Grants:APG/Proposals/2015-2016 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Progress report form


Main pageKannadaOdiaMarathiTeluguSkill buildingBridging gender gap

Purpose of the report edit

This form is for organizations receiving Annual Plan Grants to report on their results to date. For progress reports, the time period for this report will the first 6 months of each grant (e.g. 1 January - 30 June of the current year). For impact reports, the time period for this report will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report (e.g. 1 January - 31 December of the current year). This form includes four sections, addressing global metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance. Please contact APG/FDC staff if you have questions about this form, or concerns submitting it by the deadline. After submitting the form, organizations will also meet with APG staff to discuss their progress.

Global metrics overview - all programs edit

We are trying to understand the overall outcomes of the work being funded across our grantees' programs. Please use the table below to let us know how your programs contributed to the Global Metrics. We understand not all Global Metrics will be relevant for all programs, so feel free to put "0" where necessary. For each program include the following table and

  1. Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
  2. Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
  3. In addition to the Global Metrics as measures of success for your programs, there is another table format in which you may report on any OTHER relevant measures of your programs success

For more information and a sample, see Global Metrics.

Overall edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 134 Our activities have involved experienced Wikimedians in collaborating and leading our activities
2. # of new editors 878 A2K with its edit-a-thons and WEP related activities have been able to attract new editors
3. # of individuals involved 2688 Our activities have had a wider reach because of the partnerships that Community Advocates have been able to develop
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 1015 A2K is indeed finding it difficult to achieve this metric. There are focused events such as image-a-thons and GLAM activities planned for the upcoming plan period
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 1705 new articles + 3700 folios Our WEP activities will gather strength during the upcoming plan period
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 16.253 MB Initiatives such as Wikisource Digitisation that were started during last work plan have yielded results


  • We have mentioned in the below table

Kannada edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 19
2. # of new editors 290
3. # of individuals involved 475
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 243
  • Category: Adyar Falls
  • Category: Unidentified Lepidoptera in Sammilan Shetty's Butterfly Park Belvai
  • Category:Interior of St. Aloysius Chapel, Mangalore
  • Category: Mangaladevi Temple
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 928 new articles + 1180 folios
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 3.29MB
  • 2.45 MB of data added
  • 0.84 MB of data deleted for quality maintenance


Marathi edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 12
2. # of new editors 51
3. # of individuals involved 712
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 30 Categories:Culture of Maharashtra,Villages in Maharashtra,Water conservation,Marathi Wikipedia Workshops in_Maharashtra
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 60
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 0.4MB
  • 0.33MB of data added
  • 0.07MB of data deleted for quality maintenance


Odia edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 26
2. # of new editors 57
3. # of individuals involved 122
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 592 List of articles without images. Articles marked with YesY has been improved during Image-A-Thon, Wiki Loves Ratha Yatra
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 376
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 1.99 MB
  • 1.90 MB of data added to Wikimedia projects.
  • 0.09 MB of data deleted from Wikimedia projects for quality maintenance.


Telugu edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 24
2. # of new editors 72
3. # of individuals involved 635
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 130 We conducted an image-a-thon where many images that already existed in Commons were added to Telugu Wikipedia articles which didn't have images
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 133 articles + 2216 folios Clearer calculation possible after analysis of entire cohort data
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 5.53 MB 4.163MB of data added to Wikimedia projects.

1.367MB of data deleted from Wikimedia projects for quality maintenance.


Other activites edit

Metric Achieved outcome Explanation
1. # of active editors involved 53 These activities include initiatives such as gender gap bridging activities and request based support to Indic communities
2. # of new editors 408 We have received massive response towards our Gender Gap Bridging activities
3. # of individuals involved 744
4. # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 20
5. # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 208 new articles + 304 folios
6. Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 5.043 MB
  • 4.77 MB added
  • 0.273 MB deleted


Over-all Metrics edit

Global metrics overview (over-all)

Activity Wise Metrics edit

Kannada Marathi Odia Telugu

Telling your program stories - all programs edit

Please tell the story of each of your programs included in your proposal. This is your chance to tell your story by using any additional metrics (beyond global metrics) that are relevant to your context, beyond the global metrics above. You should be reporting against the targets you set at the beginning of the year throughout the year. We have provided a template here below for you to report against your targets, but you are welcome to include this information in another way. Also, if you decided not to do a program that was included in your proposal or added a program not in the proposal, please explain this change. More resources for storytelling are at the end of this form. Here are some ways to tell your story.

