The Centre for Internet and Society
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CIS Signs MoU with Odia Virtual Academy
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy
<b>On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Odia Virtual Academy (OVA) to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects. This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and we are sharing an overview of the activities and their objectives in this post.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The internet is increasingly significant as a knowledge repository today. Especially relevant in this context is the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which contains information on almost every topic under the sun, across many languages spoken globally, and is used extensively all people to seek information and produce knowledge.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From past one year (since July 2017), The Government of Odisha has been actively participating in the open knowledge movement by publishing the content of their seven websites and eight social media accounts under Creative Commons 4.0 International license. This active collaboration with Government of Odisha and an active Odia Wikimedia community seeking to create and distribute knowledge in Odia language over the internet has resulted in improving 1,200 articles on different Wikimedia projects, and together has received a near about 16 Million page views. Further, the Government of Odisha adopting an open content policy will provide a significant boost in institutionalising creation, sharing, and re-use of open knowledge resources - including government documents, official statistics, open educational resources, and open cultural resources - in Odia language.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://ova.gov.in/en/" target="_blank">Odia Virtual Academy (OVA)</a> is an organisation established by Government of Odisha for development, promotion and popularization of Odia language, literature, and lexicography for general use. It is an organised initiative to encourage expeditious evolution and popularisation of Odia books, magazines, journals, old songs, manuscripts, assembly speeches, and archival records by digitising and providing internet based resources and opportunities for all odia people living across the globe.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">On October 26, 2018, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) signed a MoU with the Odia Virtual Academy to work on drafting an open content policy for the state, to promote use of Wikimedia projects by various user types and to ensure sustainability of Wikimedia projects, and to facilitate development of relevant free and open source software projects.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This partnership between OVA and CIS will be carried out from December 2018 to November 2019, and its activities are structured by the following objectives:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Open Content Policy for the Government of Odisha:</b> The open content policy will include guidelines for the use of open licenses and open standards to enable the resource (text, resources or otherwise) publishing entity to share resources in a manner that it can be easily and freely be accessed, shared, and re-used by entities, without asking for prior permission, while ensuring that full attribution to the creator/publisher is provided and the resources are not misused, or the creator/publisher is not misrepresented in the process.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Developing Digital and Open Knowledge Resources in Odia Language:</b> The CIS team will undertake awareness-building, training, and outreach activities to develop Odia language content on Wikimedia ecosystem, as well as to enable content creators from across institutions, with a focus on state government officials at district headquarters and college students. The broad mandate of the digital resource generation workshop is to introduce teachers, students, and interested citizens to tools of collaborative knowledge production on the internet and methods for generating new online content or reintroduce offline content in Odia language.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>‘Revive Odia’ Activities:</b> Odia as a language has a long tradition and has been medium of expression for the native speakers of Odisha. While Odia as a language of communication is not under any immediate threat, its role and responsibility as a language of Knowledge needs to be examined carefully. ‘Revive Odia’ activities have a simple objective: <i>To bring Odia under limelight in the digital domain</i>. Wikimedia projects in Odia language are working actively to increase the presence of Odia language on the Internet. If such projects can be supported new projects can be incubated, Odia will emerge as the language of knowledge production and distribution as well.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) Partnerships:</b> Wikimedia ecosystem offer several platforms for using the power and opportunities of internet to (digitally) preserve, enable access to, and creative re-use of historical, cultural, and social artefacts, and channel the expertise of local populations to build narratives around these artefacts. The CIS team is particularly interested in initiating engagement with public GLAM institutions at various locations and levels, and work with academic and research community to build scientific metadata of these objects. The metadata will be used to represent the tangible and intangible cultural heritage of Odisha in projects such as Wikidata.<br /><br /></li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>Building and Supporting FOSS for Odia Language:</b> To promote and enable usage of Odia language on the web, the CIS team will facilitate development of an Odia font, an input tool, and a spell-check dictionary - all of which will be released as FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) resources.</li>
</ul>
<p>To undertake these activities, CIS will receive a grant of Rs 20,00,000 (~$28,000) from OVA.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-signs-mou-with-odia-virtual-academy</a>
</p>
No publishersaileshOpen Educational ResourcesCIS-A2KOpen LicenseAccess to KnowledgeOpen DataWikipediaOpen ContentOdia WikipediaOpen AccessWikimedia2018-12-20T00:24:44ZBlog EntryOdia Virtual Academy launched
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched
<b>Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday launched a new web portal of ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ (www.ova.gov.in) to promote the Odia language and literature at the Secretariat here.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/odisha/2018/oct/27/odia-virtual-academy-launched-1890628.html">published in the New Indian Express</a> on October 27, 2018.</p>
<hr style="text-align: justify; " />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Launching the web portal, the Chief Minister said, “It is a matter of pleasure that the new web portal of the ‘Odia Virtual Academy’ is being dedicated today. Odia language has received the classical status.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">A lot of literature has also been created in Odia language. The Academy has taken the responsibility for promotion, preservation and digitisation of the Odia language and literature.” Naveen said the new website will be helpful in the promotion of Odia language at the international level, especially for the Non Resident Odias (NROs). He said youths will also benefit from the Academy.<br /><br />Three memoranda of understanding (MoUs) were signed by the State Government with the University of Chicago library, CDAC and Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru to expedite digitisation of Odia literature and development of Odia software. “This will go a long way in enhancing the visibility of Odia language and literature in the digital space,” he said.<br /><br />So far, as many as 170 books of Odia literature have been placed in the Academy website. The prime objective of the Academy is digitisation of about 2000 rare and copyright free Odia books and establishment of a free digital library, digitisation of various Odia dictionaries available presently for free access, promotion of Odia unicode font faces through standardisation of typing keyboards and making those affordable for public in coming six months and development of primers and uploading those for easy learning.<br /><br />Besides, the Academy’s purpose is to digitise and preserve Odia lexicon, ancient magazines and journals, traditional music, ancient documents, literature on science and history, folk culture, tribal language and literature, history-oriented essays, speech of great personalities, Sri Jagannath culture, temple and its architecture.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/news/new-indian-express-october-27-2018-odia-virtual-academy-launched</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-10-29T02:27:23ZNews ItemSambad Health and Women Edit-a-thon
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-health-and-women-edit-a-thon
<b>Sambad Health and Women Edit-a-thon was an offline edit-a-thon held in the month of April in collaboration with the Sambad media house, Odia Wikimedia User Group and the Center for Internet and Society.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The event was a two day long edit-a-thon, on the first day near about 8 journalists from the Sambad group took part in the orientation and on the second day 18 editors (new and existing) wrote articles on Odia Wikipedia. <span>The event was a follow up of the previous year’s 100 women edit-a-thon which aimed to write articles on Women related topics and Women achievers of Odisha. The theme of this years' edit-a-thon was to write articles on Women Health, Hygiene including social challenges.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span>Near around 20 staffs and 6 Wikimedians from Bhubaneswar took part in the event.</span></span></span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-health-and-women-edit-a-thon'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-health-and-women-edit-a-thon</a>
</p>
No publisherAdminOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-05-07T16:34:44ZBlog EntryChromebook for the Project Tiger- How it is helping me to contribute actively on Wikimedia projects!
