CIS-A2K/Work plan July 2014 - June 2015/Konkani

Introduction

CIS-A2K initiated implementation of Konkani Wikipedia Work Plan (2013-2014) in July 2013. Until that time there was nearly no editing activity, no outreach efforts and an extremely small Wikipedia community of 2-3 dispersed members who were individually investing time and effort to get more people involved in Konkani Wikimedia projects.

In addition to this low level of activity on Konkani Wikipedia, Konkani as a language faces 3 major challenges:

Multiple scripts - Konkani speaking population is limited to 25 lakh approx., and the challenge of multiple scripts further divides this population into even smaller subsets.
Dispersed population – Large number of Konkani speaking population settled outside of India which makes it difficult to unite Konkani diaspora towards a common objective or a common movement.
Lack of formal Konkani education – There are inadequate opportunities and venues to formally study Konkani in schools and colleges in India.

Impact

In spite of the above challenges CIS-A2K has put in concerted efforts and achieved the following:

Intangible Impact

Developed institutional partnerships with 3 major institutions: Goa University, Nirmala Institute of Education and Dalgado Konknni Akademi for building Konkani Wikipedia. CIS-A2K designed and implemented projects and programs in each of these institutions to grow Konkani Wikipedia editors and projects.
Upon CIS-A2K‘s explicit request, on 26 September 2013 Goa University re-released Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopedia) under CC-BY-SA 3.0 to make it freely available to public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era.
To further build on this initiative, CIS-A2K implemented Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project where 37 participants enrolled to digitize the encyclopedia on Wikisource in a time bound manner. As on Feburary 2014 85 per cent of digitization is done and the rest of the digitization should be completed by April 2014.
Organised translation sprint to help translate MediaWiki interface messages. 79% of these messages were translated in Konkani Devanagari while all 100% messages were translated in Roman script.
Designed and implemented a program with Nirmala Institute of Education to enroll 100 B.Ed. students to increase the amount of information available about Goan villages and towns on Konkani Wikipedia.
CIS-A2K was able to build a good network with local and national media to create awareness about Konkani Wikipedia through both print as well as digital media.
CIS-A2K spoke with Konkani Wikipedians (such as Frederick Noronha, Deepak D'Souza, Seby Fernandes) Konkani linguists (such as Fr. Pratap), professors from Konkani Department at Goa University (Dr. Madhavi Sardesai and Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar), cultural experts (such as Prof. Alito Siqueira and Harriet Vidyasagar) and other resource persons to discuss possible solutions for Konkani Wikipedia that faces a problem of usage of multiple scripts. To a great extent we have been able to arrive at a consensus that should strive to create separate Wikis for each script, at least those which prove to be active. Discussion can be followed on this page.

To get more details of work done on Konkani Wikipedia during this period click here.

Tangible Impact

The impact of CIS-A2K’s work on Konkani Wikipedia can be viewed in the factsheet and graphs shared below. Statistics are generated from Tool Labs.^[1]

Factsheet

Parameter	As on Jul-2013	As on Jun-14
No. of scripts used in current incubation project	3 (Roman, Devanagari, Kannada)	3 (Roman, Devanagari, Kannada)
Total No. of Articles	86	513
Total No. of Articles Per Script: Devanagari Roman Kannada	52 32 2	352 159 2
No. of MediaWiki messages translated and reviewed:: Devanagari Roman Kannada	- - -	88% translated, 44% reviewed 99% translated, 26% reviewed -
No. of redirects	4	44
No. of revisions	1113 (including 254 minor edits)	9813 revisions (including 363 minor edits)
Total No. of Editors	-	222 editors (including any with at least one edit)
No. of Editors Per Month	0	4

Key Highlights

Key highlights from factsheet:

Total number of articles grew consistently at an average rate of 20.2 per cent month on month (MoM).
In a script-wise breakdown, highest growth in number of articles was seen in Devanagari followed by Roman.
CIS-A2K organized translation sprint as a result of which we achieved high percentage of translated and reviewed MediaWiki system messages in both Devanagari and Roman.
On an average 13 editors have been editing Konkani Wikipedia month after month since July 2013.
On an average 726 edits and 434 KB of data have been added on Konkani Wikipedia every month since July 2013.

Needs Assessment

Community

Lack of healthy competition amongst scripts

Noted Goan English writer and novelist Shri Victor Rangel Ribeiro stated that “the Konkani language needs both scripts for its survival and growth, since both scripts have their own merits” (wherein he refers to Devanagari and Roman as ‘both’). ^[2] However his statement can be extended to say that each Konkani language script is important in its own way whether it is Devanagari, Kannada, Malayalam, Roman or Perso Arabic. Echoing with Victor’s words CIS-A2K aims to encourage people to continue writing in any script and keep the flame of Konkani, irrespective of scripts, burning in the hearts of the Konkani people.

