Grants:APG/Proposals/2019-2020 round 2/The Centre for Internet and Society/Progress report form
The Centre for Internet and Society | |
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Location | Bangalore (head office) Delhi (branch office) |
Legal status | Registered non-profit organisation |
Main office | No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru, 560071 (OpenStreetMap, Google Maps) |
Official language(s) | English |
Other language(s) | Kannada, Hindi[1] |
Key people | Please see CIS-A2K team |
Reports | Access to Knowledge reports (or read the organisation's annual reports and audit reports, or the organisation's newsletters) |
Phone number | +91 80 4092 6283 (Bangalore office) |
Website | cis-india.org |
E-mail address | titocis-india.org (primary contact) |
The Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of the The Centre for Internet and Society received an annual grant from the Wikimedia Foundation for the work-plan year 1 July 2020 – 30 June 2021. Here we are reporting on our progress after completing the first six months of the grant. The time period covered in this form are the first six months of the grant (1 July 2020 – 31 December 2020). This form includes four sections, addressing grant metrics, program stories, financial information, and compliance.
About
The Centre for Internet and Society (or "CIS") is a registered non-profit research organisation in India that undertakes interdisciplinary research on the internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. CIS is working in different areas such as accessibility for persons with disabilities, openness, internet governance, telecommunication reform, intellectual property rights, digital privacy, cybersecurity and research on socio-material and cultural aspects of the internet. The organisation's official website may be seen at cis-india.org. Annual reports of the organisation may be seen at cis-india.org/about/reports.
The Access to Knowledge (or A2K) team of the organisation is dedicated to supporting and serving Indian Wikimedia projects and the communities. CIS-A2K's primary objectives are: supporting and serving the Indian Wikimedia communities in all possible ways, building institutional partnerships, bringing more content under free license, designing and executing projects with community participation, strengthening the Wikimedia volunteers, fostering and enabling an appropriate legal and technological ecosystem.
Preface
Namaskara,
We are presenting A2K's progress report describing the programs and activities we have conducted between 1 July and 31 December 2020. Following the Wikimedia Foundation's guidelines and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India's instructions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we did not conduct or support any on-ground event in these six months. Almost all the institutions, especially the educational institutions, we work closely with, were closed. You can see a direct impact on the metrics, especially in the Participants, Newly Registered, and Footprints categories. With no in-person event we considered counting digital footprint, however, we could not establish a proper method to calculate the same. With no national or regional in-person Wiki-events, staff travel and stay, our project budget was underspent in this period due to the pandemic.
However, this was also a time for us to restructure our support, re-imagine our program and re-assess our own capacity. In comparison to what we have done to arrange on-ground events and activities, we have a lot of scopes to explore the online platform for training and other Wiki-events. For more than last one year, we are pondering on the idea to provide more focus on online events. In these six months, we made some progress in this area and we were successful in working with the communities through different activities. For example:
- In October we supported the celebration of Wikidata's Eighth Birthday in India, and hosted a series of webinars, and conducted a datathon.
- We conducted a national proofread-a-thon on Wikisource in November where 280 Wikimedians from 11 communities took part.
- We initiated a series of mini edit-a-thons and conducted two edit-a-thons till 31 December 2020.
- A series of online training took place on various Wikimedia topics.
- We continued our content relicense activity, and more than 100 books and other content were relicensed in this period.
- We worked with a tech-intern who revived a Wikisource tool.
- Two Wikimedia case studies were published.
A2K is committed to serving the hardworking Wikimedians and the communities. Several members of the A2K team are very active Wikimedians in their volunteer capacity also. Their direct experience, interaction, and collaboration with the communities help us to better understand the community's needs. In the upcoming six months, we'll continue to work according to our proposal. We have also identified the following areas to focus more in the upcoming months:
- Remote programs: Currently we are preparing for Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021, an online Wikimeet that will take place on 19 – 21 February 2021. Other than this Wikimeet we'll continue to focus on conducting online events.
- Tech development: We have developed one tool in these six months. We'll continue to work on tech-support for the Indian communities.
- Wikimedia Strategy 2030: We will work with the communities and affiliates in the implementation phase of Wikimedia Strategy 2030.
