Grants:APG/Proposals/2017-2018 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Impact report form
CIS-A2K is presenting the impact report for the work-plan period 1 July 2018 – 30 June 2019 (please see the proposal and the work-plan). For this impact report, the time period will be the full 12 months of this grant, including the period already reported on in the progress report. The document structure, including its sections, have been created following the instructions at Grants:APG/Report preload.
Who are We
The Centre for Internet and Society
editThe Centre for Internet & Society or CIS is a registered non-profit organisation in India. It has its head office in Bangalore, Karnataka, and an office in Delhi. CIS undertakes interdisciplinary research on the internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The official CIS website may be seen at cis-india.org. Please learn more about different programs and initiatives of the organisation such as Accessibility, Openness, Internet Governance, Telecom, Research at Work etc. The annual reports and audit reports of CIS may be seen here, and the organisational policies may be read here.
Access to Knowledge
editAccess to Knowledge or A2K is a program of CIS that works on supporting Wikimedia projects and Indian Wikimedia communities in different ways such as:
- conducting and supporting activities such as edit-a-thons, photowalks etc. which help in content generation;
- conducting and supporting skill development and leadership development workshops and Wiki-events;
- building institutional partnerships;
- bringing more content under a free license;
A2K's previous proposals may be seen here:
Access to Knowledge started serving the Wikimedia communities in India focusing on specific language communities (this structure was called "Focused Language Area"s or FLAs. So far, we have closely worked with (in alphabetical order) Kannada, Konkani, Odia, Marathi, Telugu communities). Other than the FLAs, CIS-A2K has provided general support and services to all other Indian Wikimedia communities as well. From 1 July 2018 onwards we are gradually shifting from Focused language area (FLA) to Focused Project Area (FPA).
Some of the major events and activities conducted/supported by CIS-A2K between 1 July 2013 and 30 June 2018 are:[1]
Conducted | Supported |
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CIS-A2K has published two strategy documents so far to support the proposals and the work-plans. Please see the strategy documents below by clicking on the links.
Overview of the Impact Report
CIS-A2K, in this work plan year, conducted and supported several Wiki events, initiatives, and activities. Some of these events were new and we tried them for the first time, while some of the other events like Train the Trainer and Mediawiki Training, we conducted the next iterations with some changes according to the needs-assessment and following our own observation after the previous iterations.
Wikisource is an important Wikimedia project and several Indian Wikimedia communities are actively working on Wikisource. We found good scope to serve Indian Wikisource communities by providing the required support. We conducted a national level Wikisource Consultation in Kolkata in November 2018. The objective of this consultation was to provide different language community Wikisourcers to share their common learning, progress, and challenges. This was the first national-level dedicated Wikisource event in any form in India. We also conducted a series of Wikisource workshops in Patiala, Guwahati, Banglore, Salem, Ahmedabad and Pune. In the upcoming year also, we will continue supporting Wikisource communities in India.
On Wikidata also, we have seen growth in the previous year in India. Earlier, we supported a series of Wikidata training in India. In this work plan year, to take it to the next level, we organized an advanced level national Wikidata workshop in Mumbai. Topics like OpenRefine, Lexeme, Advanced Wikidata tools were covered.
We conducted the sixth iteration of Train the Trainer (TTT 2019). We collaborated with a community who co-organized the workshop this year. We also conducted the fifth iteration of the Mediawiki training (MWT). Other than the national level TTT and MWT, we conducted regional TTT and MWT in West Bengal, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
CIS-A2K and different community members are actively working with a few educational institutions in the Wikimedia in Education. Christ University conducted a Wikimedia Education SAARC conference this year in June 2019, where CIS-A2K was the primary supporter. Other than India, Wikimedians from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal participated in this conference.
Our Request page has remained a platform to provide general support for Wikimedians in India. This year, the requests which were supported were: Wiki Loves Monuments India in 2018, Indian SVG Translation Campaign & others.
We are also dedicatedly working to bridge the gender gap. As part of this effort, we tried to ensure more female participation in all our events. We will continue to work in this area in the upcoming year also. However, the proposed research on bridging gender gap could not be done this year.
Evaluation of the events conducted by CIS-A2K was evaluated by the community members can be seen here.
Global metrics overview - all programs
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
- Next to each required metric, list the outcome achieved for all of your programs included in your proposal.
- Where necessary, explain the context behind your outcome.
- 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.
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
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Participants | 3,969 |
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Newly Registered | 1,534 | |
Content Pages |
On Wikipedia
On Wikisource
Relicense
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The thematic events conducted by CIS-A2K under Focused language area (FLAs) and Focused project area (FPAs) with Indic Wikimedians and also the institutional partners like Christ University, Vigyan Ashram and others have helped us to achieve the required targets. |
Footprint Tracker | 28 |
CIS-A2K events/activities took place in the following cities/places. |
Community Evaluation | 6 | We have conducted community evaluation for the individual events and hence we were not able to achieve the target. You can see 6 community evaluation received here. |
Telling your program stories - all programs
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.
Content Enrichment
Content Enrichment activities include events like edit-a-thon, photo-walk, proofreading activities or contests, data-thons and label-a-thons, working with like-minded organization or institution, etc. The main objective of these activities is to generate content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
Digitisation and Wikisource work at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal
editWhat?: CIS-A2K is developing a partnership with Vigyan Ashram, Pabal in Maharashtra. It is an organisation working on 'Learning while Doing' methodology for skill-building. The Wikimedia team trained at Vigyan Ashram organised a two-day Wikisource Workshop for the Marathi Community. Along with digitisation and Wikipedia editing, the trainees started working on a Wikisource project.
When and Where?: The Wikisource Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal was organised on 25 & 26 May 2019. Total seven Wikimedians from Vigyan Ashram and five Marathi community members attended the workshop. The number of female participants was seven.
How?: The basic skills of scanning and post-processing were imparted on the first day. The basics of Commons and Wikisource project were explained. The uploading of big size books with chunk upload was demonstrated. The analysis of gadgets and scripts on Marathi Wikisource was done. The second day started with a practice session for proof-reading & layout of pages. The process of transclusion was explained in detail. The various final layouts for reading the books on Wikisource and formats for downloading the books were also discussed.
Impact made: The team of skilled Wikimedians is developed at Vigyan Ashram which is training the new batches continuously. The institution has created a separate Wiki cell to conduct regular activities. In this program year, total 10,400 are scanned and 6,000 pages have been OCR'd on Wikisource by Vigyan Ashram team.
"Vigyan Ashram is involved in collaborated efforts with CIS-A2K for content enrichment in Wikimedia projects for the last two years. We have conducted Marathi Wikipedia Edit-a-thons, Digitisation training sessions, Commons upload sessions and Wikisource Workshops for the trainees in our institute. We are thankful for your support in this innovative open knowledge creation activity with our rural students. Through these programs they are exposed to diverse areas and digital skills. While contributing to Wikisource projects, they are reading valuable books also. This process is mutually beneficial for society and individuals. Looking at the increased confidence and enthusiasm among the girls, we have created a separate Wiki cell in our institute. We are looking forward to creating a comprehensive action plan for building this partnership on a long-term basis. We hope to get your continuous support in the future as well."- Username:योगेश कुलकर्णी (Dr. Yogesh Kulkarni, Director - Vigyan Ashram)
Followup plan: The action plan of proofreading activity for trainees will be developed. The scanning of rare books from 100 plus-year-old libraries is planned at Vigyan Ashram.