  • We encourage you to share your successes and failures and what you are learning. Please also share why are these successes, failures, or learnings are important in your context. Reference learning patterns or other documentation.
  • Make clear connections between your offline activities and online results, as applicable. For example, explain how your education program activities is leading to quality content on Wikipedia.
  • We encourage you to tell your story in different ways by using videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g.), compelling quotes, and by linking directly to work you produce. You may highlight outcomes, learning, or metrics this way.
  • We encourage you to continue using dashboards, progress bars, and scorecards that you have used to illustrate your progress in the past, and to report consistently over time.
  • You are welcome to use the table below to report on any metrics or measures relevant to your program. These may or may not include the global metrics you put in the overview section above. You can also share your progress in another way if you do not find a table like this useful.
- Target Last year (if applicable) Progress (at end of Q2) End of year (projected or actual)
# of newly registered users 763 - 878 1525
# of active editors involved 175 - 134 349
# of individuals involved 1322 - 2688 2643
# of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages 4860 - 1015 9720
# of new images/media uploaded (optional) 7515 - - 7515
# of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects 3185+100,000 folios - 1705 new articles + 3700 folios 6370+200,000 folios
Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects 4,767,000 + 7.5 MB - 16.053 MB 9,534,000 + 15 MB


CIS-A2K Response to feedback and suggestions received for 2016-17 Work Plan edit

Feedback/Suggestions offered to CIS-A2K Work Plan 2016-2017 Feedback Offered By Revised Strategy
Given that the impact being talked about is on Wikipedia, it would have been good to see more links in general User:Evgeni Sergeev CIS-A2K would like to acknowledge this a learning and has included links and provided cumulative metrics in the current progress report
CIS to show stronger ties to other organizations related to India. User:Bluerasberry CIS-A2K has worked with Open Access India, Breakthrough and a few other organizations. CIS-A2K also had the privilege of being the Fiscal Sponsor of WCI 2016
The same medicine for each community. Their all language specific plans are not coming their community. Every community has a unique issue User:Jayantanth A2K has expanded its support structure to all the Indic Wikimedia communities through our request page and TTT and MWT initiatives
It is the Focused Language Area Concept of CIS, which seems faulty to me as India is a multilingual country and supporting only 5 of them and completely ignoring others only aggravate the problem User:Bodhisattwa Currently CIS-A2K is working on exit plan, which should be presented in the next proposal
I think CIS should also help other active Wikimedia projects in Indic-languages as well. CIS can ask communities if they need any kind of financial or technical support. Focusing on existing projects before making new projects live: User:Satdeep Gill CIS-A2K has been engaging many Indic communities (FLA and Non FLA) via the request page and skill building initiatives
Challenging to understand work across both programs and Focus Language Areas (FLAs), particularly metrics. Should aspire to more nuanced targets and evaluation plans, especially around skillbuilding: FDC Assessment A2K has presented metrics both according to FLA and according to the activities along with targets for the plan period
Target for images in use may not be achievable based on past performance: FDC Assessment A2K has many focused activities planned to achieve this metric (image-a-thons and GLAM activities
Fitting the CIS-A2K proposal into the FDC process has been an ongoing challenge: FDC Assessment A2K has compiled the progress report in accordance to the FDC assessment, activity level metrics and stories
We hope CIS-A2K is working toward deepening the results from these individual partnerships instead of focusing on the number of partnerships FDC Assessment CIS-A2K has discontinued partnerships that were not achieving high RoI and measurable impact during this plan period

Activity wise edit

Table 3

Program (1) # of newly registered users (2) # of active editors involved (3) # of individuals involved (4a) # of new images/media added to Wikimedia articles/pages (4b) # of new images/media uploaded (optional) (5) # of articles added or improved on Wikimedia projects (6) Absolute value of bytes added to or deleted from Wikimedia projects
Overall 878/1525 134/349 2688/2643 1015/9720 -/7515 1705 new articles + 3700 folios/6370+200,000 folios 16.253 MB/9,534,000 + 15 MB
Wikipedia Educational Program 604/800 17/47 387/1350 450 new articles & 2500 existing articles/6800 2003/3400 600/2000 2,506,305.64/6,300,000
Edit-a-thons 149/650 23/100 249/1035 199/495 116/350 229/3850 4,717,490.96/2,974,000
Skill Building 5/50 30/132 39/73 64/75 64/65 200/200 372,686/460,000
GLAM activities 1/25 14/70 314/185 428/2450 548/3700 70+-/320+200,000 folios 629,010+-/800,000 + 15 MB

Overall Progress edit

Sankey Diagram showing the CIS-A2K Strategy

Developments and Gender Gap Awareness edit

CIS-A2K has worked over the past half year to further the cause of Indic language Wikipedias in its Focus Language Areas. With nearly 900 news editors, we have been able to tap into various communities of interests as well as localised activities in an attempt to deepen the bonds with community members while also endeavouring to create self-sustaining communities. Our focus this year is categorised into the Wikipedia Education Program, Edit-a-thons, Skill-building and GLAM activities. With a number of key events and activities to conducted this year, we have been able to make significant strides in some of these programs, especially through the Wikipedia Education Program and GLAM activities. These activities contributed to Wikipedia and as well as to the Wikimedia projects overall. Our lodestar activity, however, has been our continuing effort to raise awareness about the gender gap in Wikipedia in India and the world at large. In the various events we have conducted over the past year, we have tried to include and involve women, both Wikipedians and non- Wikipedians, enabling them to be more forthcoming about the issues and hurdles they face in becoming a part of the movement. This has been particularly significant as it has enabled us to come up with solution models to address the various apprehensions they have. Equally, it has also helped the male members of these Wikipedia communities understand and appreciate the challenges that hinder women's participation in the creation of free knowledge. While we have our biggest gender gap awareness initiative planned for the month of March, we have been able to identify key areas for improvement this year.

