05T08:29:13Z

The Access to Knowledge team at the Centre for Internet & Society is organising a workshop at BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus on March 7, 2013, from 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

The workshop aims to spread awareness about Wikipedia, who edits Wikipedia and how to edit Wikipedia. Some of you might be curious to learn more about Wikipedia and contribute to this pool of knowledge in your own special ways. We'd like to encourage such students and provide them all the information and support they need. Several colleges and universities across the world have already successfully participated in similar Wikipedia workshops.

Below are some more details about the Wikipedia session:

Purpose:

Understand what is Wikipedia
Explore how Wikipedia works
Learn how they can contribute (i.e., writing) to Wikipedia
Discover what they (students / faculty / institutes) can gain by editing

Logistics:

A room big enough to accommodate all the students comfortably
If possible, laptops or computers for everyone
Stable internet connection
Projector facility

Duration:

2-3 hour workshop

Participants

Maximum 40-50
Students, faculty & staff
Please do convey to everyone that it is totally voluntary and should not be in lieu of attendance, etc.

Our experience has shown that Wikipedia for students (and, indeed faculty) is invaluable in supporting better writing skills, stronger research abilities, richer critical thinking, improved collaboration as well as providing a massive global audience to students (which drives academic excellence).

Feel free to get in touch with Nitika Tandon (nitika@cis-india.org) if you have any queries.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-bits-goa

Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013

praskrishna — 2013-03-13T05:09:48Z

The Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 was held on March 8, 2013 at Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar in Bangalore. It was organized by Wikimedia India. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event. The news was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-womens-workshop-bangalore-2013

Wikipedia Women's Meetup

praskrishna — 2013-03-13T05:00:30Z

Wikipedia Women's Meetup

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/KannadaPrabha.png

Wikipedia WikiMeetup at Bangalore

praskrishna — 2016-08-12T13:31:04Z

Bangalore based Wikipedians will gather for a meeting at the Centre for Internet and Society on Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 3.00 p.m.

Anyone interested in Wikipedia (user, contributor or curious about it). Wikipedians from any part of India or the world and anyone who is interested in Wikipedia! Meetup is open to members of all Wikimedia projects and Wikipedians from all languages. All are welcome, and we are especially interested in seeing newcomers to join the experienced Wikipedians/Wikimedians.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-wikimeetup-at-bangalore

Wikipedia turns 11 today

praskrishna — 2012-01-16T09:41:30Z

The world's largest free encyclopaedia turns 11 on Sunday. To mark the occasion, the Wikipedia community will host events in seven cities across the country. The community is also celebrating the first anniversary of the Wikimedia India chapter.

On this occasion, the India chapter will launch a new portal (www.wikimedia.in) for easy access to Wikimedia sites in the Indian languages. Wikipedia is currently available in 21 Indian languages.

The India chapter is focussed on creating greater awareness of Wikipedia in Indian languages and to increase the volunteer editor base and Indian content through its initiatives. “The portal will make it easier to locate Indian language Wikipedias and other projects,” said Arun Ram, executive committee member of Wikimedia India.

The Bangalore event, open to all Wikipedia users, contributors and enthusiasts, is being held at the Centre for Internet and Society at Domlur (Bangalore).

Besides Bangalore, events are being held in Ahmedabad, Cuttack, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune, all centres where Wikipedia editors or contributors are present in sizeable numbers.

‘Deepen engagement with students'

In order to address the complaint raised by the industry about students' “poor employability”, the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce organised a seminar in Bangalore on Wednesday.

A recent survey by the World Bank indicated that there was a “severe mismatch” between the skill sets required by the IT-ITES industry and what was available in graduates from Indian institutions.

S. Sadagopan, director, Indian Institute of Information Technology, said the level of engagement of the academic institutions with the students needed to be “reoriented and deepened”. “Equally important is the responsibility of the recruiters in changing their recruitment processes,” said Prof. Sadagopan. He added, “The question is, are you giving the recruits a challenging job?”

Award for networking major

Cisco announced that its Networking Academy has won the prestigious eINDIA 2011 jury choice award for the ‘Best ICT Enabled Skills Development Initiative'.

The award was conferred on Cisco Networking Academy in recognition of its efforts toward enabling students to develop valuable information, communications and technology skills for increased access to opportunities in the global economy, a release from the networking major said.

