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WIPO SCCR 41: Notes from Day 2
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-2
<b>Member states delivered opening statements and deliberated on the scope, direction, and progress of work on the limitations and exceptions agenda. This blog post summarises positions and contentions around: 1) Information Session on impact COVID 2) Creating a binding limitations and exceptions international instrument 3) Work Plan under the L&E agenda 4) Conducting regional consultations as per the report on regional seminars and international conference on limitations and exceptions. </b>
<p>There was a strong consensus on the fact that COVID had adversely affected actors and beneficiaries involved with the copyright system, but there was less consensus on which stakeholders and beneficiaries to focus on as a priority, and which next steps and remedies should be considered. The gamut of stakeholders under the limitations and exceptions agenda item includes authors, publishers, creative cultural industries, educational and research institutions, persons with disabilities, libraries, museums, and archives, licensing societies, and users’ rights advocates.</p>
<h2>Agenda Item: Limitations and Exceptions<br /></h2>
<h3>1. Conducting an Information Session on impact of COVID <br /></h3>
<p>Bangladesh (on behalf of Asia-Pacific group) proposed an information session on the copyright framework in the format of presentations from experts and relevant stakeholders as well as exchange of views among them at the next SCCR (SCCR42) to understand the impact on COVID-19, especially as developing countries, with a view of rights, related rights and exceptions and limitations. It noted the lack of international settings that could have enabled a collaborative approach during COVID-19 to handling the impact on education, research, culture and knowledge.</p>
<p>Pakistan, Indonesia, and Iran supported the proposal. South Africa backed both the proposal and the regional consultations along with a preference for completing them in a time bound manner by the next SCCR. Belarus was in support as well.</p>
<p>Georgia (on behalf of the CEBS group) was in favour of an information session for evaluating an all-round impact of the pandemic which was not only from a limitations and exceptions viewpoint. In a similar vein, USA suggested that the information session be holistic in its framing – all parts of the copyright system should be taken into consideration. UK (on behalf of Group B) stated that it would prefer to examine a formal proposal document on such a session first, that should adopt a ‘holistic approach’.</p>
<p>Towards the end, Indonesia questioned whether the idea of a ‘holistic’ information session equally focused on rights and related rights could even be counted or considered as a next step in the limitations and exceptions (“<strong>L&E</strong>”) agenda item.</p>
<h3>2. Working towards a binding international L&E instrument <br /></h3>
<p>Georgia (on behalf of the CEBS group) stuck to its position of 1) taking an evidence-based approach on the way forward for the L&E agenda and preference to 2) exchanging national best practices instead of creating a binding treaty. Ecuador was also in favour of exchanging best practices. UK (on behalf of group B) was in favour of providing technical assistance to countries, and the EU and USA maintained their position against an international instrument.</p>
<p>Bangladesh (on behalf of Asia-Pacific group) stated that COVID had forced a rethink of role of copyright in ensuring access to educational and resource materials as well as protecting the rights of the creators of the copyrighted works, in situations such as the pandemic. The absence of an international instrument on limitations and exceptions has been widely felt in this context.</p>
<p>Pakistan stated that a baseline international instrument was necessary and would be useful for looking at one’s own national law. South Africa (on behalf of Asia-Pacific group) Indonesia reminded everyone that work under this agenda item should proceed under the 2012 mandate of developing a legal instrument on limitations and exceptions. Iran also expressed its support for a norm-setting instrument.</p>
<h3>3. Work Plan under the L&E agenda <br /></h3>
<p>South Africa said that a clear way forward for limitations and exceptions was necessary, and that way forward should not be limited to the views and steps mentioned in the <a class="external-link" href="https://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=515597">report on the regional seminars and international conference on limitations and exceptions ("<strong>report</strong>")</a>. It also supported the 2012 mandate on developing an international instrument on limitations and exceptions.</p>
<p>UK (on behalf of group B) stated that access to knowledge should not inhibit the remunerative rights to authors and performers. Ecuador said that it supported narrow limitations and exceptions that comply with the Berne three-step test.</p>
<p>Russia suggested the creation of a set of “general principles” underpinning this agenda item, to set a base standard agreed by everyone and begin work from that point. It noted that it was crucial to resolve the issues of cross-border sharing, legal uncertainty between countries, and digital preservation. It added that the principles could become the guiding principles for national legislation as well. <br />Pakistan, noting the COVID impact, stated that cross-border cooperation or international norm-setting could be useful. Brazil stated that there was a consensus on preservation and cross-border issues, and room for further discussions on limitations and exceptions for ‘persons with other disabilities’ under this agenda item. Chile added that international guidelines were desirable at least in the area of education, libraries, and archives.</p>
<p>In the end, Indonesia in its statement reminded everyone that there was still no concrete work plan (under this agenda) on the table. This despite the draft report indicating issues such as preservation, online uses, cross-border uses, and safe harbour as feasible for discussion on next steps. The report had also recommended formation of expert groups to study these issues further (para 400 of the report (SCCR42/2)) It added that while it was aligned to the 2012 mandate (of producing a legal instrument), the work plan could include a joint recommendation.</p>
<h3>4. Regional Consultations (as per <a class="external-link" href="https://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/doc_details.jsp?doc_id=515597">report's recommendation</a>) <br /></h3>
<p>China endorsed the regional consultation. EU supported regional consultations, noting that COVID had impacted creative cultural industries as well. Pakistan stated that it was important for the consultations to include beneficiaries of this agenda item.</p>
<p>UK (on behalf of Group B) questioned whether holding regional consultations were necessary during a pandemic, and later added that the regional consultations and information session exercises should not be executed together.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-2'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-2</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaLimitations & ExceptionsAccess to KnowledgeWIPO2021-07-08T14:55:30ZBlog EntryWIPO SCCR 41: Statement by CIS on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations Agenda Item
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis
<b>Anubha Sinha delivered a statement on behalf of CIS, on day 1 of the 41st WIPO SCCR session on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations Agenda Item.</b>
<p>Thank you, Mr. Chair.</p>
<p>I'm speaking on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India.</p>
<p>In the Asia-Pacific region, where there exists a deep digital divide in many countries, radio and TV broadcasting was instrumental in meeting quality education requirements during the pandemic. It would be invaluable and forward-looking for an international broadcasting treaty to have adequate limitations and exceptions for another emergency scenario such as COVID019. I urge the Committee to deliberate more deeply on this aspect.</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaBroadcast TreatyLimitations & ExceptionsAccess to Knowledge2021-06-29T13:19:47ZBlog EntryWIPO SCCR 41: Statement by CIS on Limitations and Exceptions Agenda Item
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis-on-limitations-and-exceptions-agenda-item
<b>Anubha Sinha delivered a statement on behalf of CIS, on day 2 of the 41st WIPO SCCR session, on the limitations and exceptions agenda item.</b>
<p>Thank you Mr. Chair. </p>
<p>I’m speaking on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India. </p>
<p>The pandemic has hit the world hard, and developing countries even harder. The committee should urgently lead the way on developing concrete solutions in the domain of limitations and exceptions that are timely and meaningful. Useful suggestions have already been offered by member states in the nature of tools that could enhance cross-border cooperation and international norm setting. This could take the form of guidelines, model laws, and the like. </p>
<p>Further, the regional consultations should have proper representation and give proper weightage to views of beneficiaries of this agenda item. WIPO should also plan to institute measures to enable proper participation, in view of the digital divide</p>
<p dir="ltr">It should further be borne in mind that there exists wide socio-economic disparity in the region, and there has traditionally been a strong reliance by students and researchers on knowledge generated in foreign countries. Thus a lack of international harmonisation of limitations and exceptions disproportionately affects developing countries. These limitations and exceptions need to urgently address cross-border uses, online uses, and digital preservation to create the maximum developmental impact.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Thank you.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis-on-limitations-and-exceptions-agenda-item'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-statement-by-cis-on-limitations-and-exceptions-agenda-item</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaLimitations & ExceptionsAccess to KnowledgeWIPO2021-06-29T13:20:59ZBlog EntryA Comparative Study of Article Creation Campaigns on Wikipedia - Part II
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india-part-ii
<b>This is a short report on a comparative analysis of two prominent Wikimedia initiatives, Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger, to understand prevailing challenges and opportunities, and strategies to address the same. The report has been authored by Nitesh Gill with inputs from Suswetha Kolluru, and editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020. </b>
<p class="discreet"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india">Part </a>I of this report outlined the research questions and methods of this study. Part II presents some of the observations and learnings. </p>
<h3>Observations and Analysis</h3>
<p>Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger are pilot projects and both are equally popular among Indian communities. They are similar projects but also have some unique aspects. Communities connect with each-other but in different ways. For example, as noted by an organiser, Sailesh Patnaik, WAM has the following objectives: “ a) Supporting Small Wikipedia communities around the world (majorly Asian Language Wikipedias) b) Providing support to small local communities, to encourage growth and development c)Increase the cooperation among the Wikimedia communities and affiliates in Asia, d)Enriching Asian related culture, content, and enjoyment on Wikimedia projects.”</p>
<p>Meenakshi Nandini, a Malaylam Wikimedian notes, “The Project Tiger contest gave me some best experiences. Through this project, I got support in the form of laptop and Internet access. That is very useful for me. In my view, it is a competition between the communities rather than individuals. I saw that participants wrote more articles in the Project tiger contest than in any other events.But, WAM helped to create more relevant and high-quality content than Project tiger.”</p>
<p>Some common aspects for the both projects are below:</p>
<h3>Motivation</h3>
<p dir="ltr">WAM is one of the initial projects to give a boost to volunteers across the world. Most of the editors are focussed on initiatives in their own languages, and WAM offered a common platform for Asian communities to work together on a project. According to the interviews of community members, the love for their languages inspired them to participate as well as create content in regional languages, communicate to other community members etc. </p>
<p dir="ltr">As community member SangappaDyamani notes , “To enrich Kannada wiki articles, [I’m] happy to represent kn wiki in such an event, we can meet new editors, learn new tech used in other wiki etc.” </p>
<p dir="ltr">Communities or community members began to take part in WAM when they had less opportunities or less ideas to grow their local Wikipedias. After this project began, communities or individuals have been motivated for their Wikipedia’s growth, and engaging more with regional languages and knowing about Asia or Asian culture. Many Indic languages were searching for a platform and WAM gave them a common platform to engage and create content in their regional languages. All interviews indicated the same point that it was a new idea and as every Indic language was developing at the time, this idea influenced most of the languages.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As community member, Ramajit Tudu observes, “As our Santali Wikipedia [went live], we all had lots of excitement to cover all types of the article[s] but prior to that we had articles on the regional topic only. At that time some of the other community members suggested we should take part in this editathon (WAM) and we felt It was a very nice campaign, it is an exchange and sharing of information among the Wikipedians of Asia. Knowing about the person, place and subject about your own continent other than your own country and putting them in your own language is always an interesting job. In the year 2018, I was one of the coordinators and Jury for WAM - Santali language. As our community was growing in the year 2019 others were the co-ordinator and jury but still, I had contributed by participating in the editathon. Besides these, I support the editathon by creating the project page in Santali language.”</p>
<p dir="ltr"> Similarly,there are quite a number of motivational factors for volunteers who have been actively participating in Project Tiger. Firstly, it gives an opportunity to create several important and relevant articles that relate to their language Wikipedia that are presently missing. Secondly, in order to keep up the momentum among participants throughout the competition, it is designed in two phases and there is friendly competition between all the Indic communities that participated to secure the top position. The third and final motivational factor is cash prizes, in the form of Amazon vouchers, for top 3 individual contributors from each community and a three day <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project_Tiger_Training_2018">offline Wiki workshop</a> for all the active and major contributors from top performing communities.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“When it comes to a competition (between communities), there is a different kind of zeal and there are cash prizes too for extra motivation” says User:Jagmit Brar from the Punjabi community who created more than 1000 articles under Project Tiger in both the iterations.</p>
<p dir="ltr">These motivation factors have definitely been a major reason why the contest witnessed immense engagement and reach among the Indian communities. </p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Communication and Collaboration</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Communication is an important aspect of running these long duration editathons. So, the model is to engage local organizers and participants with early invitations. The team started contacting Asian communities a month before the start of the campaign. </p>
<p dir="ltr">According to Rupika, the Communication and Media officer of WAM “One of the most difficult things about any project is when it is a new project and they are just trying to [let the] community know about the project. But for projects that are popular and well-established like Wikipedia Asian Month and Wiki Loves Monuments, they don’t have to work that much hard. But we do make sure that our efforts with local organisers are complete. So, we ask them to create a page a month or two before that project starts.” </p>
<p dir="ltr">The discussion started from the mailing lists. Thereafter, mass messages were dropped on all the village pumps and local organisers started discussion with their community members. A new meta page was designed for every iteration. After the notifying and instructions, interested communities add their names and make sure to participate in this project. The model of engaging the communities is through social media channels, emails or on-wiki. The central-notice is a more beneficial method for informing Wikimedia about WAM and also writing blogs for the updates on progress of the project. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Also Wikipedia Asian Month’s primary objective was to collaborate with all the Asian countries as well as others to increase content related to Asia on Wikipedia. It started after a proper discussion and this collaboration was a huge experiment for organisers as well editors. The volunteers interviewed in the course of this study expressed that they are glad with the collaboration of different communities across the world on this campaign.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Collaboration is one of the main features which defines the objective of WAM. It helps the small communities to grow systematically and do something for their regional Wikipedias and learn from other international and national communities.WAM started with 40 plus communities and at present, the number of participating communities is over 70 due to its collaborative nature. Through its five iterations, many Wikipedia communities have been linked to each other and know about each other’s histories and culture etc. ‘Mourya Biswas, a Bengali wikimedian notes’, “Personally, organising WAM was a great deal of a learning experience as well with regard to how to go about organising an editathon with so many people contributing from across different parts of the world. I had hitherto very little experience on organising online editathons. A few tools were absolutely new to me. In the subsequent editathons that I have organised since then, I've learnt to use a few tools to coordinate, support and manage the editathon even more efficiently.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">Similarly communication engagement is an effective step of Project Tiger as well. Organisers announce the project on India mailing list then approach communities via village pumps so that they are aware of when the project will commence. Communities remain engaged with the project till three months. The communication channels include social media, emails and phone-calls. Jury members regularly remain in touch with organisers. Editors also communicate regularly with recipients of hardware support. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Project Tiger, as a contest, needs collaborative efforts in order to be a successful engagement with the communities, and the emphasis was on regular communication and discussions that resulted in strengthening the community further.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We had Whatsapp groups with all the volunteers participating in the contest to strategise, resolve doubts, share ideas in order to create as many good quality articles as possible”, observes User:Parvathi Sridharan from Tamil Wiki community.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This contest/project not only saw engaging participation from existing and experienced volunteers, but also from many new ones. This contest has paved a way for new and enthusiastic people who were interested in contributing to Wikipedia. One way this happened is also through offline Wiki workshops conducted as part of outreach.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">“This contest was a good chance to show how people in India are improving the access to knowledge across India and to the world. Many communities which were unnoticed came out during this PT writing contest and showed their community strength.” notes User:Gnoeee, from the Malayalam community who had contributed to English and Malayalam Wikipedia during Project Tiger 1.0</p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Culture</h3>