Learning: Detailed training material should be prepared in the Marathi language to help the students to understand the work process in an easier manner.
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Participants learning in Wikisource workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal
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Book scanning and post-processing demonstration by User:Jayantanth
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Demonstration of Wikisource workflow at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal
Wikipedia in Education
editWhat?: CIS-A2K entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Christ University, Bangalore to introduce the Wikimedia and it's sister project among the students through their Continuous Internal Assessment (CIA) of 1,300 undergraduate students who enrol to the University every year.
When and Where?: Wikipedia in Education is a year-long event hosted at Christ University.
- Continuous Internal Assessment (CIA):Students who take Hindi, Kannada & Sanskrit as the second language will be working on the Wikimedia sister projects mainly focused on Wikipedia and Wikisource. This platform creates and builds student’s skills in editing and typing. and students work on the following aspect in each semester:
Semester 1
- CIA 1 - Type and digitize given text on Wikisource.
- CIA 3 - Type and proofread texts on Wikisource
Semester 2
- CIA 1 - Create their user page on Wikipedia.
- CIA 3 - Add relevant images.
Semester 3
- CIA 1 - Write an article on Wikipedia related to Culture and Language.
- CIA 3 - Add images to the articles (from commons) which were written for CIA 1.
Semester 4
- CIA 1 - Creation of articles related to their core subjects.
- CIA 3 - Add images to the articles (from commons) which were written for CIA 1.
- Certificate course: To increase the participation of students in the Wikimedia Movement, a Certificate course was introduced for the interested students of the University in 2016. The course helps the students to improve their knowledge of the Wikimedia movement, understand how to contribute to Wikimedia projects in vernacular languages, and learn basic digitisation skills in the local language.
- Internships: The internship activity was introduced by the CIS-A2K team at the Christ University through which students work with the staff of the team and Wikimedia community members to understand the broader Wikimedia movement. This provides an opportunity for students to have hands-on experience of what they have learnt from the classroom programs.
This activity is mainly focused on the creation of articles in several languages and proofreading and validations of the folios in Wikisource. During this time students improve the quality of the articles and improve the quality of the folios in Wikisource, which is created by the students during the regular assignments. It was conducted in the month of October and September. Students who have taken Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, and Sanskrit as their second language are given this opportunity which is very limited and hard to find.
Impact made:: Enhanced the skills of students such as digital skills, critical evaluation of information, consumption, and creation of open knowledge resources.
Social Media campaign started by CIS-A2K helped me to know that the article which I had created as a part WEP was used as Google doodle and I felt very happy at that time and also it helped me and my friends to understand the output of the work we do. —Guru Sharan, Educator at Christ University, Bangalore, India
- To involve the different sister projects of Wikipedia such as Wikidata & Wikisource in Wikipedia in Education.
- To communicate and involve the community members in each and every step.
Workshops of River activists for building Jal Bodh - Knowledge resource on Water
editWhat?: In April 2018, CIS-A2K conducted a Wikimedia orientation session on River dialogue held at Pune. The concept of documenting river-related issues on Wiki was well received by various organisations. The concept note on 'Project Jal bodh' was prepared. Then different organisations took the initiative to organise a series of workshops for activists, scholars and experts in the field. The objective is to create knowledge about water and rivers in India.
When and Where?: The first workshop in the series was conducted by Jeevit Nadi at Pune on 25 July 2018. The second workshop was conducted in Dafalapur, District Sangli by Jal Biradari on 7 December 2018. Looking at the importance of the concept, Tarun Bharat Sangh - a national level organisation working on rivers - organised a National Workshop for participants from eight states of India. The workshop was conducted from 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan.
How?: All these workshops were focused on content generation around river issues. The participants worked on the analysis of knowledge produced in the form of publications, training material, images and videos. The training sessions on Wikipedia editing and Commons upload were conducted. The reference material like books, maps, government reports, old gazetteers has been organised by these organisations. The discussion on category tree and structure of articles was held in the first iterations. The listing of articles was done. The structure of articles on rivers was finalised collaboratively. The participants worked in groups to present schematic diagrams of various river basins for in-depth understanding. They worked in Wikipedia sandboxes before uploading the articles in the main namespace. A total of 49 activists and experts were trained in these workshops.
Impact made: Due to these workshops, awareness about Wikimedia projects was generated among 12 organisations working on river issues in Maharashtra & seven other states of India. The active members of these NGOs were convinced about the open knowledge creation on Wikimedia projects. The participants have started working on four rivers in Maharashtra and 15 rivers in India. They have also started working on related issues like pollution, tourism and projects. The broader plan of 'Project Jal bodh' is prepared with the consensus. Thus the foundation is built for concrete action through the network of like-minded organisations.
"Rivers are very basic essence of existence of life in land. Thus, keeping sanctity, health and preservation of rivers are utmost important. The Wikimedia workshop during December in TBS on inclusion of river science, it's genesis and awareness to protect it through Wikipedia was really worthwhile. It provided wing to individuals like me to pendown more on revival of rivers because of present river pollution issues. The Wikipedia as an open forum can put an intense and long standing impact by including river as portal because mainstream can easily get the zeitgeist of problems, ways to tackle and sometimes use society as a whole to respond for revival of rivers." - Username:Mrityunjay1010
Followup plan: The quarterly iterations are planned by each organisation in the next year. The first such workshop was organised by INTACH Pune Chapter in Pune in July 2019. Intensive personalised Wiki training sessions of most active editors are also planned.
- Ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by United Nations for 2030. Content creation on river issues and water management on Wikipedia would be a contribution towards this global initiative, and also offers scope for collaboration with other organisations working in these areas.
- There is a lack of online content on water management issues in the Indian context; therefore a parallel activity of content donation of books is proposed.
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Participants preparing category tree and structure
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Understanding the river basin to design the category tree of articles
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River activists involved in documentation of rivers
Wikisource internship project at Garware College of Commerce
editWhat?: A Wikisource proofreading workshop was organised by Garware College of Commerce, Pune on 13 February 2019. The workshop was facilitated by CIS-A2K and community members to support the proofreading project taken up by the institution for the second consecutive year. A total of 20 students worked for one month under this project. In this event, 10 members participated.
When and Where?: The Wikisource event was conducted in Garware College of Commerce, Pune on 13 February 2019.
How?: Garware College of Commerce in Pune has initiated Marathi Wikisource proofreading activity as an internship for the students. The first project was completed in 2018 for the book - 'Arthasahastrachi multatwe'. The books related to commerce field are selected. The students also benefited by going through valuable reference material in their language. The concept was well adopted by the students as well as faculty. The second project was taken up in 2019 for the book - Adbhut Duniya Vyavasthapanachi - a book on fundamentals of management. Wikimedians from Pune - User:AshLin, mr:User:Komal Sambhudas and User:कल्याणी कोतकर also facilitated the process. The introduction to the basics of Commons and Wikisource projects was given in the first session. The details of the index page and metadata were discussed. Then the proofreading activity started. The chapters were distributed between the editors. Some of the templates not available readily in the toolbar of Marathi Wikisource were copied in individual sandboxes and applied. Tito Dutta explained the best practices and completed books in Bengali & English Wikisource projects.
- This event helped the authorities to understand the benefits of Wikimedia in Education and college staff are planning to make the internship activity as an integral component as a part of the academic course.
- Due to this event, around 300 pages were proofread and validated.
Followup plan: The same set of students will be trained to do the contribution in other sister projects of Wikipedia such as Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons.