Speaking on the occasion, Bina Raj-Debur, regional head, Social Innovation Group, India and South Asia, said: “We are proud to receive this prestigious award. It is testimony to the continued efforts of the Networking Academy programme to make a positive difference to the skills-building efforts of the nation and the communities in which we live and operate. At Cisco, we aim to enhance the employability of youth through technology, enabling them to harness the enormous opportunities in the ICT domain. We are very pleased that our efforts have been recognised by industry and society alike.”

Help with transition to IPv6

Global IT major Hewlett Packard (HP) has signed a partnership agreement with the Government of Karnataka and the International Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore, to conduct a pilot project that will help organisations in Karnataka through a smooth transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

The current version of IP addressing, IPv4, is reaching its theoretical maximum of about four billion Internet addresses. IPv6 is the new Internet addressing protocol with the capacity to support 340 trillion addresses, a press release from HP said. This allows for the dramatic expansion of connected devices from computers and smart phones, to household electronics, industrial appliances, vehicles and commercial systems.

IPv6 also provides for improved quality and new applications like IP TV, telephony and ecommerce. The pilot project aims at identifying major challenges in IPV6 adoption, developing solutions to meet these challenges and actively promoting IPV6 adoption.

The news was published in the Hindu on 15 January 2012

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-turns-11-today

Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur

praskrishna — 2014-01-09T09:52:42Z

A Wikipedia training session was conducted by T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik at Srivahini College in Tiruvur on December 19, 2013.

About 150 - 200 people attended in each of the two sessions. The event was co-organised by CIS-A2K and the Telugu Wikipedia community.


Above: T. Vishnu Vardhan addressing students at the Srivahini college in Tiruvur.

The following newspapers covered the event on December 19, 2013:

Awareness on Wikipedia, Andhraprabha, December 19, 2013
Wikipedia Helps Spread Knowledge, Eenadu, December 19, 2013
The Many Uses of Wikipedia, Sakshi, December 19, 2013
Awareness on Wikipedia, Prajasakthi, December 19, 2013

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-training-session-tiruvur

Wikipedia Training in Telugu for Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Open University, Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2013-09-06T05:51:49Z

CIS-A2K is conducting a Wikipedia training programme in Telugu for the faculty of Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Open University (Dr. BRAOU) in Hyderabad on September 5 and 6, 2013.

This is done as part of the "ICT and eContent" workshop organized by the Centre for Staff Training and Development of Dr. BRAOU for their faculty. T. Vishnu Vardhan Program Director, CIS-A2K has been invited to teach a module on "Knowledge and Openness in the Digital Era" as part of which this Wikipedia training programme was also organized.

Details in Telugu originally published in the metapage on Wikipedia is reproduced below:

వికీపీడియా:శిక్షణ శిబిరం/హైదరాబాద్/హైదరాబాద్2

--14.139.86.130 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)పరాంకుశం వెంకట రమణ==తేదీ - స్థలం== సెప్టెంబరు, 5 2013; డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం

సమయం
పొ. 10.00 నుండి మ. 1.00 వరకు

నిర్వహణ సంస్థ/లు

CISA2K డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం, హైదరబాద్ వారి సంస్థాగత భాగస్వామ్యంతో. ఈ శిబిరం Centre for Staff Training and Development (Dr. BRAOU) వారు 10 రోజులపాటు విశ్వవిద్యాలయం యొక్క ఉపాధ్యాయుల కొరకు నిర్వహించిన ‘ICT and e-Content Development’ Workshop లో భాగంగా నిర్వహించబడినది.

నిర్వాహకులు

విష్ణు (చర్చ)

--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)==Dr.BRAOU లోని కార్యక్రమ సంధానకర్తలు==

ఘంటా చక్రపాణి (డైరెక్టర్, Centre for Staff Training and Development, డాక్టర్ బి.ఆర్. అంబేద్కర్ సార్వత్రిక విశ్వవిద్యాలయం)

--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

శిక్షణ శిబిరానికి హజరైన సభ్యులు

--Pallavisudheer (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

సరోజ --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:27, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Rajani nellutla (చర్చ) 05:29, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Kiranmayi.ys (చర్చ) 05:30, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Vasuvaddanam (చర్చ) 05:31, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Gpushpa (చర్చ) 05:32, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC) --Drgsaroja (చర్చ) 05:34, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

--Boju srinivas (చర్చ) 05:36, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Shridhevie (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

పై వరసలో పేరు చేర్చండి లేక సంతకం చేయండి>

--[[--14.139.86.130 05:35, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)]]
--Elkasudharani (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)
--Pvramana24 (చర్చ) 05:37, 6 సెప్టెంబర్ 2013 (UTC)

నివేదిక

చిత్రమాలిక

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-training-in-telugu-for-b-r-ambedkar-open-university

Wikipedia taps students for Kannada content

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T10:01:27Z

Conducts workshops in Ujire, Moodbidri for training in vernacular editing.