Institutional partnerships edit

Cultivating sustainable institutional partnerships has been an ongoing activity at CIS-A2K since its inception. These institutional partnerships provide both to the Wikimedia Projects and A2K program opportunity to reach a large number of new readers who can then be later inducted as Wikimedia project editors. Partnering with these institutions (educational, development and government affiliated) offers us certain amount of credibility and resources to work with. In the Indian context where the reach of Wikimedia projects is not as high as the Western countries, Wikipedia is seen with suspicion and there is very little knowledge about other Wikimedia projects.

By partnering with Educational Institutions we stand to gain at two levels: Increasing Reach and Inducting New Editors. A2K involves community members while cultivating these partnerships so as to address the questions of quality and adherence to the 5 pillars of Wikipedia. A2K's strategy with Government Organisations is to be able to utilise facilities and in-kind support for organising edit-a-thons, meet-up and other workshops. A2K team has been able to leverage the work done by CIS and cultivate relationships amongst developmental organisations across India. Our association with Breakthrough India an organisation working in the areas of Women Rights, Gender sensitisation resulted in 12 edit-a-thons over a period of time across 5 languages.

Institutional partnerships have come to be recognised as a crucial element for the advancement of Wikimedia Projects in India. This fact can be confirmed by the discussions held during community meet-up and discussions. CIS-A2K has received support from the community members in identifying potential partners across it's Focus Language Areas.

Wikipedia Education Program edit

Infographic showing activities under Wikipedia Education Program

As planned, the Wikipedia Education Program not only underwent an expansion but also delivered beyond its scope in taking the program outside the campus. While Alva's College, Moodubidire and SDM College, Ujire signed new MOUs and used Wikisource as a pedagogic tool for digitising books for Kannada language students (respectively), Andhra Loyola College focused on improving the quality of articles, adding images to pages that were lacking in detail. Going beyond the scope of the program were students of Christ University who edited policy pages and undertook internships at CIS-A2K.

The ongoing Kannada Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University underwent a revamped strategy in its 2016-17 iteration. Training was provided to campus ambassadors who in turn provided training to the faculty and students. This new design of the programme allowed us to spend more time with the undergraduate students of various disciplines in Arts, Science and Commerce departments who are also part of the programme. This exercise resulted in improving the quality of the articles created by the students. So far, 218 second-year students have created 108 good quality articles in Kannada Wikipedia and 70 start class articles. The latter will need further improvement like adding images and citations. 20 of the articles are stub-start class articles, and 20 more are stubs of poor quality. The articles are still in the user sandboxes for evaluation and will soon be moved to the article namespace. Notably, the first-year students contributed to the project on digitising books on Kannada Wikisource by proofreading about 2000 folios from four books. While there are ongoing events and activities planned for the second half of the year, this strategy has enabled CIS-A2K to conduct multiple workshops by multiple facilitators. This was to ensure the program does not become monotonous. The appointment of campus ambassadors was useful for peer-to-peer learning. The sessions were not only interactive but also spaced evenly that allowed for the students to fo through a learning curve. In addition, faculty support and engagement was more proactive this time round. In addition to the ongoing Wikipedia Education Program at Christ University, other noteworthy outcomes have been listed below:

Representation at WikiConference India 2016 edit

Christ University's Wikipedia in Education Program at WikiConference India 2016 by Punjabi Wikimedians and WikiConference India team.

Student representatives from Christ University took part in WikiConference India 2016. Their proposal to present was accepted by the organisers and the students laid out the ongoing activities at Christ University. The global community was witness to volunteer retention beyond the scope of the Wikipedia Education Program.

Certificate course edit

A certificate course was introduced to the students of Christ University, with the aim of training interested students in advanced editing in Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.

Policy pages edit

Christ University students have also taken active part in the framing of policy pages for Kannada Wikipedia, usually seen as a challenging administrative task. With the participation of community members, the students have been able to frame uniform guidelines in Kannada Wikipedia with basic policy pages like Deletion Policy, No Original Research, Article Title, Neutral Point of View etc. These were created and put up for review by the community. These localised policies were then accepted by the community.

Internships edit

In order to improve the quality of existing content on Kannada Wikipedia, CIS-A2K mentored 17 interns from Christ University, based on suggestions from the community. The students were asked to improve stub articles on Kannada Wikipedia. The students, while interning at CIS-A2K, edited and improved upon 2500 stub articles. Additionally, a list was made of articles that existed without images and references which were then improved by adding corresponding images and references. Around 300 articles were improved by the Christ University interns. This was widely appreciated by the community members.