- Global engagement and knowledge-sharing: We have noted that the global communities mostly don't know about some of the best works of A2K in India. We have already started and we'll continue sharing our stories to the global communities. We believe that this knowledge-sharing will be helpful in global engagement and better program planning.
Metrics
Metric | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
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Participants | 976 | We did not conduct any in-person event (workshop, meeting etc.). As educational institutions were either closed or operating remotely, our education program activities suffered as well. As a result, we have fewer participants and newly registered Wikimedians |
Newly Registered | 31 | |
Content Pages |
On Wikipedia
On Wikisource
On Wikidata
Relicense
|
Wikisource proofread-a-thon was helpful to bring a lot of content on Wikisource. The two mini edit-a-thons brought new content to Wikipedia. |
Footprint Tracker | 0 | No in-person event took place. We thought to include digital footprints, however we failed to find a proper method to calculate digital footprints. |
Gender ratio | An aggregate of approx 28.9% of female Wikimedians have taken part in the events organised by CIS-A2K. | Please see Gender ratio here |
Program stories
Metric | Target | Last year (if applicable) | Progress (at end of Q2) | Projected (end of year) | ||
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Participants | 4,350 | - | 976 (22.4%)
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2,800 | ||
Newly registered | 1,450 | - | 31 (2.1%)
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725 | ||
Content pages | 24,100 | - | 81,293 (296%)
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24,100 | ||
Footprint tracker | 29 | - | 0 (0%)
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15 | ||
Gender ratio | 25% | - | 28.9% (28.9%)
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25% |
Content Enrichment
editMini edit-a-thons
editEarlier A2K conducted/supported large edit-a-thons. This year CIS-A2K decided to focus on mini edit-a-thons, taking place for a shorter period (generally two days). The objectives of the mini edit-a-thons are: a) engaging the Wikimedians for a shorter period so that it does not become stressful, b) focusing on specific important topics of common interest. We have conducted two mini edit-a-thons in this period.
Mahatma Gandhi 2020 edit-a-thon: Mahatma Gandhi 2020 edit-a-thon was conducted on 2–3 October 2020 to celebrate Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary. This was the first in a series of "Mini edit-a-thons". In this event, content related to Mahatma Gandhi was created or expanded. It was not restricted to specific Wikimedia projects. On the event page a total of 61 users signed up, but eventually, only 45 editors participated and they created or added to the content on Mahatma Gandhi in their regional languages. On Wikipedia, around 150 articles have been created as part of this event. Some pages were proofread on Wikisource, and some files uploaded and edited on Wikimedia Commons. A few participants gave feedback on the event, and one of them noted that:
"Our small Gujarati Wiki group was very excited about the event. In Gujarati, the mother tongue of Mahatma Gandhi, not a lot of information is available on the Wikipedia platforms. I am proud to pay tribute to the Father of the Nation through such an edit-a-thon." — User:Vijay Barot
Festive Season 2020 edit-a-thon: Festive Season 2020 edit-a-thon was the second mini edit-a-thon in the series of "Mini edit-a-thons". It was organised on 5-6 December 2020 to celebrate Indian festivals. During this event, participants created or improved content related to festivals in India. For this event, 98 people signed up, out of which 76 editors participated. On Wikipedia, around 230 articles were created and a few articles expanded by editors. Also on Wikimedia Commons, 200 images were uploaded and through the Lingua Libre project 442 words were uploaded. A few edits were made on Wikiquote as well. The editors responded enthusiastically to the event. As noted by one volunteer:
ৱিকিমিডিয়াৰ প্ৰকল্পসমূহত ভাৰতীয় উৎসৱ সম্পৰ্কীয় সমল বৃদ্ধি কৰাৰ প্ৰয়াসেৰে যোৱা ৫ আৰু ৬ ডিচেম্বৰ ২০২০ তাৰিখে এখনি উৎসৱৰ ঋতু ২০২০ সম্পাদনা মেলাৰ আয়োজন কৰা হৈছিল। উক্ত সম্পাদনা মেলাত সন্মানীয় অসমীয়া ৱিকিমিডিয়ান সকলৰ সৈতে ময়ো যোগদান কৰিছিলোঁ। ইয়াৰ ফলশ্ৰুতিতে অসমীয়া ৱিকিপিডিয়াত সৰ্বমুঠ ৫৯টা নতুন প্ৰবন্ধ সৃষ্টি কৰা হল। এনেকুৱা সম্পাদনা মেলায়ে সম্পাদক সমূহক উৎসাহিত কৰে। ইয়াৰ বাবে উদ্যোক্তা সকললৈ বহুত বহুত ধন্যবাদ আৰু শুভেচ্ছা। আশাকৰোঁ ভৱিষ্যতে তেওঁলোকে এনেকুৱা সম্পাদনা মেলা আৰু অন্যান্য প্ৰকল্প সমূহ নিয়মীয়াকৈ আয়োজন কৰে।
— অজয় দাস
Translation by User: Festive season 2020 edit-a-thon was organized on 5th and 6th December 2020 in an effort to increase the content related to Indian festivals on Wikimedia projects. I also joined the edit-a-thon with my fellow Assamese Wikimedians. As a result, a total of 59 new articles were created in Assamese. Such events encourage both active and new contributors. Many thanks and good wishes to the organizers for this wonderful event. Hopefully, in the future, they regularly host such events.