<p>WAM encourages cultural exchange by mediating online connections between communities and helping them learn about unique aspects of their respective countries and languages. During this project, Asian communities generate articles/content on their local Wikipedias, and also have an opportunity to find their cultural interests and ways to understand other cultures.</p>
<p>As noted by Saliesh Patnaik, an Odia Wikipedian who is also the social media head for WAM, “This project also encourages cultural exchange within the community with the help of a month-long edit-a-thon which promotes the creation or improvement of the Wikipedia content about Asia except for their (the participant’s) own country.” </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Wikipedia Asian Month is the one of the first kinds of campaigns not just in Asia but in the entire movement to involve so many small communities in this wide level. That individually has allowed so many different communities to grow and help them to learn how to systematically and structurally work together. Project Tiger and other contests came [in the later stages] which really got communities involved. But when WAM started in 2015 it was the first contest where people participated internationally.” The editors’ enthusiasm towards WAM proves that they are interested in creating content across cultures and establishing their links with other non-Indian communities. </p>
<p>Just like WAM, Project Tiger also encourages cultural exchange and bridging cultural gaps. Through this project, Indic communities got a platform to connect with each other. During this contest, communities generate their own regional list regarding important articles for their local Wikipedias. Communities have the opportunity to contact other fellow Wikimedians from Indic languages. They talked to each other through existing groups to solve their issues which they faced during the contest. </p>
<p>During the training period for the winner and runner up community, there was a possibility to exchange their thoughts and ideas. Due to that on-ground activity, Wikimedians played their roles enthusiastically and got more motivated with other stories, experiences and cultural aspects like cuisine. This is the way cultural exchange happened via Project Tiger.</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3>Grant Process</h3>
<p>While projects under the Wikimedia movement are primarily run on the strength and interests of its volunteer community, there are specific aspects which require funding and support from collaborators such as the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). For major events, the Wikimedia project needs a grant, depending on time duration and objectives. Similarly, WAM, while not being a very high budget event, is supported by a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid">rapid grant</a> from the foundation. This rapid grant supports the work on purchasing and sending postcards, certificates, T-shirts, stickers & pins, advertisements on social media (Facebook, Twitter), infrastructure (AirTable membership, G-Suite subscription, etc.), <a href="https://asianmonth.wiki/">domain</a>, and the time of volunteers who are engaged in this work. </p>
<p>For Project Tiger, CIS-A2K gets a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation. Selected applicants from any Indic language get hardware support which covers chromebooks/laptops and internet connectivity. Apart from it, during the contest Amazon vouchers were also given to the participants from each community who got the 1st, 2nd and 3rd rank for all the three months. These prizes are fixed for every month. There are also prizes for an overall winner community, and a runner up, which is in the form of a training session after the writing contest. </p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Appreciation</h3>
<p dir="ltr">A token of appreciation is provided to participants, which is important to aid efforts. Under WAM, this appreciation is divided into two parts : Postcards & Certificates and Brand Ambassador. Postcards are given to those participants who created at least five articles about an Asian country. The postcards are sent by the same countries in appreciation of the contributors’ participation. This is a way to encourage new leadership and new editors. Certificates are also part of this appreciation, as a recognition of active participation and the importance of their work. As Aliva Sahoo, Odia Wikimedia, notes “When I wrote articles in 2016 I created a good number of articles. And that time I was happier because I got 4 or 5 postcards from different countries. My other community members also received postcards. That time I felt motivated to get postcards and I decided to create more articles next time and will collect more postcards. I think this kind of appreciation encourages volunteers and makes them happy.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><span style="text-align: center;">The second form of appreciation is the Wikipedia Asian Month Ambassador. This is an honour from WAM to a Wikipedian who creates the most number of articles on their respective Wikipedia. In every iteration of WAM, ambassadors are chosen depending on the number and quality of contributions. By adding an element of competition, and using a title that does not suggest the same, the ambassador initiative plays a very important role in the event to enable more contributions. In the end, we have Wikipedians who are willing to receive other postcards by contributing 30-50 articles (relatively high quality according to our rules), which makes this event very successful and effective” Rupika Sharma, notes.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr">In Project Tiger as well, as a token of appreciation to all the top performing participants, prizes were given to the top 3 editors who created the most number of articles from each community, every month in the 3 month contest. Appreciation was given in the form of a cash prize during the first iteration of the Project. After receiving a lot of feedback about this, gift vouchers are given in the second iteration instead of cash prizes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Apart from this, merchandise such as stickers and t-shirts to other top contributors is also a practice that’s followed. The overall winner, runner up communities and few other top contributors and juries from remaining communities later attend a three day workshop as part of the Project Tiger community prize, on the topics of their preference. </p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Fountain tool</h3>
<p dir="ltr">The Fountain tool was developed for reviewing the articles of Wikipedia Asian Month, and is used only when the contests are running. “I made the first prototype during the first Wikipedia Asian Month in 2015. We, the jury members, were flooded with articles that needed to be evaluated fairly quickly and so I thought that I can automate 90% of the jury workflow” notes fountain tool developer Le Loy. In this tool, bytes and words are fixed according to the project. For example, in the Wikipedia Asia Month a minimum of 3000 bytes are fixed as per the criteria of evaluation for WAM. This is therefore a useful tool for the contests. It is a tool which helps a lot to collect statistics of specific projects on Wikipedia. After talking to Le Loy, we can reach the conclusion that the tool is not limited to a particular language, and it can be used for any kind of event on Wikipedia. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Project Tiger also uses the Fountain tool to review articles submitted in this contest. It was easy for the participants to submit the articles and also for the jury to pick up an unreviewed article and review it based on the number of bytes, or if the article was actually submitted in the time period mentioned in the contest rules and so on. This tool has definitely made the jury process more efficient and smooth.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>Diversity and Bridging gaps</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Cultural diversity is an important aspect of the sustenance of the Wikimedia movement itself, and bridging different cultural gaps is an important aspect of this effort. </p>
<p dir="ltr">After checking all past statistics of WAM, we found that WAM focused on content related to Asia only but it didn't pay much attention to content by and about persons across diverse gender and sexual identities, including marginalised groups. Sailesh Patnaik & Rupika Shrama, WAM organiser notes that there have been some efforts in this area, saying “We work with more than 50 different language communities on Wikipedia, and have also collaborated with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> to bridge the gender gap in our projects.” There is however a need for ongoing work in this space. </p>
<p dir="ltr">Project Tiger has its own strategy behind diversity and bridging gaps. Both events maintain their diversity as per required rules and areas. One of the major reasons why volunteers find a hindrance in dedicating time for Wikimedia and its projects is the lack of facilities like a laptop or even a proper internet connection. This is why laptops and internet stipends provided during the first phase of the contest have a monumental effect on the contest and also in contributions to not just Project Tiger, but also many other Wiki projects in general. Several volunteers contribute articles via mobile phones in spite of the difficult/complex editing environment. Without this support, there is a chance that Wikipedia can lose some of its most promising volunteers.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Project Tiger also tries to bridge a gender gap. For example, the criteria for hardware support also includes ensuring a certain percentage of women applicants are selected. The coordinators have also tried to specifically engage women participants during the contest. Before opening the applications for hardware support, PT core team set criteria for eligibility. On the other hand, one rule always highlighted that 33% women can get laptop or internet connectivity due to their past contribution. This is an effort to engage women in the Wikimedia movement. </p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><span style="text-align: justify;">Limitations and Barriers </span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Despite the success of these long running programmes, its true that there still remain some barriers and limitations, as illustrated below: </p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia Asian Month</span></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">WAM has largely remained a stable programme, but it would be a good thing to see how new aspects could be introduced in the programme. The process is the same every year because after finishing the first iteration the core team didn’t take any feedback, suggestions or concerns from the individuals for the next step, which is a major barrier to growing and planning something new for the next level. As Odia Wikimedian Aliva Sahoo notes, “From 2016 to 2019, WAM was the same and there was nothing new, but I am not sure if during 2020, they changed something because I didn’t participate this year.” According to participant’s comments or WAM rules & guidelines changes in the structure could be introduced. “When the same project is happening again and again then the novelty will reduce. We should make some changes from time to time to engage the people” notes Punjabi Wikimedian, Satdeep Gill.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The project actively makes an effort in trying to work with more communities every year but also collaborate with other projects such as Women in Red, which is aimed at creating more content by and about women. WAM itself has not been able to promote women leaders and women content as well due to its design which focuses on promoting content. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Follow-up on receipt of appreciation postcards etc. should be done diligently.There have also been instances where appreciation postcards have been delayed or not sent which affects the motivations of contributors in engaging with the project further. A few contributors did not receive their appreciation from senders, which has led to some negativity. At least after two iterations of any project, contributors or Wiki projects demand for something new. For example, during the beginning of the project, participants got the Wikipedia Asian Month ambassador tags and that was an honour for them. But volunteers seem to be looking for a change and they want to look forward to the project. A Malayalm Wikimedian, Meenakshi Nandini, noted, “However the prizes are not getting to most of the participants, especially the WAM prizes. Even me also didn’t receive most of the event prizes. So we couldn’t tell the participants that you will definitely get these prizes. I won two times as a "Wikipedia Asian Ambassador". But is there any importance or benefit for that honor?”</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">During the WAM, the focus was only on article creation but not on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment">quality of articles</a>. It is important therefore to accord more attention to the quality of the content being created, which would help in the long-term sustenance of the project and is better aligned with the larger objectives of the movement. </p>
</li></ul>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></p>
<h3><span style="text-align: justify;">Project Tiger</span></h3>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Project Tiger happened only in two iterations, but has its limitations and challenges as well. The participants or volunteers who participated in Project Tiger had some concerns on the Google article lists. Contributors felt Google should suggest only those articles which are important for their Wikipedias as priority. The PT core team was not properly able to convince participants as to why the Google list is important and editors were also not fully aware of the same, which led to some mismatch in expectations from the project.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Due to hardware support and gift vouchers, most participants are motivated to contribute more, But on the other hand, it changes the whole process of contribution in the Wikimedia movement. Cash prizes or gift vouchers showed a less than satisfactory result, thereby leading to a rethinking of how best to motivate contributors.. But for a few editors hardware support and prizes are a lot. A few users who were editing from phones got laptops just because of the project which has helped their contributions. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The manner of addressing the gender gap in the project has also been a point of contention. The possibility is, some participants feel that women only get laptops or internet support due to their gender identity. The process of such quotas may be debatable going forward, and so a clear rationale and process may be developed to encourage participation by women and individuals across the spectrum of gender and sexual identities. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">One major concern from jury members was that participants did not work on quality but quantity. Reviewers and readers are facing problems with machine translated articles submitted during Project Tiger. The PT team tried to solve the issue of quality during the second iteration, but did not work well, and jury members faced the same difficulty this time as well. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">A common challenge noted by Satdeep Gill (for both projects) is that “Contributors focus mainly on increasing the article count and the maintenance work lags behind. We need to focus on this as well.”</p>
</li></ul>
<h3><strong><br /></strong>Learnings</h3>
<p>Both projects have had more than one iteration so far, and have managed to create interest and engagement within Indian language communities in working collaboratively and building content. They have also had a fair number of challenges and limitations as well, as illustrated by the interviews. For instance, there has been a difficulty in measuring the quality of articles, the way that quantity is tracked. So there is a need to develop metrics to capture and work on quality of content. A related point is with reference to a lack of capacity building within communities, which would enable them to collaborate and contribute better. There have also been some challenges with logistics, and ensuring that participants receive their prizes during Wikipedia Asian Month. This would need more communication and careful coordination of efforts. There is also a need to keep participants engaged over a long time, and repeating the same structure of the project every year may also lead to a lack of interest or innovation. The project actively makes an effort in trying to work with more communities every year but also collaborate with other projects such as Women in Red, which is aimed at creating more content by and about women. WAM itself has not been able to promote women leaders and women content as well due to its design which focuses on promoting content. The projects therefore need to work in a progressive manner, building on feedback from participants and adapting to the evolving needs and interests of the communities. </p>
<p>These difficulties are also faced by Project Tiger. Google should focus on lists according to the needs of communities, in discussion with the PT team.For example, the core team should track volunteers' contributions after getting the support because anyone can make 500 or 1000 edits for getting a laptop. The core team should find people from the communities who need this support and will contribute proactively. Project Tiger’s process transparency is appreciated, but with the same transparency the infrastructure distribution process should be different from now. Also it should encourage or discuss with communities about proactive women’s participation during the project. PT should run a Bridging Gender Gap campaign, where communities should play a role to engage women as organisers from each community and should make a strategy for the same. This project needs to work on a strategy for building and sustaining quality as well which is important for growth of Indic Wikipedias.</p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">So, not every project is perfect, every project has some achievements and some limitations. Therefore, WAM and Project Tiger are also the same, it achieves its goals but also carries some failures. But there is a possibility to make changes to both projects.</span></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Conclusion </h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia Asian Month is an International project which started in 2015. It is a low budget project, and gives a common platform to Asian as well as Non-Asian communities to participate over the course of a month. When WAM started most of the communities were excited to do something for their languages, and this was a big initial motivation for the project. The communities want to continue with WAM because they feel like this is one of the projects which started at that time when communities wanted something to engage themselves with Wikipedias. Every year most of the communities participate in it for sure, although the people who work on the projects may differ. Project Tiger is a pilot project which is a three-month-long contest. This project provides an opportunity to communities to work together. After the success of the Indic languages contest [Project Tiger] in 2018, two more countries, (<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proyek_Saraswati/Kompetisi">Project Saraswati</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project_GLOW/Project_Al-Ma%27refa">Project Al-Ma'refa</a>), also organised a similar project under different names. Due to Project Tiger, thousands of articles were created or developed by volunteers about important, most searched for topics suggested by Google, as well as those important to respective Indic language Wikipedias. Infra-structure support pays attention to volunteers' hard work and encourages them to work to share free knowledge. These projects therefore go a long way in enriching local language content, and keeping volunteer communities interested and engaged with their respective Wikipedias. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">You may also read the full report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:A_Comparative_Analysis_of_Article_Creation_Campaigns_on_Wikipedia"> here. </a></p>
<p><strong><br /><br /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india-part-ii'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india-part-ii</a>
</p>
No publishersneha-ppA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-06-11T10:54:37ZBlog EntryUpdate on Publisher’s Copyright Infringement Suit Against Sci-Hub and LibGen in India