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/chromebook-for-the-project-tiger-in-a-collaboration-with-google-by-wikipedia
<b>Project Tiger is a collaboration project of Wikimedia Foundation with Centre for Internet and Society, Wikimedia India and other affiliates of India to improve and create high-quality content in Indic languages like Odia, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi etc.This project helps the active and experienced Wikipedia editors by supporting them with Internet charges for 6 months and Laptops to 50 volunteers to address existing Wikipedia content gaps.</b>
<p>A diverse list of articles related to art, health, culture, and others are provided for Project Tiger Edit-a-thon to bridge the content gap on Odia Wikipedia, and within these 3 months (March, April & May), volunteers who write the most number of articles in their language Wikipedias with the proper guidelines will be <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project_Tiger_Editathon_2018">awarded prizes</a> worth 3000 INR, 2000 INR and 1000 INR according to their contribution for the month.</p>
<p> I applied for a laptop under this program so that I could contribute more than as usual. I must thank Sailesh Patnaik for guiding me to apply for the laptop. After verifying all the applied list, the final result was out and my username "ssgapu22" was on the 33rd number with other 4 Odia Wikipedia friends.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">On 16th March, I received an e-mail from Tito to submit my address to get the laptop. So, I submitted the address of my PG, where I'm staying right now in Bangalore. After 30 minutes, he pinged me on Facebook and called me to the office. So that, I could receive the laptop directly.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">I reached there at the CIS-A2K office to receive the laptop. There were Tanveer, Gopala, and Tito and later Ananth joined us. I met them at Mysore for <a href="http://sangramkesharisenapati.blogspot.com/2018/01/TTT-2018.html">TTT 2018</a>. It was like a reunion with them. After a short conversation with Ravi, I did a live unboxing the Chromebook on Facebook, where I was asked about my experience in the Wikimedia movement and about some features of this laptop. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In that box, there was an Acer Chromebook. I have experience with the Windows OS and Linux OS, but this was little different. Since this has the Chrome browser only and all are available online. So, Tito described some of the features of Chromebook to me.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_JW-IEmHIAiwpp0xOm1wCH_GVjJTOORVXraCu7_q2gWDVZhRD23Z4D26aLSN-I8xWqCjUqQ7Uh5T9kxWSBlqjQwiYnmed_TXj0nqoLVZDn17pDH8AnAWazATUcVgThX-vNigNtHV_0oCSM7kRcx3diAODwTHwIOJv8SkDuG6lX81McuBZSkgYxsCqMDF5S5Pw8dXPSDrfFV87WI8Srbrrr3nPFzFTG1b0mbxVgMjXJy0Vx7thJ8Cjo13pPmWAW1EJOY2bwDtDPNyhuHuR-AD3LSgP_QGiYVY04ln-ArRqfkuLaTHI6iT5nPgdgwiuG0CjQlIQLjnRYUZ1vfAcszMbcQX0eFxbNwKC9G9ml0GHksO_0bbdeCPvuohO8qATpfQqChKCE4CowRLA6MOzofcx6u2RroRz8iZ-pbYbe07aF95i6OEMP5rOaZ7f0GYsknDYwPvewxIMEzXYCo948FhGsb6Tcmw7Ybv2SvLu3PuqbTW80xj_fkEuzNpCE_fx17O-e_ClgmmQ_I0FL9IAYx-CsSC4NAod-rMWcQiYdBXCnNRgF8gFg5i-U-wE35sEUeQpSFu2dBeRsbRVmNvF_qi_L-K8sCrOtfN0Rp0Txs0=w491-h654-no" alt="null" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Now, I must say something about this laptop. It doesn't have any hard disk drive to store movies. So, all the time we hold it must work and all those works could be done in online. So we could focus more on Wikipedia works. The power backup is outstanding, around 10 to 12 hours. So, the power failure doesn't affect the work. And yes, with a short update of Chrome OS, the Google Playsote activated so we could download the play store apps directly.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">By getting this laptop, I started working on this and all those online works are done easily. Previously, when I was using other laptops, the works took longer than as usual since the slow processing, but here that problem avoided. Finally, this laptop would definitely help me with the Wikipedia works. Since I'm working on the #1WikiYear project on Odia Wikipedia and Wikisource on a particular subject after contributing to my #1WikiYear project, I also write an article for the Project Tiger <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program/Contest/Topics/Odia">from the list</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="http://sangramkesharisenapati.blogspot.in/2018/03/Project-Tiger-And-The-Choromebook.html">Link to Sangram Keshari Senapati blogpost</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/chromebook-for-the-project-tiger-in-a-collaboration-with-google-by-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/chromebook-for-the-project-tiger-in-a-collaboration-with-google-by-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherSangram Keshari SenapatiWikipediaOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-04-20T06:21:10ZBlog EntryGovernment of Odisha adopting Creative Commons License to Promote Transparency and Access to Knowledge
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/government-of-odisha-adopting-creative-commons-license-to-promote-transparency-and-access-to-knowledge
<b>This year started with an astonishing announcement by the Government of Odisha towards the free knowledge movement. On the Public Domain day, which is celebrated every year on 1st January, The Government of Odisha continuing its collaboration with the Odia Wikipedia community has announced to release the content of its two major departments under Creative Commons license.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/home-images/NPFB1.jpg/@@images/949ffb09-6c7a-4167-b7c8-b9cb1684e22a.jpeg" alt="Naveen Patnaik" class="image-inline" title="Naveen Patnaik" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>Last year, the Government of Odisha became the first state government in India to release their social media content under free license and released the content of </span><a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/09/18/odisha-social-media-free-license/">its 8 social media accounts</a><span> and the </span><a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/28/digest-asia-athletics-championships/">website of 2017 Asian athletics Championships</a><span> under CC-BY-4.0 international license, which has overall helped in adding </span><a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/glamorous.php?doit=1&category=Images+from+Odisha2017.games&use_globalusage=1&ns0=1&projects[wikipedia]=1&projects[wikimedia]=1&projects[wikisource]=1&projects[wikibooks]=1&projects[wikiquote]=1&projects[wiktionary]=1&projects[wikinews]=1&projects[wikivoyage]=1&projects[wikispecies]=1&projects[mediawiki]=1&projects[wikidata]=1&projects[wikiversity]=1">207 distinct images</a><span> into various Wikipedia projects.