There is enough and more space to include all scripts of Konkani language on Wikimedia projects and CIS-A2K aims to introduce more and more people to this part of cyberspace.

For the wider Konkani society, Konkani Wikipedia can set a brilliant example where a healthy competition amongst communities could not only help all scripts to co-exist on the same platform but also develop each script in Konkani.

Disconnected dispersed Konkani community

Konkani is the official language of Goa. However, with large number of Konkani speakers living outside of Goa there is a need to promote Konkani Wikipedia amongst the dispersed community members. The Census Department of India, 2001 figures put the number of Konkani speakers in India as 2,489,015. Out of these, around 6 lakh were in Goa, 7 lakh in Karnataka, 3 lakh in Maharashtra, 6 lakh in Kerala and rest live outside of India, either as expatriates or citizens of other countries.^[3]

With such a dispersed population, there seems to be a disconnect with events and activities taking place to foster Konkani language. In a small community like this, there is a definite need to go beyond borders to increase the outreach and build that connect.

Sustainability

Since July 2013 CIS-A2K has invested a lot of time and effort to build and handhold the Konkani Wikipedia project and community. It is essential to make sure that we do not reach a situation where Konkani Wikipedia community is entirely dependent on CIS-A2K for its growth. The community should be able to sustain even if CIS-A2K pulls out of its Konkani work.

Thus, it is necessary that the existing Konkani Wikipedia editors take charge and build leadership to conduct offline and online outreach sessions, handhold new editors, conduct talks and events, prepare outreach material etc. The community should be able to generate enough momentum to grow Konkani Wikipedia with minimal external support.

The community also needs to be strengthened by having Konkani Wikipedia Admins and Sysops to regulate editing activity to observe high standard of conduct. Very soon the community, in order to foster its growth, will also have to build policies and guidelines that serve as best practices for the Konkani Wikipedia community.

Need for diversity

Most of the current Konkani Wikipedia editors belong to the age group of 21-30 and are primarily postgraduate students. There is a need to break through this bracket and involve higher age groups (>30 years old) and other professions such as journalists, housewives, professionals, doctors, engineers etc.

Retaining editors

There are 13 editors on an average every month editing Konkani Wikipedia since July 2013. There is a definite need to motivate and retain these editors.

Content

Konkani Wikipedia is an extremely small project with only 447 articles in Feb 2014. At this moment content on any subject like literature, writers, music, cuisine or history will be helpful to build Konkani content.

Having said that, Goa's cultural heritage comprises of dance, theater, folk songs, visual arts, music, poetry and folktales rich in content and variety. Most of the existing Konkani Wikipedians are deeply interested in initiating thematic projects on these topics. Such projects will not only provide focus and direction to the community but will also help develop a good quality Konkani repository in select fields.

Implementation Plan

Strengthening the Existing Community

Plan

Over the past year CIS-A2K has built formal and informal ties with several institutions to help build Konkani Wikipedia. The idea is to further deepen the work in these institutions in the coming year and gain more momentum.

Execution

Goa University (GU) – At Konkani Department GU, CIS-A2K has done a lot of groundwork and handholding, which is probably required when one is trying to build a community from scratch. However, in the next year CIS-A2K would like to make programs and community at Konkani Department, GU self-sustainable by:

Creating leadership amongst the Wikipedia community at Konkani Department. CIS-A2K will organize capacity building trainings for the new leaders so that they are well equipped to conduct offline/online outreach sessions for new batches at the Konkani Department, at other departments of GU and also conduct outreach events outside of GU. This will help achieve self-generated momentum.
CIS-A2K will explore the possibility of integrating Wikipedia as a teaching and learning tool in GU’s pedagogic activities so that it has a long-term impact on the growth of the Konkani Wikipedia.
CIS-A2K will incubate a formalised structure within MA Konkani Department GU that will increase their sense of ownership of Konkani Wikipedia (Devanagari script). The idea is to collaborate with GU and plant a formal structure to ensure Konkani Wikipedia’s growth year after year; just as Samskrita Bharati has collaborated to build Sanskrit Wikipedia over time.
Other departments at Goa University like Computer Science, Library Science and Sociology departments have shown great enthusiasm in helping build the Konkani Wikipedia. Though CIS-A2K has done a few outreach sessions with each of these departments, we will develop formal programs/projects with these departments.