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/update-on-publisher2019s-copyright-infringement-suit-against-sci-hub-and-libgen-in-india
<b>Anubha Sinha provides a summary of the progress of the copyright infringement suit against Sci-Hub and LibGen in India. This article was first published in InfoJustice on March 8, 2021. </b>
<p>This blog post is an update on the copyright infringement suit filed
against Sci-Hub and LibGen in the Delhi High Court by Elsevier Ltd,
Wiley India, and American Chemical Society.</p>
<p>In the first hearing in December, while the court ordered Sci-Hub to
stop making new unauthorised uploads of the publishers’ content, it
allowed the existing links to stay on, noting it was not urgent to
remove content relating to decade-long infringing activity. LibGen did
not appear before the court.</p>
<p>Indian science and academia realise that their right to research is
at stake. In January, several Indian scientists and advocacy
organisations applied to intervene in the case, to persuade the court to
not issue an interim or permanent injunction for dynamic blocking of
the websites.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/rsidd120/status/1347227162395303939">One</a>
of the written submissions (filed by twenty scientists and a public
health advocacy organisation) states that the two websites are the <em>only</em>
access to educational and research materials for a big community of
Indian researchers, scientists, teachers and students. And these have
become indispensable during the pandemic.</p>
<p>This submission also highlights the position of leading science academies in the country – who in 2019 had <a href="http://www.insaindia.res.in/pdf/Publication_of_Literature.pdf">advocated</a>
for making public-funded research openly accessible, as well as
recognition of the affordability and availability problem in India’s <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india/">current draft</a>
science, innovation, and technology policy. It shares analyses of the
monopolistic barriers in academic publishing and extractive pricing, and
their crippling impact in the Indian context.</p>
<p>They further argue that since the use of the websites is for
research, which expressly falls within the ambit of statutory fair
dealing, the charge of copyright infringement is not sustained. Nor have
the publishers shown that Sci-Hub or LibGen users exploit the material
for commercial gains. Additional legal support has been drawn from the
DU photocopying judgment, Article 8(1) of the TRIPS Agreement, and
jurisprudence around website-blocking in India.</p>
<p>In the hearing that followed, the judge noted that the issues in the
case were ‘a matter of public importance’; hence, the court would hear
all interested parties before issuing any new orders. LibGen still
remained unrepresented, with the court noting that it had not been
served properly yet.</p>
<p>At the time of writing this, Sci-Hub had filed its written statement
(not publicly accessible yet). Alexandra Elbakyan has separately shared
some thoughts on the case in an interview <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/interview-alexandra-elbakyan-sci-hub-elsevier-academic-publishing-open-access/">here</a>.</p>
<p>Given the gamut of contentions, the case judgment will have
implications for Indian copyright aspects such as: meaning of the
statutory exemption for research and scope of fair dealing, and bar on
circumventing technological protection measures – all while having to
toe the WIPO Internet treaties, Berne Convention, and the TRIPS
Agreement. Hopefully, these will be grounded in reflections on
exploitative state of academic publishing system, duties of academic
publishers, and distinction between piracy and sharing online.</p>
<p>The judgment will add to the state of our learning and research
needs, and how copyright policy can support that, as this is the first
time Sci-Hub and LibGen have been taken to court in a developing
country.</p>
<p><em>Note:</em> For an in-depth analysis of the social dimensions of the matter, please read this <a href="https://osf.io/6yph7/">document</a> prepared by Like-Minded IP Teachers’ Working Group on Intellectual Property and Public Interest.</p>
<p>Access the article on InfoJustice <a class="external-link" href="http://infojustice.org/archives/42977">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/update-on-publisher2019s-copyright-infringement-suit-against-sci-hub-and-libgen-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/update-on-publisher2019s-copyright-infringement-suit-against-sci-hub-and-libgen-in-india</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaLimitations & ExceptionsCopyrightAccess to KnowledgeCourt Case2021-04-28T17:28:47ZBlog EntryThe STI Policy Proposes a Transformative Open Access Approach for India
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india
<b>Anubha Sinha explains what the draft national Science, Technology and Innovation policy means for open access to scientific literature for Indians. This article was first published in The Wire Science on January 21, 2021.</b>
<p>Indians may soon be able to read scientific papers for free.</p>
<p>Reading scientific papers is currently an expensive affair. Many
scientific journals charge a couple of hundred dollars for a single
article. Under a proposed ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ plan of India’s
fifth (draft) Science, Technology and Innovation (<a href="https://dst.gov.in/draft-5th-national-science-technology-and-innovation-policy-public-consultation">STI</a>)
Policy, the government will negotiate with journal publishers to enable
access for everyone. The policy also suggests that research produced in
Indian publicly funded institutions be made freely accessible to
everyone, at the time of publication.</p>
<p>These proposals are a big shift in how we learn and do science, as a country. The previous edition of the policy (<a href="https://icar.org.in/files/sti-policy-eng-07-01-2013.pdf">2013</a>)
did not even recognise affordability or availability of scientific
literature as problems. While ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ could
alleviate this issue partly, its success will depend largely on how
negotiations with publishers materialise. The approach is uncommon: it
has been tried in two countries, with limited success, as I <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/india-research-publishing-open-access-one-nation-one-subscription-k-vijayraghavan/">discussed here</a>, in an analysis of the idea’s feasibility.</p>
<p>While it is crucial for people to be able to access locked-in research,
it is equally important to address the practices that prevent research
from being openly accessible in the first place.</p>
<p>The STI policy prescribes a green open access (OA) approach to ensure
that research output and data produced with public funds are immediately
accessible to the people – as opposed to taxpayers funding the research
and paying again to access the results. Under green OA, researchers
will be obligated to place their publications and data in online
repositories, without any restrictions on how the output may be used.</p>
<p>Individual research and funding agencies, such as the Departments of
Science & Technology and of Biotechnology, the Indian Council of
Agricultural Research and the Wellcome Trust adopted green OA a while
ago. A national STI policy stands to provide an extra impetus to adopt
and enforce it.</p>
<p>These promising shifts come at a time when the biggest research publishers have launched a <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/academic-publishing-access-elsevier-sci-hub-alexandra-elbakyan-libgen-copyright-claims-delhi-high-court/">copyright infringement lawsuit</a>
in India to block Sci-Hub and LibGen on the Indian web. Sci-Hub and
LibGen host copyrighted and paywalled research articles and ebooks.
Anyone can download this material for free from their servers. As such,
these ‘shadow libraries’ serve a vital function for everyone, and the
Delhi high court <a href="https://spicyip.com/2021/01/issues-in-scihub-case-a-matter-of-public-importance.html">has already deemed</a>
this litigation to be one of public importance. The Indian scientific
research community will be intervening as well. While the case will
proceed at its own pace, it would definitely be in the public interest
for the STI policy to implement green OA as a mandatory requirement.</p>
<p>It is also notable that the policymaking process was a <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/sti-policy-2020-dst-psa-ease-of-doing-research">collaborative effort</a>
by academics, scientists and policymakers. There were multiple thematic
consultative rounds with stakeholders. It has been heartening to see
the results of a democratic consultation reflected in our national open
access approach.</p>
<div>However, as is the case with high-level policies, bringing meaningful
implementation often requires more operational and committed work at
all levels. It would be a shame to not capitalise on the direction and
vision of OA as described in the policy.</div>
<div> </div>
<p>Access this article on The Wire Science <a class="external-link" href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india/">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/the-sti-policy-proposes-a-transformative-open-access-approach-for-india</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2021-04-28T17:22:43ZBlog EntryWikipedia in the Classroom: A Study of the Wikimedia in Education at CHRIST (Deemed to be University)
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university
<b>This is a short study on the Wikimedia in Education (WIE) at Christ University, Bengaluru, which aims to offer an overview of the key objectives and challenges of this project and map its impact on teaching-learning practices in multilingual classrooms. The report has been authored by Ananth Subray, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and external review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020.
</b>
<h3>Introduction</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The growth of collaborative and open access platforms such as Wikimedia over the last decade has opened up new avenues to think about access to open educational resources by people across the world. The <a href="https://wikimediafoundation.org/our-work/education/#:~:text=At%20the%20Wikimedia%20Foundation%2C%20we,projects%20for%20their%20learning%20objectives.&text=Key%20pillars%20of%20our%20education,Reading%20Wikipedia%20in%20the%20Classroom.">Wikimedia in Education</a> (WIE) is one such instance of a collaborative effort undertaken with educators and learners across the world, to promote knowledge equity and rethink digital forms of pedagogy, both inside and outside the classroom. The Wikimedia movement has collaborated with <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Community/Countries">diverse partners</a> around the world as part of WIE. These collaborators are using Wikipedia as part of educational content, with the objective of enabling better access to content, fostering various skills among students and augmenting content on Wikipedia in local languages As part of this program, students work on new articles, improve existing ones or work on sister projects of Wikipedia such as <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a> and <a>Wikidata</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In 2011, the first <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program">pilot Education Program</a> in India was started with the help of the Wikimedia Foundation in Pune. The following were some of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:India_Education_Program#Update_on_India_Education_Pilot">motivating factors </a>: </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">“India has the world's largest youth population of 1.2 billion people and it has 28 languages with hundreds of dialects.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Consumption and creation of content on the Internet is growing fast in India. In 2018, India had over 480 million internet users across the country.[1] </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">There are 23 Indic languages Wikipedias - but they all have limited content compared to English Wikipedia. The average article count is less than 40,000. There are many strong reasons to increase participation from India - and that is a primary objective of the India Education program.”</p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Later in 2013, after an <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Education_Program/Pune_Pilot_Program_lessons#Motivation">assessment</a> of the pilot project in Pune, discussions with CHRIST (Deemed to be University) in Bengaluru were initiated by <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K">Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge</a> (CIS-A2K). After preparing a detailed plan about Wikipedia in Education and CHRIST, the program was started with the help of community members, faculty members from the Department of Languages and people from CIS-A2K. Some of the main objectives of the program were to [2] : </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Strengthen critical thinking skills in students;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop language proficiency in terms of cohesively presenting an idea or concept;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop the ability to closely read/assess information or data;</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Develop the ability to collaborate in a team environment; and</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Cultivate the ability to be a producer of knowledge than a passive consumer.</p>
</li></ul>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-57e1c6bd-7fff-a7b1-77b4-a05f6596ee67"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">CHRIST has been running Wikipedia in Education for the past 7 years. This study aims to understand the progress of this initiative, and its opportunities and limitations so far, especially with respect to Indian educational institutions engaging with a virtual community through Wikipedia. In particular, students, teachers, and other stakeholders have been an integral part of this online community at CHRIST.</p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Context</h3>
<div> </div>
<p>“ Wikipedia is the best tool available to us to go digital. We are happy that Wikipedia <span style="text-align: center;">builds in the process and our students also learn.”<br /></span><span style="text-align: center;"> - Dr Anil Pinto, Registrar, Christ University</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia is a collaborative knowledge platform, with a vision to "imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge”.[3] The word "Wikipedia" is derived from the Hawaiian word wiki, meaning "quick" and encyclopedia. Wikipedia's articles provide links designed to guide the user to related pages with additional information. Wikipedia is written collaboratively by a community of language speakers. Wikipedia currently has more than 54 million articles in more than 300 languages and is supposed to be the largest reference website in the world.[4]</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">After the effort of the Wikimedia Foundation in initiating a pilot program at Pune, a similar collaboration was discussed between CIS-A2K and CHRIST (Deemed to be University). As both institutions have a keen interest in developing content in Indic languages on the Internet, it was an encouraging factor for this collaboration They discussed the various ways in which the program can engage students of the university, including promoting content creation in natural sciences in regional languages, publishing CHRIST (Deemed to be University) books on Wikisource, digitising old/ rare books, in addition to editing and creating articles, especially in their subject areas of study.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Faculty members from the Department of Languages supported the initiative, with the following objectives in mind [5]: </p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Modern forms of teaching/learning such as learning/contributing to Wikipedia are a life-long process that learners can access anytime and anywhere. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Information explosion is an ever-increasing phenomenon, and it is imperative to be able to access such information easily. Modern education should meet the needs of a diversity of learners, and Wikipedia being an open platform may be an important aspect in meeting this need. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Open knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia are a crucial component of the information society so individuals should possess technological literacy and grasp digital tools of teaching/learning so as to access them easily. </p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Later in November 2013, CHRIST & CIS-A2K signed a <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-a2k-mou-christ-university">Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)</a> to officially start a <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University">Wikipedia in Education initiative</a> to introduce the creation/editing of Wikipedia articles as a component of the Continuous Internal Assessment (CIA) for all undergraduate students studying Kannada, Hindi or Sanskrit as a second language at the university. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Around 900 students were involved in this project in the first iteration. To monitor and train the students the position of Class Ambassadors was created, where two students proficient in the language were selected and given special training to help their peers in the class. The participating students themselves decided upon the topics of the articles to be created/edited by them. Since then every year the WIE at CHRIST has been modified according to the requirement of different stakeholders after undertaking a needs assessment.</p>
<div> </div>
<h3>Research Method and Questions </h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">This study is qualitative in nature, with a focus on key stakeholders of the program, and explores the experience of the participants (student, teacher, trainer, and Wikipedian) to understand their learnings from this experience. Interviews were conducted with students, community members, faculty members, and members of the CIS-A2K team to understand their perspectives on different aspects of the project. A total of 14 interviews were conducted, which included 5 faculty members, 6 students, and 3 community members who were involved with the program in the earlier days of Wikipedia in Education at CHRIST. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The research questions of the study are as follows: </p>
<ul><li>What were the motivations and challenges for different stakeholders (students, faculty and community members) in conducting and participating in the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> at CHRIST (Deemed to be University)? </li><li>What was the impact observed by these stakeholders as a result of their engagement with this program, (including personal changes/improvements if any)? </li></ul>
<p>The responses were then analysed to consolidate a set of observations about the program. </p>
<p> </p>
<h3>Observations</h3>
<p><strong>Benefits of using Wikipedia in teaching</strong></p>
<p>Using Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool trains students on how to share information related to advanced topics in every discipline with the general audience in an effective manner, as this is sometimes not covered in academic training. Teaching this style of writing is helpful and has a high impact on the way information is accessed by most readers regularly. As the readers and consumers of information on the Internet are increasing day by day, it also offers a lot of scope for students to add content on diverse topics. The first step for CHRIST towards incorporating Wikipedia in the curriculum was to understand that it can be used as an educational tool, for the benefit of the students, such as improving digital literacy skills, writing skills and using the local language on the internet.</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>How to inculcate Wikipedia in higher education?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">When the WIE was started at CHRIST, there was a small change in the plans for the course and the continuous internal assessment (CIA). Students contributed to Wikipedia projects by making edits or creating articles, proofreading pages on Wikisource, etc. Here faculty members or community members with the help of the CIS-A2K team introduced the students to Wikipedia and its interface, and also monitored the student's <a href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University#Reports">activity and progress</a>. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Students created articles related to subjects of their specialisation, and academic topics which are mostly read by the students of the same age group. Since these sets of articles are widely read, it attracts the attention of the Wikipedia communities. They correct mistakes if any and teach the students basic aspects of editing and article creation. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia in Education is facilitated with the help of a faculty member who is familiar with Wikipedia and its community. Having faculty members with no experience in editing Wikipedia is not efficient and as they can't effectively use Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool. Also, it will be difficult to answer the students’ queries and properly guide them. While it may not be possible for faculty members to equip themselves with advanced skills, they are encouraged to learn the basic aspects of Wikipedia before teaching the students. This gives them the confidence to respond to the concerns of the students in doing assignments on Wikimedia platforms.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> Changes made in the WIE at CHRIST based on the students’ feedback and community requirements are as follows[6]:</p>