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Introductory session in Wikisource workshop
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Participants taking the review of the work done in the workshop
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India Independence Day 2018 - Label-a-thon at VVIT, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India
Independence day edit-a-thon
editWhat?: CIS-A2K organised and supported a multilingual edit-a-thon during the Indian Independence Day 2018. The event saw participation from On Wikipedia (in alphabetical order) Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Telugu, and Urdu communities. The Wikidata community also organised a label-a-thon as part of this event.
When and Where?: The edit-a-thon was conducted around Indian Independence day (i.e. 15 August). The participating communities selected their own starting and ending dates. For example, the Marathi community conducted the edit-a-thon between 10–20 August 2018, the Telugu edit-a-thon was a month-long one. The Wikidata label-a-thon was conducted between 15–19 August 2018.
Date | Place | Community | Event page |
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16 August 2018 | Guntur | Telugu | Meta Wiki |
18 August 2018 | Hyderabad | Telugu | Outreach Dashboard |
18 August 2018 | Pune | Marathi | Marathi Wikipedia |
19 August 2018 | Bangalore | Kannada | Kannada Wikipedia |
How?: We proposed to conduct/support national-level edit-a-thons, in this work-plan year. A2K had a team meeting in July 2018, and after that we felt that conducting a national-level edit-a-thon during the independence Day week might be a good idea. We have had previous experience of conducting and supporting several large edit-a-thons such as Project Tiger edit-a-thon, Geographical Indication edit-a-thon etc.
We drafted an event page on Meta-Wiki in the beginning of August and shared it with the communities requesting to join. Telugu and Marathi communities showed interest first. Followed by that, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, and Urdu also participated in this edit-a-thon. On Wikidata User:Mahir256 and a CIS-A2K person started a week-long label-a-thon. An extensive list of items was prepared; the task was translating the labels into Indian languages.
Learning: We observed/learnt a couple of things:
- The positive response to the event indicates that communities liked the idea of celebrating Indian independence day/week with Wiki-content contribution.
- Communities have shown a lot of interest in organising thematic events.
Followup plan: We are excited to see the involvement of the communities during this event. In the next year, we wish to conduct the Indian Independence Day edit-a-thon on a larger scale. In the next year, we hope to improve the activity further by:
- promoting it more among the communities.
- by preparing a comprehensive list of references/resources the participants can use during the edit-a-thon.
Collaboration with Odisha Government Sports and Youth department
editWhat?: CIS-A2K, associated with Odia Wikimedians User Group and Odisha Government Sports and Youth department to organise multilingual edit-a-thons in different parts of India with a theme of 2018 Men's Hockey World Cup.
When and Where?: The edit-a-thons took place on October 2018 in Thrissur, Patiala, Guntur, and Delhi.
How?: Earlier in 2017, we collaborated with the Sports and Youth department of Odisha Government for Asian Athletics Championships- Edit-a-thon and GLAM. As part of this initiative, we organised an edit-a-thon in Bhubaneswar and the state government relicensed the website of Asian Athletics Championship under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license. As a result of this relicensing of content, the community was able to upload almost 300 images of Asian athletes on Wikimedia Commons. The Men's Hockey World Cup took place in November–December 2018, at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar, India. We created a plan to conduct a few onsite edit-a-thons with a theme of "Hockey". Next, we approached the Odisha Government's Sports and Youth Department, who agreed to collaborate and fund these edit-a-thons. In October 2018, CIS-A2K worked with Malayalam Wikimedians User Group, Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, Hindi Wikimedians User Group and VVIT WikiConnect and organised five onsite edit-a-thons in different Indian cities on the theme of Hockey. Almost 200 Wikipedia articles were created and improved during these edit-a-thons.
Place | Languages | Participants | Articles created |
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Thrissur | Malayalam | 8 | 158 |
Patiala | Punjabi | 8 | 63 |
Guntur | English, Telugu | 8 | 102 Wikidata items created |
Delhi | Odia, Hindi, English, Malayalam | 13 | 60 |
Followup plan: This edit-a-thon was a part of a long-term collaboration with Government of Odisha. We will look to collaborate with them on similar activities or relicensing educational content in future.
Supporting Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing 2018
editWhat?:: Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing 2018 (WWWW or WWWW2018) was a month-long edit-a-thon conducted in October–November 2018. CIS-A2K supported this initiative and helped in promotion and conducted offline events. There were two key objectives of this edit-a-thon:
- creating and improving women's health issues-related content on Wikipedia
- explore women leadership in India
When and Where?: The edit-a-thon took place between 1 October 2018 and 24 November 2018 and it was an online event where 12 offline edit-a-thons also took place.
How?: Women Wikimedians in India conducted a series of events, supported by the Wikimedia Foundation Rapid Grants. Volunteers actively took part in organising edit-a-thons in different cities in India. CIS-A2K helped the community members in the following ways:
- played the role of the fiscal sponsor
- supported plan and conduct at least two offline edit-a-thons (Kolkata, Pune)
- offered support to calculate metrics for these edit-a-thons
Wiki Women for Women Wellbeing was a project based on the importance and need for information related to health issues. The project was done by women for women but would not have been possible without support from the members from different communities and CIS A2K Team. The way CIS A2K promoted, supported, and assisted for the project is commendable. — User:Manavpreet Kaur
Followup plan: A positive response was received from the Indian communities, which boosted our energy to organise Women's Train The Trainer, in March 2019.
Skill development initiatives
Skill development initiatives are workshops or training or similar activities or initiatives which attempt to enhance skill of Wikimedians. In order to better contribute to different Wikimedia projects, it is important that Wikimedians are provided the opportunity where they can take their Wiki skill to the next level. According to our needs assessment, this is regularly a very top priority of community members.
MediaWiki Training 2019
editWhat?: MediaWiki training or MWT is a residential workshop to groom technical leadership skill among the Indian Wikimedia community members. Between 2015 and 2018 MWT was conducted 4 times. This year we conducted the fifth iteration of MediaWiki Training.
When and Where?: On 7–9 June 2019, the fifth iteration of MWT was conducted at Bangalore. There were 10 participants in the workshop. 2 of the participants were female.
How?: 7 of the 10 participants were/had been Google Summer of Code participants. User:Jayprakash12345 was the primary trainer in this workshop, and User:SSethi (WMF) was an advisor. Some of the topics trained/discussed in this workshop were: Introduction to MediaWiki, technical areas such as bots, userscripts, cloud services etc., SUL Vs Wikimedia Developer Account, introduction to technical areas such as bots, userscripts, cloud services etc, understanding of extensions, different parts of MediaWiki extensions, localisation, UserScripts creation etc.
Impact made: During the workshop, the participants worked and were able to merge 8 patches. After the workshop, the participants developed 2 tools:
It was a great event. I learnt a lot about the Wikimedia platform in general and also learnt about the various use cases it can be applied into. The best part was the hands-on experience we got. I learnt about Wikimedia API which is actually helping me a lot during my GSoC project as well.
Among the various improvements, I would like to see a platform with more people and so that we interact with the various communities such as the translator community and so on.
I would like to greatly thank Tito Dutta, Ananth Subray and Jay Prakash for this wonderful workshop. —User:Muhdusman
Followup plan: As a followup of the national-level MediaWiki training, a zonal level MediaWiki training has been planned at Vasireddy Venkatadri Institute of Technology (VVIT) and Amritha University by the participants with the involvement of the local community members. The next main MediaWiki training will take place in 2020.
- Encouraging community members to use their expertise in leading workshops.
- More women involvement should be encouraged.
- Small, focused and dedicated group of participants helped to achieve a better outcome for the technical events.