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span>The decision about the relicensing of the content was announced to the public in a </span><a href="https://twitter.com/IPR_Odisha/status/947805003611217920">tweet </a><span> by the twitter account of the Information and Public Relations department (I&PR) which says “On the occasion of Public Domain Day, the website and social media feeds of I& PR Department are being licensed under Creative Commons which means all content on the website and social media accounts are now free for public usage. That includes photographs, videos, government publications and much more. This is in continuation with State Government’s principles of Teamwork, Transparency & Technology for bringing about Transformation.”</span></p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">The two departments announced by the state Government to be the part of the collaboration are Information and Public Relations department; that informs the public on the plans, policies and Programmes of the Government. The I&PR department also publishes 2 state magazines, <a href="http://magazines.odisha.gov.in/utkalprasanga/utkalprasanga.htm">Utkala Prasanga</a>, a state magazine published in Odia language and <a href="http://magazines.odisha.gov.in/Orissareview/orissareview.htm">Odisha Review</a>, a 72 years old state magazine published in English language. Also the ST&SC Development department; which works for the welfare of the backward and minority communities in Odisha. This department holds a major source of information in the form of <a href="http://www.stscodisha.gov.in/Advasi.asp?GL=publication&PL=1">Adivasi journal</a> and <a href="http://www.stscodisha.gov.in/ResearchInst.asp?GL=publication&PL=2">research papers</a> on Indigenous community of Odisha from its Research and Training institute. Most importantly, the social media accounts along with the websites are released under the Creative Commons license. Social media channels are updated on a daily basis and provides fresh content everyday about different collaborations of the Government.</p>
<p dir="ltr" style="text-align: justify; ">In near future, the Government of Odisha is also planning to release content of some major departments under open license for people to access the information for free.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/government-of-odisha-adopting-creative-commons-license-to-promote-transparency-and-access-to-knowledge'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/government-of-odisha-adopting-creative-commons-license-to-promote-transparency-and-access-to-knowledge</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2018-01-18T01:22:40ZBlog EntryOdia Wikisource Turns 3
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikisource-turns-3
<b></b>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">Odia Wikisource, the Odia language version of Wikisource, an online digital library of free content textual sources run by the Wikimedia Foundation, celebrates three years of contributing to the free knowledge movement this October. Odia Wikisource is a sister project of Odia Wikipedia, the oldest Indian language Wikipedia. The Odia Wikimedia community, a group of active contributors to Odia Wikimedia projects in India, has been working towards digitizing rare books that are no longer under copyright as well as encouraging authors and publishers to free-license their work under the Creative Commons ShareAlike License 4.0. This license allows anyone free use of the work with due attribution. The books are usually digitized into Unicode text by scanning them using Optical Character Recognition technique. This ensures their easy accessibility on the Internet so that people may easily copy, share and use these works for citations and references. If the books are damaged to a degree that they cannot be scanned, volunteers take the painstaking effort to manually type out whole books and manuscripts.</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/baANy4HReecc9oOEVq2mtASuq-rbV7c24rH0qhk4vmurHt18vQPDs7Krvb9iGSgGTyGCycw5W1B2FD94zVDga2ZU9oahqvPIyqL56aOxZM1jfncrjPBwVQuOupm1XgOCHlKHCQA" alt="Odia_Wikisource_2_-_group_picture.jpg" height="355" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"> Odia Wikisource contributors/ CCBYSA4.0 User:Psubhashish</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p dir="ltr">The Odia Wikisource project was realized on 20 October, 2014 after a two-year incubation period. Says Pankajmala Sarangi, long time Odia Wikimedian active on Wikisource, "since [2014] more than 300 old and rare books have been digitised and made available online. Before that, searching [for] a book in Odia was not possible even if it existed in pdf or some other format. Now it has become easy and all the books available on Wikisouce are easily searchable." In addition to digitization, the Odia Wikimedia community members conduct regular quality checks of the content from time to time by ensuring proper licensing, attributions and other errors that may be avoided by thorough proof-reading. While these quality checks follow global guidelines that have been localised to help volunteers prevent vandalism of any form, it has not been without its challenges. Ms. Pankajmala explains that the lack of Odia text on operating systems is problematic for access and availability. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Despite the challenges, Odia Wikisource counts amongst its accomplishments the digitization of a twelve volume 14th century Odia classic as well as 16th century palm leaf manuscripts from the Dadhibaman Temple in Bargarh, Odisha. Taking the movement to classrooms, Odia Wikisource was introduced to students of the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to pique the interest of young minds in the preservation of Odia language texts online. The many advantages of Odia Wikisource has also been illustrated to institutions with the Utkal University library encouraging the digitization of their rare books and manuscripts by Odia Wikimedians.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Sangram Keshari Senapati, another active Odia Wikimedian explains that Odia Wikisource is important for the preservation of those books which run a high risk of being lost in the coming years. He says, "our future generation must get a chance to read them." Adding to this, Ms. Pankajmala says, "Sky is the limit for Odia wikisource. We will try to digitise more books, most probably triple the number of existing books. We'll even try to reach more libraries and authors and get more books and further digitize them. The number of wikimedians may also flourish till that time."</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p><br /><br /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikisource-turns-3'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikisource-turns-3</a>