<table class="plain">
<thead>
<tr>
<td>
<p>Year</p>
</td>
<td>
<p> Changes made in the program at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) over the last 7 years</p>
</td>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2013-14 </p>
</td>
<td>
<div>
<ul><li> Wikipedia in Education was started to increase the awareness about the Wikimedia community among students. </li></ul>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2014-15 </p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li>The use of sandbox was explained and it was introduced to students</li></ul>
<ul><li>A peer review system was started to enhance the quality of the work</li></ul>
<ul><li>New evaluation methods were adapted. </li></ul>
<ul><li>Wikisource was Introduced to the students.</li></ul>
<div> </div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2015-16</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">A certificate course & Wikimedia internship was introduced to attract more students to the Wikimedia world.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Ambassadors were selected to have multiple touchpoint systems. </p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2016-17</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li> Different methods were chosen to increase awareness of the work done by the students, such as social media promotion. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Students were involved in a <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">national conference</a> to meet different community members. </p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2017-18</p>
</td>
<td>
<div> </div>
<ul><li> Community members were involved in different steps. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Faculty members started to do the evaluations of the articles.</p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p>2018-19 </p>
</td>
<td>
<ul><li> New methods were adopted to promote the work done at the University.</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p dir="ltr">Community members started reviewing the articles written by the students.</p>
</li></ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p> <span style="text-align: justify;"> </span> </p>
<p> <strong>How is students writing a Wikipedia article for their assignments helpful in achieving larger learning objectives? </strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Wikimedia in Education opened up a number of ways in which students get to choose and work on their favourite topics, areas of interest, and aid teachers in designing new and innovative assignments. </span><span style="text-align: justify;">Faculty members have also found different tools to evaluate the assignment, </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/">track the student’s work</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> and to spot </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://copyvios.toolforge.org/?lang=en&project=wikipedia&title=Draft%3AVaval%2C_the_King_of_Carnival&noredirect=1.">plagiarism </a><span style="text-align: justify;">of assignments among students. Writing assignments on a Wikimedia platform helps students to understand the importance of group collaboration and teamwork. Wikipedia helps the faculty members to imbibe group collaboration among students and monitor individual progress with the help of "</span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:User_contributions">User contribution"</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Some of the tools developed by the Wikimedia Foundation, such as the </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/">Program & events dashboard</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> help aculty members to evaluate the work of the students and monitor each edit done by all the students. </span></p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-ca68618f-7fff-bb2c-3fb3-d799168d67ed"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> <strong>How is Wikipedia in Education helpful for community members? </strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">A group of 20-25 students from over 1000 students from each batch contributing to various topics on Wikipedia helps the community to generate </span><span style="text-align: justify;">more content</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> and enhance the usefulness of the Wikipedia projects that have been engaged with as part of the program. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The content created as part of the WIE is reviewed by language experts and subject experts which helps the community to create more quality articles in less time. Since the articles created by students are in the sandbox, after reviewing these articles they are moved to the main <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_is_an_article%3F#Namespace">namespace</a> by the community members with minor changes. In Wikimedia in Education, more students gain skills and knowledge related to Wikipedia which can result in a good number of student volunteers in the community and potential long-term contributors. Some of the students make it a hobby to write articles on Wikipedia even after completing the course; this increases the potential of having more long-term contributors and helps to strengthen the existing community.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Last but not least, it has benefits beyond the Wikipedia community and classroom. Wikipedia content is under a free license for the entire world. As such, the students' work translates into aiding all those who use Wikipedia — which, as recent studies indicate, means most Internet users.[7]</p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>What do students think about Wikipedia assignments?</strong></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Some students communicated that they are very confused about Wikipedia, and some feel it is easy to contribute and engage with it. Some students shared that they initially faced difficulty but when a faculty member helped them clear their doubts, it enabled them to improve their perception of learning this tool. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">The majority of the students who responded to interviews prefer a </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Education/Countries/India/Christ_University#CIA%E2%80%99s">Wikipedia assignment</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> over a traditional one when they are provided with frequent training on how to contribute to Wikipedia. The students who disliked the assignment usually noted that it was more difficult than just writing a regular paper in an offline word processing software. Those who liked the Wikipedia assignment commented that their project resulted in an above-average group paper that would be seen and appreciated by others. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Some of the students at the university appreciated Wikipedia in Education as their work is read by the wider public, and the fact that they are creating useful digital content on the internet, rather than just writing assignments on paper to be read by faculty members. </span></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>Limitations of the program</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Despite its many positive aspects, the project comes with certain limitations as well. Students may or may not be well versed with the language, especially with respect to the community standards on quality and expectations of active community members, and they may not be able to create the article as per the same. In this situation, sometimes the community may get annoyed by looking at such articles. Trainers/faculty members should pay more attention to these kinds of students or class ambassadors to guide these students in the whole process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">During the orientations, some of the students may not pay attention properly and won't follow the instructions, which leads to incorrectly prepared articles and edits. Also, students may vandalise the Wikipedia pages while contributing and burden the communities. In such cases, the trainer/faculty members should monitor them thoroughly with the program & events dashboard and correct them if any students vandalise a Wikipedia page. </p>
<p><span id="docs-internal-guid-e399ec4c-7fff-a5f4-3175-ea2384052e02"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3>Conclusions and Recommendations</h3>
<p>This study helped us understand the challenges and advantages observed by the students with both the opportunity and access to Wikipedia platforms to communicate on advanced topics in science/higher education to the general public. One observation from the students who took part in the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> was that they had improved their own capacity to assess the quality of the material they used in order to write the articles, because of the visible nature of Wikipedia. </p>
<p>While implementing Wikipedia in Education at Christ we became aware of several aspects that should be kept in mind before introducing students to the Wikipedia movement. These are a few observations from the interviews: : </p>
<ul><li>The faculty members who are part of the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> should be Wikipedians, or at least they should know the basic aspects of editing Wikipedia, as this will help them to create more awareness and interest among the student community. If the faculty members are not well versed with Wikipedia and its editing skills it will be difficult for them to use Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool in an effective manner. Some efforts to train the faculty members of CHRIST were made at regular intervals during the program.</li><li>The number of students involved in the education program should be proportionate to the number of in-charge faculty members. This helps them give more attention to the students and they will be able to learn more about Wikipedia. </li><li>In order to help the students learn and contribute effectively, , they need to be trained at regular intervals and provided with the user manuals/videos, etc. This will enrich the student's knowledge about Wikipedia and editing skills. Also, monitoring the students will be helpful to know the progress of the student's activity. </li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Wikipedia has articulated <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style">style guidelines</a>, and students should be given information in detail on these at the beginning of the project, as this helps them to avoid many mistakes.</p>
</li><li>Students need to create their own illustrations/diagrams and upload them to Wikimedia Commons on a free license, and then use them on Wikipedia articles. This will help them to understand the workflow of creating an illustration and also give more value to the article. </li><li>Strategies to follow up with the students who have graduated need to be prepared before starting the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span>. This will help us to retain the interest of students who have graduated, and potentially convert them to Wikimedians who will continue to contribute in the long-term. </li></ul>
<p> </p>
<p>This short report is an attempt to consolidate and analyse our experiences and learnings from working on the <span style="text-align: justify;">WIE</span> at CHRIST( Deemed to be University) over the last few years. We have also tried to capture some of the many challenges and opportunities with initiating and building strategies for teaching-learning with Indian languages and open knowledge platforms like Wikipedia in the classroom. As we move towards increasingly online modes of pedagogy and training, we hope that these observations will be helpful in the process of building and sustaining such initiatives in education programs across various Indian language Wikipedia communities. </p>
<div> </div>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>[1] Keelery, Sandhya. “<a class="external-link" href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/255146/number-of-internet-users-in-india/#:~:text=In%202018%2C%20India%20had%20over,for%20the%20south%20Asian%20country">Total Internet Users in India.</a>” Statista, October 16, 2020. </p>
<p>[2] The objectives are as per the discussion among the stakeholders in the early days of Wikimedia in Education at CHRIST.</p>
<p>[3] “<a class="external-link" href="https://onbeing.org/programs/jimmy-wales-the-sum-of-all-human-knowledge-2/">Jimmy Wales - The Sum of All Human Knowledge.</a>” The On Being Project. Krista Tippett, September 8, 2016. </p>
<p>[4] “<a class="external-link" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About">Wikipedia:About.</a>” In Wikipedia. Accessed February 3, 2021.</p>
<p>[5] These objectives are paraphrased from the MoU signed with CHRIST ( Deemed to be) University in 2013. </p>
<p>[6] Wikimedia Meta-Wiki. “<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018_round_2/The_Centre_for_Internet_and_Society/Progress_report_form#Wikimedia_Education_Program">The Centre for Internet and Society/Progress Report</a>” Accessed February 3, 2021. </p>
<p>[7] Weiqin Chen and Rolf Reber, 2011. “<a class="external-link" href="http://122.155.1.128/icce2011/program/proceedings/pdf/C6_S14_141S.pdf">Writing Wikipedia articles as course assignment</a>” Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Computers in Education, accessed February 3, 2021.</p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Notes </h3>
<div>[1] See Annexures<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20III" class="external-link"> I</a>,<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20II" class="external-link"> II </a>and<a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/A2K_WEP_Annexure%20III" class="external-link"> III</a> for the interview questionnaires for students, faculty members and community members. </div>
<div> </div>
<div>[2] Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_in_the_Classroom:_A_Study_of_the_Wikimedia_in_Education_Program_at_CHRIST_(Deemed_to_be_University)"> here. </a></div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<h3>
<p> </p>
</h3>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<div> </div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wikipedia-in-the-classroom-a-study-of-the-wikimedia-in-education-program-at-christ-deemed-to-be-university</a>
</p>
No publisherAnanth SubrayA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:33:31ZBlog EntryContent Creation on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia
<b>This is a short study on the nature of content creation related to Punjab on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia, its challenges and opportunities, and observations and potential strategies to address the same. The report has been authored by Satpal Singh, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and external review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020. </b>
<h3><strong><br /></strong></h3>
<h3><strong>Introduction </strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of this study is to understand the challenges for content creation related to Punjab that exists on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. There are articles about Punjabi language and culture on Punjabi Wikipedia but there is a need for better understanding of the nature of this content from the perspective of the readers’ interests, coverage of topics, and quality. A large community of interested Punjabi Wikimedians have been actively working over several years to introduce Wikimedia and related projects to people across the world, including those from their own community. An important part of achieving this goal is to contribute to and build more diverse and bettergood quality content about Punjab on Wikipedia. This short study is therefore an attempt to analyse the nature of existing content, challenges in content creation/curation and outreach, and some observations and strategies to address the same.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia. It is available in around 290+ languages. There are two Punjabi Wikipedia editions, which are <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%96_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%AB%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE">Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia</a> and <a href="https://pnb.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D9%BE%DB%81%D9%84%D8%A7_%D8%B5%D9%81%DB%81">Western Punjabi Wikipedia</a>. Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia is in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurmukhi">Gurmukhi script</a> and Western Punjabi Wikipedia is in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahmukhi_alphabet">Shahmukhi script</a>. This study focuses on the Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. The Eastern edition domain came into existence on 3 June 2002, but the first three articles were only written in August 2004. There was not much contribution made during the next six years. In July 2012, it had reached 2,400 articles. Then a group of people, largely students from Punjabi University, Patiala started contributing actively on Punjabi Wikipedia, as a result of which it became an active Wikipedia in 2013, and has stayed so until date. There are currently <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8:%E0%A8%85%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%87">35, 351 articles</a> on the Gurmukhi Punjabi Wikipedia, with a number of registered users on Punjabi Wikipedia at <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8:%E0%A8%85%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%9C%E0%A9%87">36,348.</a> [1]</p>