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MediaWiki Training Bangalore
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Mini MediaWiki Training Theni
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Mini MediaWiki Training VVIT
Mini MediaWiki Trainings
Mini MediaWiki Training
Other than the national MediaWiki training, CIS-A2K conducts/support MediaWiki training for specific language community, region, or institutions.
- MediaWiki Training at Theni: On 22 and 23 January 2019 CIS-A2K conducted a mini MediaWiki training at Nadar Saraswathi College of Engineering and Technology, Theni, Tamil Nadu. 20 computer science students of the college participated in this workhsop.
- MediaWiki Training at VVIT: On 21–23 February 2019, VVIT WikiConnect, with support of CIS-A2K conducted a MediaWiki training at VVIT, Andhra Pradesh. 10 students of the college participated in this workshop. A detailed report may be seen here.
Train The Trainer 2019
editWhat?: CIS-A2K organised the sixth iteration of Train-the-Trainer (TTT) which attempts to groom leadership skills among the Indian Wikimedia community members. TTT was conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 previously.
When and Where?: " Train-the-Trainer was conducted from 31 May to 2 June 2019 in Visakhapatnam, India.
- Collaboration with the community to organise TTT: This year instead of directly selecting a city we requested Wikimedia communities to collaborate in organising. Two communities showed interest to host the workshop in their city. After studying the two applications, and with the jury's suggestion, Visakhapatnam was selected for this year's TTT.
- Trainers: We had two expert trainers, User:Shyamal, and User:AshLin during TTT. Their role was not limited to training only, however, they also helped in planning the schedule of the workshop.
- Bridging gender gap attempt: Out of 25, eight participants were women. In comparison to previous iterations, this year women participation ratio was much higher (almost 25%). From the local organising committee two out four participants were women (i. e. 50%).
Some of the topics discussed/trained in this workshop were: the importance of outreach events and activities, how to conduct events like edit-a-thons, workshops, GLAM activities, meetups and best practices for these events, Global metrics, X Tools, P&E dashboard etc. The program schedule may be seen here. Wikimedia Strategy 2018-20 was an important discussion topic, and why this strategy is important, its structure, working groups, timeline etc were discussed. A detailed event report may be seen here.
Kannada: ವಿಕಿಮೀಡಿಯದಂತಹ ಯೋಜನೆಗಳು ಯಶಸ್ವಿಯಾಗಲು ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ತೊಡಗುವಿಕೆ ಅಗತ್ಯ. ಸಮುದಾಯದಲ್ಲಿ ಹೊಸಬರಿಗೆ ನೆರವಾಗುವಂತೆ ತರಬೇತಿಗಳು, ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಒದಗಿಸುವಿಕೆ ಮುಂತಾದ ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆಗಳಿಗೆ ಸಹಾಯವಾಗುವಂತೆ ಮತ್ತು ಅಂತಹ ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆಗಳ ಮುಂದಾಳತ್ವ ವಹಿಸುವಂತೆ ಸಮುದಾಯದಲ್ಲೇ ಇರುವ ಸೂಕ್ತ, ಆಸಕ್ತ, ಅನುಭವೀ ವಿಕಿಮೀಡಿಯನ್ನರನ್ನು ಸಜ್ಜುಗೊಳಿಸುವುದರಲ್ಲಿ ಟ್ರೇನ್ ದ ಟ್ರೇನರ್ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವು ಸಹಾಯಕಾರಿಯಾಗಿದೆ. ಈ ನಿಟ್ಟಿನಲ್ಲಿ ೨೦೧೯ರ ಟಿ ಟಿ ಟಿ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವು ಹಲವು ತರಬೇತಿ ಮತ್ತು ಚಟುವಟಿಕೆಗಳನ್ನು ನಡೆಸಿದ್ದು ಭಾರತೀಯ ವಿಕಿ ಸಮುದಾಯದ ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆಗೆ ಆಶಾದಾಯಕವಾಗಿದೆ. Vikashegde
English (rough translation): For projects like Wikimedia, it requires community involvement. For Wikimedians training is very important to enhance the skills and develop leadership qualities. TTT is planned to enrich the skills of the community members and to develop leadership qualities. TTT2019 was conducted with a group of training and activities which are very promising for the growth of the Indian Wikimedia community. - Vikashegde
Followup plan: Right after the workshop, User:Tarunsamanta, a participant of TTT 2019, organized a regional Mini Train-the-Trainer workshop in Kolkata with support from West Bengal Wikimedians User Group.
Learning: This was the first time we collaborated with a community to host/organise TTT. Wikimedians from VVIT added a lot of value in organising. We find this practice helpful for both the supporting community and also CIS-A2K.
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Group photo of the participants at TTT 2019.
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Poster presentation during the TTT 2019
Regional Train The Trainer:
We conducted /supported 2 regional (or mini) TTTs this year.
- Mini Train The Trainer Punjab: Mini TTT Punjab 2019 was the first Mini TTT ever conducted in Punjab. Some of Punjabi Wikimedians have attended Train the Trainer program earlier. But this event was organized to train new Wikimedians who were contributing very actively on Wikipedia and Wikisource. CIS-A2K organized and funded this event in collaboration with Punjabi Wikimedians User Group. The event was held on 15 June & 16 June 2019 at Sangrur.
- Mini Train The Trainer Kolkata:
What?:: Mini TTT Kolkata 2019 was the second edition of this event held in Kolkata after a similar event happened two years ago. CIS-A2K organized and funded this event in collaboration with West Bengal Wikimedians User Group (WBG).
When and Where?: : The workshop was held on 29 and 30 June 2019 at Indismart Hotel, Kolkata.
- Multi-way interactive session was conducted to engage the audience on an imaginary situation to propose a policy in Wikipedia.
- User:Yann presented copyright policy of Wikimedia Commons and let participants interact and find answers to different tricky situations related to copyright.
- A session was conducted to introduce Wikisource and participants were engaged by real-time proofreading activities on a selected book.
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Group photo - MiniTTT Punjab 2019
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Women participants at MiniTTT Punjab 2019
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Atudu and Bodhisattwa at Mini TTT Kolkata 2019 explaining the Code of Conduct to the participants.
Regional copyright workshops in Delhi and Bangalore
editWhat?: CIS-A2K conducted two regional (or zonalworkshops on copyright and free licenses.
Why: Copyright is an important aspect or part for difefrent Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource. Wikimedia projects' content is released under the free license (free license also comes under the topic "copyright"). We conducted the first copyright workshop in Delhi for Punjabi Wikimedians and the second zonal workshop in Bangalore for Wikimedians in South India (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana states)
When and Where?: The first zonal workshop took place on 1–2 September 2018 in Delhi, India. The second workshop took place on 20–21 October 2018 in Bangalore, India.
How?: In July 2018, we received a request from Punjabi Wikimedians to conduct a workshop for them on copyright and the free licenses. They informed us that many of the Punjabi Wikimedians were actively working on Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons, and such a workshop could be helpful for them. After getting this request it took us almost two months to conduct this workshop, as we were looking for an expert copyright trainer for this workshop. In early August, we contacted French Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons admin User:Yann and requested him to be a trainer for this workshop and accepted the request. We conducted this workshop in Delhi, India on 1-2 September 2018. A total of seven Punjabi Wikimedians participated in this workshop. Two of the participants were female.
After this Delhi workshop, we conducted a similar workshop in Bangalore, Karnataka for Wikimedians in South India (Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Telangana states). A total of 17 Wikimedians from six language communities participated in this workshop. Four of them were female participants.