</p>
No publishermanasaraoCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikisourceOdia WikipediaWikisource2017-10-23T05:40:20ZBlog EntryAsian Athletics Championships 2017 Edit-a-thon
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/asian-athletics-championships-2017
<b>Odia Wikipedians, in conjunction with Indian Athletics Federation and Sports and Youth Services collaborated to document the 2017 Asian Athletics Championships. Hundreds of photos were uploaded and new Wikipedia content added to inform the event’s fans. </b>
<p>The Asian Athletics Championships is an intra-continental sports event organized bi-annually since 1973. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Asian_Athletics_Championships">22nd championship</a> was held in July at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalinga_Stadium">Kalinga Stadium</a>
in Bhubaneswar, India, where 655 athletes from 41 countries
participated in 21 games. The Odia Wikipedia community worked with the
event organizers in different ways, to document the event on Wikipedia,
by holding edit-a-thons (editing workshops), to improve Wikipedia’s
content about the championships and releasing official photos of the
event under free Creative Commons licenses.</p>
<p>The original plan was for the Indian city of Ranchi, Jharkhand to
host the 2017 athletics, but plans changed 90 days before the event when
Bhubaneswar was selected as a venue instead. Preparing the Kalinga
Stadium and getting ready for the championships in that short period was
a challenge for the organizers. However, the state government of Odisha
stepped in to assist, and as part of that freely shared the event
website content under Creative Commons licenses.</p>
<p>The local Wikipedia community, along with the WikiTungi project in
Bhubaneswar, were invited by R. Vineel Krishna, the State Department’s
Director of Sports and Youth Services, to organize an edit-a-thon for
the Championships. The scope was to improve Wikipedia’s content about
the participating Asian athletes.</p>
<p>Before the event, existing Wikipedia articles provided little
information on the biographies and accomplishments of some of the
participating athletes. Odia Wikipedians collaborated with the Sports
and Youth Services Department of Odisha to bridge the dearth of
information.</p>
<p>Edit-a-thon participants <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Asian_Athletics_Championships_2017_Edit-a-thon">gathered</a> at the office of CSM Technologies, an event partner for the championships. Fifteen Wikimedians from Bhubaneswar and Puri <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiTungi">WikiTungi</a>, with some CSM staff members and new editors participated in the edit-a-thon.</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/YRYydz-GZkOJTdcgg2-aVfgQs2K8o-m49SqwMzTJ3TsoFJ27d3Wg9JEFZz9bqyi_kxsI6qjExZCLOJcaAERTd1ynbVN7rPy3teBk3pBqnqBeLJk8ioDPD8EBDxPI5rjOqAu4PW8" alt="800px-Panoramic_view_of_Kalinga_Stadium.jpg" height="229" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr">Kalinga Stadium,, Bhubaneswar/ CC-BY-SA 4.0/ Sailesh Patnaik</p>
The collection includes images of the athletes during their Heats,
Semi Finals, Final, and Medal ceremonies of all four days. 127 images
are used in 269 pages on Wikipedia in 27 languages, and many articles
added their first image from this collection. WikiProject <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> used the images in many female athlete articles. The Odia Wikipedia community and the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society</a> are also planning to work with the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> competition to use these images to illustrate Wikipedia articles they work on, in their next edition.<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers"> Victuallers</a>, one of the volunteers of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> project, identified athlete photos from the <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/category:Images_from_Odisha2017.games">games website collection</a> and used them to illustrate their articles. He has also created new articles of other participating female athletes.
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/p_FwscNB98RMO6qmWaLfdiYd_tNE73wKvJWd0cn1CmBq9Ult5j1DieulUmX0M1WSQXY83pP-FgRzavBYuR_n8ouBLRPCElmI7cTyQ_uGdA7ZsE_Ul5xItf0j1Z0tFxrX6VFvD78" alt="aac 2.jpg" height="449" width="449" /></p>
<p align="center">Arpitha M. of India in action at the 400m hurdles event/ CC-BY-SA 4.0</p>
<p>The event started with a basic Wikipedia orientation session for new
participants. There was no Wikipedia article for the championships in
Odia language, so participants created it in addition to improving the
English Wikipedia article. Along with that, 10 new articles were
improved and created on both Odia and English Wikipedia. The 2017
Championships page on the English Wikipedia received over <a href="https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&start=2017-07-03&end=2017-07-09&pages=2017_Asian_Athletics_Championships">100,000 views</a> during the championships week.</p>
<p>“Wikipedia has been the one-stop source of knowledge for me,” says <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Impulsion_gods">Alankar Devta</a>,
an edit-a-thon participant. “It has helped me learn a lot and prepare
for competitions. This is the first time, I got a chance to take part in
any Wikipedia edit-a-thon. Apart from that, the articles about the
athletes taking part in this year’s Championships are of great help for
the readers who may want to search for the athletes with expectations to
find useful information about them.”</p>
<p>Wikimedia community members were offered passes to attend the opening
ceremony and take photos. We spent four hours taking photos of the 41
participating teams, athletes and cultural events. All were <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Opening_Ceremony-_22nd_Asian_Athletics_Championships">uploaded to Wikimedia Commons</a>. Nearly <a href="http://tools.wmflabs.org/glamtools/glamorous.php?doit=1&category=Opening+Ceremony-+22nd+Asian+Athletics+Championships&use_globalusage=1&ns0=1&projects%5Bwikipedia%5D=1">19% of the photos</a> taken at the opening ceremony are used on Wikipedia articles.</p>
<p>A major outcome of the edit-a-thon was releasing the content and
images of the championship’s official website under a Creative Commons
license. 286 images from the websites <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/category:Images_from_Odisha2017.games">were added to Wikimedia Commons</a>, of which 47.2% are used on Wikipedia in several languages.</p>
<p>“I have worked with the Women in Red project since it started,” says <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Victuallers">Victuallers</a>.