New Institutional Partners edit

Edit-a-thon in Alva's College, Moodubidire

Alva's College, Moodubidire is CIS-A2K's newest collaborator, having signed MOUs with CIS-A2K and the Kannada Wikipedia community. There was enthusiastic participation from 18 faculty members chosen as coordinators from across different subjects taught at the institution. These faculty coordinators were given basic training in editing Wikipedia. These coordinators will guide the students in writing to Wikipedia. The training programme was also attended by student ambassadors who displayed a keen interest in the programme. Experienced Kannada Wikipedia community members also provided guidance at the event.

SDM College, Ujire is another key institutional partner of CIS-A2K during this period. An orientation session was held in SDM college, which was attended by the student and faculty members of the institution. First-year students pursuing Bachelor of Arts degrees in Kannada language/literature were thought how to digitise the books on Kannada Wikisource; the faculty were taught basic editing on Wikipedia.

Wikisource Activities edit

Activities conducted to improve Telugu Wikipedia and Wikisource

Student Wikimedians at Andhra Loyola College, Vijayawada formatted and proof-read more than 1,900 folios in Telugu Wikisource in November. Students used the lab facility provided by the college after regular classes to make necessary formatting changes and fix spelling mistakes in the folios of books available in Telugu Wikisource. The student Wikipedians have proofread eight books so far.

The work was initiated and supported by CIS-A2K members who organised a proofreading workshop of the Bible Bhashya Samputavali Volume 06 on Telugu Wikisource in Andhra Loyola College during 18 to 20 November 2016. During the workshop, Telugu Wikimedian Gullapalli Nageswara Rao, along with CIS-A2K community advocate Pavan Santhosh helped students to learn the process of digitising books on Telugu Wikisource and other formatting aspects involved. In this event, nearly twenty students picked up the skills required to proof-read a book as well as the formatting techniques in Telugu Wikisource. Some students also started to proof-read three other books that are currently available in Telugu Wikisource.

Gender Gap Bridging Awareness edit

This event also marked a significant endeavour in promoting gender balance and diversity in local community events — as the organisers and institution successfully assured a minimum fifty per cent female participation throughout the three days. CIS-A2K member Ting-Yi Chang also gave a short introduction to the participants about the gender gap issue in Wikipedia/ Wikimedia in the Indian context. Students who had previous Wikipedia editing experience at the College were also invited to attend the session. This saw active participation from 30 female Wikimedians. The presentation included brainstorming activities for students to discuss reasons behind the gender asymmetry online and on Wikipedia/Wikimedia projects, as well as community involvement in making a difference to help women feel more welcome.

A follow-up Wikisource session was conducted later that month for students to further learn about digitisation of books on Wikisource and OCR tools. With the support of the faculty members, the student Wikimedians were regular in continuing their contribution to these Wikimedia project. These events and accomplishments show remarkable dedication from both student Wikimedians and the institutional partner.

Edit-a-thons edit

The edit-a-thons conducted this half year have seen an emerging theme that has been arrived at in consultation with both the Focus Language community as well as the institutional partner for the edit-a-thon. While this has limited the number of edit-a-thons as such, it has certainly improved the quality of the articles created in these Indic languages owing to the fact that the Wikipedians had a specialised knowledge in these subjects.

Theme and activity division in Maharashtra, India

Thematic edit-a-thons edit

On 15th December 2016, an edit-a-thon was conducted in Shivaji University for students and professors of the Political Science Department. Dr. Prakash Pawar, Head of the Department was curating the sessions. In all, 22 new editors began contributing to Wikipedia. This effort is the first step towards building a long term institutional partnership with Shivaji University where many courses are taught entirely in the Marathi language. Upon the successful completion of this event, we were approached by the Department of Mass Communication and the Department of Environmental Science of the University for conducting edit-a-thons for the students and teachers of their department. A significant problem we faced during the event was opening more than six Wikipedia user accounts from a single IP address. The event received media coverage from a leading Marathi language newspaper as well.

Following the success of the first edit-a-thon at Shivaji University, another edit-a-thon was conducted for the students and faculty of the Department of Environment Science, on 23 December 2016. The Head of the Department, Dr. Prakash Raut was present for the sessions. This edit-a-thon was aimed at creating and editing Wikipedia pages related to environmental issues. A focused effort was also made to create and edit pages related to women environmental activists in India. Extensive discussions were conducted to develop the theme and basic concepts related to these environmental issues. Participants were unaware of Marathi Wikipedia to begin with. During the event, they were trained in basic editing skills and on how to search for concerned articles, categorisations and translations from other language Wikipedias. Majority of the time was devoted to Marathi typing and editing skills. The challenge we faced during this event was the lack of preparation regarding the content on environmental issues. The problem of opening more than six accounts from a single IP address, however, was resolved this time round. A timely request was raised on Phabricator five days prior to the event which made it possible for us to open 25 new user accounts on Marathi Wikipedia.