In both of these workshops User:Yann was the primary trainer. In the Delhi workshop User:Jayanta (CIS-A2K) talked about Wikisource-related topics. The agenda of both of the workshops were more or less similar and we discussed topics like copyright, different free licenses Indian copyright act 1957 and amendments, URAA-restored copyrights, Government Open Data License, the license of books, magazines, stamp, government documents, 2D and 3D public and private sculpture etc.
Learning: We waited for almost two months before we could find an expert trainer for this workshop. However, this worked really well. Involving experts as trainers improve the quality of the workshop.
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Group photo of the participants in WAT 2018 at Ranchi
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User:Info-farmer and Yann discussing copyright issues of Tamil books
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Copyright Workshop, Bangalore group photo
Advanced Wikidata Training 2018
editWhat?: CIS-A2K organised a Wikidata workshop on December, 2018 for highly active contributors focusing on advanced Wikidata tools and topics.
Why: Wikidata workshops took place in different parts of India during 2016-17, including the series of workshops conducted by Asaf (WMF) in 2017. By 2018, editors from different Indian communities were actively working on Wikidata. We felt that it was important to take the Wikidata editing-experience in India to the next level. So, we organizeed this workshop for highly active Wikidata editors in India so that they can further improve their skill.
When and Where?: : The workshop took place on 15–16 December 2018 at Mumbai.
How?: Asaf was the trainer of this workshop, where 10 experienced and super-active Wikidata editors participated. The agenda was prepared after a needs assessment. Some of the topics covered during this workshop were OpenRefine, Lexeme, Database donation for Wikidata, external sites and applications using Wikidata service, advanced SPARQL Query, powerful tools like OpenStreetMap, Mix'n'Match, Tabernacle etc.
We also had a peer-learning session during the workshop. In this session, the participants shared useful tips and tricks with other participants. User:Planemad in this session discussed Mapbox and OpenStreetMap.
After the workshop, we got mostly positive feedback. Please see all the feedback here. Bengali Wikisource admin and active Wikidata editor commented:
User:MKar found the workshop "very good" but also felt that we could make it a 3-day workshop, and the internet connectivity during the workshop was not stable and was a hindrance.
Impact made: Although powerful tools were being used by very few Indian Wikidata community members before this event, after this workshop, there developed an organised approach to work on Wikidata WikiProjects. Huge databases like Indian census, general elections etc. which were not touched previously, are systematically and strategically being taken care by the experienced Wikidata volunteers.
- In several workshops we may find a mixed audience, which may be a hindrance towards conducting an advanced-level workshop smoothly. Conducting advanced/special workshops with focused participants may be helpful in such cases. We have written a learning pattern here.
Followup plan: In this work-plan year, we do not have any plan to conduct a national-level advanced Wikidata training workshop. We have plans to conduct/support at least 1 zonal workshop before 31 July 2019.
Regional Wikisource events
editAlthough several communities are working on Wikisource, we conducted regional level Wikisource workshops according to every community's requirement.
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Group discussion during Tamil Wikisource workshop
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Administrator Gitartha Bordoloi while explaining the technicalities of Wikisource
Gujarati Wikisource Workshop, Ahmedabad
editWhat?: CIS-A2K conducted workshop for Gujarati Wikisource community in February 2019.
When and Where?: The workshop took place on 23–24 February 2019 at Gujarat Vishwakosh Trust, Ahmedabad. 15 Wikimedians participated in this event.
How?: Some of the topics we have covered are introduction to Wikisource and Gujarati PD literary content, workflow of Wikisource, OCR process, layout with typography and tools.
- A workshop/meetup was conducted in Gujarat after several years. So, the participating Gujarati community members got an opportunity to interact with each other and plan further for Wikisource.
- Two Gujarati authors (Saeed Shaikh {book1} & {book2} & Deepak Bhatt {book} ) re-licensed their books under CC license.
Followup plan: We will conduct or support a follow-up Wikisource workshop in Gujarat.
Learning: CIS-A2K got the opportunity to interact with Gujarati community and learn about the community dynamics.
Assamese Wikisource Workshop, Guwahati
editWhat?: CIS-A2K conducted workshop for Assamese Wikisource community in May 2019.
When and Where?: The workshop took place on 11–12 May 2019 in Guwahati, Assam. 16 Wikimedians participated in the Wiki-event, among them, three were female.
How?: This was the first Workshop for Assamese Wikisource which happened after four years. Apart from the basic topics of Wikisource covered, a hands-on session was also conducted.
Impact made: This workshop helped to boost the energy of the Wikisource community which has resulted in good, qualitative outputs.
Followup plan: We will conduct or support a follow-up Wikisource workshop in Assam.
Tamil Wikisource Workshop, Salem
editWhat?: In June 2019, CIS-A2K conducted Tamil Wikisource Workshop for Tamil community.
When and Where?: The Wikisource Workshop took place on 8–9 June 2019 at Salem, Tamilnadu. 28 Wikimedians participated in this event. 15 of the participants were female and 13 were male.
How?: This was the first Workshop for Tamil Wikisource conducted in Salem. During the workshop, some basic topics were covered, such as What is Wikisource, The potential of Wikisource, Gujarati PD literary content & difference between Wikipedia and Wikisource. Then workflow of Wikisource, OCR process, layout with typography, Wikisource Tools etc. were discussed. The hands-on session was conducted on a proofreading session versus books.
Followup plan: We have a follow-up plan with advanced training in 2019.
Punjabi Wikisource workshop, Punjab
editDuring the Copyright Workshop in Delhi, on 1–2 September 2018, Punjabi Wikimedians requested to conduct a Wikisource-specific workshop for them. CIS-A2K and Punjabi Wikimedians conducted a workshop at Patiala, Punjab on 17–18 November 2018. A total of 15 Punjabi Wikimedians attended the workshop. Five of them were female participants. A blog post can be found here.
Activity
During the workshop some of the topics discussed/trained were:
- Copyright and copyleft
- Copyright of magazines (collection of works by multiple authors
- Workflow of Wikisource (Upload, Index file, OCR, Proofread, Validate, Transclusion)
- Indic Wikisource Stats Explain.
- Wikisource Tools such as IA-UPLOAD, Vicuna Uploader, URL2COMMONS, Fill index Gadget,Gadget-charinsert etc.
- Different Transclusion methodologies.
- Most used templates/best practice on Wikisource.
- OCR4Wikisource by Python script
- Different namespaces such as author namespace, short URL extension, Wikimedia phabricator
"After this workshop by Jayanta Nath, I understand the significance of Wikisource and also that it is not a project which is secondary to Wikipedia.- User:Charan Gill, Punjabi Wikimedian
Learning: Many of the requested bug fixing or changes required interface admin right. However, none of the participants had that right. In such workshops, it should be ensured that an interface admin attends physically or remotely.
- CIS-A2K is following up with the Punjabi Wikimedians and the participants of this workshop, who are mentoring new Wikisource contributor. After this workshop, the Punjabi Wikimedians organised three workshops -
- In May/June 2019, CIS-A2K will conduct a follow-up workshop to further enhance their skill.
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Group photo of participants at Wikisource workshop, Patiala
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Participants of the Wikisource workshop at Ahmedabad.
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Group photo of Assam Wikisource workshop
Partnership
CIS-A2K partnered with educational institutions, like minded organizations in order to either involve them on Wikimedia projects or improve the projects by their direct support such as content donation.