Nirmala Institute of Education (NIE) – CIS-A2K ran the ‘Goan towns and villages’ project with 100 students at NIE where they collected information and wrote articles about 50 villages of Goa. In the coming year we want to scale up our association with NIE and are looking to design and roll out a teacher’s training certificate program. Once certified, these students (then, teachers) will act as anchors to teach and assign Wikipedia editing assignments in their respective schools and classrooms. This partnership could bring huge momentum and scale for the growth of Konkani Wikipedia.
Dalgado Konknni Akademi (DKA) – CIS-A2K and DKA have jointly organized programs in the past. In the coming year CIS-A2K would like to strengthen this partnership by designing and implementing at least one thematic project of DKA’s interests. Members of DKA constitutes of writers, publishers, teachers, poets, litterateurs and researchers and are in the age group of 30-50. Including them in the Konkani editors community will also help us bring diversity into the current Konkani Wikipedia editor’s profile.

Projection

Achieve self-generated momentum for the growth of Konkani Wikipedia.
Deepen relations and networks within other departments of Goa University; besides Konkani department.
100 more articles on Goan towns and villages will be added as partnership with NIE strengthens.
Bring diversity in the current Konkani Wikipedia editor’s profile.

Building New Partnerships and Community

Plan

Few more institutional partnerships could potentially contribute to the growth of Konkani Wikipedia. Since we already have a strong partner for Devanagari script (Goa University), CIS-A2K will make an additional effort to build partnerships with organisations that advance Kannada and Roman scripts.

Execution

Partner with intuitions advancing Konkani-Kannada - For the growth of Konkani content in Kannada script, CIS-A2K will aim to try to build partnerships with Roshni Nilaya School of Social Work and St. Aloysius College Institutions. CIS-A2K have organized outreach events at both these places and received great enthusiasm from these institutions. None of the institutes in Karnataka have an exclusive Konkani Department like at the Goa University but they have great passion and love for their language and have shown keen interest to help build Konkani Wikipedia. We’ll organize series of workshops at these institutions and initiate thematic projects on Konkani folk songs, visual arts, music, poems, folk tales or any other topic they seem to be more interested in. We can plan similar programs at Alva’s College and St. Agnes College, two organizations where CIS-A2K already has contacts.
Partner with institutions advancing Konkani-Roman - For the growth of Konkani content in Roman script, CIS-A2K will explore building partnerships with International Centre Goa (ICG) and Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr Goa.

Projection

At least 3-4 new institutional partnerships.
Introduce 70-100 new editors to Konkani Wikipedia as a part of these partnerships.
Building strong partners to advance all three scripts - Devanagari, Kannada and Roman.

Bringing New Content into the Public Domain

Plan

Re-release of the Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 has set an excellent example for the Konkani community to share knowledge by bringing it into the public domain. It is essential to look at this endeavor as an attempt to build more Konkani resources in the Konkani Wikisource, which can feed into thousands of well-written articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

Execution

A few people/organizations who are willing to donate their books under CC-BY-SA 3.0 have approached CIS-A2K. In the coming year, CIS-A2K will make a comprehensive list of such books or commission someone to do it.

Frederick Noronha, an independent writer, journalist and long time Wikipedian, has two copyright-expired Maffei's Roman-script Konkani dictionaries. CIS-A2K will work closely with the Roman-Konkani community to assess the possibility of digitizing these books.
Madhavi Sardesai, a scholar, publisher and writer who works mainly in the Konkani language is one of the editors of the Konkani literary journal Jaag and has shown keen interest in donating all her past publications since August 2007 under Creative Commons.
Isidore Dantes is going to publish a dictionary and is also willing to donate it under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

Projection

Increase content available in Konkani on the Internet.
Bring Konkani content in public domain and help digitize, if required; minimum of 2 books.
Create minimum of 500 articles out of this freely available content.

Content Generation

Thematic Projects - Creating interesting projects might also help tap into the dispersed community who can participate remotely. Some of the possible ideas are:

Village Project - We’ve already started a village project with NIE. In the next year we want to continue with this project and include more articles on villages and towns of Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Kerala. Till now this project has been active on Devanagari and Roman script; the idea is to extend it to Kannada script too.
Literature Project - This project will be devoted to increasing the quality of articles dealing with Konkani literature subjects, writers, poems, folklore and literary terms or genres which encompass several different types of writing.
Cuisine Project - This project will cover a broad array of topics, such as Konkani cuisine, spices, food dishes, beverages, chefs and food personalities, commercial food vendors, manufactures and restaurants.
Notable personalities - This project will cover articles of notable personalities who are Konkani speakers: eg Girish Karnad, Nandan Nilekani, Anant Nag and Shankar Nag (who became famous Kannada actors), Jayanat Kaikini (Kannada short story writer), Remo Fernandes (singer), Armando menezes (who became VC of Karnataka university in Dharwad) and many others.

