[Wikimediaindia-l] WMF-FDC and A2K discussion minutes
Dear All, CIS-A2K had a two day meeting with WMF FDC visiting team in its Bangalore office on 11th 12th Feb 2014. The main agenda of the meeting was: Understanding current state of A2K -- basic facts (finance snapshot, organizational context within CIS) Financial review of CIS-A2K, per grant agreement Reflection on past year - successes and challenges in activities Reflection on past year - spending vs. plan Discussion of the preparation for funding via the FDC process; QA Reflection on relationship with various communities - successes; obstacles; gaps Discussion of A2K's current resources: staff, funds, engaged volunteers; discuss actual plans; discuss path according to roadmap Meeting minutes can be found here.[1] Thanks Nitika [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O7MkN-h1lQC9oRLwX51Q2wusqBCR19e3i6jI6IWockw/edit?usp=sharing___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Team exit and hire at CIS-A2K
Dear All, It’s with deep regret that we announce the exit of Muzammiluddin Syed as Programme Officer CIS-A2K due to his personal reasons. Muzammil has been a great asset to the A2K team. CIS would like to thank him for all his valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement and particularly helping grow Hindi and Urdu Wikimedia projects and community. During his stint at CIS Muzammil also put in concerted efforts to grow the partnership at Christ University. We're hoping that he'll continue to be a part of the movement as a treasured volunteer and we wish him the best in life. In another context, CIS is happy to share that Rahimanuddin Shaik who was brought on board to work as Community Communications Consultant at CIS-A2K for 3 months will now continue as Programme Officer in lieu of Muzammil. Hence no separate hiring process will be undertaken for this position. In a short period of time Rahim has done some amazing work including building Telugu Wikipedia work plan for next year. Please join us in congratulating him and wishing him success in his new role. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] CIS-A2K's Quarterly Reports
Dear All, CIS-A2K would like to share with you Quarterly Report 1 for the time period Jul - Sep 2013[1] and Quarterly Report 2 for the time period of Oct - Dec 2014. The report provides a brief overview of the programs executed and examines impact and outcomes. Feedback can be given on main talk page of the Quarterly Report or respective language talk pages. We're extremely sorry for the delay in publishing these reports. Thanks Nitika [1 ]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Quarterly_Report_1 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Reports/CIS-A2K_Quarterly_Report_2 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] CIS-A2K Bulletin December '13
Dear all, We from the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS-A2K) thank you all for your support and collaboration and wish you a very Happy New Year. We bring you the details of our work for the month of December 2013: CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia We are pleased to share with you the key accomplishments on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013 in this report. It has been found that there has been an increased editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia, and an increase in the number of articles on Konkani Wikipedia. Konkani Vishwakosh was re-released under Creative Commons License, we initiated Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project and signed a MoU with Goa University to build Konkani Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/1l6ttmp. Article Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, DNA, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/19OAvUV. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshané. Blog Entries First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India (by Nitika Tandon, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1euwSXt. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hldNM8. We are featuring this here as we didn’t carry this in the last newsletter. Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator (by Nitika Tandon, December 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/KmxyFo. Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process (by Nitika Tandon, December 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cqKyQ2. Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1keWyya. Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects (by Nitika Tandon, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hlbubU. (2-6 are videos of participants from the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project (jointly organised by CIS-A2K and Goa University) speaking on their experiences with Wikimedia projects.) Events Organised You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop (National Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1edmx1z. Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (KBN College, Vijaywada, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i8ScnL. Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat (Moodabidre, December 19 – 22, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22): http://bit.ly/1dGTBkw. Events Co-organised Wikipedia Orientation Workshop (organised by CIS-A2K and Christ University, Bangalore, December 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lrkwEy. Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur (organised by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, Srivahini College, Tiruvur, December 19, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/1e3oQX7. It was covered by Andhraprabha (http://bit.ly/1bU5VsQ). Thanks Nitika Tandon___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Short-term assignment at CIS-A2K
Dear All, Please note that CIS-A2K is extending the last date of submitting the application to 5th November 2013. Regards, Nitika Tandon On 25-Oct-2013, at 2:31 PM, Vishnu T wrote: The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) Program invites applications from experienced Wikimedia community members for a short-term assignment as a 'Community Communications Consultant'. The duration of this assignment is for 3 months. The consultant will work with the CIS-A2K team and report to the Program Director CIS-A2K. Profile: An ideal candidate should: a) have been a Wikimedian for more than a year. b) have good understanding of and contribution on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary and Wikimedia Commons projects. c) have links with at least 5 Indian language Wikimedia community members d) have good writing skills in English and at least in 2 Indian languages e) be able to speak/read multiple (at least 3) Indian languages f) be open to receiving community review of his/her work Preference will be given to those who: a) can use python b) can use various tools for community metrics c) can actively use social media Job Description The consultant will: Do about 60 profile stories on key Wikimedians (especially those who have not received visibility beyond their language community) from all the Indian language Wikimedia communities. Revive Indian community Wikimedia Newsletter. Undertake research and produce analytical reports based on community wide metrics. Any other tasks that may be assigned by the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge. Fee and Payment The consultant will be paid a consolidated sum of about Rs. 40,000/- per month for three months. The consultancy fee will be paid after an assessment of the work done by the Consultant. The consultancy fee could be slightly negotiated based on the experience and expertise of a suitable candidate. Other Information The position is based in Bangalore and the consultant will need to work from CIS' Bangalore office. Applicants are requested to send their detailed CV with a covering letter (not exceeding 350 words indicating their motivation to take up this assignment) to vis...@cis-india.org . The last date to receive the applications is November 1, 2013. Applicants are requested to use the subject “CCC at A2K” while submitting the application Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed either remotely or in-person. Only short-listed candidates will be informed by e-mail about the interview by November 5, 2013. Vishnu ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA
Dear All, Konkani Vishwakosh is now freely available to download on Goa University's website under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0. [1] As many of you know CIS-A2K has been following up with the University for the past couple of months to re-relase the encyclopedia under CC. Upon CIS-A2K' explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. This is a great achievement for the CIS-A2K Programme and we are extremely thankful to Dr. Satish Shetye (Vice-Chancellor, Goa University) for seeing the significance of growing open knowledge movement in Goa and Konkani. Thanks are due to the GU faculty, specifically Prof. Alito Sequeira; Prof. Madhavi Sardesai; Prof. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar; and Dr. Gopakumar. A special thanks goes to Wikipedians Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick Nooronha and Seby Fernandes for their constant support. If anyone would like to receive a copy of the Vishwakosh please send us a mail off list and we'll courier a CD your way. Thanks Nitika Tandon [1] http://library.unigoa.ac.in/?q=node [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Konkani_Vishwakosh_CC___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Coverage: Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) relaunched with a free license, may boost Konkani Wikipedia
A special 'thank you' to Rohini Lakshane for working on this article. Regards, Nitika Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) relaunched with a free license, may boost Konkani Wikipedia http://www.dnaindia.com/blogs/1901806/post-konkani-vishwakosh-encyclopaedia-relaunced-with-a-free-license-may-boost-konkani-wikipedia The Konkani Vishwakosh was re-released under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license last month at an event held at Goa University, Taleigao. The digital version of the Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) will be available in a few months. Under the license, the Vishwakosh could serve as a source of reliable references for the Konkani langauge Wikipedia, which is currently under incubation. Last month, Goa University re-released a four-volume encyclopaedia, Konkani Vishwakosh under a free license. The encyclopaedia presents information about the world with an emphasis on the Konkani language, Goan culture, the folklore, history, and geography of Goa, etc. What does the open license mean? The Konkani Vishwakosh was relaunched under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Creative Commons-Attribution-Share Alike 3.0) license. The Creative Commons licenses are a legal tool for copyright owners to manage rights and permissions for their works. Under the CC-BY-SA 3.0, users are free to reuse, modify, build upon, and redistribute content from the Konkani Vishwakosh, as long as they attribute it. The same license also applies to any work created by using content from the Konkani Vishwakosh. Licensing the sources of knowledge is a way of enabling access to knowledge, especially for those who may have little or no access to it. Relevance to Wikipedia One of the cornerstones of Wikipedia is the use of citations. All writing on Wikipedia must be supported by reliable and independent references. Any editor may challenge and removed unsubstantiated content on Wikipedia. The Konkani Vishwakosh could serve as a vast and versatile source of references for articles in the Konkani language Wikipedia, which is currently under incubation. Content from the Vishwakosh could go into the building of the Konkani Wikipedia as the text on Wikipedia too is available under a CC-BY-SA 3.0 license. Digitisation of Konkani Vishwakosh The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and Goa University together have undertaken a project to digitise the Vishwakosh over a period of two months (October and November 2013). They have made a call for volunteers to type out pages from the encyclopaedia in the Devanagri script. More about the project here. Links to press coverage, and report of the launch event by CIS-A2K. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference
Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=192381 Mangalore, Oct 1: Jagotik Konknni Songhotton (JKS) organized an All-India Konkani Writers’ Conference on Sunday, September 29 at Kalaangann. As many as 78 Konkani writers from Goa, Kerala, Maharashtra and various regions of Karnataka, attended the conference. The conference was organized with the intention of bringing together writers of all the five scripts of Konkani and also to probe the possibilities of forming an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum. Roy Castelino, treasurer, JKS, welcomed the gathering. The secretary general of JKS, Eric Ozario, explained the purpose of the conference and the need for forming an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum. Tomazinho Cardozo, ex-speaker of the Goa Assembly and president, JKS, spoke about the injustices done to writers in the Roman script. Dr Pratap Naik, Konkani activist, spoke of the progress in the writ petition filed in the Goa bench of the Mumbai high court, seeking rectification of the Official Language Act of Goa, to include the Roman script. Valerian D’Souza, Marcel D’souza and Eric Ozario explained the progress in the writ petition filed in the high court of Karnataka against the Sahitya Akademi, seeking equal treatment to all scripts of Konkani. Nitika Tandon, programme manager, The Centre for Internet Society, spoke about Konkani Wikipedia and the need for the participation of the Roman and the Kannada script writers. The conference resolved to form an All-India Konkani Writers’ Forum, which would protect the interest of Konkani literature and Konkani writers of all scripts. An ad-hoc committee was formed to discuss and decide upon the immediate steps to be taken towards the formation of the Forum. A book compiling short stories written by Kevin D’Mello, Karkala, titled ‘Chondda ani Gorbh’, was also released on the occasion. Victor Mathias conducted the proceedings of the conference. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Coverage: Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia
Goa University Partners CIS India To Build Konkani Wikipedia http://www.medianama.com/2013/09/223-goa-university-partners-cis-india-to-build-konkani-wikipedia/ The Goa university has entered into a three year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building the Konkani Wikipedia, reports navhindtimes. As part of this partnership, Goa University will be uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia and the Konkani wikipedia is expected to be available in six months. It appears that the partnership with CIS India includes processes such as scanning, digitization, and creating articles as per requirement of Wikipedia. CIS India has also called out for volunteers for a period of three months to help them digitizing the Konkani encyclopedia. This is quite notable since most of the development in digitizing documents in Indian language did not include Konkani language, which is spoken in western coast of India. Besides, since the university will upload the Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia, it will allow users to search through texts. Most of the digitization projects just scan the books and upload the pages in image format, which makes it difficult to search or perform any kind of data related query. Last year in May, Wikipedians were digitizing Indian language, out-of-copyright texts online, trying to address the comparative paucity of Indic language texts online. Wikisource is a repository of documents and archived material that serves as a reference source for Wikipedia, and a means of improving access to information sources. Of the 64 languages Wikisource is available in, 8 are Indian: Tamil (stats), Malayalam (stats),Telugu (stats), Kannada (stats), Sanskrit (stats), Marathi (stats), Bengali (stats) and Gujarati (stats). Note that most of these Indian language Wikipedia’s receive active contribution from CIS India under its CIS-A2K program. Wikipedia had recorded 43.5 million pageviews in Indian language wikis, as of October 2011. In June 2013, the Hindi language Wikipedia had received monthly pageviews of 7.8 million, Tamil language Wikipedia had received 5.2 million pageviews, among others. So there’s clearly a demand to access information in local languages. That said, while more languages are being added to the list, it should be seen that the articles in these languages do not contain just one or two sentences. According to an analysis by Shijualex.in, many articles posted under Indian language Wikipedia were under 2kb, indicating that it contained only couple of sentences. Thanks Nitika___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months
Goa University to make available online Konkani Wikipedia, within 6 months http://www.jagranjosh.com/articles/goa-university-to-make-available-online-konkani-wikipedia-within-6-months-1380517611-1 Thick heaps of the four volumes of Konkani language ‘vishwakosh’ or encyclopedia , till now available only in hard copy, will now attain a modern access. The four volumes of encyclopaedia work, initially started by prominent Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessaiat of Goa University, will now be accessed in digitized format, alongside forming a base for a Konkani Wikipedia. As mentioned by officials, the Konkani Wikipedia is to be ready to access within upcoming six months. With this, Goa University has turned out to be the first varsity in the nation to enter into a creative commons licence that will permit copyrighted produced data by an Indian university accessible to internet users and open to modification (wiki), making Goa University a victory of sorts of free information. The university has signed a three-year MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme. This centre represents Wikipedia in India, and now also the Konkani Wikipedia project. After Google, Facebook and Yahoo, Wikipedia is the fourth most used asset on the internet which operates as an internet based encyclopaedia. Over Wikipedia, any of the users can upload new information and can also update or amend an existing topic. The Konkani Wikipedia is also planned to offer similar privileges to its users. GU's Konkani department and the centre will manage the development from the university campus. The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia, GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said. Shetye told, GU is delighted to relate with Wikipedia, which has become a global trend breaking the monopoly of publishers and transforming the way of sharing of knowledge into a democratic process. GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat mentions, At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet”, The Konkani vishwakosh, containing four large volumes of total of 3,632 pages, is a work of period of 14 years. It was edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai followed by the editor Tanaji Halarnkar. For the compilation process, GU Staff members, Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to it. Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia covers, concisely presented world information with special weight given on information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. The Wikipedia is offered in 20 Indian languages that includes Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in language Konkani so far. Interested Students, Professors or anyone else could contribute to this Konkani Encyclopaedia project by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh, before 05 October 2013. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: Konkani Wikipedia in the making