<p dir="ltr">One group of people has been proactively involved in Punjabi Wikipedia for a long time, which is the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians">Punjabi Wikimedians User Group.</a> Apart from this, a number of people from different parts of the world also contribute to Wikipedia. Punjabi Wikimedians got affiliation as a User Group from Wikimedia Foundation in <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Affiliations_Committee/Resolutions/Recognition_Punjabi_Wikimedians">November 2015</a>. Punjabi Wikimedians was the first affiliated user group from India, and have been involved in several activities and initiatives undertaken towards content creation. They organized <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">WikiConference India in 2016</a> at Chandigarh and their members have participated in various events and conferences. They have also collaborated with other institutions in order to encourage content creation on Punjabi Wikipedia, one example is the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Punjabi_Wikimedians/GLAM/Punjabi_Sahit_Academy">collaboration with Punjabi Sahitya Academy</a>. Apart from Wikipedia, this user group is also active on <a href="http://pa.wikisource.org">Punjabi Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://pa.wiktionary.org">Punjabi Wiktionary</a>, <a href="http://wikidata.org">Wikidata</a> and <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org">Wikimedia Commons</a>. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Patiala/1">first meeting</a> of the Punjabi Wiki community was organized in Patiala on 1 February 2015. After that the community conducted various monthly meetups in different parts of the Punjab. People from the community also joined various training programs and events in different parts of India and participated in various conferences in other countries. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>Research Objectives and Method</strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">This study analyses various aspects of how content related to Punjab is created on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia. This analysis would help in understanding the gap between what kind of content presently exists and what is needed, from the perspective of Punjabi language contributors and users. The objective of this study is to understand how much content related to Punjab exists on this Wikipedia at present; what is the nature of this content, what are challenges for content creation and possible strategies to address the same. There is a broader understanding that while content is being created proactively, there is still a need to analyse its quality and prevalent gaps if any, which would encourage more contributors and readers to actively engage with Punjabi Wikipedia. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The method for this study consisted of analysis of the existing content on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia, and conversations with selected Wikimedians on their assessment of content on topics related to Punjab. The main topics for this study were articles related to the Punjab region, including culture, literature, and politics. To understand if there are specific challenges to the creation of content on these topics, interviews with a few selected long-time contributors and administrators were conducted, with an emphasis on aspects such as sourcing Punjabi language material, finding references, digitization, tagging etc. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of this study was also to understand where these conversations (undertaken as part of the study) may offer strategies to address knowledge gaps in specific areas of work. Questions were prepared and a total of five interviews of Punjabi Wiki community members were conducted. The people interviewed were chosen on the basis of their involvement and experience of working in the community.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3><strong>Observations and Analysis </strong></h3>
<p dir="ltr">There are an estimated 33 million Eastern Punjabi speakers in the world,[2] and it is a widely spoken language in India especially in Punjab state. Over 70% people have access to the internet in Punjab on the phone.[3] The main objective of this study was to understand the nature of existing content on Punjabi Wikipedia, and various challenges in content creation, coverage of topics and quality. The following were some of the main observations and learnings from the study.: </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Challenges with Lack of Existing Content</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">The conversations with selected Wikimedia contributors and users offered an insight into what Punjabi readers and online contributors think about the content available on the internet in Punjabi language, and how Punjabi Wikipedia is impactful in this scenario, especially in addressing any gaps in this area. It was found during discussions with interviewees that there are less number of Punjabi language websites in the field of language, literature, politics, and general knowledge. Most of the websites are in English language. <a href="https://punjabipedia.org/">PunjabiPedia</a> and Punjabi Wikipedia are encyclopedic websites which are providing knowledge in Gurmukhi script. Apart from this, websites like <a href="https://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Main_Page">SikhiWiki</a> are providing knowledge in the Roman script and Punjabi newspaper websites are providing their news updates in Gurmukhi script. So, Punjabi Wikipedia is one of the few available sites that offers information on a variety of topics in the local language. As a result, it may have a good viewership, but at the same time, there is also the additional problem of not having good or reliable online sources or references.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Another important point mentioned by people interviewed was that while there are 30,000+ articles on Punjabi Wikipedia and they are categorised across different topics, there is a lack of content about Punjab itself. It was suggested that, therefore, this should be an area of priority for the community to work on. Even the most viewed articles of Punjabi Wikipedia do not meet the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%95%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%A1%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%86:%E0%A8%9A%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%B2%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%96%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82_%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%88%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A8%E0%A9%87">good article criteria</a> of Wikipedia. For example, the article of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%AC">Harmandir Sahib</a> on Punjabi Wikipedia has not been written according to good article criteria, as it too has no category and it is without proper sections.[4] There are not many references in most of the important articles. Another example is the article of the tenth Sikh Guru, <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%81%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%82_%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%98#%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B2%E0%A9%87">Guru Gobind Singh</a>, which has only 2 references.[5] Apart from this, articles about cities and villages of Punjab are mostly stub articles. The total number of villages in Punjab is about twelve thousand and a good number of the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%A3%E0%A9%80:%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%9C%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%AC_(%E0%A8%AD%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4)_%E0%A8%A6%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A8%B9%E0%A8%BF%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%85%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%87_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A1">articles about these villages</a> are available on Punjabi Wikipedia. They are too small and the need is to expand those articles. There are about 7,000+ articles in the <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC%E0%A9%8D%E0%A8%B0%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%A3%E0%A9%80:%E0%A8%AE%E0%A9%81%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%A2">stub category</a>. So, such articles therefore need more work and improvement in terms of quality.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Methods of Creating New Content</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Most of the content on Punjabi Wikipedia is about other countries or regions apart from Punjab or India. One of the reasons for this is that most of the editors are doing content translation, from existing content on English or other regional language Wikipedias into Punjabi Wikipedia. In order to fill the content gap about Punjab there should be content creation specifically on topics related to the state. <a href="https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation">Content translation tools</a>, while helpful, have also contributed to the fact that people prefer translation and they use <a href="https://translate.google.co.in/">Google Translate</a> in the content tool. The tool itself is accurate and works fine with Punjabi, but the issue is that most of the people are doing only translation, as it is the easiest way to contribute. Apart from the above, it was also noted by the interviewees that editathons about other countries or cultures, while useful, are not beneficial in the immediate context. Nitesh Gill [6] observes that there should be more discussion among the community members about upcoming events or editathons. She says: “Sometimes two or more events are going on in the same time period and the same contributors take part in those activities. It should be better that with cooperation we can have one event at one time. We will grow in a better way if we do something about this.” </p>
<p dir="ltr">There is less viewership of those articles which are related to other countries or cultures apart from India, for example the article of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%9F%E0%A9%88%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%9F%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%A8_%E0%A8%AA%E0%A9%80%E0%A8%9F%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B5%E0%A9%87%E0%A8%AB%E0%A9%80">Constantine Peter Cavafy</a>. But articles of importance from the perspective of region and culture are not edited for a long time, such as the article about Punjabi storywriter <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AE%E0%A8%A8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%97">Maninder Kang</a>, which is smaller than the article of Constantine Peter Cavafy. For example, Stalinjeet Brar [7] notes that: “The article of former chief minister of Punjab, <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%AA%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BC_%E0%A8%B8%E0%A8%BF%E0%A9%B0%E0%A8%98_%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A6%E0%A8%B2">Prakash Singh Badal</a> on Punjabi Wikipedia is a relevant article. He is a remarkable personality of Punjab in the history of politics. He left his position in 2017 but the article still shows that he is chief minister of Punjab. This is our major mistake. We have to work on this aspect.” [8] He also added that the statistics of cricketers like Virat Kohli, are not updated. In this regard, we can integrate Wikidata with Wikipedia articles so one change on Wikidata can provide automatically updated data on Punjabi articles. </p>
<p dir="ltr">He also added that an assessment of existing events and initiatives, such as <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Growing_Local_Language_Content_on_Wikipedia_(Project_Tiger_2.0)">Project Tiger</a> would be useful to understand the challenges and opportunities for content creation on Indian language Wikipedias The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Project_Tiger_Editathon_2018">first Project Tiger editathon</a> happened from 1 March to 31 May 2018 and the second Project Tiger event was organised from 10 October 2019 to 11 January 2020, which was named “<a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Growing_Local_Language_Content_on_Wikipedia_(Project_Tiger_2.0)">Project Tiger 2.0</a>”. Project Tiger coordinators can assess the number of views of those articles which were created during the event and therefore arrive at a potential strategy for our target audience. It is therefore useful to undertake such an analysis and evaluation at the end of big events.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong><br /></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Strategies for New Content Creation</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"> It was observed that to fill this content gap about Punjab and its culture on Punjabi Wikipedia, the community needs to approach this topic accordingly. It was suggested by every interviewee that we have to organise an editathon to edit top viewed articles. To maintain continuity in this approach, community members should cooperate with each other. Charan Gill [9] noted that we should engage students and professors in different subjects to collaborate and work on these areas with editors. This will be helpful in producing good quality articles. The community needs to engage experts from different areas or fields. Manavpreet Kaur [10] suggests that we should focus on good article criteria when we go to a college or institution to teach students how to edit Wikipedia. For example, she notes that there were very few articles about forensic science when she joined Punjabi Wikipedia and existing content was two or three line articles. She tried to fill this gap and as a professor of forensic science, she engaged her students to edit Wikipedia content related to forensic science. So, we can have this kind of approach to fill the content gap on Punjabi Wikipedia. We should encourage colleges in Punjab and teachers to participate in this free knowledge movement. Wikimedia projects are platforms for Punjabi language community to provide knowledge in their own language. Manavpreet and Nitesh also note that there are less number of women participants in this movement. To fill the gender gap we should also focus on engaging women contributors. According to Manav, the <a href="https://wikidata-game.toolforge.org/distributed/#">Wikidata Game</a> was interesting for her, and noted that especially for new editors these types of games and editing techniques are so valuable in order to engage the younger generations of editors with this movement.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Hardarshan [11] shared his view that to engage the new generation with Punjabi Wikipedia or the broader free knowledge movement we should also work on basic articles related to the technological world. For example, articles on computers and other devices , mobile games etc. He also notes that while Punjabi Wikipedia has articles on advanced topics, most of them are translated, and not new content. But it does not have basic articles of good quality to offer an appropriate understanding of the topic. There is also a problem of translating technical vocabulary into the Punjabi language, which can be addressed by engaging experts and scholars as part of editathons and other initiatives for content creation . This way, the energy and interests of volunteers may also be harnessed with the right methods. Key members from the community can assign articles to newcomers, so that will help in further content creation. Nitesh shared her observation that “I was a beginner type volunteer at one time and later on with experience I have organised various events within my community. So, we should encourage our team members or volunteers. They can be good organisers or leaders of this movement.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">To engage students, there should be more syllabus oriented content on Punjabi Wikipedia. To bring a change in the structure, Stalinjeet suggested that we should not blindly follow policies of other languages like English and French or policies of the Wikimedia Foundation in India. We need to rethink these policies in the context of the needs of the local languages. Prioritization of editathons is also necessary, including coordination and working collaboratively on when to participate in which event. </p>
<p dir="ltr">In addition to the above, it has been noticed that it is difficult for communities with a small number of members to contribute collaboratively, so it is imperative to slowly increase the number of contributors as well. There are various Wikimedia projects that volunteers can join or they can contribute to any project according to their interest. They are not limited only to Punjabi Wikipedia. A good number of people are also active on Punjabi Wikisource as well. The need of the hour therefore, is to engage new people with Wikipedia or with this movement to make good changes to the modes of access to knowledge in Indian languages. Experienced Wikimedians should share their learnings, apart from training that is required for advanced editing.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<h3><strong>Conclusion</strong></h3>
<p>As illustrated by observations above, content creation on (Eastern) Punjabi Wikipedia faces a specific set of challenges. The people interviewed as part of this study have offered various suggestions on what can be done to address these limitations, and improve the quality of content. . Punjabi Wikipedia is an important source of information and knowledge for Punjabi internet readers due to the lack of websites providing content in the language. So, the responsibility of its reliability to provide such content in a sustainable manner is even greater. Work on creating more content on these platforms needs to be undertaken after understanding the response and ways of engagement of the readers. People today want to read less and learn more. Punjabi Wikipedia articles therefore need to be informative and include as many references as possible. A crucial gap here is also the lack of information on how to contribute to Punjabi Wikipedia in a productive and easy way. Good documentation of help pages and more frequent training would help in addressing this shortcoming as well. </p>
<p>In conclusion, the main strategy to address these knowledge gaps, as illustrated by the learnings from this study, is that we should update existing articles on Punjabi Wikipedia at priority, with a focus on expanding top viewed stub articles. A focus on quality of content is therefore more important than quantity. In addition to this, knowledge-sharing by experienced Wikipedians, diverse modes of training and engaging new contributors, and working on strategies for sustainable content creation would go a long way in addressing the content gaps on Punjabi Wikipedia. </p>
<p>Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Content_Creation_on_Eastern_Punjabi_Wikipedia">here.</a></p>
<p><strong><br /></strong></p>
<h3><strong>References:</strong></h3>
<p>[1] Statistics as of 09 February 2020, 05:32 PM</p>
<p>[2] “Punjabi, Eastern,” Ethnologue, accessed February 9, 2021, https://www.ethnologue.com/language/pan.</p>
<p>[3] Roy, C. Vijay. “In Punjab, over 70% people access the internet on the phone” The Tribune India, May 2, 2019. <a href="https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/business/in-punjab-over-70-people-access-internet-on-phone-766809">https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/business/in-punjab-over-70-people-access-internet-on-phone-766809</a>. Accessed February 9, 2021. </p>
<p>[4] As of 04 March 2021 09:59 AM</p>
<p>[5] As of 04 March 2021 09:59 AM</p>
<p>[6] She is a research scholar from Moga, Punjab and pursuing her Ph.D from University of Delhi in Punjabi literature. She has been contributing on Punjabi Wikipedia from 2015. Her remarkable contribution on Punjabi Wikipedia is that she has completed 1000WikiDays challenge, which means one article every day. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Nitesh_Gill">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Nitesh_Gill</a></p>
<div>[7] Stalinjeet Brar is from Faridkot and has been contributing on Wikimedia projects since August 2014. He is doing his Ph.D in Punjabi language and his research topic is also a comparative study of Punjabi Wikipedia and PunjabiPedia. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Stalinjeet_Brar">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Stalinjeet_Brar</a></div>
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<div>[8] As of 04 March 2021, 09:59 AM</div>
<div> </div>
<div>[9] Charan Gill is an experienced volunteer, aged 76 years old. He has been contributing on Wikimedia projects since 2008 He is the top contributor from Punjabi Wiki Community with more than 59,000 edits on Eastern Punjabi Wikipedia.. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Charan_Gill">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Charan_Gill</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>[10] Manavpreet Kaur is from Forensic science field and completed her Phd in the same subject also. She engaged with Punjabi Wikipedia in 2014 and also as a volunteer she has completed 100WikiDays challenge and has done various forms of outreach for the community. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Manavpreet_Kaur">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Manavpreet_Kaur</a></div>
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<div> </div>
[11] </span><span id="docs-internal-guid-7a568b89-7fff-2cd8-bd10-780511dc45f6">As a student of secondary school, Benipal hardarshan is one of the youngest Wikimedians from Punjabi Wiki community. He made his first edit in 2014 but is actively contributing from 2016. He is an active administrator on Punjabi WIkisource.. See: <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0:Benipal_hardarshan">https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/ਵਰਤੋਂਕਾਰ:Benipal_hardarshan</a></span>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/content-creation-on-eastern-punjabi-wikipedia</a>
</p>
No publisherSatpal SinghA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:24:21ZBlog EntryA Comparative Study of Article Creation Campaigns on Wikipedia - Part I
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india
<b>This is a short report on a comparative analysis of two prominent Wikimedia initiatives, Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger, to understand prevailing challenges and opportunities, and strategies to address the same. The report has been authored by Nitesh Gill with inputs from Suswetha Kolluru, and editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019–2020.