Partnership with Maharashtra State Government language department
editWhat?: CIS-A2K successfully conducted workshops at various universities and organisations for the last two years i.e. 2017 & 2018, during the period - language fortnight (1–15 January) upto language day (27 February). This year Maharashtra State government has issued notification which officially recognises CIS-A2K as a resource agency for Wikipedia related activities across the state. CIS-A2K is collaborating with State Language department - Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha also in this process. It is a good opportunity for active editors to act as trainers during these events. CIS-A2K also involved community members in these workshops as part of leadership building.
When and Where?: The Marathi Language Fortnight event is a series of five workshops hosted at different districts in Maharashtra. CIS-A2K started collaborating with State language dept. from year 2017. In the first series of workshops, we conducted three workshops. In the second series in 2018, we conducted six workshops out of total of 17 workshops conducted across the state. In the year 2019, the awareness spread to more educational institutions located in different regions of the state. In this third series, CIS-A2K conducted five workshops out of total 21 workshops conducted. We facilitated the process and supported some workshops remotely.
Date | Place | Venue | Participants | Event page link on Marathi Wikipedia |
---|---|---|---|---|
3 Jan | Sangli | Chintamanrao College of Commerce | 40 | Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Sangli |
8 Jan | Kolhapur | Marathi Department, Shivaji University | 50 | Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Kolhapur |
10 Jan | Solapur | Dayanand College | 25 | Marathi Workshop at Dayanand College, Solapur |
11 Jan | Solapur | Mass Communication & Journalism dept.,Solapur University | 50 | Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Solapur University, Solapur |
15 & 16 Jan | Karanja Lad | SSSKR Innani College | 100 | Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Innani College, Karanja Lad |
How?: The users created the account and learnt the editing and image upload on Commons. The editors practiced manual of style, providing links & references etc., on their sandboxes before working on main namespace articles. The editors mostly worked on locally relevant topics. In one of the workshops, references and images were added to existing articles about local heritage, tourist places and personalities. The images were uploaded here and here on Commons.
Impact made: In these workshops, 125 active editors improved 310 articles and created new 27 new articles. They also uploaded 72 images on Commons. The awareness about Wikimedia projects was spread across Maharashtra state due to this expansion. The Government notification was instrumental in increased involvement of institutions across the state. The notification also ensured that the Wikipedia workshops will be the feature of Government language day programmes.
Followup plan: The refresher sessions are planned on a quarterly basis. WhatsApp groups were created to share the resources and further discussions. This cadre of Wiki Guides would facilitate the programs for other students.
Learning: The expansion of the programme created leadership opportunities for the community members. The government intervention has opened up new sectors for knowledge creation. The educational institutes face difficulties for the follow up activities due to tight academic schedules. Therefore some slots in the vacations need to be planned.
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Demonstration session in Shivaji University, Kolhapur
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Participants working in workshop at Karanja (Lad)
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Editing in progress at Sangli workshop
Conference about Telangana culture, literature, language and festivals
editCIS-A2K collaborated with the Language and Culture Department of the Government of Telangana and DigiTel Telangana to organise a conference about “Telangana culture, Literature, Language and Festivals in Digital Medium" on 12–13 October 2018. CIS-A2K organised this event with the collaboration of Telugu Wikimedian User:Pranayraj1985, who was the main coordinator of the conference. Along with User:Pranayraj1985 another Telugu Wikimedian User:Ajaybanbi actively participated in the event. During the conference, nineteen Telugu Wikipedians were felicitated by the Government of Telangana for their contribution to improve knowledge in the digital world in the Telugu language.
During the conference Mamidi Harikrishna, director of Telangana Language and Culture Department announced to re-license 8 Telugu books and oil paintings of 38 Telangana luminaries into CC-BY-SA license. A2K will work on the OTRS process in order to actualise the announcement.
Learning: Working with mission-aligned government departments will help to sustain Wikimedia activities and impact on a bigger level.
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Workshop on FOSS, Unicode & Wikimedia Projects for Publishers, Printers, designers & writers
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Marathi writer Sunilkumar Lawate with re-licensed books
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Telugu Wikimedians being felicitated by the Government of Telangana for their contribution
Content donation sessions
editPunjabi
editWhat?: Punjabi Wikisource became live project there was a little number of books available in the Punjabi language. CIS-A2K conducted a content enrichment program coordinated with Punjabi Wikimedians through scanning the rare books from different libraries and different organizations.
When and Where?: CIS-A2K started working on this project from September 2018. All the books were scanned and uploaded by collecting them from different parts of Punjab.
How?: CIS-A2K uses Scansnap SV600 scanner for scanning and we have found books from local libraries, Bhai Kahn Singh Library of Punjabi University Patiala and by using local contacts. Before the scanning process, we checked out the license of the book and then we did the post-processing after scanning. After editing the book and creating pdf, we have uploaded it on Wikimedia Commons. So after that, we have created the Index page of the book on Punjabi Wikisource.
Impact made: CIS-A2K uploaded 71 books on Punjabi Wikisource. The category of these books can be seen here.
Followup plan: to enhance the skills of Punjabi community members, CIS-A2K started Digitization Capacity Building Program.
- It is difficult to scan the book with Scansnap SV600 because it is not for large size books.
- It was learning for CIS-A2K to encourage the author to release their books under a free license. Punjabi author Balram released three books under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0.
Marathi
editWhat?: CIS-A2K has taken an integrated approach towards Marathi language and open knowledge creation. With this approach, all the stakeholders in this area are being oriented in regular sessions. The re-licensing sessions for OTRS process and uploading of books are being conducted for authors.
When and Where?: The first session for publishers in environmental field was organised by Parisar on 25 July 2018. Total of 15 members participated. CIS-A2k facilitated in the second workshop organised by Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha on 7 September 2018. Total 80 members consisting of publishers, writers, designers participated actively in this workshop. The re-licensing and uploading sessions for the content donation were conducted in December 2018, March & April 2019 at Kolhapur, Thane and Pune.
How?: The two workshops on Unicode, FOSS tools and Wikimedia projects were conducted. The participants were trained in hands-on skills regarding these aspects. The analysis of existing Unicode fonts in Marathi was also done. The list of major reference books & authors in various areas was prepared in these workshops. The sessions with authors were conducted in various places.
The awareness about the FOSS tools, Unicode and Wikimedia platform was generated among major publishers and writers in Maharashtra. The publishing community is adopting Unicode fonts, Open source tools like GIMP and Inkscape. The National level Consortium of Marathi Publishers has taken the initiative to organise the workshops to promote these concepts. Due to this awareness, five authors have re-licensed and uploaded total 32 books on Commons. The links of the books are given below -
- Book by Kaustubh Tamhankar
- Books by Sunilkumar Lawate
- Books published by Lek Ladaki Abhiyan, India
- Books by Laxmikant Deshmukh
Followup plan: Bi-monthly regional workshops for content donation are planned in 2019-20. The monthly re-license sessions of publishers and authors are in progress.
Learning: The commercial interests in fonts and software oppose the open-source and knowledge movement. The old authors are not conversant with the internet, so it is difficult to process the OTRS and uploading on Commons.
Leadership
Similar to one of the Wikimedia values, A2K also believes that our community is our biggest asset. We also believe that with a little support, we can groom leadership quality among Indian Wikimedians so that, not only the communities are directly benefited, but plans can better made at the community level.
Indic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018
editWhat?: CIS-A2K conducted Indic Wikisource Community Consultation, a national level event for Wikisource communities of India.