Konkani Wikipedia in the making http://www.thehindu.com/features/education/konkani-wikipedia-in-the-making/article5179921.ece Process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopaedia will be completed in six months’ time The Goa University has re-launched a four-volume Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopaedia) and announced its plan to upload the same on Wikipedia so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia. The project is seen as a major stride in Konkani learning, research and production of books. The project, which will involve 42 students of the Konkani Department of Goa University including four designated as Ambassadors of Konkani, will turn students into producers of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge. The University has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) for building up the Konkani Wikipedia. “Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public,” said Satish Shetye, Vice-Chancellor of Goa University, speaking at the launch of the project. Narrating how the project began, Registrar of Goa University V. P. Kamat explained that Mr. Satish Shetye, who took over as Vice-Chancellor over a year ago, happened to notice the huge piles of hardbound volumes of the Konkani encyclopaedia stacked in the Goa University library and wished to digitise the manuscripts and re-launch the encyclopaedia. The idea to upload the whole content on Wikipedia was thus born. The work for the Konkani encyclopaedia project was commissioned during the tenure of the first Vice-Chancellor B. Sheik Ali. The project was seen as a historical step to document the identity of the State and its people and the history of Goa for posterity. University insiders, however, said that no serious efforts were made to take the invaluable research work undertaken beyond the University. Secondly, because of the lack of human resource and funds, no initiative was taken so far to update these volumes. Initiative Prof. Shetye took a proactive initiative and tied up with Access to Knowledge Programme of the CIS. The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopaedia are being released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access. Programme Director at CIS’s Access to Knowledge Programme Vishnu Vardhan said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopa edia on Wikipedia would be completed in six months’ time. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in the encyclopaedia so as to make the content more relevant. Students of the University involved in digitisation work and rewriting the content see this as an opportunity to learn about digitisation and to write Konkani of global standard, said Madhavi Sardesai, Professor, Department of Konkani at the University. Mr. Vardhan also disclosed plans for a relevant training programme specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the University to put up the content on Wikipedia. He said that the Goa University is the first in the country to re-license copyright of its content and hailed the initiative towards open knowledge. Though the MoU signed last month would be initially valid for three years, Mr. Vardhan is optimistic that it would go beyond the launch of the Vishwakosh volumes. Mr. Halarnkar, associated with the Konkani literary movement, who was present at the launch as the editor of the original volumes, welcomed the process of digitisation as relevant, historical and need of the hour. However, he stressed on supervision over the accuracy and accountability while digitising original data and regular updating of the content in the context of the Konkani language, its history and movement. Thanks Nitika Tandon ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language
For the love of Konkani: Preserving Goa's official language http://www.dnaindia.com/lifestyle/1895382/report-for-the-love-of-konkani-preserving-goa-s-official-language With many local dialects on the brink of extinction, Joanna Lobo meets the language conservationists who have taken it upon themselves to preserve Goa's official language. Social networking site Orkut may have lost its lustre but digging through its remnants throws up a group called Aamchigele Bindaas Community (ABC). It was started to bring together Konkani-speaking people across the world. The group is now active on Facebook under the name Broad Minded Konkanis (BMK), where people post queries about Konkani words and phrases. This group has helped members understand the language to a great extent,” says Rajanikanth Shenoy Kudpi, founder and one of the administrators of the 160-member group. BMK has members from Saraswat, Catholic Christian, Bunt, Navayat Muslim, Jain and other communities, who speak Konkani. “Konkani as a language will definitely be rejuvenated if contemporaries and scholars put in consistent efforts,” says Kudpi. One such effort was a recent four-day workshop organised by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Access to Knowledge (A2K) for the students of Goa University and St. Xavier’s College. “We want to strengthen the Konkani Wikipedia,” says Nitika Tandon, program manager, CIS-A2K. Tandon quotes the Census Department of India 2001 figures that puts Konkani speakers at 24 lakh but adds that limited documentation is available online. However, opinion is divided over the language's fate. “I don’t think it's dying,” says Roshan Pai, founder, savemylanguage.org. Pai started the website, a Konkani dictionary that documents the language spoken by the GSB community in and around Mangalore, in 2005 The site is dependent on volunteer contributions — people send in meanings of various words that are validated by others, who also put in different uses or meanings of the words. All the 17,528 words collected (belonging to GSB dialects in Mangalore, Goa, Kerala and Cochin) are stored online. One of the major factors behind people talking about saving a language has to do with its links to culture. “It is the essence of life and contains a lot of information that has been passed on through the generations,” says Gurudath Baliga, assistant director at World Konkani Centre, Mangalore. The centre works towards preserving the language by empowering the community that speaks it through tech-related grassroot activities, documenting folklore, appointing teachers in different schools and publishing books. The centre is now working on Konkanverter.com, an in, catholic Christian, ter script translator, and World Konkani Archives, that will serve as a repository for all data and text. With such initiatives, the language is in safe hands. Thanks Nitika Tandon___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months
Konkani Wikipedia from Goa University in 6 months http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Konkani-Wikipedia-from-Goa-University-in-6-months/articleshow/23126410.cms PANAJI: Piles of the thick four volumes of Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia waiting to be picked up by users at the Goa University (GU) will now attain a modern avatar. The volumes, work on which was first started by renowned Goan writer and academician late Manoharrai Sardessai at GU, will not only be available in digitized format, but will form the base for a Konkani Wikipedia. Goa University has become the first varsity in the country to enter into a creative commons licence that will allow data produced and copyrighted by an Indian university available to internet users and open to modification, making GU a champion of sorts of free knowledge. The Konkani Wikipedia is expected to be ready for use within six months, officials said. The university has signed a three-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme, which represents Wikipedia in India, for the Konkani Wikipedia project. Professors, students and anyone with expertise or love for Konkani can come forward to help with the project for which training will be provided. Information in the Konkani vishwakosh will also be updated as per the current developments, Vishnu Vardhan of the centre said. The Wikipedia is the fourth most used property on the internet after Google, Facebook and Yahoo, which acts as an internet based encyclopedia where any of the users can upload new information or update or modify an existing chapter. The Konkani Wikipedia too will offer similar privileges to users and GU's Konkani department and the centre will oversee the process from the university campus. The Konkani vishwakosh covers all realms of knowledge like any other encyclopedia. The Konkani Wikipedia will act as a digitized repository of knowledge for future generations and Konkani speakers across the world. I look forward to the pleasure of going to the internet and clicking away to access a Konkani Wikipedia, GU vice-chancellor Satish Shetye said. Shetye said that GU is glad to associate with Wikipedia which has become a global phenomenon and broken the monopoly of publishers and converted distribution of knowledge into a democratic process. At present, it takes time for a page with information in a regional language to download because they are usually found in the form of scanned pages, which are accessible as images and not text. The Konkani Wikipedia will make the text accessible as is the case of any English text on the internet, GU registrar Vijayendra Kamat said. tnn The Konkani vishwakosh was created over a period of 14 years. Edited by late Manoharrai Sardessai and later Tanaji Halarnkar. GU staffers Ranjan Naik, Kalpana Naik, Kanchan Mordekar, Surekha Naik, Mukesh Thali and Shailendra Mehta contributed to the compilation process. Contains four large volumes of 3,632 of total pages. Konkani vishwakosh or encyclopedia encompasses world information in a nutshell with special emphasis on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. Wikipedia is available in 20 Indian languages including Telugu, Assamese, Marathi, but not in Konkani so far. Students, professors and anyone interested in contributing to the project can do so by enrolling online at bit.ly/konkanivishwakosh before October 5. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Press coverage: Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia
Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia http://www.navhindtimes.in/goa-news/goa-university-announces-plan-upload-konkani-encyclopedia-wikipedia PANAJI: The Goa University, on Thursday, re-launched the four volumes of Konkani Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopedia), and announced its ambitious plan to upload the same on Wikipedia – a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software – so as to build the Konkani Wikipedia. The university has entered into a 3-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), for building up the Konkani Wikipedia. Vice Chancellor of Goa University Dr Satish Shetye, speaking during the event held at the university said that Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further making it accessible to public. “This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.” Dr Shetye, who incidentally noticed large number of volumes of the Konkani encyclopedia stacked in the Goa University premises, decided to take them to maximum people through their re-launch and upload on the Wikipedia. The work for the Konkani encyclopedia project was commissioned during the tenure of vice chancellor Prof B Sheik Ali, and was carried out by various people from Dr Manoharrai Sardesai to Dr Tanaji Halarnakar, with the aid of the Konkani department at the university. The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopedia are being re-released under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open access. The programme director for the Access to Knowledge Programme of the Centre for Internet and Society, Vishnu Vardhan, speaking on the occasion said that the process of uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia on the Wikipedia would be complete in six months time, and includes processes like scanning, digitisation and creating articles as per the requirement of Wikipedia. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the articles in Konkani encyclopedia so as to contemporarise their contents. Vardhan also informed that relevant training programme would be specially co-designed by the CIS as well as the university to put up the content on the Wikipedia. Goa University is the first university in the country to re-license copyright of its content, and hence can be termed as the ‘Champion of open knowledge’, he observed. Registrar Prof V P Kamat and head of Konkani department Priyadarshini Tadkodkar were also present on the occasion. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Announcement: CIS-A2K's Train The Trainer Program
Hello everyone, First of all extremely sorry for the delayed response. It took us a little while to put this together. We understand there were a lot of questions about the agenda of train the trainer program. We have put together a rough draft which we wanted to share with you all. [1] Just want to mention that this the very first draft and is open to any kind of changes. We will also write to each of the participants to know what aspects they'd like to cover and incorporate those in our sessions. We are happy to share that so far we have received significant number of applications from most active Indian language Wikimedia communities including Odia, Malayalam, Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Assamese, Kannada and more. It's good to know that the community sees value in our work and we would like to thank each applicant for applying for the program. We'll soon write to the candidates to communicate about their selection and finalize logistics. As you would see from the schedule final dates for the program are from 3rd - 6th October. If you have any further suggestions, comments or questions please feel free to write to us at a...@cis-india.org or drop a note on the program's talk page. [2] Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society [1] https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjHXxJd1jwTedDlFUldWaTlKMl9NTGh3czhXeUFkZ0E#gid=0 [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Events/Train_the_Trainer_Program On 08-Sep-2013, at 5:48 PM, Vishnu T wrote: Hi Shyamal, Thanks for sharing the deck and for stating the importance of Information literacy and research techniques. Could not agree any more about their importance. However, as you have rightly noted the focus is more on doing a successful outreach. Would try to incorporate some of these skill set into the program design. Best, Vishnu On 7 September 2013 08:43, Shyamal L. lshya...@gmail.com wrote: I see that core editing related matters are included only in point 5 and 6. I was recently examining some statistics related to BSNL dynamic IP addresses since I quite frequently see a new message for me when I log in in the morning on the en.wiki and the message turns out to be in almost all cases warnings against poor editing, vandalism and so on. On some IP ranges, about 1-6% of all IP talk pages have warnings and an analysis shows that the most common problem is poor sourcing, self-promotion and other forms of advertising. In my (limited) experience working with advanced students (MS + levels) on Wikipedia editing, I have found it very useful to cover Information Literacy and research techniques. Information Literacy skills are taught in very few higher learning centres in India (I may be wrong though since such courses were available to me both at undergrad and postgrad levels) I would suggest that it is vital that people know about what research is and how sources are evaluated. I also think there needs to be coverage of technical writing (which includes reviewing literature, structuring, brevity, balance, avoiding closed paraphrasing and plagiarism, inline citation with templates, citation styles - Harvard, MLA, APA, use of bibliographic tools like Zotero ) best wishes Shyamal PS: will check if i can find the slides that i use, only able to find my internet research slides at the moment http://www.slideshare.net/muscicapa/information-literacy-and-internet-use-for-entomologists 1) Public Speaking and Engaging the audience 2) Presentation Skill and Body language 3) Basic Video editing skills 4) Leveraging mainstream and social media 5) Basics of Copyright and Creative Commons for Content Donation and Digitization 6) Technical session on complexities of Indian Languages on Computers (or based on majority participants need) 7) Wikimedia India Chapter - History and Present ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] The Access to Knowledge Bulletin - May'13