“Over the past two years, we have helped raise the percentage [of
female biographies on the English Wikipedia] from 15.5 to 17%. One of
the things that hold us back, though, is that women are less likely to
have images available. It’s, therefore, amazing to find that a major
athletic event has released hundreds of images with a CC BY-SA license.
Participating athletes are all notable and women are fairly well
represented. I have downloaded over 100 pictures and cropped group
photos to create portraits. We’ve been tweeting the new articles and
pictures on <a href="https://twitter.com/WikiWomenInRed">@WikiWomenInRed</a> and trying to encourage all to “one up” the Odisha people. It’s a great success and we need more people to follow suit.”</p>
<p>With such collaborative spirit from the Government institutes, the
Odia community is planning to get more content from Odisha under a free
license. The community has also partnered with the Bhubaneswar
Development Authority, to run a global edit-a-thon named <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Bhubaneswar_Heritage_Edit-a-thon">Bhubaneswar Heritage Editathon</a>, for documenting the culture and heritage monuments of the city.</p>
<p>A version of<a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/28/digest-asia-athletics-championships/"> this blog</a> post appears on the <a class="external-link" href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/07/28/digest-asia-athletics-championships/">Wikimedia Blog</a>, co-authored by Sailesh Patnaik and Jnanaranjan Sahu.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/asian-athletics-championships-2017'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/asian-athletics-championships-2017</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh Patnaik & Jnanaranjan SahuCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaCommonsOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-08-01T05:23:47ZBlog EntrySambad 100 Women Edit-a-thon
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon
<b>A two-day 100 Women Edit-a-thon was held on March 18 and 19, 2017 in collaboration with Odisha’s biggest newspaper publisher Sambad. The event was inspired by BBC’s 100 Women series and edit-a-thons with the same name in December 2016. More than 20 female journalists participated and registered as new Odia Wikipedians. The event served as a highlight of the Women’s History Month in Indian language Wikipedias as well as in the global movement.
</b>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-803f-30e6-fcb1-091b0dd13490"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: left;">The name 100 Women was coined for BBC’s annual </span><a style="text-align: left;" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-24371433">series</a><span style="text-align: left;"> featuring inspirational women from around the globe. In December 2016, in coordination with the broadcast of the program, an </span><a style="text-align: left;" href="http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38219838">edit-a-thon</a><span style="text-align: left;"> of the same name was conducted at the headquarters of BBC, including at its Delhi office in India. The edit-a-thons aimed to create and edit biography articles of notable women on Wikipedia(s) to address the under-representation of women online and on Wikipedia - what we call the “</span><a style="text-align: left;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia">Wikipedia gender gap</a><span style="text-align: left;">.”</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Gl3RhMZZ86Dgv4hxxX4kbSEiQtD7mY9UnmevcpU0Kb81ottL7v-xFXaejT0CAsy2xy7_B0UcJWITN30j6X-HFENz0U_sFc6m7zPvz-RXie9wGS7HorPm1A3QDTdh3frakCirM74" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_47.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><br />In March, <a href="http://sambad.in/">Sambad</a> became the first major news publisher after BBC to pick up the initiative and the first to hold a 100 Women edit-a-thon for <a href="https://or.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%AC%AA%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%B0%E0%AC%A7%E0%AC%BE%E0%AC%A8_%E0%AC%AA%E0%AD%83%E0%AC%B7%E0%AD%8D%E0%AC%A0%E0%AC%BE">Odia Wikipedia</a>, commemorating International Women’s History Month. Sambad, an Odia daily, is among the most widely circulated papers in the state of Odisha. Ms. Tanaya Patnaik, Director of Eastern Media (Sambad’s parent company) had enthusiastically agreed to the collaboration in December 2016:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><em> "This is the first 100 Women Editathon in India in collaboration with a media house. We are really proud to host it. A few days ago, I attended a fellowship event on ending gender violence against women, where I spoke about this editathon, and people were excited to know about this event and how we are taking such initiatives to make information about women accessible on the Internet. We will organise such events regularly and will follow up with the journalists to achieve the target of writing 100 articles about Odia Women." </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The edit-a-thon was held at the Sambad headquarters in Bhubaneswar with over 20 female journalists attending the event. The event commenced on March 18, Saturday, with a half-day workshop and introduction session to Wikipedia and the topic of bridging the gender gap. Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, founder of the Sambad group, said at the event:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-8040-8da7-bc87-bce4a237ba0d"><em>"Technology is always considered an enemy of language. Now is the time for language and technology to collaborate. New technologies have been developed over the last couple of years. If we can implement these technologies in our own language and accept it as a friend, we can take our language ahead. With the help of Odia Wikipedia, people using smartphones and other smart devices can access the information in their own language."</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">After a round of participants’ self-introduction, Sailesh Patnaik, Community Advocate, CIS-A2K introduced Odia Wikipedia, Odia input tools and how to edit. Some participants were able to create their Wikipedia accounts on the first day. CIS-A2K Research Intern, Ting-Yi Chang, highlighted in her presentation, <a href="http://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/another-5-years-what-have-we-learned-about-the-wikipedia-gender-gap-and-what-has-been-done-part-1">the reasons for and significance</a> of the Wikipedia gender gap. The event is an important effort to help Odia Wikipedia and its readers combat the gender bias in knowledge creation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">On March 19, Sunday, participants began hands on editing with the help of local Wikimedians from the <a href="https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/01/digest-wikitungi/">Bhubaneswar Tungi</a> community. Each participant had chosen a female achiever in advance and had prepared citable sources from the Sambad publications. The chosen figures are influential and important women in Odisha history and society, such as Kalpana Dash, the first Odia mountaineer to scale Mt. Everest, Parbati Ghosh, an accomplished Odia film-maker, Shyamamani Patnaik, a famous Odishi singer,among others. In total, 23 female biography articles were created and improved during the edit-a-thon. In an anonymous survey conducted during the event, over three-quarters of the participants said that they do not