Quality Maintenance edit

With the view to maintaining the quality of articles on Wikipedia, a number of communities of interest were approached for taking part in edit-a-thons. While increasing the number of Indic language editors, this ensured that authorities on specific subjects such as literature, tourism, films, science, sports, etc. were improving the quality of the content available. Notably, CIS-A2K partnered with the State Government of Karnataka in conducting a three day science-related edit-a-thon for teachers and professors teaching and researching science subjects at schools and colleges. Educators from the Department of State Educational Research and Training of Karnataka (DSERT), a Government of Karnataka-run research and training institution participated in the event, learning to edit Wikipedia and editing content most pertinent to the state government's high school syllabus.

Similarly, efforts were also made to widen visual representation of articles. The Odia community conducted Phase I of their Image-a-thon which resulted in an upload of 150 images. Participants added never before seen images of the Odisha city of Puri onto Wikimedia Commons. The seven Wikimedians who took part also endeavoured to ensure the presence of a minimum of one image per article.

Post event follow-up edit

This grant year has seen a significantly higher number of editor retention taking place than in previous years. This has mainly been possible due to diligent follow ups by Community Advocates across the Focus Language Areas. For example, a month long follow up edit-a-thon was conducted post the Ratha Yatra GLAM event in order to keep the participation of editors alive and improve the quality of articles simultaneously. Similarly, when Wikidata and Wikisource workshops and edit-a-thons were conducted at Andhra Loyola College, follow up activities were conducted with the same batch of students taking into account their college hours and availability in order to sustain their interest.

Skill building edit

Skill building exercises are conducted not only to train experienced Wikimedians in advanced tools but to also create self- sustaining communities by developing leadership within the communities. A number of skill-building exercises were conducted this past year, both online and offline, some of which have garnered keen interest among existing Wikipedians.

Train a Wikipedian edit

The Train-a-Wikipedian program is conducted to train and groom Wikipedians, helping them to become better editors. This was inspired by the Adopt-a-User program of the English-language Wikipedia and localized to suit to the Indian context. Between 1 July 2016 and 31 December, CIS-A2K conducted 18 sessions, which included both and training. 43 participants from 8 Indic language communities participated in these sessions.

Mini Train the Trainer and Media Wiki Training edit

Mini TTT and MWT in Hyderabad

As CIS-A2K is working towards conducting the proposed Train the Trainer and Media Wiki Training in February 2017, mini versions of these two events were conducted in Hyderabad. In this year’s Hyderabad mini TTT and MWT, 15 Wikimedians from four cities of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana - Hyderabad, Vijayawada, West Godavari and Visakhapatnam participated. Participants were trained is using Visual Editor for using Wikipedia; enabling different options in the Wikipedia preference page, including Wikipedia skins, gadgets such as HotCat, Navigation pop up(mainly for new editors); Wikipedia article structure and different style manuals; Wikipedia tools and gadgets; and introduction to Wikidata and Wikidata tools such as Wikidata Game.

Advanced Wikipedia Training Programs edit

Telugu Wikipedians Pranayraj1985 and Meena gayathri.s celebrating the completion of 100Wikidays Challenge on Telugu Wikipedia Day

As per the request of the Telugu Wikipedia community, CIS-A2K began advanced training sessions in the Monthly Meetups in Hyderabad. Participants were trained in the use of citation templates and Wikipedia tools such as Twinkle, Wiki To-do and PrepBio that would make their editing on Wikimedia projects an easier task by suggesting content edits that could be undertaken and simplifying the interface. By introducing these training sessions, the meetups have encouraged more new users in the region to attend.

A two day workshop was conducted for students who opted to study Konkani at the undergraduate and postgraduate level at Mangalore University. During the two day event, the students were introduced to Wikipedia content translation tool and Wikidata. During the Wikidata session, following a general introduction to Wikidata, the participants were asked to add labels and descriptions in Indian languages such as Kannada, Konkani etc. More than 150 edits were made during this exercise.

Infographic showing activities under WikiTungi

Most notably, the Odia Wikipedia community has created a self-sustaining advanced training program cycle wherein community members train new editors who in turn train editors who come after them. The Odia community's WikiTungi is a city based Wikipedia community based in two cities, Puri and Bhubaneswar. CIS-A2K has helped the community members organise events and regular meetups for the community Wikimedians. In addition to providing advanced training sessions for existing Wikimedians, 10 Wikimedians in Bhubaneswar and 10 Wikimedians in Puri, WikiTungi meetups also train new individuals who attend the meetups. While Wikimedians in Puri conduct meetups bi-monthly, Bhubaneswar Wikimedians meet once a month. In every meetup, Wikimedians exchange their resources with each other, helping address their doubts and queries regarding their problems and projects. Tungi also helps marking the presence of the Wikimedia movement in the particular area, and also attracts individuals to take part in it.