</b>
<h3><span id="docs-internal-guid-69ace56f-7fff-2f69-bdd5-6fd28bf1e69c"></span></h3>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Introduction </h3>
<div>
<p dir="ltr">The motive of the Wikimedia movement is to aid growth and access to free knowledge across the world. Over the last several years, apart from the online encyclopedia, Wikimedia has also developed and supported many projects, campaigns, events or edit-a-thons simultaneously on its <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Complete_list_of_Wikimedia_projects">various sister projects</a> such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, Wikisource and others. Campaigns and contests such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art%2BFeminism">Art & Feminism</a> (2014), <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Women_in_Red">Women in Red</a> (2015), <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MyLanguage/Commons:Wiki_Loves_Monuments">Wiki Loves Monuments</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Loves_Butterfly">Wiki loves Butterfly</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> (2015), <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref">#1Lib1Ref</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Project_Tiger_Writing_Contest">Project Tiger</a> (2018) etc. play a crucial role in motivating communities to create new content while working together in an organized manner. </p>
</div>
<p> The objective of this study is to undertake a comparative analysis of two projects/article creation campaigns on Wikipedia, which are <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">Wikipedia Asian Month</a> (WAM) and Project Tiger. They are both primarily online writing contests. WAM has been organised every year in November since 2015. It is an international edit-a-thon. Project Tiger is a contest which is organised in India. Several Indian language communities take part in this actively. The first iteration of Project Tiger was organized in 2018 and two iterations have taken place till date. While different in terms of the region or area of focus, both campaigns have a common goal of content creation in regional languages. The Indian Wikipedia communities’ contributions are extensive in both projects. It would be interesting to learn from both of them and also understand what works and what needs to be improved in the future.</p>
<div>
<br />
<h3>Research Questions</h3>
<p dir="ltr">As suggested by the title, the aim of this study is primarily to better understand the motivation behind long-term edit-a-thons with the help of WAM and PT. Through a comparative analysis, it will attempt to understand the participants' perspective on contributing to these types of projects, prevailing challenges and opportunities, and the knowledge gaps in content creation as well as in participation.</p>
<br />
<p dir="ltr">The objectives of this study are to :</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Understand the key motivations for volunteers to contribute to article creation campaigns/contests. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Outline the unique aspects of Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger for content creation on Wikipedia, challenges and opportunities and ways to build on the same. </p>
</li></ul>
<h2 dir="ltr"><br /></h2>
<h3>Background </h3>
<p dir="ltr">The objective of the Wikimedia movement is to facilitate the growth of free knowledge, through its various projects and platforms. Before starting Wikipedia, in 2000 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#Nupedia">Nupedia</a> was launched and on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#:~:text=Wikipedia%20was%20launched%20on%20January,other%20languages%20were%20quickly%20developed.">15 January 2001</a> Wikipedia was set up as a free encyclopedia. All the Wikimedia projects such as <a>Wikidata</a>, <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a href="https://www.wikipedia.org/">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="https://wikisource.org/wiki/Main_Page">Wikisource</a>, <a href="https://www.wiktionary.org/">Wiktionary</a>, etc. are central knowledge hubs. These are the platforms where knowledge from around the world can be found but this means it also requires participation from an active volunteer community across numerous languages. There are many ways to contribute to these platforms as a volunteer. One way is participating in an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_run_an_edit-a-thon">edit-a-thon</a>, where several volunteers can actively work together on the same platform. Edit-a-thons started just after a few years of Wikipedia’s existence. In the beginning, the main objective of the edit-a-thons was content creation; this remains the primary objective, although now they also focus on expanding/adding to existing content, thus contributing towards increasing the number of articles on Wikipedia. A prominent feature of these types of events is the interaction among experienced and new editors. The edit-a-thons can happen online as well as at physical, offline locations. In September 2004, Jimmy Wales proposed the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editing_Weekend">Editing weekends</a>’ concept which was a starting point of edit-a-thons. He started a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_Weekend">discussion</a> about spending the holidays in a common space where editors could edit or learn about Wikipedia. The event itself was not very prominent but managed to start discussions about similar events among volunteers. A few years later, in March 2009 in Sydney, the first GLAM edit-a-thon was organised at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Sydney/Powerhouse_Museum_2009-03-13">Powerhouse Museum</a>. According to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page">English Wikipedia</a>, in 2011, an edit-a-thon was organized on cultural partnerships, mainly with the <a href="https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Editathon,_British_Library/January_2011">British Library</a>, with a second series taking place later that same year. After that, it became a popular event among volunteers and every community started to organize these types of events. Gradually, Wikimedians also thought about more such campaigns in the form of edit-a-thons; these events were successful and helped achieve the stated agenda of content creation on Wikipedia. In 2013, a research study was conducted about the edit-a-thon as part of the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Learning_and_Evaluation/Evaluation_reports/2013/Edit-a-thons#Program_basics_and_history">Wikimedia Programme Evaluation</a> report, which noted its history, statistics, budget, inputs, resources and outputs etc. But so far little research has been done on particular edit-a-thons such as Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger and their impact on the growth of content on Wikipedia. </p>
<br />
<h3>Wikipedia Asian Month</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Wikipedia Asian Month is a long-duration edit-a-thon structured around specific topics. The discussion about this edit-a-thon started in 2015 during <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_project_domain">Wikimania</a>. A separate meeting was held for all the Asian language communities where the WAM proposal was presented by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:AddisWang">User:Addis Wang</a>, and endorsed by all members present. Before WAM, similar events were already being conducted but this was the first attempt to establish collaboration on a broader level with the Asian language communities. Also before this project, local Wikipedias had only a little content regarding Asia.</p>
<br />
<p dir="ltr">The aim of this project was to create more content related to Asia on the regional Wikipedias, with a focus only on new content. Diversification of content, collaboration and cultural exchange are the main objectives of the project. Small incentives like receiving <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Postcards_in_Wikipedia_Asian_Month#/media/File:Wikipedia_Asian_Month_-_Written_Postcards_at_Wikimedia_Taiwan_-_1.jpg">postcards</a> from countries that participants added content about were introduced to encourage more participation. Postcards and the badge of ‘Wikipedia Brand Ambassador’ were added to motivate the contributors. The Wikipedia Asian Month took initiative to encourage and expand participants and communities. As a member from the Punjabi community, Gaurav, notes, “Wikipedia Asian Month was a boost for the communities or Wikipedians. The prize was just a postcard, although this prize gave positive energy to participants and they created articles just for getting appreciation.” In the <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month_2015">first iteration</a>, there were around 42 participating communities out of which 11 were Indian language communities. After the first iteration of WAM, when asked about Indian language communities' participation in 2015, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/wikipedia-asian-month-2014-2016-iteration-starts-on-1-november">Addis Wang replied</a>, “Yes! As one of the largest Wikimedia communities in Asia, and maybe the most diverse community in the world, the Indic community is highly involved in the Wikipedia Asian Month since the idea was proposed during Wikimania 2015. In last year’s edition, India is the country that received the most postcards sent by Wikipedia Asian Month. Also, Wikipedian Asian Ambassadors of English Wikipedia, who created most articles during the Asian Month, are from India.” As noted in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Asian_Month/2019#:~:text=Wikipedia%20Asian%20Month%20is%20an,on%20various%20language%2Dspecific%20Wikipedias.&text=The%20first%20iteration%20of%20this,participants%20have%20diversified%20and%20expanded.">2019 by the campaign coordinators</a> , “In the past three years, over 20,500 high-quality articles have been added in more than 50 language-specific Wikipedias by more than 2,000 Wikipedia editors”, (excluding 2019). In 2020, WAM also happened in the same month, November, just like every year. </p>
<h3><br /></h3>
<h3>Project Tiger </h3>
<p>Some years ago Google initiated efforts to<a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Global_Reach/Announcements/Project_Glow_FAQ"> bridge a gap in Indian language content online</a> . They partnered with the Wikimedia Foundation who in turn collaborated with CIS-A2K and started a pilot project named Project Tiger, in 2018. Also called <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Supporting_Indian_Language_Wikipedias_Program">Supporting Indian language Wikipedias </a>in 2018, Project Tiger did well and received good participation from all the communities, which led to its second iteration in 2019. Project Tiger is a unique and recent initiative that is aimed at creating locally relevant content on Indic Wikipedias that is most searched for by users online. It is distinct from other contests because it is one of the longest running Wiki edit-a-thons, considering it runs for over 3 months with several Indic communities competing with each other. It is an online writing contest which is organised in India. Several Indian language communities take part in this actively. The project is conducted in two phases i.e, the contest includes hardware support distribution to promising volunteers and a 3-month online writing contest on Indian language Wikipedias.The first phase of the contest is the distribution of hardware support, through which 50 Laptops by Google and internet stipends are offered to 100 experienced and promising Wikimedians, who need infrastructure support to increase contributions on Wikipedia. Once the distribution is done, communities start creating articles from the list of topics provided by Google. Other than the list, the community is encouraged to come up with their own set of articles that is relevant to Wikipedia in their own language. Project Tiger, as the name suggests, is inspired by, and named after, an environmental project in India to <a class="external-link" href="https://ecolawgy.net/project-tiger-in-india-everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-project-tiger/">save tigers.</a> Similarly, Wikipedia’s Project Tiger aims at nurturing locally relevant content on Indic language Wikipedias.</p>
<div> </div>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Methods</h3>
<div>
<p dir="ltr">The primary method for this study consisted of interviews with community members who participated in either of the projects or who knew about both. These interviews were conducted via phone calls as well as in written form via a questionnaire/survey. The observations from the study are descriptive and include direct quotations (with the permission) of the participant. Due to a shortage of time and availability of community members, only a limited number of interviews have been conducted for the study. These interviewees were selected primarily based on their active participation or their contributions in their regional language Wikipedia. The interviews were conducted with participants from Assamese, Bengali, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Punjabi, Santali, Tamil language communities from India. These interviewees also include the main organizers of WAM. The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fountain_tool">fountain tool</a> developer was also interviewed as part of the study because the tool is a common factor in both the projects. Questionnaires varied depending on the category of respondents, such as participants, contributors, local and international organisers, developer etc. A total of 17 interviews were conducted for both projects. 9 interviews were conducted with the WAM international team, local organisers and participants and 7 interviews with PT organisers and contributors, and one with the fountain tool developer. The interviews were conducted in English, Hindi, Punjabi and Telugu. A consent form was shared with all the interviewees, including permission for recording the interviews. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The data collection was followed by a comparative analysis of Wikipedia Asian Month and Project Tiger. These both are pilot contests which have some similarities, but also some unique aspects. We compared the objectives, scope, process, communication, communities, languages, content, and achievements of these two projects. Data for this was primarily collected through the interviews mentioned above, but also a review of the event pages, and a random sampling of <a href="https://pa.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A8%B5%E0%A8%B0%E0%A8%A4%E0%A9%8B%E0%A8%82%E0%A8%95%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%B0_%E0%A8%97%E0%A9%B1%E0%A8%B2-%E0%A8%AC%E0%A8%BE%E0%A8%A4:Nitesh_Gill#Invitation_from_Wikipedia_Asian_Month">talk pages</a>, <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month">reports and statistics</a> on these projects available on Wikipedia. These two projects have similarities, differences as well as some limitations. This comparison would help in understanding the importance and need for these types of contests. The motive for the comparison is to better understand the strategies of both projects which focus on increasing the content in local languages. These learnings may inform the process of working on the next iteration of these projects. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><a class="external-link" href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india-part-ii">Part II</a> of this post will look at some of the observations and learnings from this report. </p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/a-comparative-study-of-wikimedia-article-creation-campaigns-in-india</a>
</p>
No publisherNitesh Gill and Suswetha KolluruA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-06-11T10:56:40ZBlog EntryResearch Studies on Indian Language Wikimedia Projects 2019-21
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects
<b>This is a compilation of the final reports from a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2019-2021, on an array of topics related to Indian language Wikimedia projects. The projects were undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, Bodhisattwa Mandal, Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, Ananth Subray, Satpal Dandiwal and Nitesh Gill, with research oversight and editorial support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and internal review by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Ambika Tandon.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">See the full report on Wikimedia Commons <a class="external-link" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Research_Studies_on_Indian_Language_Wikimedia_Projects.pdf&page=1">here</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Click to download the full report <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects" class="internal-link">here</a></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Wikipedia and its many sister projects have been rich sites of study for researchers across the world for many years now. The online encyclopedia presents a microcosm of the real world in terms of the dynamics of knowledge production and use, including content and infrastructure, and community interaction among many other things. Research about Wikimedia projects and platforms has been undertaken in various languages, and from multidisciplinary perspectives, as illustrated by the research index on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, and several important publications over the last several years. Research on Indian languageWikimedia projects and platforms, and on topics related to the sub-continent have also emerged significantly over the last several years.However, as understood in the course of the studies in this compilation as well, awareness about such research within the communities itself remains limited. While there is a lot of important work being undertaken on topics relevant to Indian Wikimedia projects, often by researchers who are Wikimedians themselves, factors such as dissemination beyond academic spaces, and accessibility in terms of language and context seem to also affect their availability to the larger communities, and in terms of implementation of learnings and recommendations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The six short-term research studies undertaken by the Access to Knowledge team over 2019–2021 were therefore initiated as a pilot, an initial foray into the space of research on Wikimedia projects in India. Based on the recommendations of the Wikimedia Foundation, this work was undertaken primarily to tap into new areas of work, while also drawing upon existing expertise at CIS, and in order to build the capacity of the team. With these broader motivations in mind, the research was structured with the following objectives to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Identify knowledge gaps, challenges, and opportunities in different aspects of content creation and participation in Indian language Wikimedia projects.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Develop a better understanding of systemic issues such as gender bias in Indian language communities, access to and reuse of cultural content, open learning in multilingual classrooms, and specific experiences of content creation within Wikimedia communities in India and associated initiatives.</li>
<li>Develop recommendations and best practices towards addressing existing challenges and optimising available resources for the larger free knowledge movement.</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The studies in this compilation therefore examine different aspects of Wikimedia platforms and projects in India, in close alignment with existing work in the programme. These include the gender gap in Indian Wikimedia communities, creating multilingual and open educational platforms and resources, focus on specific projects such as GLAM and Wikidata, and efforts and challenges with content creation, access and outreach in specific language communities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Working on these studies has been a learning experience, especially given the diverse contexts in which the projects are located, and the capacities and interests of the researchers themselves. The design of the studies was also therefore developed and modified to build on existing capacities within the team, and its learnings from previous years of working with various language communities. Capacity-building for team members on research design, methods, fieldwork and documentation was mostly done through close individual supervision and collaborative work. The methods used were largely qualitative, and ranged from interviews, literature reviews, data visualisations, focused group discussions and comparative analyses. The effort was also to try and capture the scale and diversity of the nature of work being undertaken in different Indian language communities through these projects. There were several challenges as well, beginning with framing the research questions and project design in a way that they were accessible to a wider community of people who would be engaged in contributing their inputs towards the work. Process-related challenges, such as translation of interview questionnaires into Indian languages revealed several interesting gaps, such as the lack of technical terms related to digitization or open access in these languages. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 led to restrictions on field visits, thus effectively hampering in person conversations and easier access to community members.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There have been several learnings in the course of working on these studies, key among them being questions of awareness, relevance and impact. The lack of existing and easily accessible research (including those outside academic work) on several areas of Wikimedia in the Indian context has been a limitation in many ways, offering little in terms of available knowledge and best practices to work with. The limited awareness about, and imagined relevance of research in the regular work of communities has also been an impediment. As illustrated by learnings from a short research needs assessment carried out earlier this year, few community members were aware of research on Wikimedia projects being undertaken in India, and on a global scale. More importantly, there needs to be a conversation on its relevance to their own work, and to the larger movement. An effective communication strategy for research work, in different Indian languages, would perhaps address some of these gaps. A closely related question is also that of impact. The studies in this collection largely focus on short-term impact, through best practices and recommendations that may be developed through the research studies. While this is definitely a pragmatic approach, often the interest in a problem-solution design may look at research purely from an instrumental lens to identify quick solutions and their implementation, without a critical take on exploring and understanding larger, systemic or structural gaps that may be contributing to the problems itself. Going forward, it would be imperative therefore to identify areas of research, and build processes of research design that may address these challenges. Given the dynamic nature of Wikimedia, its platforms and communities, it is important to identify immediate gaps and possible solutions, but also to speak precisely to this aspect of long-term impact and relevance, to both current areas of work and the growth of the larger movement. We hope the studies in this compilation offer some insights towards these, and many more interesting questions related to research on Wikimedia and the free knowledge movement in India.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-studies-on-indian-language-wikimedia-projects</a>
</p>
No publishersnehaCIS-A2KAccess to KnowledgeWikimediaWikipediaA2K Research2022-10-21T12:59:55ZBlog EntryResearch Publishing: Is ‘One Nation, One Subscription’ Pragmatic Reform for India?