find editing difficult and over 80 percent of the participants express interest in writing about women or women-related subjects on Wikipedia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">However, since all the participants were first-time Wikipedians, the edit-a-thon was not without its challenges. Some participants had trouble getting used to the Unicode input method for the Odia script. Many of them are familiar with Shree lipi, an older input method that is not supported by Unicode interfaces such as Wikipedia. Luckily, a Shree lipi-to-Unicode conversion application was available on the computers at the venue; however, the conversion is not always perfect and the process can make editing more time consuming. A handout was given to the participants to help familiarize themselves with the new input method. Additionally, the organizers discovered the need to elaborate on what is considered a reliable source for reference. Participants were reminded during the event that in addition to the sources available at the Sambad office, they can also use other news articles on the Internet as long as they are published by credible news publishers.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;" dir="ltr">Despite its challenges, the Sambad 100 Edit-a-thon was able to stand out and succeed because of a combination of the global initiative and a localized focus, the abundance of reliable resources available for editing, support from the Odia Wikipedia community, and the post-event media exposure. For example, the event was inspired by the BBC 100 Women global edit-a-thon series but was planned and carried out in the Odisha context - using Odia script, Odisha figures, and sources in Odisha’s most prominent newspaper. That being said, the existence of verifiable citation is often more crucial than one’s editing skills or writing style in determining the fate of a new article on Wikipedia. Holding the event in the Sambad office in Bhubaneswar not only ensured the availability of necessary facilities but also equipped us with abundant sources that can be cited in the articles.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/_e2Bo0_kFrnWhUz9nlDeI-AT7gCHUjAjaPvbuAEvDKtW_5xZnIMJaQjRPsf6FkB6VuJw43uaIL62hR7mq9swkWgm6qO6RYW_WwxNh5oCeFpZcOiC7Zktg0t_GXYV5lOlgR4xoXY" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_41.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The event also served as an example of regional community collaboration. Thanks to the strong support team from the Bhubaneswar WikiTungi community, participants were able to consult (both male and female) tutors throughout the event when questions emerged. The new Wikipedians were invited to join future monthly WikiTungi meetups in the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Finally, it is worth noting that a significant part of event was its reach. Sambad helped the event and the movement tremendously not only with their support in event planning and execution, but also with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu7X8aIiObY">media exposure</a>. Although the event could only accommodate around 20 participants, raising public awareness through mass media could help more people know about the existence of Odia Wikipedia and the issue of gender gap within.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-bd11bbd2-806c-5859-14b2-700df1920c8e"><br /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Uwag0tq5wKBGkve3txEfql31PzDWnttD11fPGAbbg2CNx9P6294ySt7hHVcJqIuOv-nUnjlDRnhQdRZVk7PJmHuB_KTJIRCAmC3yJMH_lHHXpc0W2cli-aiN78iP14rbF4v4Vtw" alt="Sambad_-100-_Women_Editathon_11.jpg" height="401" width="602" /></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/sambad-100-women-edit-a-thon</a>
</p>
No publisherTing Yi Chang and Sailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-18T10:05:52ZBlog EntryWomen’s History Month: Sambad collaborates with Odia Wikipedia for a Two Day Edit-a-thon
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/women2019s-history-month-sambad-collaborates-with-odia-wikipedia-for-a-two-day-edit-a-thon
<b>Sambad's 100 Women Edit-a-thon: Two day edit-a-thon to increase quantity and quality of women-related articles on Odia Wikipedia</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7b59b5d4-d88a-8880-dbfc-2539a5626b8b"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="http://www.sambadepaper.com/epapermain.aspx">Sambad</a>, in collaboration with Odia Wikipedians, is organising a two day ‘edit-a-thon’ on March 18 and 19, 2017 to increase and improve articles on women in Odia Wikipedia. Sambad, a regional language daily newspaper in Odisha, is among the most widely circulated and published newspapers as it is from eight key cities in the state, including the capital city of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhubaneswar">Bhubaneswar</a>. The event will be organised in Sambad Bhawan Bhubaneswar with around 15-20 participants from different walks of life.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In 2011<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Editor_Survey_Report_-_April_2011.pdf">, a survey</a> carried out by the Wikimedia Foundation found that only 8.5 percent of Wikipedia editors were female. Since then, awareness has risen and many have found the editor demographic imbalance to be a strong reflection of what the encyclopaedia does or does not cover, including how written language and discourse were constructed on the pages and how discussion flows on article talk pages.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The aim of this 100 Women Edit-a-thon is to create articles on 100 Women from Odisha, hailing from different fields of work. Mrutyunjaya Kar, Admin, Odia Wikipedia hopes that “through this edit-a-thon, Odia Wiki will get a new batch of female Wikimedians. I hope all the other Indic Wikipedias will replicate this to create and improve articles in their respective languages.” The Women’s Studies department of Utkal University and the archives of the Sambad newspaper are major resources for this edit-a-thon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The program will run for two days with a batch of journalists from Sambad and Eastern Media along with local Wikipedians from the city. Tanaya Patnaik, Director of Eastern Media says, “Odisha and Odias have such rich history and accomplishments, but information regarding the same is limited on the Internet. Wikipedia has emerged as the most popular go-to information site and it is essential that we Odias as a community get together to make our presence felt on the web. We loved the idea of collaborating with Odia Wikipedia for an edit-a-thon aiming at creating 100 Wikipedia articles on Odia women achievers. This would be an incredible learning experience for us.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-7b59b5d4-d898-412a-d7fc-1eb79bd0dfd1"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">WikiTungi Bhubaneswar, the city based community of Odia Wikipedians is taking the lead in organising the event. The first day of this edit-a-thon is dedicated to introducing Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects to the participants. Participants will also be taught how to create user accounts. The second day of this edit-a-thon is to create or improve articles from the 100 Women list. Tanveer Hasan, Program Manager, CIS-A2K added, “It is vital that Wikimedians take the lead in contributing to a gender sensitive Wikipedia. Edit-a-thons such as these are instrumental in doing so. These events must be carefully nurtured and an effort to follow-up should be made. According to Wikidata, Odia Wikipedia is among the gender balanced Wikipedias in terms of content. <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Ijon/Content_gap">20.6%</a> of articles on Odia Wikipedia are related to women. In collaboration with Sambad for this initiative, Odia Wikipedians strive to bridge the gender gap and create an example in this movement.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/women2019s-history-month-sambad-collaborates-with-odia-wikipedia-for-a-two-day-edit-a-thon'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/women2019s-history-month-sambad-collaborates-with-odia-wikipedia-for-a-two-day-edit-a-thon</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2017-03-17T05:36:25ZBlog EntryWikiTungi: Bhubaneswar City Wiki Community Turns 1