Puri Wikimedians editing Wikidata during the 7th Puri Wikipedia meetup

GLAM edit

While a host of GLAM activities to involve non- Wikipedians are on the anvil for this grant year, CIS-A2K has been able to tap into locally significant events in order to coordinate content generation.

Ratha Yathra GLAM edit

Odia Rathajatra Edit-a-thon 2016 logo
The process of making wheel for the Rath or the Chariot, Video by Jagannath Dora

Ratha Yatra GLAM is an activity by WikiTungi Puri, where Wikimedians from Puri document the process of chariot for 22 days during the Ratha Yathra festival in the city. Chariot making is a major part of this centuries old festival and the community found the need to improve on photo and video documentation of this ritual on open access platforms. The Wikimedians spent over three weeks to document the important parts of this ancient festival at Rakha Khala where the chariots are made. This is the first GLAM activity conducted by Odia Wikipedians. Due to uncontrollable issues, the project was initially delayed by 15 days. The project started will likely take a year to be completed and will be one of the largest Open Knowledge resources available on Jagannath culture. Correspondingly, a month long edit-a-thon was organised where participants improved/ created 60 articles on Odia Wikipedia..

Photowalks edit

Painting on the roof of the St,Aloysius Chapel,Mangalore by Vinay Bhat during Mangalore Photo-walk.
  • Mangalore Photowalk

Kannada Wikipedia community members conducted a Photowalk in Mangalore. Many historically significant monuments and sites were lacking in images on Wikimedia Commons. The Photowalk was an attempt to get the images of these locally revered sites onto Commons.

  • Kadalekai Parishe Photowalk

CIS-A2K in collaboration with the Photographic Society of Bangalore(PSB) and the Kannada Wikipedia community organised a Photowalk in Kadalekai Parishe, Bangalore. Kadalekai Parishe(Kannada: ಕಡಲೆಕಾಯಿ ಪರಿಶೆ), is an annual groundnut fair held in Bangalore. This two-day fair is held near the Dodda Ganesha Temple in Basavanagudi. Apart from groundnuts, there are a variety of stalls at the fair, selling bangles, traditional toys and clay trinkets, plastic and glass dolls, Mehndi tattoos, etc. There are a variety of food items for sale such as bajji, bonda, batthaas(coloured sugar candies), kalyana seve or bendu(sugar-coated gram) and coloured soda.

Language wise Progress report edit

Detailed Progress Report for each of these language areas may be seen here:

Learning Patterns derived out of A2K Workplan edit

General Support and Service to the Movement edit

Number of requests received and supported from Indic Wikimedia Communities between 1 July and 31 December 2016
A case study from the request page

On 12 November 2016, Open Access India conducted OpenCon 2016 in Ranchi, India, in partnership with Department of Zoology, Ranchi University. The organisers wanted to introduce the Wikimedia movement to the participants. To that effect, sessions were on the Wikimedia movement and its impact in India during the conference.

CIS-A2K received two type of requests from them:

  • Agenda support request: Open Access India requested a CIS-A2K representative to attend the conference and lead the Wikimedia-related sessions. This request was accepted and a CIS-A2K representative attended the event and anchored the sessions.
  • Financial request: Open Acess India requested to sponsor a part of the program expenditures that included preparation of banners, printing certificates, pamphlets and other stationary. This financial request was accepted and reimbursed after review of the event report and expenditure details.

Impact
There is no Wikimedia community in the state of Jharkhand or its capital Ranchi. Open Access India has assured that they would promote the movement in their city and their will be more collaborations in future. The participants also showed interest to form a small community in the city.

Gender Gap Interventions and Research edit

A progress infograph of CIS A2K's gender gap research on Indian Wikipedias

Ever since the well-received edit-a-thons of Lilavati's Daughters in 2013, CIS-A2K has continued to support gender gap initiatives. This grant year, the gender gap issue was placed under the lens of the team's focus area in order to closely monitor progress. In the current grant period, CIS-A2K has collaborated with various human rights organisations and feminist groups, as well as with several institutions (see tables below), to carry out awareness campaigns and interventions to bridge the gender gap. Additionally, in June 2016, an independent researcher working on the gender imbalance issue in open source projects joined the CIS-A2K team to further her analysis and conduct focused action research on the gender gap situation in Indic language Wikipedias and its communities.