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-publishing-is-2018one-nation-one-subscription2019-pragmatic-reform-for-india
<b>Anubha Sinha examines the feasibility of the proposed 'One Nation, One Subscription' approach in the draft national Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (2020) on access to scientific literature. This article was first published in The Wire Science on October 23, 2020.</b>
<p>The story of open access (OA) publishing in India has been a chequered
one. While we have had some progress with institutional initiatives, the
landscape remains fractured without a national OA mandate. And now <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02708-4">some reports</a>
suggest that the Indian government is considering striking a ‘one
nation, one subscription’ deal with scholarly publishers for access to
paywalled research for all of India’s citizens. Only last year, India
had <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/plan-s-open-access-scientific-publishing-article-processing-charge-insa-k-vijayraghavan/">decided against joining Plan S</a>. K. VijayRaghavan has been at the helm of these decisions, as the principal scientific advisor to the Government of India.</p>
<p>OA refers to the level of access different people have to a published
paper, like a scientific paper. Typically, a researcher submits their
manuscript to a journal to consider for publication. If the paper passes
peer-review, the journal publishes the paper in its pages, and online.
In the ‘conventional’ research publishing model, a reader who wishes to
read the paper pays a fee to the journal to do so. In the (gold) OA
model, the journal makes its money by having the researcher – or their
funder – pay to have their paper published.</p>
<p>While it is heartening to see the momentum towards settling on a
suitable OA approach, the ‘one nation, one subscription’ scheme is a
curious proposition for India. A consortium of Indian science academies
had <a href="http://insaindia.res.in/pdf/Publication_of_Literature.pdf">recommended it</a>
last year. The scheme entails the Government of India to negotiate for
and purchase a single, unified subscription from a consortium of
publishers of scientific books and journals, after which the books and
papers will be available to all government-funded institutions as well
as all tax-payers.</p>
<p>Around the world, this scheme has been implemented in Uruguay and Egypt,
while some European countries have adopted versions of it. Experts
around the world <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/03/06/plan-s-and-the-global-south-what-do-countries-in-the-global-south-stand-to-gain-from-signing-up-to-europes-open-access-strategy/">have suggested</a>
that the model could be a feasible interim solution for developing
countries. Note that both Egypt and Uruguay obtained financial
assistance from the World Bank to secure their deals.</p>
<p>In Uruguay, since 2009, citizens have enjoyed free access to (otherwise)
paywalled scientific and technological journals and platforms via the
online platform <a href="https://foco.timbo.org.uy/home">Portal Timbó</a>. However, some content remains <a href="https://gospin.unesco.org/frontend/full-info/view.php?id=1853&table=operational&action=search&order=general.country">available only</a> to scientific, academic, and educational institutions and researchers. The 2019 budget for Portal Timbó was <a href="https://richardpoynder.co.uk/Plan_S.pdf">$2.3 million</a> (Rs 16.94 crore).</p>
<p>Egypt launched its Egyptian Knowledge Bank (EKB) initiative in 2015. EKB
provides a population of 92 million people access to journals, e-books
and archives from multiple publishers across the sciences, humanities
and cultural disciplines, and has certainly benefited society. However,
the question remains whether incurring an annual expense of <a href="https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cihe/pdf/Korber%20bk%20PDF.pdf">$64 million</a>,
in 2017 (Rs 416.47 crore), in subscription costs is justified. In both
Egypt and Uruguay, it is not clear if all material is readable
immediately upon publication or whether there is a delay.</p>
<p>So what could a ‘one nation, one subscription’ deal look like for India?</p>
<p>Currently, India spends <a href="https://thewire.in/the-sciences/plan-s-open-access-scientific-publishing-article-processing-charge-insa-k-vijayraghavan">Rs 1,500 crore a year</a>
to read research via journal subscriptions (about $205 million). So
while a shift to nationwide subscription could yield a low per capita
cost of access, our limited ICT infrastructure and digital divide remain
barriers to unlocking the full potential of the deal. It is equally
crucial to ensure that the deal covers <a href="https://darchive.mblwhoilibrary.org/bitstream/handle/1912/4587/Cristiani%20PANEL_iamslic%202010.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">key journals and databases</a> – which may have to be negotiated with publishers with different types of collections across multiple disciplines.</p>
<p>Further, and perhaps more importantly, a nationwide subscription deal
will not solve for an uneven OA publishing culture among Indian
researchers. A <a href="https://thewire.in/the-sciences/plan-s-open-access-scientific-publishing-article-processing-charge-insa-k-vijayraghavan">rough calculation</a>
suggests India’s annual publishing spend is Rs 985 crore ($134.5
million), including article-processing charges (APCs) for both OA and
hybrid-OA journals (which have a mix of OA and ‘conventional’ publishing
policies). While a common national subscription could potentially lower
the cost of reading research, we don’t know if authors will still have
to pay APCs to publish their papers in publications covered by the deal.</p>
<p>Irrespective of how the deal plays out, the Indian research community is
currently divided over the issue of paying to publish. Some researchers
and disciplines argue that APCs should not be the basis for ruling out
publication in a journal – the choice should rather be balanced against
the journal’s disciplinary relevance and its ‘prestige’ factor (captured
in a controversial metric known as the <a href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/impact-factors-fail-in-evaluating-scientists-why-does-the-ugc-still-use-it/">journal impact factor</a>). In India, publishing charges are typically fronted by government grants and private funders, and it costs <a href="https://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/112/04/0703.pdf">Rs 70,000</a> on average to publish in OA journals.</p>
<p>On the other hand, OA supporters and several institutional initiatives
advocate ‘green’ OA – which requires posting the preprint version of
papers in an open online repository, often immediately after
publication. It remains to be seen whether India will unanimously decide
to adopt green OA.</p>
<p>We also need to deliberate further as to what a nationwide subscription
would mean for the country’s and the world’s OA movement. While a ‘one
national, one subscription’ plan would appear to temporarily alleviate
the financial problem of access, how far can it really go towards
solving for legal and technical barriers of access? For example, the
reader may still not have legal permissions to reuse the article, or
reuse may be prevented technically by anti-copy measures. Or should we
brush these concerns aside since the deal is somewhat of an incremental
reform for India?</p>
<p>The OA movement was conceived to address global inequality in accessing
scientific research. Would India’s position and contribution to the
movement – as a large consumer and producer of scientific research – get
sidelined? It appears that the nationwide subscription deal could
feature in India’s upcoming ‘Science, Technology and Innovation Policy’
as well. Then, to address the gaps, it is necessary to add other policy
solutions to complement the deal’s impact. The goal for a national
science policy should be to create a sustainable, longer term
environment that improves the quality of access and production of
scientific research, and does so in alignment with the values of OA.</p>
<p>Access this article on The Wire Science <a class="external-link" href="https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/india-research-publishing-open-access-one-nation-one-subscription-k-vijayraghavan/">here</a>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-publishing-is-2018one-nation-one-subscription2019-pragmatic-reform-for-india'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-publishing-is-2018one-nation-one-subscription2019-pragmatic-reform-for-india</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaOpen AccessAccess to Knowledge2021-04-28T17:09:14ZBlog EntryBridging the Gender Gap: A Report on Indian Language Wikimedia Communities
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities
<b>This research study documents the gender gap and bias in Indian language Wikimedia projects and communities, with a focus on participation by and content related to women contributors across diverse Wikimedia platforms. The research was undertaken by Bhuvana Meenakshi Koteeswaran, with editorial oversight and support by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and additional inputs from Ambika Tandon and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.</b>
<p> </p>
<h4>The full report can be read <a href="http://editors.cis-india.org/A2K_BGG_Report_2021" class="external-link">here.</a></h4>
<h4>Also read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki <a class="external-link" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Bridging_the_Gender_gap:_A_report_on_Indian_Language_Wikimedia_Communities">here</a>.</h4>
<hr />
<p>This research project is a study of how various language communities in India perceive the gender gap in their own contexts, and how the understanding of this subject has varied over time. Wikimedia characterises ‘gender bias’ on its platforms as the fact “that Wikipedia contributors are mostly male, the fact that relatively few biographies on Wikipedia are about women, and the concept that topics of interest to women are less well-covered.”[1] Studies done over the last several years have shown that ‘this gender gap’ results in not only a lesser number of women participants in Wikimedia events or number of edits by women, but also a range of such disparities in the active participation of men and women on various aspects of Wikimedia projects.These gaps vary depending on socio-cultural factors within diverse language communities, such as access to internet and digital technologies and public spaces by women, skill-building and training, labour and time available for voluntary work and development of friendly and accessible working environments.</p>
<h3>Context and Methods</h3>
<p>Previous research by Ting-Yi Chang (2018) and Eva Jadine Lannon (2013) undertaken with CIS-A2K indicate the existence of these disparities and knowledge gaps in Indian language Wikimedia communities, and emphasise that it is imperative to focus on not only representation but also quality of contributions on Wikimedia by individuals across the spectrum of gender and sexual identities. The research also offers incentives, possible outcomes and sustainable strategies needed to address this issue. In the last few years a lot more work has emerged on this issue in various language communities globally, and in India. Several Indian language communities have started to explore the need for focusing on gender gap and community health initiatives in their own contexts. Observations from these initiatives further reiterate that this gap continues to exist and there is a need to study and better understand the reasons for its prevalence.</p>
<p>As part of this study, we interviewed 15 women respondents across 13 different Indian language Wikimedia communities (including English) who contribute to several Wikimedia projects, and conducted 2 Focus Group Discussions(FGDs). The FGDs were conducted with women students from two different arts and science colleges in Tamil Nadu. The interviews and FGDs primarily helped us understand their perceptions about gender gap, the challenges that they and/or their communities experience in terms of gender bias and also the interesting initiatives set up to address these problems, both in terms of content and participation.</p>
<h3>Key Research Areas</h3>
<p>The research focussed on three main thematic areas, namely:</p>
<p><strong>Developing a better understanding of online participation - in terms of content created by women, content about women, and online engagement with communities.</strong></p>
<p>As most of the engagement with Wikimedia projects is an online activity so an analysis of the accessibility of internet and other digital infrastructures, platforms and participation guidelines were discussed. Improvements on providing support and training to access platforms would help in furthering participation to contribute to Wikimedia projects and initiatives. Restrictions on offline meetings due to the COVID 19 pandemic has further spurred a lot of online meetings and engagement. Awareness and training on the use of virtual platforms along with friendly space policies could help in creating a structured online experience on Wikimedia for the women in the community.</p>
<p><strong>Developing a better understanding of women’s offline community participation.</strong></p>
<p>Offline participation by women contributors in Indian language Wikimedia communities is an ideal space for learning new skills, working on collaborative events like edit-a-thons or a general discussion among the members of the community. Preference for independent events, discussions such as women-only forums led by women leaders/mentors were suggested by the interviewees. The difficulty of managing voluntary work with professional and domestic responsibilities, and need for support with travel and participation in offline events are some of the challenges highlighted from the interviews.</p>
<p><strong>Enhancing sustained participation of women contributors - identifying challenges with retention, infrastructural issues etc, and possibilities and strategies to address the same, and creating awareness on how women can be involved with all Wikimedia projects.</strong></p>
<p>We tried to understand what are impediments to sustaining Wikimedia contributions by and about women, and possible strategies to address the same. These include the need to encourage more efforts in areas such as detailed documentation of metrics on gender and diversity, building more awareness within communities about gender gap/bias and building relevant technological and communication skills, and addressing community health and conflict management as an important area of work and engagement.</p>
<h3>Learnings</h3>
<p>The learnings from the study offered insights into several key aspects of the problem of gender gap on Wikimedia, such as the need to encourage sustainable contributions through multiple strategies addressing challenges faced by women and other marginalised groups engaging with Wikimedia projects. This includes efforts to build awareness about gender gap and bias in Indian language communities, undertaking training to address technological and communication gaps and skills, understanding and accommodating the different demands that women editors have on their time and labour with respect to professional, domestic and care work, and according more visibility and recognition towards their efforts on Wikimedia. In addition to this, recognising and actively working towards addressing systemic power asymmetries in online platforms, by creating friendly working environments and encouraging women participants to take ownership and lead initiatives would be imperative to foster long-term and productive engagement with Wikimedia. Based on these observations, the report also offers a set of recommendations, which may also inform existing and emerging efforts to address the problem of gender bias and gender gap on Wikimedia platforms.</p>
<h3>References</h3>
<p>[1] “Gender Bias on Wikipedia”, Wikipedia, accessed November 29, 2020. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia&oldid=991093125">https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gender_bias_on_Wikipedia&oldid=991093125</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/bridging-the-gender-gap-in-indian-language-wikimedia-communities</a>
</p>
No publisherbhuvanaA2K ResearchAccess to Knowledge2021-05-15T12:26:52ZBlog EntryWIPO SCCR 41: Notes from Day 1
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-1
<b>Member states delivered opening statements and deliberated on the progress, substantive provisions, and method of work on the draft broadcasting treaty text. This blog post summarises positions and contentions that supported: 1) transparency in SCCR work 2) limitations and exceptions 3) addressing the object of protection and overbroad scope of rights in the draft treaty text. </b>
<ul><li>
<h2>Agenda Item: Protection of Broadcasting Organisations</h2>
</li></ul>
<h3 id="docs-internal-guid-2d7fdecc-7fff-4eac-fbe0-71dde65e7c7e" dir="ltr">1. Opacity around informal work on the broadcasting treaty agenda</h3>
<p dir="ltr">Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, South Africa and Chile shared their disappointment on the lack of transparency of informal meetings on the treaty text, and urged for greater openness. The informal meetings were conducted between WIPO and an ad hoc group of countries known as ‘Friends of the (SCCR) Chair’. This group currently includes Argentina, Colombia, the European Union, Finland, Germany, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, and the United States of America. The group met in April and June 2021, but Indonesia questioned whether there was a mandate for it in the first place.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Indonesia and Pakistan requested for further updates on the status of the treaty text from the WIPO SCCR Chair and Vice-Chair, especially as an outcome of the informal work. The two delegations also noted the lack of diversity and imbalance in representation in the ‘Friends of the Chair’ group. Pakistan noted that this agenda item had always had a diversity of viewpoints, and that this new mechanism was reductive and not inclusive. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The WIPO SCCR Chair’s and Vice-Chair’s response was that the ‘Friends of the Chair’ mechanism was adopted to do inter-sessional work (work between two SCCRs), in a flexible and less-time consuming manner. The Chair added that the group was <a href="https://www.wipo.int/tad/en/activitydetails.jsp?id=19871">created</a> in 2019 (i.e in the previous Chair's term). However, it should be noted that the group was created only for an “exceptional informal intersessional meeting” with the objective to “brainstorm on possible ways to make progress on the draft treaty on the protection of broadcasting organizations in view of the upcoming WIPO General Assembly and the 40th session of the SCCR which will be held in October.” Indonesia made a request to join this group, which was denied by the Chair. The Chair only assured that the concerns raised will be addressed.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">2. <span id="docs-internal-guid-645b82b3-7fff-f227-a130-9f6cbd693337">Support for adding better limitations and exceptions to the treaty text</span></h3>