Follow-up plans: We will continue to focus on mini edit-a-thons and conduct at least two more mini edit-a-thons in the upcoming six months.
Indic Wikisource Proofread-a-thon
editCIS-A2K conducted a Wikisource proofread-a-thon for the Indian Wikimedia communities in two phases. The first was conducted in May 2020 for 10 days and the second was conducted in November 2020 for 15 days. This was conducted to enhance the skills, awareness among Wikisource contributors, and encourage more contributions.
There are 12 Wikisource communities in India, which are at different levels of experience and activeness. The policies of all these projects are not similar. Some of the projects are not developed especially in terms of access to templates, tools, and gadgets. Therefore the event was deliberately planned to showcase learning across communities and facilitate interactions among language editors and discussions around policies, quality issues, and progress of the projects.
From the May 2020 edit-thon experience, it was decided to award 10 winners from each community, with the minimum threshold set to 350 points. A total of 372 books were edited by the 280 participants in this event. A total of 50,771 pages and 27,566 pages were proofread and validated respectively.
The following graphs show a) proofread/validated pages, b) number of books on each project
Follow-up plans: After conducting two large-scale proofread-a-thons, we would like to conduct a detailed event-assessment involving community members and Wikisource experts. The next phase will be decided and designed following the assessment.
Content relicense
editIn the era of knowledge expansion on the web, people need reliable material from trusted sources. Therefore content donation drives among individual authors, publishers, and thematic organisations are important to bring such material under CC-BY-SA in Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K focused on re-licensing of reliable and good quality source material from individuals as well as thematic organisations. A total of 83 books & 12 images were re-licensed and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons from July to December 2020.
The online sessions on re-licensing were conducted for organisations, Chaitanya and Tarun Bharat Sangh (TBS). In these sessions, copyright issues, licenses and OTRS process were explained. The organisational process requires approval from the trustees and key office-bearers. Calls were arranged to clarify the doubts of all the stakeholders and then proper documentation was completed. Offical procedures like a resolution to appoint representatives and declarations were completed. Chaitanya has initiated content donation with one book on a cooperative movement leader in India. Tarun Bharat Sangh is involved in Project Jalbodh to create content on water & rivers for the last two years. Considering the importance of releasing the source material under free licenses, they have re-licensed 75 books related to rivers in Hindi and English. The books are uploaded in Wikimedia Commons under Category Tarun Bharat Sangh.
The Marathi author Bhaskar Girdhari released seven books and Jitendra Raghuvir released 12 images of Magician Raghuvir under CC-BY-SA.
Follow-up
The follow-up process has been initiated for re-licensing of more books published by Chaitanya and TBS. TBS is also organising their images of rivers and water conservation programmes for re-licensing.
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River linking project in India
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River Ganges
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Rejuvenation of river Ruparel
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Magician Raghuvir during his magic show
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Poster of Magician Raghuvir's public show
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Re-licensed Book on Shashi Rajgopalan
Skill-development
editWe worked on various skill-development initiatives in this period. All these activities were conducted remotely.
Online training
editCIS-A2K conducted online training sessions on various topics according to the interests of Wikimedians. The sessions were conducted for experienced editors, new enthusiasts, and thematic organisations willing to develop free knowledge in Wikimedia projects. A total of nine such sessions were conducted in which 180 members participated.