Using Vishwakosh to build good quality articles - Digitized version of Konkani Vishwakosh is available on Wikisource and Commons. It encompasses the world’s information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. CIS-A2K will organise edit-a-thons to use all this content as good quality articles on Konkani Wikipedia. This activity should be able to generate minimum of 500-1000 articles.

Participating/Organizing Events & Conferences

CIS-A2K plans to organise a minimum of two Konkani Wikipedia multi-script edit-a-thons in 2014 - 2015. These edit-a-thons will focus on creating and improving Konkani Wikipedia articles in all scripts and help increase the web presence of Konkani language and culture.
Organise Wikipedia booths during four-day educational festival carnival organized by the Nirmala Institute of Education. The carnival hosts stalls, each with a different learning activity and a footfall of over 2,000 people.
Organise Wikipedia stall at Konkani Sahitya Sammelan. Konkani Sahitya Sammelan is one of the most prestigious and active cultural events in the Konkani community. The literary meet discusses among other things, the role of litterateurs in striking a balance between development and environment, and ways to enrich Konkani literature.
Participate in Karnataka Konkani Literary Conference organized by All India Konkani Writers’ Organization – (AIKWO). This is an event when all veteran Konkani litterateurs, poets, writers, researchers come together to discuss ways of preserving and documenting Konkani content.

Goals for July 2014 - June 2015

Targets

Parameter	As on June-2014	Expected Target (By June 30, 2015)
Total No. of Articles	513	3000
Average No. of Total Editors Per Month	13	40
No. of Active Editors	6	20
Total No. of Outreach Sessions Per Month	3-4	3-4

Activity-wise Break-up of Targets

Activity	No. of New Articles	No. of New Editors	No. of Events	No. of Partnerships
Strengthening Existing Institutional Partnerships	1000	20-30	8-10	3
Building New Institutional Partnerships	500	70-100	10-12	4
Bringing new content in public domain	500	30-40	7-8	3
Content Generation	500	20-30	3-4	-
Total	2500	140-200	28-34	10

Budget

Expenditure Item	FDC Support (INR)	FDC Support (US$)	Other Sources including in kind support (INR)	Other Sources including in kind support (US$)
1 PO x 50% *	192,500/-	3,114.81	-	-
1 PD x 10% **	144,000/-	2,330.04	81,600/-	1320.35
Travel and Stay ***	200,000/-	3,236.16	50,000/-	809.04
Volunteer Support	50,000/-	809.04	50,000/-	809.04
Events/Meet-ups/Workshops	50,000/-	809.04	50,000/-	809.04
Consultant (Interns)	210,000/-	3,397.97	-	-
Consumables/Printing/Stationery/Swag	50,000/-	809.04	-	-
Miscellaneous	20,000/-	323.62	-	-
Total	916,500/-	14,829.71	231,600/-	3,747.48

Notes:
* 50% time of a Program Officer who will anchor this plan at CIS-A2K. Or this could be utilized to hire Programm Assistant level staff and interns. Staff hiring will be done in discussion with the Konkani Community. This is for a duration of 7 months only.

** 10% of T. Vishnu Vardhan’s time as Program Director, CIS-A2K

*** Expenses incurred by the CIS-A2K program team towards executing the plan

List of Contributors

CIS-A2K has received generous support whenever required from various people in developing these plans. Some of the key people include:

References

↑ "Generated statistics". Retrieved 19 Mar 2014.
↑ "Both scripts needed for Konkani, Oheraldo". Retrieved 19 Mar 2014.
↑ "ABSTRACT OF SPEAKERS' STRENGTH OF LANGUAGES AND MOTHER TONGUES - 2001". Goverment of India. Retrieved 6 May 2013.

[1] "Generated statistics". Retrieved 19 Mar 2014.

[2] "Both scripts needed for Konkani, Oheraldo". Retrieved 19 Mar 2014.

[3] "ABSTRACT OF SPEAKERS' STRENGTH OF LANGUAGES AND MOTHER TONGUES - 2001". Goverment of India. Retrieved 6 May 2013.

[1]

[2]

[3]