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikitungi-bhubaneswar-city-wiki-community-turns-1
<b>The Odia Wikipedia’s WikiTungi is an attempt at building a community of Wikimedians at the city level.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d33-566f-91d8-e4047130feac">The </span><span>tungi</span><span>, named after an ancient practice in Odia that involves passing on knowledge of the scriptures, is a city based Wikipedia community that helps Wikimedians around the city to meet and learn from their shared experiences. The Tungi meetups and events are organised with the help of the volunteers.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d33-b5e9-5c1e-17b27fccb38e">The Odia community's WikiTungi is based out of two cities, Puri and Bhubaneswar. While Wikimedians in Puri conduct meetups bi-monthly, Bhubaneswar Wikimedians meet once a month. In every meetup, Wikimedians exchange their resources with each other, helping address their doubts and queries regarding their problems and projects.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d34-16e3-912c-aa6120f95cef">This February marks the first anniversary of the Bhubaneswar WikiTungi. The WikiTungi members from the city meet every second Sunday of the month. To commemorate the first anniversary of this novel effort, nine community members from the Bhubaneswar Tungi met for a celebratory dinner at a local restaurant on 9 February 2017 <span id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d34-673d-162f-178a5fc58e14">and toasted to the dedication of the volunteers.</span></span></span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span><span><span><span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d34-be27-1a02-5d78514ab1d1">The community discussed various ideas (listed below) and the ways in which they can be implemented in the regular WikiTungi meetups. Members of the community also showed their interest in organising the third edition of WikiConference India in Bhubaneswar to bring Wikipedia to more people across the state of Odisha. During the community meetup, Tungi members came up with few ideas to implement it as a best practice in the Wikipedia movement.</span></span></span></span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr" id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d34-f76a-dfb4-7a2b6a1e50da"><span>Some of them are listed here:</span></p>
<ul id="docs-internal-guid-7bfb0247-7d35-314a-ea43-3452ecb0710b">
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc; ">
<p dir="ltr"><span>The Tungi members will invite one of the global community leaders for a Skype or hangout session.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc; ">
<p dir="ltr"><span> Discuss the best practice from the global community and discuss them with the community.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc; ">
<p dir="ltr"><span>Updating the minutes of the meeting and sharing them with the other community members.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc; ">
<p dir="ltr"><span>Updating the Learning and Evaluation team about the new learning of the community every month.</span></p>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="list-style-type:disc; ">
<p dir="ltr"><span>The community will also send postcards as a souvenirs to the participants of the global community for the online sessions.</span></p>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikitungi-bhubaneswar-city-wiki-community-turns-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikitungi-bhubaneswar-city-wiki-community-turns-1</a>
</p>
No publishersaileshCIS-A2KOdia WikipediaAccess to Knowledge2017-02-27T01:42:11ZBlog EntryBargarh Manuscript Digitisation Project
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bargarh-manuscript-digitisation-project
<b>The digitisation of temple manuscripts at the Dadhivamana Temple, Bargarh in Western Odisha followed by a workshop for the students of Imperial College took place between 11- 12 February, 2017.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6a520b68-785b-1cce-b50f-f1af9415b19a"><a class="external-link" href="http://www.orissa.gov.in/e-magazine/orissareview/jun2004/englishpdf/workship.pdf">Shri Dadhivamana Temple</a>, also known as the Srikshetra(Puri) of Western Odisha is a 400-year-old temple in Bargarh, Odisha. The temple is among the most important religious sites in Western Odisha. The temple has a record room with 250 ancient palm leaf manuscripts in the Odia language, dating back to the 16th century. These palm leaf manuscripts tell the stories of the Mahabharata, Ramayana, Skanda Purana and the history of the temple itself.</span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-6a520b68-785b-46da-54af-2ef2d6886eab"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr">Given the historical value of the temple, the temple administration and the Temple Trust have preserved the pothi(palm leaf manuscripts) with the help of various chemicals, including the indigenous usage of turmeric and camphor. The process of preservation of the manuscripts began a few years ago years with student volunteers from different colleges in Bhatli helping the temple administration by identifying and storing the manuscripts.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6a520b68-785c-811b-7fd1-d636007720a6">Minati Sahoo, a well known social activist in Bargarh and a few other journalists explained the importance of manuscript digitisation to the temple administration and took permission for digitising the manuscripts in the month of March. One of the pandas (temple priests), Pandit Shri Goura Chandra Ratha, released his book, Jay Shree Dadhibamana, under the Creative Commons 4.0 license. A three-day long digitisation camp will be organised in Bhatli for introducing the students to Wikipedia and the process of digitisation. The manuscripts will be digitised simultaneously during the workshop. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-6a520b68-785d-0efd-44f2-0ab04c96fef2">An orientation program was organised at <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Imperial_College_Orientation_Program">Imperial College</a>, Bargarh for introducing the students of the college to the digitisation process as well as to introduce the pothi digitisation which they would be partaking in. With over 60 participants, the workshop not only explained the idea of the global Wikimedia movement to them, but also taught them how they could use the digitisation skill for the preservation of language. This digitisation project will bring different manuscripts into Odia Wikipedia, while also helping to raise awareness about digitisation of language in western Odisha. After scanning the manuscripts, the Odia Wikipedia community will take help of the students for uploading, digitising and proofreading the same.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bargarh-manuscript-digitisation-project'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bargarh-manuscript-digitisation-project</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-16T20:08:04ZBlog EntryImperial College Orientation Program, Bargarh