<p id="docs-internal-guid-454df1d1-7fff-9cba-a70c-49e468c21149" dir="ltr">South Africa emphasised on the critical role of broadcasting organisations in transmitting information and knowledge, and cautioned that the treaty text should be balanced and not negatively impact access to information, culture and education. Iran (speaking on behalf of Asia-pacific group) highlighted the public interest stakes in the treaty and stated that the way forward was to ensure that no layer of rights is created which might affect the right to access information. Chile also was in favour of a more balanced approach that should include limitations and exceptions. Indonesia and Pakistan added that limitations and exceptions in the current text need to be addressed more properly, as they are essential provisions for digital preservation, online use and research.</p>
<h3 dir="ltr">3. A<span id="docs-internal-guid-c6bc905b-7fff-5da0-fd21-232c34ed0592">lternative legal solutions to address broadcast piracy </span></h3>
<p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-c6bc905b-7fff-5da0-fd21-232c34ed0592"></span>Canada highlighted how in its national law it provides signal protection and combats piracy without granting exclusive rights to broadcasters on transmission.</p>
<ul><li>
<h2 dir="ltr">Agenda Item: Limitations and Exceptions<br /></h2>
</li></ul>
<h3 id="docs-internal-guid-307d14ca-7fff-cec0-6174-8c8b1db618ec" dir="ltr">1. Support for Limitations and Exceptions agenda item</h3>
<p dir="ltr">India noted the importance of the limitations and exceptions agenda for the benefit of the work of libraries, archives, museums, and educational and research institutions, and shared its support for the agenda item.</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-1'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-41-notes-from-day-1</a>
</p>
No publishersinhaBroadcast TreatyBroadcastingLimitations & ExceptionsAccess to Knowledge2021-06-29T13:40:49ZBlog EntryGlobal Civil Society Coalition launches website to promote Access to Knowledge
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-civil-society-coalition-launches-website-to-promote-access-to-knowledge
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<p>CIS is a part of a global civil society coalition that is working to promote access to, and use of, knowledge - the Access to Knowledge or A2K coalition. <br /><br />Earlier this week, the coalition launched a <a class="external-link" href="https://www.a2k-coalition.org/">website</a> articulating its mission and recommendations to reform copyright systems for the benefit of education, research, and cultural heritage. <br /><br />Copyright systems pose serious obstacles to quality teaching and learning, researchers’ ability to receive and impart information and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits, and preservation and access of cultural and scientific heritage. The website presents evidence and legal solutions, with a focus on the digital and online dimension to the issues. Three global maps also show the (limited) extent to which copyright limitations and exceptions across the world support online education, text and data mining, and preservation, highlighting the need for global legal eform. <br /><br />The <a class="external-link" href="https://www.a2k-coalition.org/about/">members of the A2K coalition</a> represent a diverse set of voices such as educators, researchers, students, libraries, archives, museums, other knowledge users and creative communities around the globe. In Asia-pacific, we have ourselves and Open Access India as members presently. <strong>We invite organizations who share a similar vision of a fair and balanced copyright system to join the coalition.</strong></p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-civil-society-coalition-launches-website-to-promote-access-to-knowledge'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/global-civil-society-coalition-launches-website-to-promote-access-to-knowledge</a>
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No publishersinhaLimitations & ExceptionsAccess to Knowledgemovements2022-10-12T12:05:03ZBlog EntryWiki Women for Women Well-Being: An Initiative to Bridge the Gender Gap in the Wikimedia Community
http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-women-for-women-well-being-an-initiative-to-bridge-the-gender-gap-in-the-wikimedia-community
<b>WWWW is a project which focused on bridging the female related content gap on Indic Wikimedia communities. The idea of WWWW was given by Dr. Manavpreet Kaur, who worked with other women leaders from different communities and made a plan to engage with the editors for this project. CIS-A2K has started a series of interviews to introduce women with brilliant ideas and who have done contributions for Wikimedia and this is the first interview under the “Series of Interviews.” This Interview was done by Nitesh Gill.</b>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><img src="http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing_logo_with_text.png/image_preview" alt="WWWW logo" class="image-inline image-inline" title="WWWW logo" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;" dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-07f652f9-7fff-4cd6-7579-da065bbd298c">Image <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing_logo_with_text.svg">Source</a>: Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing logo. 30 September 2018. Author: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Satdeep_Gill">Satdeep Gill</a></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong><em>“The Wiki Women for Women Well-Being (WWWW) event proved that women should be recognized as leaders, as they can plan, design, run, and report a project as large as WWWW. We haven’t seen any other volunteer lead event bring so many communities together. Women are growing as leaders and will continue doing so.” - Dr. Manavpreet Kaur</em></strong></p>
<p dir="ltr"><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Manavpreet_Kaur">Dr. Manavpreet Kaur</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> started her journey as a Wikimedian in 2015 by participating in the </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Asian_Month_2015">Wikipedia Asian Month</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Since then, she has participated and organized events such as </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WikiConference_India_2016">WikiConference India 2016</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing_2018">Wiki Women for Women Well-being</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> (“WWWW”), </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Syberthon_2020">Syberthon</a><span style="text-align: justify;">, and </span><a style="text-align: justify;" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CIS-A2K/Events/Women_TTT_2019">Women’s Train the Trainer workshop</a><span style="text-align: justify;">. Dr. Manavpreet is a free knowledge enthusiast and a believer of education for enlightenment. She focuses her efforts on designing and facilitating programs to include more women in leadership roles in the Wikimedia community. Through a Q&A session with Dr. Manavpreet, CIS-A2K attempted to capture her experience of designing the WWWW event. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>Q&A:</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;">Thank you for taking the time to speak with us Dr. Manavpreet. </span></p>
<p><span style="text-align: justify;"><strong>We want to start off by asking you, when was the first time you thought of WWWW ?</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The event was proposed during the Wiki Advanced Training at Ranchi in 2018. This was initially planned to be a month long edit-a-thon for women by women where different Indian Communities and Maithili Communities of Nepal come together for a joint cause of creating content related to women’s health issues and also to explore women’s leadership opportunities in Wikimedia projects. Through WWWW, we attempted to train some interested women Wkimedians of different communities for outreach activities by guiding and supporting them to organize the event in their respective communities. We aimed to explore and promote women’s leadership in different languages, thus helping to bridge the gender gap along with the accomplishment of content creation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>What was the motivation behind this initiative?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">I had met many women Wikimedia editors at various events and training. I realised we never took initiatives to build women’s leadership and women centric projects. The team of WWWW realised that the most important thing was to raise awareness on women’s health concerns as we all had some shared experiences that made us realise the need. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>What was the objective of facilitating WWWW?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">We had the following objectives in mind when we designed the event:</p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">To promote content creation relating to women’s physical and social well-being in different languages</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">To build women’s leadership and women centric projects</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">To guide new women editors to lead projects and take ownership while creating information about women’s well-being.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">To train women Wikimedians of different communities to conduct outreach activities by supporting them to organize events in their respective communities. </p>
</li></ul>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>How did you prepare for this event?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">A group of interested women Wikimedians was created for online discussions, time to time updates and task management. The discussions started in the month of July 2018. Different language communities were contacted to join the program. A total of 11 languages participated. We had Netha Hussain from the Malayalam community in the team but we could not have Malayalam as a participating language community because of the Kerala floods that year. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">In August, the representatives from every community were asked to fill a google <a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_DcrQleAeo3O1zOZC_5dlq82YNmJxKDoijJ3URzJh50dTHg/viewform%7C">form</a> and a budget was planned on the basis of their submissions. The draft message was created in English and translated to Indic Languages. The same message was then floated in the mailing lists. It was also posted on village pump of different participating languages. The <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WWWW2018/List_of_articles">list</a> of articles was finalised after discussion with Diptanshu from WikiMed and Dr Rajender Prabhune from Marathi Wiki Community. Dr James Heilman also suggested a list of 107 articles.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>How did you communicate and share the plan with communities and co-organisers?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">We created a Facebook page and group for internal discussions. We organized hangout calls and hundreds of individual calls to discuss the progress and next steps. We also prepared a meta page for transparent updates and information sharing. The language project pages were created and posted on the village pump and on our mailing lists multiple times. We posted on off-wiki channels as well and sent out individual messages. Finally, we also reached out to Wikimedia Medicine to identify the priority topics. As a part of the edit-a-thon, several offline events were also organised.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>Please tell us a little about the co-organisers of the project. How did you choose and contact them?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">I reached out to different affiliates (contacts I knew) to identify the new women Wikimedians who might benefit from the training and who will be willing to work on a cumulative project. As women kept on joining, we used their network to identify the language leads. Women who were a part of the team from the very beginning, who were involved in planning, discussions, decision making, organizing and reporting were identified as Organizers and the supporting community members as Co-Organizers. Considering the capacity building aspect, only women were Leads (Organizers) but there was no such condition imposed for co-organizers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>How was your overall experience conducting this event?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">It was our first experience and it was amazing in so many ways. I believe everyone was a star performer but in different sections -- some rocked the awareness campaigns, getting expert speakers, awareness videos, scalable vector graphics, articles or partnership. The communities were also generally supportive. This event proved that women should be recognized as leaders, as they can plan, design, run, and report a project as large as WWWW. We haven’t seen any other volunteer lead event bring so many communities together. Women are growing as leaders and will continue doing so.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr"><strong>What were some of the challenges that you experienced while facilitating the event?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">We experienced a few challenges as it was the first time that we facilitated this event. These challenges definitely served as learning experiences which we will reflect on moving forward. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Some of the challenges we experienced were related to: </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Participation: </strong></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">We tried working with medical students, but every institute that initially agreed to collaborate couldn't do it because of mid-term exams of the students.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Some of the leads were new Wikimedians who had relatively less knowledge of wiki and different projects. Also, they didn't know the fellow Wikimedians from their community much which acted as a hindrance in planning an offline event.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Participants sometimes did not check the messages posted to their social media accounts. An attempt will be made to engage people in on-wiki discussions rather than forming any other group.</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Content: </strong></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Anticipating the challenges relating to the nature of the content, the team decided to expand the theme from women’s physical well-being to social well-being.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">However, it was difficult to get participants for the program because the medical terms and topics were difficult for them to comprehend. Participants were facing issues to write about them since the nature of the subject was also sensitive. Many Wikimedians were not comfortable with the idea of working on the articles listed because of the complexity of the subject and the limited understanding of information provided.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The guidelines fixed for the article quality were not easy to work on but we do not regret the decision because the article should at least cover the basics of a concern.</p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Logistical : </strong></p>
<ul><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">It is sometimes difficult to keep individuals from different regions in loop and that's where they miss the pace with which other communities progress. </p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">Timely record maintenance could have been better. There were delays in grant release that affected the way things were planned and the dashboard was faulty for some languages.</p>
</li><li style="list-style-type: disc;" dir="ltr">
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">The clash of dates of the event with Hockey edit-a-thon by the Odia community affected the WWWW edit-a-thon. The second iteration of Project Tiger was also planned around WWWW which resulted in less participation and comparatively more effort investment to get participants for our event. </p>
</li></ul>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>What is the future plan? Is there going to be a WWWW 2.0? </strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">Not in October, but the conversations have started. </p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>What is your vision for WWWW 2.0?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">More editor participation, more engagement, new women editors, continuous future cycles.</p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Anything else you want to share with us?</strong></p>
<p dir="ltr">I hope I soon have updates on next WWWW :)</p>
<p dir="ltr"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;" dir="ltr">For more information about WWWW, click <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid/Wiki_Women_for_Women_Wellbeing/Report#Goals">here</a>. </p>
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For more details visit <a href='http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-women-for-women-well-being-an-initiative-to-bridge-the-gender-gap-in-the-wikimedia-community'>http://editors.cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wiki-women-for-women-well-being-an-initiative-to-bridge-the-gender-gap-in-the-wikimedia-community</a>
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No publisherNitesh Gill and Shruti AnandanAccess to Knowledge2020-12-28T14:58:45ZBlog Entry