Dear all, Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of May, 2013. Apologies for the delay. Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In this newsletter, we are pleased to bring you updates about the recently concluded exhibition organised in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi and share with you the feedback to the Access to Knowledge work plan from the wikipedia community. The A2K team consists of three members based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Subhashish Panigrahi and one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer left the organisation on April 24, 2013. Archives of our newsletters arehere. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId. Celebrating 5 Years of CIS CIS is now 5 years old and we recently celebrated this by holding an open exhibition in our offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, showcasing our work and accomplishments over the five year period. We had about 170 visitors coming in to our office. Renowned artists like Tara Kelton, Kiran Subbaiah, Navin Thomas, Abhishek Hazra and Sharath Chandra Ram exhibited their work. The four-day event attracted press coverage: Bangalore Mirror (May 18, 2013), DNA (May 19, 2013), Hindu (May 22, 2013), Prajavani (May 23, 2013), Udayavani (May 25, 2013) and Bangalore Mirror (May 31, 2013). Download all the posters that were part of the exhibition here. # Announcements Access to Knowledge Work Plan (April 2013 - June 2014): CIS has announced its detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K programme activities. The document has been made in consultation with various stakeholders and keeping in mind the objectives, opportunities and challenges faced by each of the Indian language Wikimedia projects. Feel free to share any feedback. WMF-A2K Revised Budget (draft) and Utilization (September 2012 - February 2013): In our effort to increase transparency with the working of CIS-A2K programme, we aresharing with you the A2K Programme Budget along with the utilization for the above period. The proposed revisions to the budget along with some notes are here. CIS Signs MOU with TISS, Mumbai: has signed a MoU with TISS as part of which we will collaboratively work towards building Digital Knowledge Partnerships with select higher education institutions. India Access to Knowledge IRC can be accessed here: May 13, 2013 (All Language Discussion) and May 26, 2013 (Odia Language Discussion). # Blog Entries Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 11, 2013). Access to Knowledge Work Plan: Synopsis of Feedback by Wikipedians (by Nitika Tandon, May 20, 2013). Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 30, 2013). My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, June 19, 2013). # Event Organised Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia # Event Participated Kannada IRC Meet (organised by the Wikipedia Community, May 7, 2013). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja participated in this. # Upcoming Event Digital Humanities for Indian Higher Education (co-organised in collaboration with HEIRA-CSCS, Tumkur University, CILHE-TISS and CCS (IISc), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, July 13, 2013). # Press Coverage Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Prajavani, May 23, 2013). Prajavani published a report of Dr. U.B. Pavanja’s talk “From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada”. Report on CIS 5 Years Celebration (Udayavani, May 25, 2013). Udayavani published a report of the evening programme hosted as part of the Centre for Internet and Society's 5 year celebrations in its Bangalore edition. A Feature on Wikipedia and Telegu Wikipedians (HMTV, May 30 – 31, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan is quoted in this half an hour feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians. Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme (HMTV, June 1, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan speaks about Telegu Wikipedia in the discussion that was telecasted live. *About CIS* CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IRC office hours with CIS-A2K Team
Wikipedia Student Editor Initiative.odt Description: application/vnd.oasis.opendocument.text Dear Sankarshan, Please see the attached document. This is what Abhinav had in mind. We'll try and work on this and formalize it when we have the Porgramme Officer, for Pilot Programmes onboard; who'll be responsible for executing pilots like these. Thanks Nitika On 07-Jun-2013, at 8:25 PM, sankarshan wrote: On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 1:22 PM, Nitika Tandon nit...@cis-india.org wrote: Yes, we have tried building communities in educational institutes before. But I guess what Abhinav is suggesting is a little different from our what has already been tried. Please give us sometime - I'll work with him to build on a design based on his ideas and more. We'll share with you a draft as soon as we have something substantial. Checking back on this, is there an update which can be shared? -- sankarshan mukhopadhyay https://twitter.com/#!/sankarshan ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Announcement: A2K's MoU with TISS
Dear All, Institutional partnerships (especially in the higher education context) is a cross-cutting activity across A2K's various language plans and also the pilot project. A2K Team is happy to share with you an important outcome on this front. CIS-A2K has signed an MoU with TISS as part of which we will collaboratively work towards building Digital Knowledge Partnerships with select higher education institutions. The objective is to enhance digital literacy in the Indian languages and facilitate collaborative knowledge production and free dissemination. A2K along with TISS will co-design and jointly implement relevant training programmes to achieve this. Further, within TISS campuses we will endeavour to bring teaching-learning processes onto free and open digital platforms, including Indian language Wikipedias. The A2K team would like to acknowledge the pivotal role played by our Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana in buildig this collaboration. We'll keep you posted as and when new developments shape up and would like to actively involve Mumbai Wikipedians in planning, designing and rolling out Wikipedia training programmes. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Access to Knowledge - Bulletin - April '13
Dear all, Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of April, 2013. Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In the third issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are pleased to bring you updates from the Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project, reports of events organised in Goa, and press coverage of the Kannada Wikipedia Workshop held in Mysore. The A2K team consists of three members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahiand one member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge) has resigned. April 24, 2013 was her last working day. Archives of our newsletters are here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications athttp://bit.ly/TOcXId. # Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages. # Blog Entries Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013). Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013). Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013). # Event Organised Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia. # Events Co-organised The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians: Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013). Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013). Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013). The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon: Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013. *About CIS* CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilitieswith ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?,Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award. *Follow us elsewhere* · Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter · Join the CIS group on Facebook · Visit us at http://cis-india.org *Support Us* Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71. *Request for Collaboration* We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at su...@cis-india.org or Nishant
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IRC office hours with CIS-A2K Team
On 15-May-2013, at 11:27 AM, sankarshan wrote: [2013-05-13 21:38:38] Nitika @Vishnu - I think Abhinav is refering to create a Wiki community within an educational institue similar to to a wiki community in a city. Wasn't this approach tried earlier? To be able to build and sustain a community within an educational institute the minimum requirements would be the definition of why there will be contributions, who will coach the first set of members of the community and, how much oversight the process will have in terms of points that can be measured. Dear Sankarshan, Yes, we have tried building communities in educational institutes before. But I guess what Abhinav is suggesting is a little different from our what has already been tried. Please give us sometime - I'll work with him to build on a design based on his ideas and more. We'll share with you a draft as soon as we have something substantial. Thanks Nitika Tandon ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IRC office hours with CIS-A2K Team
IRC Chat log on A2K Work Plans #wikimedia-in.2013-05-13 Description: Binary data Hi All,Please find attached log of the IRC chat.Thank you to all those who took out time to give us some feedback. And for those who've written to us separately we'll aim to organise a one-on-one with you before the end of this week.ThanksNitika TandonProgram ManagerAccess to KnowledgeThe Centre for Internet SocietyOn 13-May-2013, at 11:07 PM, satyaakam goswami wrote: Looking forward to see you tomorrow at IRC!Hi Nitika, Wanted to be there at the meeting could not make it , is there a transcript available for people who are curious to know what happening in the meeting ? -Satyafossevents.in ___Wikimediaindia-l mailing listWikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.orgTo unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] IRC office hours with CIS-A2K Team
Dear All, The A2K team is organising an IRC on 13th May 2012, Monday from 8.30pm - 9.30 pm on: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-in. The main agenda for IRC is to discuss the A2K Work Plan for the year 2013-2014 [1] that we had shared with you earlier. We'd like to hear comments/suggestions from as many of you as possible. This mail is to invite each one of you to join us for this IRC and help improvise our work plan. Just incase you'd like to join but cannot due to prior commitments please drop me a private message and we'll arrange a call with your separately. Looking forward to see you tomorrow at IRC! Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] CIS-A2K Work Plan (Draft)
Dear All, Please note that the work plan for Bengali[1] and Konkani[2] Wikipedia have now been updated. We look forward to your suggestions and comments. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Bengali [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Konkani On 25-Apr-2013, at 3:31 PM, Vishnu t wrote: Dear All, Some members have written to me asking if the mail on the CIS-A2K Work Plan (draft) has been posted on WMI community list. It got held for mod approval initially and has hit the list later. I could see it in the list archives. However, I am taking the initiative of re-posting the e-mail below. The first feedback on Work Plans was given by Arjuna. Thank you Arjuna! You can find his feedback at these links [3]. Warmly, Vishnu Dear All, CIS-A2K Team would like to share with you it's draft Work Plan (2013-2014) for Indian language Wikimedia projects. The detailed work plan can be found here. [1] The main objective of this document is to present a detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K programme activities, during the next 15 months. The A2K team has, over the last two months, extensively engaged with various stakeholders in developing these plans. These include a) some Wikimedia India Community members across various Indian language Wikimedia projects; b) some English Language Wikimedia community members from India; c) Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee; d) some potential institutional partners; e) a few like minded advocates of free knowledge; f) A2K Programme Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana; and last but not least g) a few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff. We are extremely thankful to all of them who have taken time out in sharing their ideas and opinions and in actively giving feedback, which has helped us immensely in drawing up these plans. This document has been made keeping in mind the objectives, opportunities and challenges faced by each of the Indian language Wikimedia projects. We welcome your feedback and suggestions to further refine these plans. However, for the sake of structured engagement, we would request you to please read the following guidelines [2] on how to share your feedback. We would deeply appreciate if you could share your valuable feedback in the next three weeks based on which we will revise the plans. Looking forward to receiving your inputs. Thank you, T. Vishnu Vardhan Programme Director Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet and Society [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014 [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014#Giving_Feedback [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Overall_Support_Across_Indian_language_Communities http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Odia http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_2013_-_June_2014/Pilot_Project_%E2%80%93_Performing_Arts_in_India ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Vacancy for Programme Officer, Pilot Projects (Access to Knowledge)
The last date for submitting applications has been extended to 5th May, 2013 (http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-pilot-projects-access-to-knowledge). Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society On 17-Apr-2013, at 12:25 PM, Nitika Tandon wrote: Dear All, The Centre for Internet Society (CIS) is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer, Pilot Projects for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS. Position Summary As Programme Officer, Pilot Projects, your job will be to drive and support the growth of Indian language Wikipedias and its sister projects. Your primary responsibility will be to design and implement different pilot projects with an aim to create high quality content and cultivate new editors on different language Wikipedias in a time bound manner. One of the main pilots you will be spearheading immediately will be on ‘Indian Performing Arts’. The pilots will be premised on themes and seek to create a multi-lingual repository of knowledge using Wikimedia projects as knowledge platforms. In addition to this you will be anchoring the development and growth of at least one Indian language Wikipedia. You are encouraged to deeply engage with the A2K Work Plan before making the application. You will work cohesively with the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia India Chapter to meet specific goals of each language community in India. You will be a part of a small team of 5 to 6 doing high visibility and high impact work. Responsibilities Support India-focused initiatives to improve quality of India-relevant content and number of editors on Indian language Wikimedia projects. Support the growth of Indian language Wikimedia communities and projects by designing and implementing community collaborations and partnerships pilot projects – detailing rationale, aim and objective, execution, evaluation, timeline, resource investment, etc. Spearhead A2K’s pilot projects. Identify institutions/groups that have ready-made content/archived material and aggregate available material in respective languages. Create a network of state institutions, university departments, non-government organisations, academics, artists, researchers and wikipedia community members that will work towards creating a repository of knowledge on specific themes by using Wikimedia projects as a platform. Conduct initial meetings with the principal investigators from each of the shortlisted institutions and share project idea. Facilitate Wikimedia community involvement with the core network of institutions and principal investigators to collaboratively participate on specific content/area modules. Create social media platforms for visibility of these projects and facilitate need-based technical and online support. Conduct a series of wiki-training workshops for various nodes within the network. Conduct periodic monitoring and evaluation of the pilot projects in progress. Generate and document lessons from programme activities that can inform the work of Indian communities and similar programmes in other countries. Providing ad hoc support to the Wikipedia community on all aspects of Indian languages as may be deemed necessary. Candidate's Background Experience At least two to three years of professional experience with a strong track record of success in high performance organizations. Prior experience of working with schools of performing arts and/or cultural departments. A deep understanding of the varied cultural context of India. Good understanding of the basics of program design and management. Experience of working in a collaborative community (preferably online). Strong academic results from highly-regarded university. Strong understanding of the Internet and the forces that underpin the success of Wikipedia. Active participation as a Wikimedia volunteer would be an asset, though not a prerequisite (must be prepared to demonstrate knowledge of how Wikipedia works in interviews). Demonstrated experience working in a global, multi-cultural team environment. Good writing skills in English and Indic languages and must be fluent in English and at least one Indic language. Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Characteristics of the Programme Officer High level of commitment: The Programme Officer should believe in the values of CIS and Wikimedia projects, exude enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission. Intellectual curiosity and flexibility: Must enjoy tackling difficult, ambiguous problems and able to incorporate new knowledge into how one approaches situations and generates solutions, loves learning from others
[Wikimediaindia-l] Vacancy for Programme Officer, Pilot Projects (Access to Knowledge)
in a mature fashion. Community builder: It is essential that the Programme Officer sees herself/himself as a partner to and supporter of the Wikimedians who have and will continue to be the leaders in building the Wikimedia projects. The Programme Officer must be willing and able to work with a diverse array of people, many of whom come from non-traditional backgrounds and have a fervent commitment to Wikimedia’s community-led nature. Strong cultural competency: Able to navigate in a global movement and on a global team in addition to navigating the complexity of India. Partnership developer: Able to initiate, negotiate and operate partnerships that advance the Wikimedia mission in Indic languages and English (as relevant to India) with a wide range of institutions across the public, NGO, universities, philanthropic and private sector. Willing to travel: The Programme Officer must regularly travel within India to engage with Wikimedia communities and partner with institutions. Location: The position is based out of the CIS Bangalore office. Remuneration: Compensation structure will be determined by the level of expertise, experience and current remuneration. To apply, please send your resume to T. Vishnu Vardhan (vis...@cis-india.org). You can also find the job posting on our website (http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-pilot-projects-access-to-knowledge). Please feel free to share this mail with your networks. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Resignation of Noopur Raval, Programme Officer, A2K Team