The article by Renuka Phadnis was published in the Hindu on March 24, 2014. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja is quoted.

Wikipedia is tapping college students in tier II and III cities in India to increase vernacular content on the web-based encyclopaedia.

U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, says there is adequate content on Kannada, Kannadiga, Karnataka on Kannada Wikipedia but on science and technology, the content is a little less.

To fill this gap, he is conducting workshops to teach students to turn volunteers for Wikipedia in far-flung places like Ujire and Moodbidri.

On Sunday, 47 students attended a workshop at Shri Dharmasthala Manunatheshwara (SDM) College in Ujire. And most of them immediately donned the volunteer’s cap. “More people who write Kannada should contribute to Wikipedia in Kannada,” says Shalini, a student of M.A. in Mass Communication and Journalism (MCJ) at SDM College, after the workshop.

Murali Krishna, also a journalism student of SDM College, says typing in the language was “a bit difficult” but some practice will make it simpler. “I had no idea about (editing) Kannada Wikipedia,” he says.

On Saturday Mr. Pavanaja — who has been editing the Kannada Wikipedia for the past 10 years — conducted a similar workshop for 30 students at Alva’s College, Moodbidri.

Mr. Pavanaja says contributions peaked in between 2006 and 2008, then declined “due to many reasons” and “picked up last year”. There was a significant increase in the number of editors after 500 students of Christ University, Bangalore, were trained in editing at a workshop held in January this year.

He says Kannada Wikipedia has very few women editors. Of the 557 editors of Kannada Wikipedia, who have contributed 16,670 articles till now, 226 are active editors and, of them, five men and three women editors are “very active”.

Bhaskar Hegde, Head of the Department, MCJ, SDM College, said he got the workshops organised at the college after hearing about them from friend Niranjan Vanalli (Chairman, Department of MCJ, Mysore University). He said, “This is the second workshop here. The students are enthusiastic and it sharpens their writing skills.”

Mangalore will host a workshop to get people to contribute to Tulu Wikipedia. U.B. Pavanaja, Programme Officer – Indian Language, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Studies (CIS), Bangalore, said a workshop will be held in Theosophical College, Balmatta, on April 6.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-24-2014-wikipedia-taps-students-for-kannada-content

Wikipedia Session for Trainee Journos of Prajavani

praskrishna — 2014-05-06T07:50:44Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja took a session for the trainee journalists of Prajavani Kannada daily on Wikipedia, Kannada Wikipedia for the media persons.

Dr. Pavanaja explained how they can use Wikipedia in their daily work for reference. He also explained the necessity to add content to Kannada Wikipedia, correct the articles if they find any factual errors, enhance the existing articles, especially stubs, etc.

The event was organized by Prajavani on April 28, 2014.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wiki-session-for-prajavani-journalists

Wikipedia Press Coverage

praskrishna — 2013-05-22T14:14:29Z

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-press-coverage

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students of Christ University

praskrishna — 2013-11-14T05:16:07Z

The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team will organize an Orientation Workshop entitled on Wikipedia for the undergraduate language students of the Christ University, Bangalore on November 16, 2013.

Trainers

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Syed Muzammiluddin, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Dr Pavanaja,Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, Centre for Internet Society

Interested Participants

The three days of the orientation programme will cover 1200 second language students of the Christ University, Bangalore.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/wikipedia-orientation-programme-for-second-language-students

Wikipedia now available in Tulu

praskrishna — 2016-08-09T03:05:28Z

In another boost to yet another Indian language, the Wikipedia in Tulu has gone live.

This was published by domain-b.com on August 8, 2016. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja was quoted.

The news was announced by two key community organisers on Saturday who helped to make an eight-year-dream come true, IANS reported.

Dr Vishwanatha Badikana, a PhD in Kannada literature in Mangalore (Karnataka) and Bharathesha, a mechanical engineer based in Muscat announced at the Wikiconference India 2016, India's second national Wikipedia meet in half a decade which is being held in Chandigarh this weekend.

Tulu, which is spoken by around 2 million speakers mostly in southwest Karnataka and in Kasaragod district of Kerala belongs to the family of Dravidian languages. According to some scholars, Tulu is among the earliest Dravidian languages with its roots going back some 2,000 years.

Wikipedia itself is available in 22 Indian languages, with Tulu becoming the 23rd. There are another one-and-half dozen Indian language Wikipedias under development at present. However, not all languages have an active wiki community.