An info-graph on the expected research work in 2017

Challenges and Solutions edit

5 main challenges are identified for conducting gender gap bridging events:

Challenges Proposed solutions
1. Low participation in gender gap bridging events due to insufficient outreach
  • More social media outreach and utilisation of partner institutions' networks
  • Provide agency for potential participants to be part of the event-planning and event-management process to increase their sense of engagement
2. Finding (gender-related topic) resources in Indian languages is more challenging; hence, most events are conducted for English Wikipedia
  • Collaborate with more regional institutions, libraries, and archives to gain access to locally available resources
  • Conduct translation workshops and events
3. Male participation in gender gap bridging events is relatively low; conversations mostly involved the women present or a small number of very active male editors
  • Conduct gender gap awareness sessions in events with greater participation, notwithstanding the gender composition of the event
  • Invite male Wikimedians as tutors, volunteers, and participants for gender gap bridging events in March, a significant month for women
4. Some articles created during the edit-a-thons have been deleted for notability issues
  • Organisers must prepare notable topics and verifiable sources for participants
  • Regular checkups should be undertaken during an event to make sure participants' chosen topics and writing are in line with Wikipedia policies and guidelines
  • Rules of notability and verifiability should be explained clearly in the session (and preferably have participants read the guidelines in advance)
  • When planning future events, negotiate with the local language communities and the Wikipedia admins to loosen the policy enforcement for acceptable resources and postponing the deletion process to allow the pages to grow and expand into standard quality articles
5. The multiple gender gap bridging events are unconnected and do not share common follwup themes
  • Organisers should keep username details of participants (with consent acquired) for followup event invitations
  • Advanced skill building events should be conducted for participants from previous events
  • Invite participants from previous events to plan outreach or social events in their circles (ex. followup edit-a-thons, meetups, etc.)
  • Create active social media groups (ex: WhatsApp/Facebook/Telegram) for event participants
  • Integrate Wikipedia volunteers with the larger Open Source network to connect interests and skills

Scope for Improvement edit

  • Diversify gender gap bridging activities: Explore different forms of engagement and consult women Wikipedians' preferences, interests and willingness to plan and carry out a wider variety of gender gap bridging activities, such as photo-thons, writing contests, and workshops in other Wikimedia projects. This would help attract women participants with different interests and balance the gender gap issue with regard to content in multiple Wikimedia projects.
  • Expand research interview target groups: While we had interviewed some of the most active community members conducting gender gap bridging activities, a majority of these interviewees contribute only to(or mainly to) English Wikipedia. Tracking and engaging with female community members from regional languages and newly registered female editors who participated in the activities has proven to be difficult. However, it is crucial to proportionally represent the research's sample size to include diverse feedback on the activities conducted and the Indian community culture in general.
  • Communication with partners for event documenting: While we had established valuable partnerships with institutions and organisations who have been actively coordinating gender gap bridging events, events organised by these partners(and supported by CIS-A2K) did not see the creation of a meta event page or record an exhaustive list of participants' usernames. CIS-A2K must clearly communicate and emphasise on the need for documenting events conducted with its support.
  • Expand focus from "events" to ongoing community inclusiveness strategies: So far the research has focused on events conducted in the communities, but less attention was paid to the ongoing efforts to include and encourage women's engagement. The following areas should also be investigated:
    • Enforcement of community policies on gender equality - such as the community event's Code of Conduct, Committee on Gender Equality to handle any untoward incidents related to women at the event, women representatives in decision-making and consultation, as well as women's support network in the communities
    • Mentorship - the lack of post-event mentoring is a key reason behind the discontinuity of executed gender gap bridging initiatives. An ongoing mentoring program can help understand how to incentivise and guide women in becoming active community members. Tutors' gender should also be taken into consideration.
    • The "socialising" aspect in the community - Some female members of the communities feel that making new friends who share a common hobby is a key reason they enjoy editing and staying in the Wikipedian communities. Thus, incentives of "socialising" should be taken into consideration and utilised in community strategies, such as holding regular Wikiwomen Meetups in different regions, women's welcoming, and women mentor programs.

Goals and upcoming activities edit

Gender gap awareness session in ALC 3
  1. Three gender gap introduction session will be held in FLA communities' regular Wikipedia/media events by the end of March to raise general awareness.
  2. One Indian language gender gap bridging event per FLA will be held by the end of April.
    1. (Planned participation in global initiative) Editing Contest: The Women You Never Meet
    2. (Planned participation in global initiative) Art+Feminism
    3. (Planned local event) 100 Women Edit-a-thon in Odisha
  3. One advanced skill building session will be carried out for event participants as a followup by the end of June.
  4. To increase the variety of gender gap bridging activities, two events, other than edit-a-thons, will be proposed and carried out in the FLAs by the end of June.
  5. Reach the sample size targets of the gender gap research data collection (in interviews and surveys) to understand more women members' experience and opinions.
  6. If the FLA communities do not have clear strategies for women engagement, activities and strategies will be revisited for the FLA to create more gender inclusive plans.
  7. Inspired by the anti-systemic bias workshop kit, a gender-gap-bridging initiative toolkit in the Indian context will be drafted (by the end of January) and shared among local communities to further develop on.
  • All events coordinated and support have to include and emphasise a Code of Conduct in their planning and execution.
  • An optional mentorship program should be provided to all participants in conducted gender gap bridging events.