Dear All, It’s with deep regret that I announce the resignation of Noopur Raval as Programme Officer CIS-A2K Team. The Centre for Internet Society (CIS) would like to thank her for all her valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement. Noopur has been a great asset to the A2K team. We'd like to thank her for all her leadership and work in the past year around PR, communications, GLAM, outreach and social media. In her formal capacity Noopur has worked to promote Wikimedia movement in India for over a year. We're hoping that she'll continue to be a part of the movement as a treasured volunteer. It is with warmest regards that CIS wishes her best in all her future endeavors. Please join us as we bid a fond farewell to Noopur and and send her off with hopes for more success and fulfillment. I will personally retain many wonderful memories working with her. In a day or two CIS-A2K Team will send out an advertisement for the opening of Programme Officer which has been created due to Noopur's departure. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet Society___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] A day in Wiki Women Workshop
Congratulations to Pavithra and the entire Bangalore community for such a great initiative. Here's a blogpost about the Wiki Women's workshop we had organised at Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa. Special thanks to Rohini and Harriet for all their support and help. More power to Wiki Women! Nitika On 24-Mar-2013, at 6:39 PM, Pavithra H wrote: Hi All, Here is my blog post on Wiki Women Workshop that we conducted on 9th March. As we all know, Wikipedia is the world’s biggest encyclopedia and recognized as the 5th most website accessed by people across the globe. Being one of the biggest community driven project, Wikipedia has pooled in millions of articles which have been added/edited/monitored/ by people like you and me. By nature, gender has not only been the distinguishing factor for human being but also acts as a barrier to perform limited set of activities from the ages. At various stages of evolution, men and women have been continuously striving to overcome their boundaries which were set by themselves or by the society. It’s the same story when it comes to statistics of Wikipedians and the ratio of men and women participation is 9:1. To bridge this gap Wikipdedia has been organizing many activities to bring in more women participants around Wikipedia and other Wiki projects. On the occasion of International Women’s Day 2013, many of the volunteer Wikipedians conducted workshops with dedicated focus to women across the India. On this occasion, I got an opportunity to organize the workshop in Bangalore as well for women with ideas floated by Nikita (EC member of India Chapter) and Radhakrishna (SIG chair Bangalore). With guidance and support by Sowmyan (EC member of India Chapter), Arun (founder member of India Wikipedia) and Omshivapraksh (Kannada SIG chair of Bangalore), we could conduct Wikipedia Women’s Workshop successfully for the first time in Bangalore on 9th of March at Servelots Infotech Pvt. Ltd. As mentioned in the event page, the workshop was started with giving an overview of Wikipedia and introduction of participants along with their interests. Continuing further participants were able to found their answers for their initial set of questions like what is Wikipedia all about? Why do we participate? Who all will edit? in about an hour session by Omshivaprakash. After a small tea break and a press byte organized by Pavanaja, the sessions were continued by introducing the next step to Wikipedia. i.e., How do we edit? To make our hands on session more interactive, we made one of our participant, Dr. A Sumitra to create an account live and explained various steps to edit Wikipedia like start a new page, edit a page, formatting, preview, adding references, history, etc. In between we played the recorded videos of Bishakha Datta and Netha Hussain who shared their experience with Wikipedia and their message on Women’s Day. With excited participants, we extended the session and took some more time to explain what else we can do beyond editing by giving a brief overview on other wiki projects like Commons, WikiBooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wikiquote, Wikitionary, MediaWiki, etc. New items on the cards: 1.During the event, Dr. A Sumitra based out of Bangalore did add the page on Nalini Nayak who is famous as India’s Fisher Women. 2.We have compiled a list of topics for Kannada Wikipedia for which women can participate in adding/enhancing the content on Wikipedia. 3.Our participant, Lakshimi Chaitanya has come forward to introduce many female achievers by adding content in Kannada Wikipedia. 4.Sumana from Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikipedians have been working on making audio files for Sanskrit Shlokas since few days and they are very happy to welcome volunteers who would like to join them in adding their content to Commons. Couple of other women who could not make it to the event also got in touch to be part of the celebrations by contributing to Kannada Wikipedia: 5.Recent Wikipedian, Shyamala Janardhan has been trying to add contents of HariKathamrutha Saara to WikiSource. 6.Savitha S.R. from Bangalore celebrating this occasion by adding contents of Vyasa Bharata -Kumara Vyasa to Wikipedia. I have created a new Facebook group called WikiWomen Bangalore to gather all women participants of Wikipedia and other Wiki projects. The space can be used to discuss and interact about topics around Wikipedia and to bring in more women participants to share their knowledge. I request all of you to join the group and share your thoughts. Also refer to event page International Women’s Day, India which lists all the events happening in India in March 2013 on the occasion of Women’s day and participate in the area of your interest. As a personal note, it gave immense pleasure and was a great learning experience for me interacting with new
[Wikimediaindia-l] Wiki spark in Goa: 3 Days 6 Wikipedia Events
-translated article, on the Pinto's Revolt by Isidore Dantas http://incubator.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wp/gom/Pintonchem_Karosthan Picture 1: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nitika,_Harriot_and_myself_at_Goa_University_2.JPG Picture 2: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nitika,_Harriot_and_myself_at_Goa_University.JPG 5. Promoting GLAM in Goa We organised an introductory GLAM session at Goa State Central Library on the 13th Dec 2012. It was well attended by about 45 interested people coming from over 10 different GLAM institutes in Goa. Nitika from CIS and Debanjan from Pune community led the session about Wikipedia and GLAM activities that have been undertaken by our global community since 2010. The talk instilled a lot of enthusiasm in librarians and curators in Goa to start similar programs in their associated institutes. Some of the institutes attending the session were - Museum of Christian Art, Goa Chitra, Bookworm Library, K.S. Goa State Library, GTL Bicholini, DFLG District Library. Participants had lot of interesting questions about starting GLAM projects in English/Marathi/Konkani, starting point of the project, logistical/financial support required to run a GLAM project etc. To begin with we'll be meeting Victor Hugos Gomes from Goa Chitra who has shown keen interest to start a GLAM project. Goa Chitra showcases the rich tradition of implements, tools, arts and crafts. Goa Chitra has archived Goa's cultural heritage through documents, books, photographs, handcrafts, electronic recordings, costumes, musical instruments, artifacts. In the coming weeks we'll be following up with Goa Chitra and more institutions to figure out the possibility of starting new projects in 2013. Here's an audio recording of the entire event: http://archive.org/details/GlamInGoa Picture 1: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lecture_Central_Library_Goa_15.JPG Picture 2: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lecture_Central_Library_Goa_14.JPG 6. Wikipedia event at St. Xavier's College, Goa A three hour workshop was organised in the morning of 14th Dec 2012 at St. Xavier's College, Goa. Over 30 participants attended the session. The workshop started with a short introductory presentation followed by learning how to edit Wikipedia. Since there were lesser number of computers participants were divided in groups of 2 or 3 maximum. Each group made at least 3 edits with the help of volunteers present in the room. A follow up session will be organised in Jan/Feb 2013 to organise an edit-a-thon for all the interested and enthusiastic participants. A special thanks to everyone who helped organising this event - Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick, Debanjan - all from Wikipedia family and Nitin Volvoikar, Head of Journalism from St. Xavier's. Picture 1: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_at_Xavier%27s_Mapusa_2.JPG Picture 2: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Editing_at_Xavier%27s_Mapusa_3.JPG___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wiki Academy in Goa in Dec
Dear All, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Harriet Vidyasagar and Frederick Noronha for helping us kick start Wikipedia activities in Goa. They have put in a lot of hard work in the past few weeks to organise Wikipedia events. So far we have 3 confirmed events between 12th Dec and 14th Dec while they are still working on squeezing in more events during these dates. I wanted to share details of these events with everyone and also invite suggestions. Details of events A WikiWorkshop to introduce students and a few faculty on how to edit the Wikipedia on12th and 13th December from 2.30 pm to 4.30 pm at Goa University, computer lab. The lab has 24 computers and we will have about 6 persons with laptops i.e a total of 30 persons. We got 60 registrations for this event but since the lab has limited capacity we'll only be able to accommodate first 30 registrations. We're trying to host another academy for the remaining 30 sometime on the 14th provided we're able to arrange for a venue. Even if no venue is available; we'll still try and do a small talk with these registrations. We definitely don't want to loose out the opportunity of touching base with 30 more interested people. We have a meeting scheduled with The Krishnadas Shama State Central Library, Patto, Panjim on 13th morning from 10.30 to 12.30 noon to discuss GLAM opportunities. Harriet and her team are still trying to organise the following: Public program to create awareness on about Wikipedia and how to contribute at Central Library Event at NIE where all are invited on the topic of Wikimedia in Schools and Wikipedia for Teachers Calling for participation as volunteers Frederick is a long time Wikipedian who lives in Goa and will be available to provide on ground support for these meetings. I wanted to check if we can have 2 more or at least one more volunteer from Mumbai or Pune who could come down to Goa for these events. CIS will be able to support train/bus travel for these volunteers and Goa University will take care of accommodation in their university guest house. Please respond at the earliest so that we can make arrangements accordingly. Looking forward to hear from al of you. Thanks a ton! Regards, Nitika On 07-Dec-2012, at 12:50 AM, Nitika Tandon wrote: On 06-Dec-2012, at 1:21 PM, Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا wrote: Dear Nitika, Is it possible to get in touch with others who have been contributing to the Goa pages in the past? Absolutely! We can invite Wikipedians from Goa and members of WikiProject Goa. Also, some of us have bandwidth problems here, otherwise we would have contributed more. Is it possible to set up a small team to continue this process, in Goa itself, after the workshop is done? The Central Library has a lot of space and tend to be supportive in such work. Its Curator, Carlos Fernandes, was even supportive when Richard Stallman of the FSF visited many years ago. They understand the importance of creating sharable resources. At the library, you can spot some displays of open journal websites, etc which researchers can freely access. You could build on such synergies. We have a meeting scheduled with the State Central Library on the 13th Dec at 10.30am. We can most definitely work out a plan with them. I'm hoping you'll be able to join for this meeting too. I have raised a ticket to lift IP rate limit: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42767. Hope it gets resolved at the earliest. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wiki Academy in Goa in Dec
On 06-Dec-2012, at 1:21 PM, Frederick FN Noronha * फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या * فريدريك نورونيا wrote: Dear Nitika, Is it possible to get in touch with others who have been contributing to the Goa pages in the past? Absolutely! We can invite Wikipedians from Goa and members of WikiProject Goa. Also, some of us have bandwidth problems here, otherwise we would have contributed more. Is it possible to set up a small team to continue this process, in Goa itself, after the workshop is done? The Central Library has a lot of space and tend to be supportive in such work. Its Curator, Carlos Fernandes, was even supportive when Richard Stallman of the FSF visited many years ago. They understand the importance of creating sharable resources. At the library, you can spot some displays of open journal websites, etc which researchers can freely access. You could build on such synergies. We have a meeting scheduled with the State Central Library on the 13th Dec at 10.30am. We can most definitely work out a plan with them. I'm hoping you'll be able to join for this meeting too. I have raised a ticket to lift IP rate limit: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42767. Hope it gets resolved at the earliest. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wiki Academy in Goa in Dec
Dear All, This is being scheduled for 12th and 13th Dec. Time is yet to be finalised. Couple of points: * Workshop will be organised in the computer lab at Goa University * Infrastructure like the computer lab LCD projectors are available in the library as well a s the Academic Staff College class rooms. * Computer lab has 25 machines and may be few lap tops can squeeze in. * We are requesting participants to get their own laptops if possible * Gopakumar (University librarian) will create and share a participation form for registration. He is also creating posters, banners and notices to market the event. * I'm going to submit a request to release the library IP address from 7 accounts creation limit. * We're also trying to set up a meeting with museum curators and librarians from Goa to explore opportunities of working on a GLAM project with them. I'll keep updating you all. Will be great to get support from as many of you as possible. Kind regards, Nitika On 07-Nov-2012, at 10:14 AM, Karthik Nadar wrote: Hi Adethya, Harriet's number is attached to the mail at the signature. Thanks! On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 10:00 AM, Adethya Sudarsanan adethyas...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks Karthik I am from Chennai... if the dates are announced, it wil help me book my travel accordingly... i will also try contacting harriet. can i have her/his contact? Ade. S On 7 November 2012 09:41, Karthik Nadar karthik...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Adethya, tentatively, it is planned for December. If you are from Goa, you may get in touch with Harriet and then with Goa University. Mumbai community may also lend strong support! On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Adethya Sudarsanan adethyas...@gmail.com wrote: When is the WikiAcademy planned? dates? thanks, Ade.S On 7 November 2012 00:27, Outofindia outofin...@gmail.com wrote: +1 A wiki Academy at Goa University was being discussed for mid December. Nitika will take that call. It is the height of the tourist season so we need to think through accommodation options for out of state folk. Warm regards Harriet Harriet Vidyasagar www.outofindia.net www.womenofindia.net INDIA: 91-99011 66276 USA: 1-301-649-2240 On Wed, Nov 7, 2012 at 12:13 AM, Sudhanwa Jogalekar sudhanwa@gmail.com wrote: Great work !! And a nice report too!! Is it possible to have some followup events for this activity. Some women meetup every 2-3 months will be a good way to keep everyone in touch and to have better interaction. Congrats to all the volunteers, co-ordinators and participants for a successful event. Keep up the good work!! Regards -Sudhanwa On Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Krutikaa Jawanjal krutika...@gmail.com wrote: A Day Spent well. The Wikipedia Women Workshop which took place on November, 4th 2012 in Vidyalankar Institute of Technology (VIT), Wadala was indeed a success. The people who volunteered in organizing this workshop were Bishakha Datta, Moksh Juneja, Karthik Nadar, Pranav Curumsey, Pradeep Mohandas, Anshuman Fotedar, Aditi Juneja, Harriet Vidyasagar, Nikita Belavate, Netra Parikh, Noopur Raval, Netha Hussain. All discussions and planning done while organizing this workshop for women paid off. In all, 70+ women participants attended the workshop. The workshop started with a short introduction after which, wasting no time, the women participants moved on to learning how to edit Wikipedia which was though by the present on ground volunteers. The participants were were divided in groups and every group had to create a new article which wasn't already available on Wikipedia. In the process, women interacted with the volunteers, asked question regarding Wikipedia. Every group at least had added introduction to the new article. Having done with the basic editing, a general presentation on Wikipedia was given by some of the volunteers. This was followed by question and answers regarding the same. By this time, it was already 1.30pm, so the lunch was announced. After having lunch, the participants got back to their seats. Pretty much everybody stayed back post lunch. Moksh continued with teaching how to edit Wikipedia. This time it wasn't it in groups though. References and Notability were the main topics that were covered in this session. Anshuman and Karthik then proceeded with teaching photo uploads on Wikipedia. Quiz was conducted towards the end and Wikipedia-Tshirts were given as prizes for giving right answers. Karthik, then also showcased the winning images of Wiki Loves Momunents 2012 India. The long day came to an end with an overwhelming response and a call for organizing many such activities. The feedback received was positive. The participants enjoyed the workshop. We are thankful to everybody who made this event a great one. Thanks to all the volunteers. Special thanks to Moksh