Located at tcy.wikipedia.org, the Tulu Wikipedia had been in "incubation" since 2008 and the term was used to describe such online collaborately-crafted encyclopedias which were still waiting to go "live" or active and come online.

It was reactivated around 2014, following some meetings and workshops and the concept was also showcased that year at a "World Tulu Conference" stall in December.

"There are about 200 registered users (editors), out of which around 100 have more than 10 edits. On an average, there are about 8 to 10 active editors," Dr UB Pavanaja from the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, and one of the mentors of Tulu Wikipedia, told The Hindu newspaper.

He further added that, "Vishwanatha Badikana, a Kannada professor, followed by Bharatesha Alasandemajalu, an engineer, are the highest contributors."

According to Pavanaja, the achievement would help create pressure on the government to include Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of Indian Constitution.

Wikipedia is available in 22 Indian languages including, Assamese, Bengali, Bhojpuri, Bishnupriya Manipuri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Marathi, Nepali, Newari, Odia, Pali, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu.

The inclusion of Tulu takes the count to 23.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/domain-b-august-8-2016-wikipedia-now-available-in-tulu

Wikipedia Meet-up in TERI

praskrishna — 2011-09-22T12:21:53Z

The Wikipedia Bangalore meet-up is a monthly get-together of Wikipedians (contributors and users) to meet, discuss, share experiences, reach out and advocate for Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Danese Cooper, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation, Alolita Sharma, Engineering Programs Manager, Wikimedia Foundation, Erik Möller, Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation and Achal Prabhala, Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board Member attended the meeting. The Centre for Internet and Society made arrangements for this event.

The Indian wiki community is dedicated to mainly improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to the Republic of India and the history and culture of the Indian subcontinent.The efforts of Indian Wikipedians in English wikipedia is coordinated through Wikiproject India.

This meeting was held at The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), near to Domlur Club in Bangalore on Saturday, 18 December 2010 and was attended by about 41 participants. There was good attendance from various professional fields – wildlife photographers, journalists, techies, students from Rajasthan (who were in Bangalore to attend FOSS.in) and many who were interested in Indic versions of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has 250 language versions. Their main data center is in Tampa (Florida). Most surfers from India would be hitting their caching servers in Amsterdam. The primary data however, will always reside in the United States of America as Wikipedia appreciates the freedom of speech provided by the US govt.

Wikimedia Foundation officials have met many important government departments in Delhi for promoting the Indic versions of Wiki. But the Government of India is not willing to open-source the fonts that are developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. There are 278 wikipedias including one wikipedia each for English and Simple English and there are more than 79,000 articles related to India on English Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation wants to promote Indic versions on mobile in a big way and is keen to work with Indian mobile handset makers to have the offline version of Wikipedia shipped with handsets. English has about 3.5 million articles. Indic has far lesser but can catch up with English provided people start contributing content. Indic editors can set up their own rules for content contribution and it need not be as tight as they have for English. Examples were cited from other countries. For example, Russia has been doing exceptionally well in adding Russian content and nobody in the world can beat the Germans for perfection. They pay a lot of attention to quality. Indians should also do so, it was felt.

Also see

The Wikipedia page
Mahesh's Blog Post

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-meet-up-bangalore

Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Coverage in Prajavani)

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:04:24Z

Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women at Roshini Nilaya, Mangalore on February 26, 2014. An event report was published in Prajavani the following day.

Scanned version of the report published by Prajavani on February 27 is below. The event was organised by Roshini Nilaya and co-sponsored by CS-A2K.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-workshop-mangalore-coverage-prajavani-february-27-2014

Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme on HMTV

praskrishna — 2013-06-18T05:54:01Z

Vishnu Vardhan took part in a one hour live phone-in programme on Wikipedia. This was telecasted in HMTV on June 1, 2013.

Dr. Rajasekar, Administrator on Telugu Wikipedia; Malladi Kameshwararao, Journalist and Telugu Wikipedian; Rahimanuddin Shaik, Telugu SIG, Wikimedia India Chapter; and T. Vishnu Vardhan Programme Director, CIS-A2K participated in a one-hour live phone-in programme on Telugu Wikipedia broadcast by HMTV (a Telugu News Channel) on June 1, 2013. This is probably for the first time a television news channel in India has done a live phone-in programme on Wikipedia. HMTV had also done a half-an-hour feature on Wikipedia which was broadcast on May 30 and May 31, 2013.

Videos

Part 1

Part 2

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/news/wikipedia-live-phone-in-programme