- WikiProject Jalbodh is a project for building content related to water and rivers in Wikimedia Projects. Paani Foundation, and an affiliated organisation Jnana Prabodhini, Ambajogai in Beed district of Maharashtra have taken the initiative to organise an Online Wikimedia workshop for 8 volunteers on 17 August 2020.
- Wikimedians in Ambajogai have come together to develop WikiProject Ambajogai in Marathi Wikipedia. The first online training session for 15 volunteers was conducted on 28 August 2020.
- An Introductory session on Wikidata Lexemes for the Marathi language Project was conducted for a group of linguists, translators and active Wikimedians. The session was attended by 10 members on 26 August 2020. The technical expert User:Mahir256 guided the members with demonstrations and discussions on queries.
- Lingua Libre session with linguist group was conducted on 6 November 2020. A total of four members from Translation Panacea group actively participated in the session.
- Online session for an introduction to Wikimedia projects was conducted on 23 October for eight organisations involved in the Maharashtra Gene Bank Project.
- An Online session with 'Samyak' organisation on bridging the gender gap was conducted on 12 November 2020 for four members. The list of priority topics, re-licensing material, and future plan of activities was discussed.
- A Facebook live session on Srujansheel forum was conducted on 19 September 2020. The session has been viewed by 2.8k people as of now. The session got a wide response from knowledge creators and organisations. The follow-up sessions are being planned in collaboration with Srujansheel forum.
- Two content generation workshops were conducted for the organisations involved in the Maharashtra Gene Bank project (MGB). A workshop on Wikipedia editing was conducted on 24 December 2020. A workshop on Wikimedia Commons was organised on 29 December 2020.
Follow-up
CIS-A2K is working closely with these potential individuals and organisations to design activities for the next two quarters. The efforts to engage experienced Wikimedians according to their interests are in progress. Some peer to peer skill-building sessions are planned to groom new editors.
मराठवाड्यात पाणलोट विकासाची काम खूप झाली. एक दिवस गुगलवर सर्च करत असताना मी एका खूप चांगल्या काम केलेल्या गावाचं नाव टाकलं तर मला नवल वाटले. या गावाबद्दल व त्यांच्या चांगल्या कामाबद्दल अजिबात माहिती सापडली नाही. मराठवाड्यात अशा शंभरावर गावांनी चांगली काम केली. दुष्काळाविरुद्ध लढण्याची ही मोहीम खूप प्रभावीपणे अमलात आणली गेली. परंतु त्याच्याबद्दल कुठेही नीट लिखाण नव्हते. CIS-A2K च्या मार्गदर्शनाखाली आम्ही प्रशिक्षण घेतले व अशा चांगले काम केलेल्या गावांची माहिती जलबोध प्रकल्पांतर्गत विकिपीडियावर टाकण्यास सुरुवात केली. आता ही सुरुवात आहे. येणाऱ्या काही महिन्यात अनेक गावांची माहिती अपलोड केली जाईल. विकिपीडियावर लिहिलेले हे लिखाण अनेकांना चांगले काम करण्यासाठी प्रेरणा देणारे तर आहेच त्यासोबत चांगल्या कामाचा एक चांगला दस्तावेज तयार होत आहे. - Prasad Chikshe, WikiProject Ambajogai
Translation -
There are numerous water conservation projects completed with the initiative of villagers in Marathwada region of Maharashtra. The people in the villages have put in determined efforts to overcome water scarcity and win over the drought. When I was searching for information about these villages on the web, I could not find even a few lines. I came to know about CIS-A2K's Jalbodh project aimed at building water-related knowledge on Wiki. We have now developed a team of volunteers, trained in Wikimedia editing by A2K. We have developed articles of the successful village projects in Wikipedia and uploaded water conservation images on Wikimedia Commons. This documentation is definitely important in the future and giving inspiration for others.