[Wikimediaindia-l] Update on India Education Pilot
Hey Everyone, Just wanted to inform you that we have put up a post about the India Education Program here [1]. Please fell free to initiate, advance or follow the conversation on the same page. Thanks Nitika [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:India_Education_Program#Update_on_India_Education_Pilot___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Club @ British Council
So good to hear that Yann. Indeed participants will be editing articles relating to Indian context like Indian culture, history, arts etc - something that interests you, I hear! It will be great if you could join us. :-) Thanks Nitika On 19-Jun-2012, at 3:46 PM, Yann Forget wrote: Hi, I may be able to come, but I am not sure yet. Yann 2012/6/19 Srikanth Ramakrishnan parakara.gh...@gmail.com: Just a question. Are any proper, experienced community members part of this? On Mon, Jun 18, 2012 at 4:09 PM, Nitika Tandon ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, We are trying to build partnerships with some of the organisations to set up Wikipedia Clubs. The idea is to run outreach events at institutes or amongst interest groups that engage people in activities around Wikipedia. Our first such attempt to is to partner with British Council India in Delhi. We've been in discussions with them for the past couple of months and I'm pleased to announce that we'll be initiating a series of Wikipedia workshops for some of the British Council's library members with the desired end result to set up a Wikipedia Club that will organise regular activities around Wikipedia at British Council. The basic objective of the club would be to: Organise regular activities to increase the level of editing activity by club members. This could be in form of edit-a-thons, photo-thons, starting wiki projects based on common interest etc. Organise regular outreach sessions to recruit more club members and expand club size. Organise regular fun activities to keep high level of enthusiasm and spirit amongst club members. This could be in form of trivia nights, games night, meet ups, field trips, museum trips etc. To begin with we'll be conducting three sessions with the same group of attendees. The first session will aim to brief all about workings of Wikipedia, editing rules and talk page protocols etc. The following sessions will be dedicated to only those participants who'll be willing to and excited to get more involved in Wikipedia. We'll provide them additional support to better understand Wikipedia editing and our community. And the third session will aim to formalise a Wikipedia Club at British Council where we'll provide ideas to the club members to organise regular activities like edit-a-thons, photo-thons, games and trivia nights, museum visits etc. We've built this 3 level outreach program to make sure that club members will be better equipped and trained to organise club activities by themselves and will be able to conduct regular outreach activities within British Council (for members of movie clubs, writing clubs etc.) to further expand their club size. The first session at British Council is scheduled for 23rd June from 10am to 1pm. All are welcome to help run the session. Will keep you all informed on the outcome of the session and next step thereon. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Update on India Education Pilot
Hi Ravi, Please find my answers in line. Though I'd highly encourage everyone to post any comments on the talk page itself to make sure that there are no disparate communications and we maintain only one central page. Thanks Nitika On 19-Jun-2012, at 6:49 PM, Ravishankar wrote: Hi IEP, I don't understand the involvement of India programs in developing Simple Wikipedia. I have never seen Simple Wikipedia coming up in search results or anyone using it from India. (Please let me know the visitor stats for the project from India if this could be considered an Indian language Wikipedia.) It has around 15.2 M page views per month globally. To put it in context, Hindi Wikipedia has 6.2 M page views per month. So, what is the point of spending resources in the name of India programs? Which Indian is this program going to benefit? Involvement of India Programs comes into play since the program will run in India with an attempt to bring new editors from India and thereby increasing India related content on Wiki projects. One of the important aspects of the program is to continuously encourage these new Indian editors to continue editing beyond their in-class assignments and India Programs will work on setting up Wikipedia Clubs with this intent. If this is done with an idea of being a safe place to experiment with the hope of some editors migrating to en and other Indic language Wikipedias: As mentioned in the post as well, one of our main reasons to approach Simple Wikipedia community is that they are extremely welcoming and supportive to new editors, especially towards students. In a sense, the vision of IEP and Simple Wikipedia have common ground in the belief that students can become long term editors through right kind of support. In addition to this, Simple Wikipedia is suitable for new editors whose mother tongue is not English. Though most IEP students will be comfortable reading, writing and speaking in English, it is not their first language. They will not be able to use complex words or frame big sentences — which is great for Simple Wikipedia project. However, like any other Wikipedia editor, after the in-class assignment students will be free to move to any Wiki project that appeals to them.___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia Club @ British Council
Hi, We are trying to build partnerships with some of the organisations to set up Wikipedia Clubs. The idea is to run outreach events at institutes or amongst interest groups that engage people in activities around Wikipedia. Our first such attempt to is to partner with British Council India in Delhi. We've been in discussions with them for the past couple of months and I'm pleased to announce that we'll be initiating a series of Wikipedia workshops for some of the British Council's library members with the desired end result to set up a Wikipedia Club that will organise regular activities around Wikipedia at British Council. The basic objective of the club would be to: Organise regular activities to increase the level of editing activity by club members. This could be in form of edit-a-thons, photo-thons, starting wiki projects based on common interest etc. Organise regular outreach sessions to recruit more club members and expand club size. Organise regular fun activities to keep high level of enthusiasm and spirit amongst club members. This could be in form of trivia nights, games night, meet ups, field trips, museum trips etc. To begin with we'll be conducting three sessions with the same group of attendees. The first session will aim to brief all about workings of Wikipedia, editing rules and talk page protocols etc. The following sessions will be dedicated to only those participants who'll be willing to and excited to get more involved in Wikipedia. We'll provide them additional support to better understand Wikipedia editing and our community. And the third session will aim to formalise a Wikipedia Club at British Council where we'll provide ideas to the club members to organise regular activities like edit-a-thons, photo-thons, games and trivia nights, museum visits etc. We've built this 3 level outreach program to make sure that club members will be better equipped and trained to organise club activities by themselves and will be able to conduct regular outreach activities within British Council (for members of movie clubs, writing clubs etc.) to further expand their club size. The first session at British Council is scheduled for 23rd June from 10am to 1pm. All are welcome to help run the session. Will keep you all informed on the outcome of the session and next step thereon. Thanks Nitika___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] India Program-Fortnightly IRC: Thursday March 29th @ 9pm IST (Outreach Communication) (#wikimedia-office)
Hey, Just a reminder. We are starting in 10 mins. Do join in! Thanks Nitika On 29-Mar-2012, at 8:54 AM, Hisham wrote: Hi Folks Reminder about the IRC later today (9pm IST on March 29th.) Join in using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. As I had indicated earlier, what we will do going forward is to publish an opening statement - which is below. We'd like to have a rich discussion around these topics for 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss. There have been more than 22 outreach sesssions (English + some Indic languages) across India over the past 2 1/2 months. We have been working on constantly every component of outreach. * Pre-session work - building supporting material (documents, presentations, handouts etc), evaluating different ways of conducting an effective outreach, using different ways to reach out to organisations with the proposal to conduct a session etc. * Session work - adopting different techniques of doing outreach, how do we get participants more involved during the session, how to filter out the folks so that we do the editing session only with the genuinely interested participants, how to balance between practical and theoretical aspects of training, how much information to give out in one session etc. * Post-session work - how do we provide editing support to the participants, how do we collect their contact information, how do we keep in touch with them on regular basis, how do we invite them to join other Wiki projects, how do we track their edit count - soon after the session, after 1 and 3 months of conducting the session etc. We'd like to discuss these. In the IRC, the following will be covered: * Indic Outreach: How can we do more outreach session in Indic langauges in particular? / Can regional communities work to translate supporting material? / How do we provide more support to different language communities to conduct these sessions? * More Outreach: If we are doing 7 outreach session in one month right now is there a way of us doing 10 every month? / Can we find more community members who will be willing to conduct these session? / For community members who are interested to conduct outreach sessions but think they lack confidence - is there a way we can help them? * Better Outreach: Can we find some volunteers who will be willing to adopt these newbies and give them support? . I'd strongly encourage all those folks who have been actively involved in conducting these sessions over the past 2 months to join this IRC. It will be great if you could share your first hand experience with the wider community on what worked, what didn't, what we could have done better etc. I especially do want to ask Indic Wikimedians to join because we desperately need more outreach sessions in Indic languages. We will also briefly address the early stages of the communications work - which are the storytelling and Wikipatrika support that was announced yesterday. Given it's early days on communications, I'd prefer this IRC stay largely focussed on outreach since there is so much to work through there. See you all there! Apologies for sending this note this morning and not last night as I had promised. hisham p.s. There is a (tiny) possibility that I might be slightly late but you'll all be in Nitika's safe hands. I shall try and my level best to be on time. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Register: Learn Wikipedia editing while you sit at home
On 09-Mar-2012, at 4:02 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Nitika, I have a question. Can we try this over another medium which may allow ~15-20 members to participate? Is Google Hangout the only option? I've never used Hangout so I don't know it's limitations. Hey Srikanth, Im not aware of any other portal that would allow those many participants to do video conferencing + screen sharing at the same time. Please share if you come across one. We can most definitely try new options. However limiting number of participants will also mean incremental individual attention for each participant. If we have higher number of interested attendees we can organise multiple sessions. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Are you on this list but not comfortable editing Wikipedia and not sure who to ask? Want to learn?? SITTING AT HOME???
Hey Everyone, There are over 500 people on this mailing list - but I know quite a few folks who might not be too comfortable editing Wikipedia. I'm organising something where we can try and solve that - all while you are sitting in your cozy home corners and sipping on a hot cup of chai. Simply put, it's a virtual outreach session. Here's how it will work. It will run for 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon. It will be conducted as a Google+ Hangout. (If you are not familiar, this is a feature that allows for free video conferencing.) It will be a combination of a presentation, hands-on editing session and an open house to get queries solved. Agenda of the event 1. Introduction to Wikipedia 2. Overview of Core Wikipedia Policies, etc. (Neutral Point of View, Referencing, Notability, Writing Style, Avoiding CopyVio, Courtesy, Controlling Vandalism, etc.) 3. Basic Editing (creating user accounts user pages, understanding talk pages, adding content references, inserting links, using Wiki markups, etc.) 4. Community Citizenship (Understanding how we communicate with each other on Wikipedia and the protocols for this.) 5. QA Next Steps (Discuss what your first edits after the session might be: what kind of article? what kind of edit?) Medium of the event: Google+ Hangout. It is free and there's nothing to install. Do make sure you check your mic and speakers beforehand (and the screen also asks you to check your hair!) It allows everyone to see each other's video - making it a more human experience. Also, we'll be able to view each other's screens which will make it simpler to conduct this session. We can have a max of 10 people doing a hangout at any point in time. In case we have more than 10 interested participants, we will organize multiple sessions. Proposed date and time: 11th March, 3pm to 6pm. Participants/Volunteers/Facilitators: Do drop me an email at nit...@wikimedia.org. Also, if you are an experienced editor and interested in conducting the event, drop me an email. I'll then send you details of how this event wil be conducted. Do share this with anyone you know who might not be on this list but might be interested (friends, family, whoever!) Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Regarding wiki academy at NITK
On 15-Feb-2012, at 6:07 PM, nischay nahata wrote: Well I made a page for wiki academy at my college NITK. But I don't know how to proceed from here ..specifically how to get someone to give a speech on wikimedia, etc..Any advise? Hey Nischay, Thanks for setting this up. I'll be happy to help - maybe we can do a small skype call at your convenience. My Skype id is: nitika.wikimedia. You can also catch me on gtalk: ntan...@wikimedia.org. I see that this event is scheduled for 4th March, so we have enough time in hand to prepare for it. However, lets try and do this call soon. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-en] New Volunteer joins WikiProject India team
That's great! So good to see more people sharing responsibilities and taking ownership of projects in Wikipedia. I wish you all the best Pratik! I'm sure you'll learn a lot while leading this project. And a great thank you to Ashwin who has been indefatigable watching out on several WikiProjects, co-ordintaing offline Wikipedia project, handholding newbies, guiding all the Campus Ambassadors, leading GA master class, encouraging everyone to join WikiProject India and the list goes on and on and on. Thank you so very much Ashwin! :-) Nitika On 16-Feb-2012, at 9:45 AM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Dear friends, I would like to welcome Pratik Lahoti or User:BPositive to the fold of people in charge of doing things in Wikipedia. BPositive is a young member (in comparison to me :)) of Pune community and Wikipedia Pune Club. He was an active Campus Ambassador in the first version of India Education Program. Energetic and enthusiastic BPositive is taking charge of the India Collaboration of the Month (INCOTM) process and is the first person to volunteer to help me keep WikiProject India active by taking on a specific responsibility. All the best BPositive and hope you have a great time doing things new to you till now! I request the wider India community to welcome and support BPositive as he guides us on our monthly INCOTMs. AshLin ___ Wikimedia-in-en mailing list wikimedia-in...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-en ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Improving outreach efforts in India
stuff? Hyptothesis #5: Black Hole: No one has a clue about the actual results of outreach Can we regularly monitor number % of active editors after 1 and 3 months of conducting all events? Can we figure out % of mainspace edits from these newbies after 1 and 3 months? Can this be analysed to provide recommendations on how we can do things better? Can we actively reach out to those who look like they are struggling? Do we need a CRM tool for something like this? Is it useful to track and attempt to co-relate age / profession / subject (if student) / sex of participants to figure out what is likely to give greatest results? I have been working to see how can we overcome these challenges and make our outreach efforts far more effective. I'd love to hear from on the above. Some of you have been actively involved in outreach sessions (attending or conducting or planning) an I'd like to know your thoughts and suggestions which might serve as solutions for this set of very real challenges. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Update
