CIS-A2K/Research

The CIS-A2K research portal documents the research conducted by the A2K team at the Centre for Internet and Society. In this portal, you will find details about A2K's research work, and a comprehensive listing of project reports and updates. The research work for 2019–2022 was led by User:Sneha (CIS-A2K), and comprised a series of short-term projects undertaken by members of the A2K team.

CIS-A2K

CIS-A2K (Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge) is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.
If you have a general proposal/suggestion for Access to Knowledge team you can write on the discussion page. If you have appreciations or feedback on our work, please share it on feedback page.

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Objectives

The research component of the CIS-A2K programme was initiated in 2019 with the aim of identifying and examining knowledge gaps related to diverse aspects of work within Indian language Wikimedia communities. Work undertaken under this component seeks to build on learnings from ongoing engagement through programmatic work, in the form of short-term research projects on key thematic areas. The broad objectives of the research work are to:

Identify gaps, challenges, and opportunities related to various aspects of content creation, participation, learning, access and outreach in Indian language Wikimedia projects.
Develop recommendations and best practices towards addressing existing challenges and optimising available resources for the larger free knowledge movement.

Research Projects in 2019–21

Bridging the Gender Gap

This objective of this study is to conduct research on the gender gap and gender bias which exists in the Indian language Wikimedia communities. Wikimedia characterises ‘gender bias’ on its platforms as “a dominant majority of volunteer editors, particularly on the English language site, being male, as a result of which there is less extensive content by and about women”. The three thematic areas of research Developing a better understanding of online participation – in terms of content created by women, content about women, and online engagement with communities. Developing a better understanding of women’s offline community participation. Enhancing sustained participation of women contributors – challenges with retention, infrastructural issues, possibilities and strategies for the same, and creating awareness on how women can be involved with all Wikimedia projects. More details can be seen here.

Case Study on Wikimedia in Education

The main objective of this case study is to understand the motivation, challenges, impact & personal improvements of the students, faculty members and the community members engaged with the education programme at Christ (deemed to be) University, Bangalore. More details can be seen here.

Mapping GLAM Institutions in Maharashtra

The objective of this study is to conduct comprehensive mapping of GLAM institutions in Pune district of Maharashtra state, and understand details of their collections and digitisation efforts. The Case study of one institution will be done and recommendations towards potential GLAM-Wiki collaborations, especially with sister projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikidata would be designed. More details can be seen here.

A comparative study of Wikipedia article creation campaigns in India

The objective of this study is to produce a detailed report of two article creation competitions in India i.e, Project Tiger and Wikipedia Asian Month. The study aims to help in improving future article writing contests/campaigns by identifying what motivates volunteers to contribute to Wikipedia during a campaign or a contest, challenges faced, the kind of content being added during these contests, etc. More details can be seen here.

Study on Content Creation on Punjabi Wikipedia

The objective of this study is to understand the challenges for content creation related to Punjab that exists on Punjabi Wikipedia (Gurmukhi). There are articles about Punjabi culture on Punjabi Wikipedia but the need is to analyze them from the perspective of the readers’ minds. More details can be seen here.

Understanding the data gaps in Wikidata concerning West Bengal

The objective of this study is to understand the problems caused by the existing data gaps in Wikidata concerning West Bengal and the strategies for filling up the data gaps. The study is intended to be done by using Wikidata query service. More details can be seen here.

Compilation of Final Reports

The final reports on these studies offer several insights and learnings from engagement with various Indian language Wikimedia projects and discussions with community members. The reports have been shared on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki and the CIS website; a compilation of all the reports is now available on Wikimedia Commons as well.

Research topics for 2021–2022

Exploring Knowledge repositories on Water resources

The objectives of this study are to – Document the nature of major online and offline knowledge repositories on water resources and their impact on creating awareness among civil society, Identify and develop the form of locally relevant digital knowledge resources on water that are accessible in regional languages and to explore the process of building digital archives on water knowledge resources. More details can be seen here.

Mapping Repositories on Gender and Sexuality in Indian Languages

Building on previous work under the thematic area of gender gap on Wikimedia projects, this research study will explore aspects of content creation on gender and sexuality in Indian languages, with a focus on challenges related to their digital documentation, and possibilities to bring them on open knowledge platforms such as Wikimedia projects. More details may be seen here.

Study on Infrastructural Needs of Indian Language Wikimedia Projects

This study aims to identify current challenges and knowledge gaps in technological capacity, resources and training with respect to various Indian language Wikisource platforms. The study will aim to develop and present a set of learnings and recommendations on potential strategies to address these gaps, including through collaborative intervention and training. More details may be seen here.