When and Where?: Indic Wikisource Community Consultation 2018 (IWCC or IWCC2018) was held on 24-25 November 2018 in Kolkata, India.
- 14 Wikimedians from 12 Indian communities participated in the Wiki-event, in which four of them were female.
- During the consultation some of the topics discussed were: Workflow of Wikisource, OCR process, layout with typography, Wikisource tools such as IA-Upload, Vicuna Uploader, URL2Commons, Fill index Gadget etc.
- User:Hrishikesh, an administrator of English Wikisource shared his skills about advance complex Wikisource layout format.
- User:Jayprakash12345 participated as a member of Indic-TechCom volunteer group and assessed the technical-requirements of Indian Wikisource projects. He got several requests from the participants and those were documented here.
- After this event, several requests came from different Indic language communities to host basic Wikisource workshops.
- User:Jayprakash12345 worked on the requests from the participants and built scripts and tools accordingly like qrCodeGenerator and Indic-wsstats
Followup plan: As a follow-up of IWCC2018, we had organised a series of regional Wikisource workshops were conducted in different parts of India like Punjabi in Patiala, Sanskrit in Bengaluru, Gujarati in Ahmedabad, Assamese in Guwahati and Tamil in Salem.
Learning: During this training, it was discovered that India Wikisource community needs technical assistance and a request was made to Indic-TechCom in developing/Creating the tools.
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Development of Indic language Wikisource after Indic Community Consultation 2018
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Diversity and Gender ratio representation of the participants at IWCC
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Group photo of the participants at IWCC
Wikimedia Education SAARC conference
editWhat?: Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019 was organized by Christ (Deemed to be University) Bangalore, in association with the CIS-A2K. The objective of the conference was to bring together different community efforts in the Wikimedia education movement, identify and discuss learnings and challenges, and forge new collaborations to realise the broader goal of democratizing education for all.
When and Where?: Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019 organized at Christ (Deemed to be University) from 20 June to 22 June 2019.
How?: This was a three-day conference which comprised of 49 Wikimedians. This includes one member from Sri Lanka, four members from Nepal, seven members from Bangladesh and 37 members from India, all 14 language communities were represented.
This conference provided a platform to discuss learnings, knowledge gaps and best practices of the initiatives. The event also looked at broader strategies for developing institutional partnerships, addressing issues of student retention, developing new pedagogic models and increasing diversity in education. The programme also comprised of an introduction to Wikimedia tools and initiatives, such as Dashboard, Petscan, Wikidata, and GLAM. Questions of open access to education and the digital divide, the development of open educational resources and integration of these efforts with Wikimedia were discussed.
Followup plan: Local-level follow up done with the participants to enhance the quality of the Education programs going on.
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Group picture of participants during the Wikimedia Education SAARC conference
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Poster prepared as a part of the group activity during the Wikimedia Education SAARC conference
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Map showing the diversity of participants from the different regions in South Asia.
CIS-A2K request page
editWhat?: CIS-A2K is maintaining a Request page to support the Activites conducted by the Indic Wikimedia Communities. Request can be made under three categories under which community members can request for such as:
- Financial
- Non-Financial
- Technical
When and Where?: CIS-A2K provides support to the Indic communities throughout the year. We are maintaining the request page on meta which can be seen at - CIS-A2K/Requests
How?: The request page is open for all the Indic Wikimedia communities to request for support. Between 1 July 2018 and 30 June 2019 we received 42 financial requests from nine Indian Wikimedia communities. The following chart shows the distribution of requests we got from each community.
Some of the examples can be seen below:
- Indian SVG Translation Campaign Request for Support: SVG Translation Campaign 2019 in India was a 38-day long campaign to translate the English-labelled SVG files into Indian languages for use on regional language Wikipedias. The campaign started on 21 February 2019, marking the "International Mother Language Day", and continued till 31 March 2019. During Wikigraphists Bootcamp in September 2018, several Wikimedians from India were trained on using Inkscape and other tools, to create vector illustrations. This campaign was a follow-up of that project and also with a goal to promote the idea of vector graphics among the larger Indian community.
City and regional Wiki-meetups
editWhat?: CIS-A2K conducts and supports the regional and city Wiki-meetups to strengthen the existing community. In the last year, CIS-A2K conducted/supported meetups for Odia, Kannada and Punjabi communities.
Why: Wiki-meetup is a great place for Wikimedians discuss ideas, activities, collaborations and plan future work. These meetups also help to improve community bonding and resolve disputes in face to face interactions.
We conducted the following meetups:
- Kannada meetup in Bangalore: a Kannada community meet-up on 19 August 2018 at Bengaluru. 12 community members participated. Three of the participants were female and nine were male. This was the first meetup conducted by CIS-A2K for the Kannada Wikimedia community in this work-plan year. This meetup was conducted as a follow-up activity of Wiki Advanced Training (WAT), that took place in Ranchi in July 2018. Kannada Wikimedians User:Vikashegde and User:Mallikarjunasj, who participated in WAT, debriefed the community about the topics they learnt. They discussed Good article and Did you know process, application of Wikipedia policies such as Neutral point of view, and Verifiability. User:Ashoka KG, who is a professor at Alva's College, informed about the activities being conducted by the Wikipedia association. He also discussed the future Wiki-plans of the association. There was a brief session on Wikidata discussing Wikidata labels and descriptions. There was also a hands-on session where the participants improved Kannada Wikidata labels as a part of Indian Independence Day 2018.
- WikiTungi or Odia community meetups: WikiTungi is a city-based meetup for Wikimedians in Odisha to discuss ideas, activities, collaborations and future plans. CIS-A2K is supporting WikiTungi both financially and in idea-level. In the last six months, five WikiTungi meetups were conducted in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, and Bangalore, Karnataka.
- Meetups at Patiala, Punjab: CIS-A2K supported Punjabi community meetups in Punjab, India, and financially supported a meetup. The first meetup took place on 28 October 2018 at Patiala Bites. Meetup event page may be seen here. Nine Punjabi Wikimedians participated in this workshop. This meet-up being conducted during Women Wellbeing Editathon and Hockey World Cup Editathon. Some of the topics discussed during this meetup were: Wikipedia Asian Month, choosing lead persons for Punjabi Wikisource Training Workshop, Patiala and Project Tiger Training 2018, and Wikidata birthday celebration. The second community meetup took place on 28 November 2018 at Punjabi University, Patiala. Meetup event page may be seen here. Eight Punjabi Wikimedians participated in this workshop. Some of the topics discussed during this meetup were: Project Tiger Training community event division of role and responsibilities, to choose new contact persons of the Punjabi Wikimedians User Group, Bathinda Literary Festival, bringing featured books on Punjabi Wikisource. Two participants shared their learning from the events in which they participated.
Followup plan: Continue supporting and conducting city/regional meetups. Other than the communities we are already working with (Odia, Kananda & Punjabi) we'll work with other Indian communities.
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Participants of the meetup conducted on 28 October 2018
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Capacity building in MKCL for Van Bodh Project
Revenues received during this period
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 ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan Wikimedia Foundation INR 14,888,963 8,682,750 - 5,474,154.01 727,515.99 14,884,420 223,334.445 223,266.3 CIS-A2K received 100% funding as per the recommendation of FDC. However, INR 727,515.99 was unspent in the previous grant period that amount we added in the Q4.
INR 4,543 was charged by the bank as bank transaction fees.