You can also send it to the India mailing list: wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org. Thanks :) On 24-Jan-2012, at 4:13 PM, Sohan Maheshwar wrote: Hey Nitika I will send in the report by tonight. Will upload the pictures in a day or so because i dont have the camera with me at the moment. I'll send the report to wmin-memb...@googlegroups.com and wikimedia-in-...@lists.wikimedia.org. Any other groups i should send the report to ? Thanks! On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Nitika ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hey Sohan, Can u please send an update on the wiki session you organised to the India mailing list? Don't mean to push you, just wanted to drop a gentle reminder. Thanks :) Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-in-mum] Opportunity to participate @ Technovanza
Thanks for the prompt reply and a big thank you for helping us out. :-) Would there be anyone else as well who could support us? Thanks Nitika On 25-Jan-2012, at 1:11 PM, Ang India Tehnologies wrote: We will be able to participate On 25-Jan-2012 11:26 AM, Nitika ntan...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hey All, We have the opportunity to participate in Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute tech fest Technovanza which is running from 3rd to 5th February. A special thank you note goes to Aditya Sengupta for helping us organise this. :-) For more details about the fest please visit: http://technovanza.org/. The organisers want us to hold a Wiki session on the 5th February, Sunday. Time is yet to be decided. I wanted to reach out to Mumbai folks and see if some of you can lead this session. Please let me know as soon as possible so that we can then confirm our participation to the organisers of the fest. Awaiting your replies. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimedia-in-mum mailing list wikimedia-in-...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum ___ Wikimedia-in-mum mailing list wikimedia-in-...@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-in-mum ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Outreach opportunities: Wikipedia workshops at tech fests
Hey folks, There are over 20 Tech fests that are being conducted by several institutes across India over the next 2 months. I'm sure my list is not completely exhaustive and I might have missed a few. I was wondering if any of you know friends, family members, faculty members, students, administrators associated with any of the following organisations who might be able to help us out in participating or getting a slot for a Wiki stall or a workshop during these tech fests? These fests might prove to be a brilliant opportunity for us to do massive outreach programs. I am assuming, to be on a conservative side, that each fest has a footfall of minimum 1000 participants. Even if we are able to take part in say 10 such events during the next 2 months, that means we have the opportunity to create awareness about Wikipedia amongst at least 10,000 more people. Fests scheduled for next few months are as under: Tech Fests January Elan 2012 Techno Cultural Fest January 2012 IIT Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh WISSENAIRE 12 Techno Management Fest January 20-22nd 2012 IIT Bhubaneshwar Orissa Techkriti 12, IIT Kanpur, Technical Fest, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, January 27-30 2012 Threshold 12 Management Fest January 30-31st 2012 Jain University Centre for Management Studies Bangalore Karnataka Electrocom 12 Technical Fest January 20-21st 2012 KITS Warangal Andhra Pradesh Quark 12 Technical Fest January 27-28th 2012 TGPCET Nagpur Maharashtra Dhrishyaa 12 Techno Management Fest January 24-25th 2012 Alagappa Colleg Of Technology Chennai Tamil Nadu INctf 12 Technical Fest January 29th 2012 Amrita University Kollam Kerala E-Summit 2012, Entrepreneurship Festival, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, January 28-29 2012 Tech Fests in February iTechRoots 3.0 12 Technical Fest February 9-11th 2012 YCCE Nagpur Maharashtra Vidyut 12 Techno Management Fest February 1-3rd 2012 Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham Amritapuri Kerala Prajwalan 12 Technical Fest February 18-20th 2012 Government College of Engineering Amaravati Maharashtra Arghya 12 Technical Fest February 2012 MBES College of Engineering Ambajogai Maharashtra Kurukshetra 12 Techno Management Fest February 1-4th 2012 Colllege of Engineering Guindy Anna University Chennai Tamil Nadu Felicity 12 Techno Cultural Fest February 17-19th 2012 IIIT Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh INSEAT 12 Technical Fest February 11th 2012 VIT University Vellore Tamil Nadu FootPrints X2 Technical Fest February 24-26th 2012 Maharaja Sayajirao University Baroda Gujarat Dhrishyaa 12 Techno Management Fest January 24-25th 2012 Alagappa Colleg Of Technology Chennai Tamil Nadu Anwesha 12, Techno Cultural Fest, IIT Patna, Patna, Bihar, February 24-26 2012 Varchas 2012, Sports Festival, IIT Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Rajasthan, February 9-12 2012 Tech Fests in March Apogee 12 Technical Fest March 16-20th 2012 BITS Pilani Rajasthan Radiance 2012, IIT Bombay, Mechanical Fest, Powai, Mumbai, Maharashtra, March 3-4 2012 Convergence 2012, Technical Fest, IIT Bombay, Mumbai, Maharashtra, March 2012 Cognizance 2012, IIT Roorkee, Technical Fest, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, March 23-25 2012 If you have a contact and want someone to follow up with people in these institutes, I'll be more than happy to do that. Lets try and do as many outreach programs during these fests as we can. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Update on my work
Hi everyone, I wanted to share with you all few things that I'm currently working on and I'd love to get your ideas, thoughts, suggestions, questions and most importantly approvals. Supporting Outreach I started working on this sometime in December by talking to some community members and understanding how they have been conducting outreach session, what they think about outreach, how can we make it more effective etc etc. I got varied comments with some talking positively about outreach while some thought that outreach was not helpful. Im in the process of collating all comments suggestions I got during my conversations with community members and including them with some of my own views as to how can we make outreach sessions more effective. This includes building presentations, brochures, FAQs, tips, ideas on how can we provide the appropriate kind of training on Wikipedia, how can we make sessions more fun for the participants, how can we follow up with the participants, how can we measure the effectiveness of these sessions etc. The objective is to build a handbook that is inclusive of all ideas and standardized documents that one could use to conduct outreach session anywhere in India. We want to facilitate community members efforts wanting to conduct wiki workshops and motivate others to conduct similar sessions. Initially, these documents will be in English - but can be translated to Indic languages subsequently. I'd want to work closely with the Chapter to conduct WIki Academies with other community members to conduct these workshops. Here is the link to the handbook:http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook. Ashwin, Naveen, Srikanth L, Srikanth R, Suyog, Pradeep, Subhashish have contributed to this document by giving me ideas or helping me build standardized documents. I'd like really like to thank each one of them to help me work on this handbook and make it what it is today. I'd encourage all of you to please feel free to edit, expand, improve and suggest. Testing Outreach I want to test wether all the ideas such as what kind of pre-work an outreach needs, repository of documents, follow up ideas, and all the other suggestions that are collated in this Outreach Handbook are effective or not. The best way of testing this would be conducting outreach programs following these suggestions and measuring their effectiveness. I have reached out to several institutes in Delhi with the idea of conducting Wiki sessions at their institutes. To name a few: I have written to 9 different department heads at IIT Delhi including biochemical, management science, civil, chemistry engineering departments, National Institute of Fashion Technology, St.Stevens College, Lady Shir Ram College, Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology etc. I have already heard positively from some institutes and I'll keep you updated as and when things become a little clearer. Even if we're able to conduct 4 of these sessions in Delhi over the next month it will give us a good testing ground for this Outreach Handbook. The idea is to measure results of these 4 sessions in terms of no. of total participants, no. of participants who created usernames, no. of participants who started editing, keeping in touch with the participants over a period of time and evaluating no. of participants who continued editing over a period of 3 months - measure and share this data with you all. Since the community size is small in Delhi, I plan to conduct these sessions with the help of Shiju, Subha and any interested local community members. I request any other local community members who are interested to let me know if they can join in these outreach sessions. (I have already started reaching out individually to as many as are listed on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:New_Delhi_Wikipedians on their talk pages to invite them to the planned meet up in Delhi on Jan 15th. With regards to outside Delhi, I am realising that it does take time and effort to identify potential places to do outreach - and this is one reason some community members do not do outreach. I would love to help out other cities as well, and I am going to approach local communities in Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkatta and Pune in this regard. Institutional Partnership One of the other things I'm currently working on is how to build partnerships with like-minded organisation. For this - and with Noopur's help - I am exploring how to partner with SPIC MACAY (www.spicmacay.com). The main objective of this organisation is to preserve and promote Indian classical music, dance and cultural heritage. SPIC MACAY is also a volunteer based organization with chapters spread all over the country and some in other foreign countries as well. They conduct events where they have prominent Indian classical artists (vocalists, instrument
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Update on my work
A parameter to consider while trying to measure effectiveness of an outreach session is the time constraints of the person doing the outreach. If working folks are involved, it would be difficult to get this sort of feedback. Things get easier, though, when size of the group with which outreach is done is less than 5. Perhaps doing micro-outreach and relying on a domino effect would be more effective in measuring effectiveness of outreach. Just a theory. Great suggestion Pradeep. I agree, volunteer time is limited and is extremely valuable. Hence every minute invested by the community in outreach should have maximum possible impact. If greater effectiveness means limiting the number of participants to a number as small as 5 or 10 then we must do that. I'd include this point in the handbook or else fell free to add it yourself. Having said this, if there are let's say 40 members interested in attending a Wiki workshop or a meet up it will be difficult for us to handpick 5-10 members who would attend the session. Under different circumstance we should work differently: If we have enough community members then may be we should think of ways of dividing this group of 40 in 4 different groups and individual community members leading each group. But the question is, what do we do when we don't have enough community members in that particular region. In such situations we'll have to conduct outreach for larger number of participants and find more efficient ways of following up with the participants post the session. Some of the ways could be: Towards the end of the session ask the participants to select an article that they all would like to collaboratively edit during the next one week. Tell them that you've created a Google group for them where they could post messages, queries, comments etc. Keep a close watch on this newly created Google group and guide and help them by answering their queries promptly. Pretty much like what Ashwin is trying do with the GA master class. Towards the end of the session ask the participant if any of them would like to become representatives of this group. You should maintain direct contact with these volunteers (these could be 1-2) and if possible ask them to organize follow up academy session where participants could get their doubts cleared or ask them to invite all the participants to wiki meet ups etc. Basically, these volunteers could serve as your single point of contact for the entire group making your task of following up much easier. More ideas and suggestions on this are welcome! Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Welcoming Subhashish Panigrahi
Congratulations Subhashish, :) We all are extremely excited to have you in the India Programs Team. I've heard so many nice and sweet things about you - I'm sure working with you would be a pleasure! And of course we are waiting for a delicious treat (I hear you're a wonderful cook :) ...Welcoming you to 'sadi Dilli' Nitika On 22-Dec-2011, at 11:32 PM, ansuman wrote: Congrats Subha Paa. :) Special Welcome on behalf of Odia Community. Thanks to WMF Team. The community (bangalore) will miss you for sure. Thanks for your support. Thanks for being my Roommate. Working with Wikipedia has been a wonderful experience. We started in the same place, hope we never stop :) Welcome to Dilli and All the Best :) Regards Ansuman ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ansumang On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:27 PM, Ashwin Baindur ashwin.bain...@gmail.com wrote: Congrats Subhashish, all the best in your new post. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 10:17 PM, RadhaKrishna Arvapally radhakrishna.arvapa...@gmail.com wrote: Congratulations Subha! -RadhaKrishna On Thu, Dec 22, 2011 at 6:17 PM, Hisham his...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi Folks, As you might be aware, the Consultant, Team Support position is to be filled as part of the India Programs team. (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-September/004251.html.) I am really pleased and excited to announce that Subhashish Panigrahi has agreed to join as Consultant, Community Program Support. Some of you might know Subhashish (or Subha as he's also called.) He is all of 23 and a wonderful Wikimedian from Odisha. He has a BE in Biotechnology from Sapthagiri College of Engineering, Bangalore. He has worked for about 1 1/2 years in business development and is currently based in Bangalore. He's been an active Wikimedian since a friend of his attended a Wikipedia 10th event in Bangalore in January and told Subha about Wikipedia. Subha then spent considerable time - quite a bit of it in Shiju Alex's living room apparently :-) - learning about Wikipedia. Since then, he's been on fire! He's helped the Bangalore community organise the monthly meet-ups, been a central figure in building community momentum for Odia Wikipedia and has conducted outreach programs for Odia projects back home in Odisha as well as in Bangalore. He's also been helping out other projects and communities; a couple of weekends ago he was in Chennai conducting a WikiAcademy there. He is a fantastically inspiring example of a complete outsider being welcomed into the family, having his hand held in his growth as a newbie, charging forward taking responsibility ownership and then spreading his skills knowledge to others. He is also one of the sweetest human beings I have ever met. He is a perfect example of the Wikimedia Dream. His interests (outside of Wikimedia) are cooking, graphic design and handwriting analysis. (I bet most of you who know Subha don't know that last bit about him. So the next time you see him, show him your writing and get him to reveal your deep dark secrets!) He has also been involved with campaigns for social work during the floods and cholera outbreak in Odisha and been involved with a Odisha community organisation, eOdissa.com. Originally, the Consultant, Team Support position (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs#Team_Structure) was to manage the back-end aspects of India Programs (basic accounting, basic personnel management, office administration, travel support, expense statement management, logistics support for the community, etc.) I have been looking at the actual work load involved and I do not think this is a full time role. The functions listed are essential and need to be done - but there is an opportunity to improve the richness of the position and it's value to the community. I'm therefore proposing that the Consultant, Team Support be redesignated to Consultant, Community Program Support. I envisage this position to have about 1/3 of time spent on the back-end work listed above but 2/3 of time can be very productively utilised supporting community efforts - such as helping community building outreach and supporting community-led initiatives. An important consideration I have for this redesignation is after looking at the specific skills that Subha brings to the table; I want to make sure that he has the required space to realise his potential and to support the community and movement. Subha will of course continue to pursue his personal voluntary work for and as part of the Wikimedia community. The one question that he emphasized during the selection process was whether he would retain the flexibility to continue to pursue his personal passions
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Supporting Outreach
but I wanted to be sure you know that I can lift the cap of 7 account creations per day, if you let me know what day you're doing something. :) That's an open offer to anyone doing outreach... Hey Phillipe, I am now aware that there is a possibility of releasing an IP from this rule. But I learnt this the hard way! I sat through an outreach session where we encountered blocking of IP and the participants were very disappointed because they could not create their usernames. There is another mail from Subhashish which echoes similar experience. By way of working on this document and putting together small tips like these will make sure that others don't go through this pain. I'd encourage everyone to put their thoughts/learnings here so that all of us can benefit out of it and make our outreach sessions more effective. Thanks Nitika___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?