List of Edit-a-thons conducted or supported (June 2016 - December 2016) edit

Date Theme Partners Language # of participants # of female participants # of articles created/improved Other links
11 June 2016 Indian Women Writers Breakthrough English 2 2 2 Facebook
8 October 2016 Indian Women Poets and Authors Breakthrough, Feminism in India English 12 10 11 Facebook
18 October 2016 Feminists in India Breakthrough English 12 8 12
5 November 2016 Indian women judges and lawyers Breakthrough, Hidden Pockets English 4 3 5 Facebook
19 November 2016 Queer Feminists Breakthrough, Feminism in India, Nazariya English 14 6 12 Facebook
27 November 2016 Wikipedia Asian Month/Asian Women Month on-site editathon Breakthrough English, Kannada 14 9 11(2 specifically about women)
1-2 December 2016 Women in struggles Breakthrough, TATA Institute of Social Sciences English 24 11 15
10 December 2016 Human Rights Activists in India Breakthrough, Feminism in India English 5 5 5 Facebook
23 December 2016 Women and Environment Shivaji University Marathi 26 26 5
TOTAL 113 80 78

List of other activities organized or supported (June 2016 - December 2016) edit

Date Activity Partners Language # of participants # of female participants
27 August 2016 Mangalore Wikiwomen Meetup -- Kannada, Konkani, Tulu 8 8
11-12 November 2016 Workshop in Delhi National Law University, Delhi Hindi, English 21 9
19 November 2016 Wikipedia gender gap awareness session at ALC Andhra Loyola College English, Telugu 30 30
29 November 2016 Marathi WP awareness & training session at Jnana Prabodhini Women Empowerment Division Jnana Prabodhini Marathi 15 15
TOTAL 74 62

Media mentions edit

Revenues received during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Conversion rate

Indian national rupees (INR) 1 → US$ 0.01459

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Wikimedia Foundation INR 6,123,045.00 6,123,045.00 - - - 6,123,045.00 89,335.22 89,335.22 There has been no variance

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


In-kind support edit

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

  • Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.
Revenue source Currency Anticipated Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Anticipated ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan
Volunteer support INR - 40,000 - - 40,000 583.6 We have calculated the support provided by A2K's institutional partners and other donors to support volunteer activities
Travel & Stay INR - 41,000 - - 41,000 598.19 On a few occasions travel and stay of both the Volunteers and A2K staff has been sponsored/supported by partner institutions
Event organization and logistics INR - 68,500 - - 68,500 999.415 This takes into account the support we have received in conducting events

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Spending during this period (6 month for progress report, 12 months for impact report) edit

Conversion rate

Indian national rupees (INR) 1 → US$ 0.01459

Please use the exchange rate in your APG proposal.

Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

(The "budgeted" amount is the total planned for the year as submitted in your proposal form or your revised plan, and the "cumulative" column refers to the total spent to date this year. The "percentage spent to date" is the ratio of the cumulative amount spent over the budgeted amount.)
Expense Currency Budgeted Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Cumulative Budgeted ($US)* Cumulative ($US)* Percentage spent to date Explanation of variances from plan
Staff Cost INR 4,984,792.56 1,069,769 838,261 - - 1,908,057 72,728.12 27,838.55 38.27% Due to staff transition full amount has not been utilised
Staff Travel & Stay INR 300,000 41,938 121,907 - - 163,845 4,377 2,390.5 54.61% A2K will be frugal in spending for Staff Travel and Stay for the remaining program period
Volunteer Support INR 2,578,000 346,880 426,784 - - 773,664 37,613.02 11,287.76 30% Many volunteer communities and individuals have made use of the A2K request page for organising events and conducting events
Meetups INR 818,000 6,324 171,090 - - 177,414 11,934.62 2,588.47 21.68% In accordance to WMF's best practice of not supporting 'one time activities' we have reduced supporting only 'Meet-Up' activities without long term engagement and measurable impact
Assistant/Intern INR 216,000 50,000 60,000 - - 110,000 3,151.44 1,604.9 50.9% We have been able to offer internships to editors emerging out of WEP for better retention and quality improvement
Miscellaneous INR 48,661.99 4,286 3,422 - - 7,708 709.97 112.46 15.83% This accounts for expenses such as celebrating Wikipedia Birthday :)
Digitization, Consultant & Consumables INR 370,000 98,508 69,134 - - 167,642 5,398.3 2,445.90 45.30% These expenses help us in preparing our Financial reports and office stationery needs
General Service & Support to the movement INR 200,000 53,374 30,343 - - 83,717 2,918 1,221.43 41.85%anslated We are in the process of creating Resources for the Movement
Instutional Development INR 954,545.45 209,000 286,500 - - 495,500 139,268.18 7,229.345 5.79% Institutional Development Fee
TOTAL INR 10,469,999.01 1,880,079 2,007,441 - - 3,887,520 152,757.28 56,718.92 37.13% Due to staff transition we have not fully utilised our grant for this plan period

* Provide estimates in US Dollars


Compliance edit

Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement? edit

As required in the grant agreement, please report any deviations from your grant proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.

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Signature edit

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Resources edit

Resources to plan for measurement edit

Resources for storytelling edit