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
In-kind support
editTable 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ 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 ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan Volunteer support INR - - 30,000 20,000 22,000 72,000 - 1,080 Travel & Stay INR - - 20,000 6,000 117,500 143,500 - 2152.5 Event organization and logistics INR - - 82,500 18,000 37,000 137,500 - 2062.5
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
Spending during this period
Expense | Currency | Budgeted | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Cumulative | Budgeted ($US)* | Cumulative ($US)* | Percentage spent to date |
Explanation of variances from plan |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Program Director | INR | 680,803 | 143,385 | 197,017 | 170,202 | 170,202 | 680,806 | 10,212.05 | 10,212 | 100% | |
Program Manager | INR | 1,568,160 | 300,000 | - | 200,000 | 300,000 | 800,000 | 23,522.4 | 12,000 | 51% | |
Senior Program Officer (Community and Program Support) | INR | 720,000 | 178,152 | 178,152 | 59,375 | - | 415,625 | 10,800 | 6,234 | 58% | |
Program Officer (Communications & Documentation) | INR | 480,000 | - | - | - | - | - | 7,200 | - | 0% | Underspent:We have not hired a person for this position and the current team members have managed to do the task related to communication and documentation. |
Finance Officer | INR | 840,000 | - | - | - | 219,935 | 219,935 | 12,600 | 3,299 | 26% | Underspent: Finance officer was hired in March 2019. |
Community Advocate (Community and Program Support) Kannada | INR | 360,000 | 63,000 | 63,000 | 187,200 | 119,730 | 432,930 | 5,400 | 6,494 | 120% | |
Community Advocate (Community and Program Support) Marathi | INR | 480,000 | 116,250 | 116,250 | 116,250 | 271,877 | 620,627 | 7,200 | 9,309 | 129% | |
Community Advocate (Community and Program Support) Odia | INR | 360,000 | 76,200 | 76,200 | 76,200 | 76,200 | 304,800 | 5,400 | 4,572 | 85% | |
Community Advocate (Community and Program Support) Punjabi | INR | 300,000 | - | 96,000 | 72,000 | 72,000 | 240,000 | 4,500 | 3,600 | 80% | |
Community Advocate (Community and Program Support) Telugu | INR | 480,000 | 124,200 | 124,200 | 124,200 | 191,400 | 564,000 | 7,200 | 8,460 | 118% | |
Program Associate (Education program, cohorts, Metrics and Quarry Support) | INR | 360,000 | 768,60 | 76,860 | 76,860 | 201,420 | 432,000 | 5,400 | 6,480 | 120% | |
Research Intern (Bridging Gender Gap) | INR | 240,000 | - | - | - | 43,800 | 43,800 | 3,600 | 657 | 18% | Underspent: Bridging Gender Gap research intern hire was late. |
Consultant: Tech Support | INR | 480,000 | - | - | - | - | - | 7,200 | - | 0% | We could not hire a person for this position and the current team members have managed to do the task related to communication and documentation. |
Volunteer Support | INR | 1,250,000 | 79,552 | 215,843 | 259,265 | 1,245,349 | 1,800,009 | 18,750 | 27,000 | 144% | Overspent: Because of the increase in a number of outreach activities organised by community members compared to last year. |
Events (includes Workshops and meet-ups) | INR | 1200,000 | 52,678 | 620,589 | 843,108 | 355,708 | 1,872,083 | 18,000 | 28,081 | 156% | With the Focused language projects (FLA) and Focused project area (FPA) we had increased the number of events organised and we had also increased the number of participants in TTT and MWT. That's why we had spent more on this budget line. |
Digitization | INR | 240,000 | - | - | - | 290,645 | 290,645 | 3,600 | 4,360 | 121% | |
Skill building | INR | 600,000 | - | - | - | 791,822 | 791,822 | 9,000 | 11,877 | 132% | A good number of requests were received from the Indic communities to organise the Skill development training under Focused Project Area lead to organise the event and spend more than budgeted. |
General Service & Support to the movement | INR | 800,000 | 4,774 | 24,743 | 305,691 | 10,404,84 | 1,375,692 | 12,000 | 20,635 | 172% | CIS-A2K team has received a huge number of support requests from the Wikimedia India communities on the request page. |
Creating movement resources | INR | 200,000 | - | - | - | 120,444 | 120,444 | 3,000 | 1,807 | 60% | Underspent: Printing of 'Resources for Community' had been done only for which community had requested. |
Miscellaneous | INR | 120,000 | 2,086 | 3,088 | 3,109 | 40,614 | 48,897 | 1,800 | 733 | 41% | |
Indian Wikimedians' Global Engagement | INR | 680,000 | - | - | - | 267,750 | 267,750 | 10,200 | 4,016 | 39% | Underspent: Wikimania in one of the key event which falls under Indian Wikimedian Global engagement. 2019's Wikimania was conducted in August 2019 and hence we had utilised the money from 2019-20 Grant period. |
CIS-A2K members Global Engagement | INR | 400,000 | - | - | - | 385,968 | 385,968 | 6,000 | 5,790 | 96% | |
Institutional development | INR | 1,831,304 | 401,447 | 416,056 | 416,285 | 596,630 | 1,830,418 | 27,469.56 | 27,456 | 100% | Institutional Development fee includes the interest received on the total amount approved. |
Consumables | INR | 270,000 | - | 13,956 | 2,833 | 206,576 | 223,365 | 4,050 | 33,50 | 83% | |
Equipment (with license) | INR | 280,000 | - | 12,502 | 13,141 | 402,499 | 428,142 | 4,200 | 6,422 | 153% | Overspent: We have purchased new equipment's such as Projector, and a camera to provide better support to the community in the events organised by the A2K or Communities. |
TOTAL | INR | 15,220,267 | 1,618,557 | 2,234,429 | 2,925,719 | 7,411,053 | 14,189,758 | 228,304 | 212,846 | 93% |
Footnotes
- ↑ Captures some of our best events in the previous years.
Compliance
Is your organization compliant with the terms outlined in the grant agreement?
editAs 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.
- No changes from the grant agreement.
Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".
- Yes.
Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Grant funds as outlined in the grant agreement? Please answer "Yes" or "No".
- Yes.
Signature
- Once complete, please sign below with the usual four tildes.
- On behalf of the Centre for Internet & Society, Access to Knowledge, with regards --Tito (CIS-A2K) (talk) 21:44, 30 September 2019 (UTC)
Resources
Resources to plan for measurement
edit- Global metrics are an important starting point for grantees when it comes to measuring programmatic impact (Learning Patterns and Tutorial) but don’t stop there.
- Logic Models provide a framework for mapping your pathway to impact through the cause and effect chain from inputs to outputs to outcomes. Develop a logic model to map out your theory of change and determine the metrics and measures for your programs.
- Importantly, both qualitative and quantitative measures are important so consider both as you determine measures for your evaluation and be sure to ask the right questions to be sure to capture your program stories.
Resources for storytelling
edit- WMF storytelling series and toolkit (DRAFT)
- Online workshop on Storytelling. By Frameworks institute
- The origin of storytelling
- Story frames, with a focus on news-worthiness.
- Reading guide: Storytelling and Social change. By Working Narratives
- The uses of the story.
- Case studies.
- Blog: 3 Tips on telling stories that move people to action. By Paul VanDeCarr (Working Narratives), on Philanthropy.com
- Building bridges using narrative techniques. By Sparknow.net
- Differences between a report and a story
- Question guides and exercises.
- Guide: Tools for Knowledge and Learning. By Overseas Development Institute (UK).
- Developing a strategy
- Collaboration mechanisms
- Knowledge sharing and learning
- Capturing and storing knowledge.