On 19-Dec-2011, at 4:05 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Nitika, the plus points you gave are really well thought out well-expressed. Wikipedians can use these in outreach. Great work, keep it up! Stay tuned to this channel. I'm working on something that i'd love to have your (and everyone else's) help and inputs on. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Supporting Outreach
and conducting of various outreach programs. I can help in many things from background support or (wo)manning a stall! Provide ad hoc support for any kind of outreach activity that anyone needs help with. (I am not sure about what this might involve but I'm putting it down because I'm sure there will be things that need need to be done!) I need some help from you. Would you let me know if the above 5 points would be useful? Please feel free to share ideas, comments, suggestions, modifications, warnings, etc. Please do go through the following page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Outreach_Program_Handbook) even though it is still in early-stages but will house my work. Please feel free to edit the page or to add comments on the talk page or offline to me. (My email ID is nit...@wikimedia.org) Would you let me know (offlist, please) if I can connect with if you are interested in sharing your experiences, can help me out on this work or just need some help on outreach? I really would like to talk to as many of you as I can to learn from you and to offer whatever help I can, however little it might be. (...To the folks who I have reached out but are still ignoring me - you know who you are... :-( Do talk to me. I'm really very nice! :-) Thank you so very much. Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?
On 19-Dec-2011, at 5:35 PM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Nitika, while you're at it, also try and look into what may get us more women editors. I have a bunch of reasons and ideas which may someday, come out. Sure Srikanth! I'd love to get more women editors onboard. And I'd love to hear your ideas. Let's discuss this offline - I'll write to you separately on this one. ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] What's in it for me?
your chances in admissions or scholarships or placements. Imagine if you are a mechanical engineer and you are one of 100 students in your batch applying for jobs with the best engineering companies who come to campus. Everyone is likely to submit a resume saying they are the greatest engineer ever born - but it's difficult for any one to stand out and shine. If you were to put a line in your resume that you have edited 5 articles on heating and cooling systems, there is a very high probability that this would jump out at the recruitment team of the companies and the will actually read your article (if they haven't already.) It can be so much fun! You can make new friends - from all over the world.. You can write about subjects that you are interested in (whether it is movies or your hometown or sarees or mythology or cricket or whatever!) It think it is really important that we drive this message as passionately as we can because this is something that can resonate so loud and for so long! Academia - Faculty Education Institutions Students with all the above result in much more motivated classes. One thing that teachers constantly say is that they one thing they want is engaged students. I've had teachers tell me that if they are in a class and they see their students involved and trying to learn and active, it is the best thing that can happen to them - and the rest of their day goes well! It improves your individual and college's academic reputation. In the Indian context where there is relatively lower emphasis on academic research papers by faculty members, supporting your students on Wikipedia articles helps you (rightfully) claim that you contributed to these articles. That increases your academic standing and helps attract better students and faculty and partnerships and recruiting companies. It supports the advancement of education - for students in your class and colleges and around the world. You have devoted your lives to education and this is a great way of promoting it. I wanted to share my perspectives because I really believe that the why needs to be addressed. Thanks for starting a great message thread, Srikanth. Nitika On 18-Dec-2011, at 1:37 AM, Srikanth Ramakrishnan wrote: Subha, most of those bullies are editors with zero constructive edits or IP based vandals. Sadly. Erik, yes, I consider Giving to Wiki as giving back to Society. Thanks for the links. Time to read during my month long Wiki break. Ravi, Bala told me that physical outreach programs had very poor success rates. I concur with him. Prad, I agree. That's how Manish and I became friends. But still doesn't explain how to get new guys. -- Regards, Srikanth Ramakrishnan. Wikipedia Coimbatore Meetup on December 10th. http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetup/Coimbatore ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IEP Pilot - Preliminary Analysis
Hi Ashwin This is very very very much a draft document. I have now mentioned that on the page. This was just my initial draft thoughts. (For instance, I've hardly covered a quarter of the learnings that I myself have put together- which again are very preliminary.) The various elements of the learnings gathering exercise that I had mentioned in an earlier mail will all feed into this - and we will also be reaching out to the community for their inputs. The purpose of this page was just for me to put some structure to my work. I take on board your points about high level strategic direction that we need to finalise before we start building the nuts and bolts. Improved Campus Ambassador training is certianly on that list but a whole host of others would also feature such as college selection, faculty selection involvement, subject selection, class selection, student selection, numbers, etc. etc. etc . However, what will determine and inform these will be the learnings that we are in the process of collating. My request is therefore to treat this page as a little workplace for me right now. Thanks Nitika On 29-Nov-2011, at 1:39 PM, Ashwin Baindur wrote: Nitika, I saw your draft edits about IEP campus ambassador syllabus on meta at the link below http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program/Program_Design#In-class but I felt that your syllabus seemed to repeat in essence whatever had happened earlier. Perhaps before redesigning your syllabus, you may like to decide en bloc, ie at a higher level, what changes you want in the overall scheme. For example, should the campus ambassadors have four days training instead of two? How much editting should be taught? What skills do they need to know? ( Needs to be mapped out). After getting all input, we should have developed something broad which says something like (for example) - Campus ambassadors will need to undergo six days of training - in three sessions. In session 1 (two days) they learn about Wikipedia, becoming an editor and intro to CA program. In session 2 (two days), some weeks later they hone their editing skills, knowledge competence and learn all things necessary to help editors. In the interim, they do some assignments, like bringing articles to GA, citation,etc which are of direct relevance to students and their assignments. In the last two day session,they get involved hands-on in the full gamut of activities that CA involves with role-playing skill development etc. After that and only after making something like that at its broadest level, should you flesh out the details. I would strongly recommend getting community involvement in developing this broad plan of action. Warm regards, Ashwin Baindur -- ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IEP Pilot - Preliminary Analysis
On 28-Nov-2011, at 5:23 PM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote: A supplimentary question: Are kudpung, moonriddengirl, fluffernutter, Voceditenore, spacemanspiff et al being interviewed? 4 out these 5 have been/will be interviewed. Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IEP Pilot - Preliminary Analysis
On 28-Nov-2011, at 6:22 PM, Ram Shankar Yadav wrote: All of us are truly committed to do that and I would love to see few points like - How we can better engage the community? - How many students are still editing Wikipeida, out of their course requirement? - How we can encourage newbies instead of blocking and scolding them, how to make it a fun place? Great points Ram. We should definitely look at these. Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] IEP Pilot - Preliminary Analysis
On 28-Nov-2011, at 5:23 PM, Bala Jeyaraman wrote: Somethings vital that are missing: 1) How many regular editors were required to clean up the articles. How many reverts/cleanup edits were required to clean up after the IEP students. 2) How many admin actions/interventions were required - warnings, blocks, mergers, deletions, AFDs 3) How many regular volunteer hours were spent on this project. 4) How much did the new page patrollers (NPP) backlog increase because of IEP 5) How much did the copyright cleanup investigations (CCI) backlog increase because of IEP 6) How long is it going to take to clean everything up. What do the NPP/CCI project members feel about the extra workload. 7) What was the impact on the existing en wiki community. How their attitude towards such a program has been damaged. Agreed Bala - it is important to analyse the effort that has been put in reviewing all the articles that the students have written. I'll forward this list to Tory and request her to address these questions during her interviews with admins, editors et all. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot
On 13-Nov-2011, at 4:07 PM, Bishakha Datta wrote: I'm hoping we'll hear more about the successes of the project, and eventually come to a balanced understanding of what worked and what didn't. At this stage, we're hearing much more about what didn't work, so it's hard to assess the pilot meaningfully. Thanks for bringing this up Bishakha. I do agree with you - like any other thing IEP has had its own set of highs and lows, ups and downs, failures and successes. I wanted to provide a more holistic view and share some analysis that I have done about IEP to see what worked during the pilot and what did not. Successes Our brilliant army of Campus Ambassadors who have voluntarily put in extra hours of work than they'd been asked to when they'd applied for Campus Ambassador Program. Several in-class sessions, copyvio sessions, co-ordinating with faculty, actively going from student to student and solving their queries, organizing regular CA meet ups/faculty meet ups, going through articles students have written, helping students understand how to do praphrasing and the list goes on and on. No matter what the circumstances were and no matter how busy they were there were always couple of CAs who would actively volunteer for the work that was required to be done. They have put their heart and soul in the program and would like to thank each one of them for all their efforts and dedication towards the program! A lot of students who have been actively editing additional articles 'besides the ones on which they'll be graded'. These students are genuinely interested in Wiki editing and have written some very good articles. Just to add, these students understand the consequences of plagiarism and who knows, these newbies might turn into long term wikipedians. I would also like to share with you all some of the good articles that students have written. I feel in the midst of all the copyvio chaos we have not congratulated students who have done brilliant work on wikipedia: Challenges of Inflationary Policy In India Private_sector_banks_in_India Innovations_in_the_Indian_banking_system Credit_Control Commercial_paper_in_India Indian_money_market Risk_management_in_Indian_banks Monetary_policy_of_India Loan waiver All_India_Financial_Institutions Non-banking_Financial_Company economic_survey Public_Private_Partnership_in_India Public_float Finance_in_India Foreign_Exchange_Management_Act Public_sector_banks_in_India Robinson Crusoe Economy Human Capital Land acquisition in India Partial equilibrium Labour Discrimination Testing high-performance computing applications Test Data Generation Testing in data mining applications Applications of Stack Double-ended priority queue Constructor(Object-oriented programming) These are just few of the articles. And as you'll notice not only have these students written good articles they have also contributed in great way by adding Indian content on wiki. Failures (and while pointing out the failures, I'd also like to address some concerns raised by specific people in this mail trail) There is no denying that our lack of communication with the global wikipedia community would be the biggest failure. Initially when we had approached the OAs we'd thought that their role will be similar (if not the same) to the OAs involved in PPI. But because of several other issues (students adding plagiarized material, low quality content etc) we had to start with the clean up project and hence the role of OAs also changed. I think this change of role caused some confusion for the OAs. So Bala/ Surya, I note your point here going forward we have to have more effective communication with the OAs and the entire OA Program should be designed and monitored in a better fashion. Accepting some of the inexperienced Wikipedians to become OAs. However we recognized our mistake well in time and got more experienced wikipedians as OAs ( OAs who were actively involved in PPI). As Swaroop/Arnav rightly said, we'll have to branch out to other subject streams. It was really difficult for first year engineering students (who were still studying the basics of engineering) to pick up topics on which they could write wikipedia articles because most of those articles were very well covered. Not briefing students about plagiarism and copyvios during the initial in-class sessions. Going forward, we have to make sure that students are taught about this topic in detail. Arnav, Arjun, Swaroop et all - I agree with you! IEP is not dead. The program faced its own set of challenges and we've learnt a lot out of this pilot. We're still studying the trends, our mistakes, our successes and we'll share our evaluation with you all sometime soon. Thanks Nitika___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
[Wikimediaindia-l] Wikipedia India Education Program Updates
Hey everyone, Just wanted to share few updates regarding Wikipedia India Education Program. 1. We conducted over 11 sessions in different classes to address the issue of copyright violations to make sure that students understand the gravity of this issue. We visited each class and spoke with the students that they simply cannot copy-paste on wikipedia and have also been warned about the consequences of doing so. One of the important learning from this is that going forward we need to include the issue of copyvio in in-class editing sessions. In the next semester, we shall take all precautionary steps and make sure that the students have been taught in detail about copyvios so that we face less problems like this going forward. 2. We conducted an open wikipedia day at the SSE where we were available on campus the whole day and students could reach out to us for any fundamental or technical wiki editing problems that they would have - more like a help desk throughout the day. Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as we had expected it to as not too many students came by with their problems. We'll have to think of more innovate ways of conducting such open days - any ideas/suggestions are more than welcome. 3. We now have a bigger and stronger army of Campus Ambassadors Online Ambassadors to support the students enrolled in the India Educational Program. 17 more Campus Ambassadors and 26 new Online Ambassadors are now onboard and will be helping students write better articles. I'll be sharing an update on this shortly. 4. The so famous Robinson Crusoe Economy Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_Economy written by one of the students User:Abhilasha369: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Abhilasha369 is now a 'Good Article' on Wikipedia. This is an achievement for the program!!! I believe that this is just the beginning and we'll hopefully see many more GAs and FAs emerging out of the program. 5. You can check out some of the other well written articles by the students: Lindahl Tax: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindahl_tax written by student user:Devanshi tripathi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Devanshi_tripathi Buddhist economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_Economy written by student user:Prarthana rao: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Prarthana_rao Income-consumption curve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income-consumption_curve written by student user:Vandhana297: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vandhana297 Economics of Lord Mahavira: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_Lord_Mahavira written by student user: Uditichopra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Uditichopra Animation Studio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_studio by student user: jinchurikidan:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Jinchurikidan You can track the progress of the program via the India Education Program Page (WP:INDIAEDU) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIAEDU. Please feel free to write on students' talk pages and guide them how to further improve their articles. Please don't forget to leave words of praise on Campus Ambassador's talk page as well - they all have been doing a great great job! Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Welcoming 2nd Generation Pune Campus Ambassadors
Hi everyone, To support over 1000 students enrolled in the India Education program we now welcome 17 more Campus Ambassadors onboard..!! Just to give you a backdrop, we'd opened the CA applications for over 2 weeks. The applicants had to submit their purpose of statement to become a CA followed by a round of interview. Out the huge lot of applications we received, we selected 17 bright enthusiastic Campus Ambassadors. We also organized a two day CA training for them where we concentrated on various aspects like how to tackle various questions by the students, how to help students write better articles, how to conduct in-class sessions, how to coordinate with the professors, how to tackle copyvio issues etc etc. The training was very well received and was a lot of fun! We had 100% attendance and all the 17 new CAs participated very actively. Im sure they are and will continue to support the students with equal amount of enthusiasm. Im sharing their usernames with you all, just incase you'd like to congratulate them, talk to them about the program or just to say a quick Hi! :) user:roshnisaigal user:Vedantgupta7890 user:Devanshi tripathi user:Debastein1 user:RDebashruti user:Mihir Kelkar user:Pratiklahoti8004 user:minakshinajardhane user:Anurag acj user:Vaibhavchandak user:Gunit31 user:Ishu.aghav user:kumarvikramsingh user:Shefalinaik user:Tb0412 user:nikita.agarwal user:arjunmangol Thank you! Nitika Tandon ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe / mailing option visit https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Pune Pilots, Ambassadors and MumCon Questions
Hey Vivek, Don't bother about the incomplete mail. Happens with most of us at times. J So good to hear that you're excited about the India Education Program and becoming an online ambassador. But here start my questions. 1. In the application I've given my locality, city (kolkata), state country. Was the full postal address required. If so, should I re-submit? No 2. Could there be training sessions for Online/Campus Ambassadors at Mumbai just before or after the Conference dates? [I'd not like to tie-up conference time with classrom time] There will be an online training session for the OA. And for Pune CAs, we are conducting a training session this weekend 10th 11th Sep. 3. Also, could there be similar sessions for Wikipedia editors to improve their Wikiabilities generally. Yes, there are WikiAcademies being planned. Please request the Chapter or the Mumbai community to respond. 4. Could/would there be a facility to hire laptops for the duration of the Conference - if not generally, then on the basis of request/choice made via the registration form? Could you please post this question on the WikiConference mailing list: wikiconference-in...@lists.wikimedia.org . They'll be in a better position to reply. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Update, Examples Request: Wikipedia India Education Program
Congratulations on joining the team at India operations! Thank you! It's wonderful to be working with you all. Can you also highlight any significant differences between the strategy for the Education programme in the US and for the one in India? Thanks. I'll second what Srikeit wrote in response. Key differences: we're not limiting ourselves to any academic field, we're doing it focussed as a pilot in one city (Pune) and we had a full time Fellow. Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.449 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3877 - Release Date: 09/04/11 18:33:00 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Update, Examples Request: Wikipedia India Education Program
Economics and College of Engineering Pune). We already have over 1000 students enrolled from just these 2 colleges. Most of these students have A 1000 students?! That is quite stupendous! I wonder if we can measure the contributions by these students over the course of the year? During the course of the semester we'll be tracking the progress of the students through the program page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIAEDU. We're also working on a Leaderboard (which is still under construction) but it gives a fair idea as to how many characters have been added to the articles, no. of edits made by each student, total bytes added to the article namespace etc. Here is an early look at the Leaderboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Leaderboard Thanks Nitika ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.449 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/3875 - Release Date: 09/04/11 18:33:00 ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Want to Help Newbie Editor Students of the India Education Program?: Inviting Online Ambassadors!