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/imperial-college-orientation-program-bargarh
<b>An Odia Wikipedia workshop was conducted at Imperial College, Bargarh on 12 February, 2017.</b>
<p>An Odia Wikipedia orientation workshop was conducted at Imperial College, an affiliate of Sambalpur University, on 12 February 2017 for 60 undergraduate students of the College. The aim of the workshop was to introduce students to Odia Wikipedia while also giving them a broad overview of the global free knowledge movement. This workshop was conducted as part of CIS-A2K's ongoing efforts to expand the reach of Odia Wikipedia in Western Odisha in conjunction with the Odia Wikipedia community members. </p>
<p>The students were also introduced to the process of digitisation and how digitisation was fundamental to the preservation of language and local knowledge. The students also showed an interest in the digitisation sprint for the Dadhivamana Temple's Pothi digitisation project, an ongoing effort to digitise 250 ancient palm leaf manuscripts from the Dadhivamana Temple in Bargarh.</p>
<p><em>The meta page for this event can be found <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Imperial_College_Orientation_Program">here</a>.</em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/imperial-college-orientation-program-bargarh'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/imperial-college-orientation-program-bargarh</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-16T19:51:29ZBlog EntryOdia Wikipedia Workshop in IIMC, Dhenkanal
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iimc-dhenkanal
<b>An Odia Wikipedia Workshop was conducted at IIMC, Dhenkanal on 31 January, 2017</b>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-47782ce9-7a39-f103-835e-e62b1ba4da4b"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr">Since 2013, the Odia Wikipedia community has collaborated with the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal for enabling students of the institution to partake in and contribute to the Wikimedia movement. An Odia Wikipedia workshop was conducted for the students of the institution on 31 January, 2017. The students were given an orientation on the basics of editing Wikipedia on the web and on their smart phones in addition to an explanation of Wikipedia policies, history of Wikipedia and Wiki News.</p>
<p dir="ltr">The 45 English and Odia language students with a male: female ratio of 60: 40, who took part were given a live demonstration of these topics. Along with the help of supportive faculty members, the students were exposed to Commons and Incubator as well. Overall, the event saw the creation of 20 new editors on Odia Wikipedia. A follow-up workshop is also being planned for the students in the coming months.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iimc-dhenkanal'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-iimc-dhenkanal</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-17T06:31:41ZBlog EntryOdia Wikipedia and Orientation Training Programme
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/odia-wikipedia-and-orientation-training-programme
<b>An Odia Wikipedia orientation and training programme is being organized by the Centre for Internet & Society's (CIS-A2K) team on 31 January 2017 at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal in Odisha. </b>
<h3>Agenda</h3>
<ul>
<li>Bringing new editors on board.</li>
<li>Orientation programme for students of IIMC.</li>
<li>Finding possible partnership with the institute.</li>
</ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/odia-wikipedia-and-orientation-training-programme'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/events/odia-wikipedia-and-orientation-training-programme</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaCIS-A2KOdia WikipediaEventAccess to Knowledge2017-01-23T00:58:38ZEventOdia Wikipedia: Sambalpur University Workshop
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-sambalpur-university-workshop
<b>An Odia Wikipedia orientation-cum-workshop program was organised for the students of Sambalpur University on 27 November, 2016.</b>
<p> </p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-57c935f1-7aa4-2268-38e8-27623022a030">Over the last couple of years, the Odia Wikipedia community has been successful in organising workshops and outreach programs in different parts of coastal and central Odisha. With over 38 active Wikipedians (as of 2016), the Odia community is growing everyday and expanding across different parts of Odisha. The recent increase in the number of Wikipedians in western Odisha inspired the community members to conduct an introductory Wikipedia workshop in Sambalpur University.</span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-57c935f1-7aa4-4ad9-0835-7f6b5f11bb95"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr">On 27th November 2016, an orientation-cum-workshop program for Odia Wikipedia was organised for the students of Computer Science and Application Department and the Odia Department in Sambalpur University. 57 participants, comprising 30 male and 27 female participants attended the event. 5 faculty members were also present. Dr. Chitta Ranjan Dash, the Vice Chancellor of the University was the Guest of Honour for the workshop. Three Odia Wikipedians- Mrutyunjay Kar, Jnanaranjan Sahu and Nistha Ranjan Dash facilitated the workshop as mentors.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-57c935f1-7aa4-7b5a-8d06-34217967e458"></span></p>
<p dir="ltr">The workshop began with an introduction to Odia Wikipedia and Odia Wikisource digitisation efforts by Dr. Sarada Baboo, a professor from the Computer Science and Application department. The first session introduced the various Wikimedia projects to the participants. The participants were given an introduction on how to contribute to the different Wiki projects. They were also given an orientation on Wikipedia policies and guidelines. After this, the participants were introduced to Odia Wikipedia and its development over the years. The post lunch session trained participants on creating user accounts, articles, and other basic dos and don’ts on Wikipedia. During the training session, over 20 Wikipedians were able to create accounts.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-57c935f1-7aa4-a8ad-d5c7-f6bb586c1a79">The Wikipedia workshop in Sambalpur University was an important step to raise awareness about the Wikipedia movement in western Odisha, This was the first workshop in Sambalpur University and the second workshop in western Odisha after three years. Over <a href="http://suniv.ac.in/upload/List%20of%20Colleges%20_Aff.pdf">196 colleges </a> are affiliated to Sambalpur University, in seven different districts in western Odisha. A regular follow up with the University, the faculty and the students will help in furthering the free knowledge movement in western Odisha.</span></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-sambalpur-university-workshop'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/odia-wikipedia-sambalpur-university-workshop</a>
</p>
No publisherSailesh PatnaikCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaOdia WikisourceOdia WikipediaOpenness2017-04-17T06:44:47ZBlog Entry