Greetings, As many of you are aware, the Wikipedia India Education Program works with teachers and students to encourage Wikipedia in the classroom. The basic idea is that teachers ask their students to edit Wikipedia articles instead of submitting traditional reports, assignments, etc. Students and teachers are trained and supported and motivated by Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors - who are volunteers. We currently have 1,000 students in the pilot we are running in Pune; the response has been amazing! There are huge challenges also. Most of the students have already been taught the basics of Wikipedia by their Campus Ambassadors. However, they need more help. The workload on Campus Ambassadors is already massive (as there are hardly 20 Campus Ambassadors for 1,000 students). It is going to keep increasing as more and more of the students start editing as we are now in the 2nd half of their semesters - and therefore closer to the last dates for their articles. We are already increasing Campus Ambassadors numbers by 15 in the next few days - but that still won't be enough. We're separately building a team of passionate and helpful folks - with good mentoring and teaching skills - to be Wikipedia Online Ambassadors. Online Ambassadors will help these students by providing online support and hand-holding so that the students can make high-quality contributions. Online Ambassadors can be based anywhere in India (or indeed the world) since their interaction with students will be over the internet. I am reaching out to you to see whether you would be interested in helping students and teachers and becoming a Wikipedia Online Ambassador. We have two different Online Ambassador roles: Level 1 and Level 2. . Level 1 is open to everyone - including people who have never edited Wikipedia before - and will support students on really basic Wikipedia questions. (They will be given specific training on this.) . Level 2 is open to experienced Wikipedians and will support students on more advanced Wikipedia questions. Both Level 1 and Level 2 roles will be provided orientation sessions. Currently, all the students are working on English wikipedia. Passion for helping others and the ability to help newbies are the most essential qualities for both levels. For more information about these roles and what is expected of them, please see this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:India_Education_Program/Online_Ambass adors/Description. The time commitment is 3-5 hours per week on average throughout the semester (or academic term.) I warmly invite and highly encourage you to apply to become a Wikipedia Online Ambassador! To apply, please go to: https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEdtdG5 ObU9mMm5oZno3MExDc3lEZHc6MA - by Monday, September 12th (earlier is better), and we will be in touch very soon about next steps. If you have any questions, please do reach out to me either on this mailing list or offlist. Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! Thank you so very much! I look forward to your application. Sincerely, Nitika Tandon ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
[Wikimediaindia-l] Update, Examples Request: Wikipedia India Education Program
Hi Folks, I thought I’ll share an update with you’ll on the Wikipedia India Education Program. It's running majorly in 2 colleges in Pune (Symbiosis School of Economics and College of Engineering Pune). We already have over 1000 students enrolled from just these 2 colleges. Most of these students have gone through one or more out of a total of 35 introductory, basic editing and refresher sessions conducted by Campus Ambassadors. It’s good to see big numbers but I thought I’ll also share with you some articles that the students have been working on. It’s really inspiring to see their progress! J User: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Abhilasha369 Abhilasha369 started a new article: Robinson Crusoe Economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_Economy User: basic.atari http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Basic.atari is working on article Human capital http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital User: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/SaurabhKB SaurabhKB is editing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organizing_list Self-organizing list User: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Aishani_Sharma Aishani Sharma on Social preferences http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_preferences User: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Jinchurikidan Jinchurikidan has been actively editing the article on Animation studio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation_studio These is still some way to go on these articles but I think they are fantastic starts! The 5 users and articles above are just illustrative. You can also track progress of the entire program here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:INDIAEDU Please do reach out to the students (not just the one's listed above) and offer help and encouragement. Please do help them out on their articles as well. While they have been trained, they're going to need a lot of support because they are almost entirely newbies. Please do also leave kind words for the Campus Ambassadors. They've been doing amazing work! Thanks Nitika Tandon ___ Wikimediaindia-l mailing list Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Welcome to the India Team! : Shiju Nitika
Hey Annie, Let me start by saying that it was lovely to meet the entire Wikimedia team here in Haifa. I wish I had the opportunity to meet you as well, but nonetheless I hope we meet sometime soon. I have a lot to learn from you that will help me being a part of the GEP in India. Please let me know if you'd have time to get on a skype call sometime post 17th August. I pick this date only because I'm traveling in Israel until then. Talking about African drumming, it was a very interesting project. So the fundamental concept being, that a company's success is a function of it's employees and their capability of working in tandem and harmony with each other. And Sewa Beats (the organisation I was working with) employs rhythm and African music to help people connect with each other. So in a typical workshop, a team of 50 to 500 were taught a particular rhythm on African drum (called the djembe) and were asked to simulate the same in the group. In the process, management learnings were derived like the importance of team work and communication (thier ability to play the djembe together). There were more aspects involved which I would love to share with you, but lets take that over the skype call. Or else, i'll be writing paras and paras about the workshops. :-) However, I was not an active part of these workshops. I was working on their market expansion strategy in new markets particularly in Spain, Sweden, France and Denmark. Phew! That was a long mail. Will tell you more about it over our call. :-) Nitika On Sun, Aug 7, 2011 at 4:18 AM, Annie L. Lin a...@wikimedia.org wrote: Welcome Shiju and Nitika! But now I can't help asking: how exactly can African drums be used for management coaching (per Hisham's introduction of Nitika)? =) Annie On Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 12:50 PM, Nitika Tandon nitika.tan...@gmail.comwrote: Dear All, Thank you for your heart warming mails and welcoming me to the Wikimedia Foundation I am extremely excited to be a part of the Wiki community and would love to contribute to the benevolent cause of the movement. A lot has been achieved to awaken the world by the community and I am eager to learn from their experiences. I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity to take the movement to a different height, especially in India, and I look forward to working closely with all of you in future. Kind regards, Nitika Tandon On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Hisham Mundol hmun...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Hi Folks, I'm really pleased to send out this email welcoming the first 2 new members of the India Programs team. Just before I introduce them, I thought I'd share with you the background of their selection. *Context* As you might be aware, the Foundation had decided to undertake a catalyst operation in India to promote the growth of the community and projects here. The team is expected to be a small, nimble 5 person group. We had put out 2 job postings - for Indic Initiatives and for Participation. (Please refer: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-May/003007.html) We posted them on linkedin and on the Indian FOSS community list as well as announcing them on various Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. The response was wonderful. 110 applications for Indic Initiatives and nearly 175 applications for Participation. These were short-listed to 10 (3 for Indic Language and 7 for Participation.) These were a mix of existing previous Wikipedians, Wikipedia newbies and open source advocates. In June, the shortlisted 10 were interviewed and further down-selected to 4. These 4 were then further interviewed by a group of other staff members from the Foundation. I am pleased to inform the community of the final selected 2. *Shiju Alex - Indic Initiatives* Most of you already know Shiju. For those who don't, Shiju is a long-time Wikipedian [User: shijualex] and is active on Malayalam Wikipedia, English wikiprojects and Wikimedia Commons, as well as Wikisource and offline. He has been passionately involved with the establishing and building of Indic language Wikipedias. He's participated in a series of outreach activities and is also (jointly) undertaking a grant from the Foundation for outreach across India. He's a regular member of the Bangalore community. Shiju is from Palakkad, Kerala and is married with a 2 year old baby. He currently works as a Senior Technical Writer with ABB in Bangalore. Even those of you who know him might not know the following 2 things that I was lucky to discover during the selection process. Shiju is an MSc in Physics with a specialisation in Astronomy and Astrophysics - and he retains a deep interest in anything astronomical. Feel free to quiz him vigorously on this! He also enjoys trekking and misses his time in Pune where he could be up close the gorgeous Sahyadri Hills. Shiju is going to lead our work on promoting Indic language projects across
Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Welcome to the India Team! : Shiju Nitika
Dear All, Thank you for your heart warming mails and welcoming me to the Wikimedia Foundation! I am extremely excited to be a part of the Wiki community and would love to contribute to the benevolent cause of the movement. A lot has been achieved to awaken the world by the community and I am eager to learn from their experiences. I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity to take the movement to a different height, especially in India, and I look forward to working closely with all of you in future. Kind regards, Nitika Tandon On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Hisham Mundol hmun...@wikimedia.orgwrote: Hi Folks, I'm really pleased to send out this email welcoming the first 2 new members of the India Programs team. Just before I introduce them, I thought I'd share with you the background of their selection. *Context* As you might be aware, the Foundation had decided to undertake a catalyst operation in India to promote the growth of the community and projects here. The team is expected to be a small, nimble 5 person group. We had put out 2 job postings - for Indic Initiatives and for Participation. (Please refer: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-May/003007.html) We posted them on linkedin and on the Indian FOSS community list as well as announcing them on various Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. The response was wonderful. 110 applications for Indic Initiatives and nearly 175 applications for Participation. These were short-listed to 10 (3 for Indic Language and 7 for Participation.) These were a mix of existing previous Wikipedians, Wikipedia newbies and open source advocates. In June, the shortlisted 10 were interviewed and further down-selected to 4. These 4 were then further interviewed by a group of other staff members from the Foundation. I am pleased to inform the community of the final selected 2. *Shiju Alex - Indic Initiatives* Most of you already know Shiju. For those who don't, Shiju is a long-time Wikipedian [User: shijualex] and is active on Malayalam Wikipedia, English wikiprojects and Wikimedia Commons, as well as Wikisource and offline. He has been passionately involved with the establishing and building of Indic language Wikipedias. He's participated in a series of outreach activities and is also (jointly) undertaking a grant from the Foundation for outreach across India. He's a regular member of the Bangalore community. Shiju is from Palakkad, Kerala and is married with a 2 year old baby. He currently works as a Senior Technical Writer with ABB in Bangalore. Even those of you who know him might not know the following 2 things that I was lucky to discover during the selection process. Shiju is an MSc in Physics with a specialisation in Astronomy and Astrophysics - and he retains a deep interest in anything astronomical. Feel free to quiz him vigorously on this! He also enjoys trekking and misses his time in Pune where he could be up close the gorgeous Sahyadri Hills. Shiju is going to lead our work on promoting Indic language projects across India. The challenges are enormous - from technical constraints to low levels of awareness of these projects to vibrant but nascent communities. However, these only point to the massive size of the opportunity for Indic language projects - which is the joint top-2 strategic priority of the movement in India. After he joins, he'll collaboratively put together a plan for Indic language projects and work towards quality execution of high-impact initiatives. Shiju is currently serving out his notice period so will be able to join us only around September - October. *Nitika Tandon - Participation* Nitika [User:nitika.t] is relatively newer to the community - and has been brushing up her editing. She's been immersing herself in the Wikimedia world and attended community meet-ups as well as reviews of the Wikipedia India Education Program. She is from Delhi - and is currently based in Mumbai - where she works as a Strategic Partnerships Manager with Directi. (If you're not aware, they are one of the most prominent internet domain solutions providers in India.) Nitika has an MBA and has also worked on research analytics. A fascinating detail I discovered about a previous assignment of hers - and you must ask her about it - is how African drums can be used for management coaching! She also reliably informs me that there are 7 Spanish dance forms and she instructs in all of them! Nitika is going to be working on Participation - which is primarily focussed on increasing the contributor base of non-Indic language projects, primarily Wikipedia. One of her first tasks will be to expand the Wikipedia India Education Program from the Pune pilot to a more national footprint. She'll also work on other initiatives to promote participation - and I can foresee Wikimedia Commons being a potential initiative. Nitika