Wikimedia Commons workshops
editOn the occasion of Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 contest in India, CIS-A2K mobilised five groups of active Wikimedians and citizens across Maharashtra state. The members of these groups were trained in copyright rules, contest guidelines and uploading process through a series of workshops. A total of 16 members from different places contributed 324 images on Wikimedia Commons. The groups were involved in listing of monuments, acquiring official lists from Government departments and on-Wiki documentation. These groups consisted of INTACH Pune & Solapur Chapter, photographers from Satara, Wikimedians in Ichalkaranji and Vigyan Ashram, Pabal Wikimedians. Online training workshops were conducted for five groups on encyclopedic content, copyright issues, licenses, and the uploading process. INTACH, a national organisation working on heritage conservation also actively collaborated in building heritage lists and uploading images.
Follow-up
INTACH Pune & Solapur Chapter are eager to collaborate in donating their database and images to Wikimedia projects. The workshops for this are proposed in the next quarter. The groups are also interested in developing Wikipedia projects around this theme. The follow-up sessions for the same are planned.
Wikimedia Commons Project was introduced to us by CIS-A2K member primarily for uploading photographs of lesser-known heritage buildings, monuments, and places of Solapur region. Actually, it is quite easy process, but no one had ever tried it. CIS-A2K conducted an online session for the core team of INTACH Solapur to introduce the process, which highlighted not only the steps of upload but also the need to do such an exercise. The amazing reach of technology and the possibility of creating an online repository of images and information is quite exciting. We would surely want to create an online archive of all the data regarding heritage buildings and places that we have collected in the past decade for the benefit of thousands of Wikimedia project users. - Seemantini Chaphalkar, Convener, INTACH Solapur Chapter
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Amleshwar temple, Ambajogai
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East facade, Narsing Girji Mill Buildings, Solapur
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Old community well, Pabal
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Adalatwada, Satara
Tool development
editBook2Scroll was a tool created by Magnus Manske. It has been used on Wikisource projects to view all scanned pages and corresponding Unicode texts side by side, but due to lack of maintenance, the tool was not working for last few years. CIS-A2K decided to revive the tool again. During the month of November 2020, the second version of the tool was deployed on Toolforge. See the full report from the intern developer Jayprakash here.
Tool of the day
editTool of the day initiative was started on 15 August 2020 and continued till 13 September 2020 to let the community know or recall about one Wikimedia tool or script every day. A total of 10 tools were selected each from Wikisource, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons, which are extremely useful for everyday editing.
The tools were also featured on the official Facebook channel of CIS-A2K on the same day. Some of the interesting tools featured were Pattypan, Scholia, OpenRefine, IA-upload etc.
Indic Wikisource Help Desk
editIn the last couple of years, A2K is increasing activities and support towards Wikisource project in India. Other than national proofread-a-thons, or workshops, we also felt the necessity to provide support to technical issues. An Indic Wikisource Clinic has been created to help and resolve Indic Wikisource technical issues. The first Wikisource clinic was held with User:Sushant savla and User:Vijay Barot (on behalf of Gujarati Wikisource Community), User:Jayprakash12345 ( On behalf of IndicTechCom Team), and User:Jayanta (CIS-A2K) on 28 October 2020. The task has been documented at task T266699. We'll continue working on Indic Wikisource clinic and at least two sessions will be conducted in the upcoming six months.
Leadership
editWikidata's Eighth birthday
editDuring the month of October 2020, like many other affiliates and communities of the world, on behalf of WikiProject India, CIS-A2K planned to celebrate the 8th birthday of Wikidata through a series of events and activities in the form of webinars, data-thon, and merchandise distribution as follows.
Webinars
- 11 October 2020: Jane023 conducted a session on the highly impactful WikiProject of Sum of all paintings, where she talked about the history and workflow of the project, led a hands-on session on how to add data related to painting and introduced the datathon on the same subject, which was supposed to start from the next day. The YouTube link of the session is here
- 17 October 2020: DVrandecic (WMF) introduced Abstract Wikipedia to the Indian community. The YouTube link of the session is here
- 18 October 2020: Mahir256 conducted a session on lexicographical data on Wikidata, where he had a hands-on session on how to contribute there. The YouTube link of the session can be found here
Datathons
As previously mentioned, Jane023 introduced a datathon on Indian paintings during her webinar session. The datathon ran from 12 October 2020 to 28 October 2020, where 25 contributors enrolled. Detailed data model and task lists were chalked out and documented on-wiki to help contributors understand about the workflow of the event. One day was dedicated to bridging the gender gap when data was gathered on Indian women painters and paintings that depict women. The result of the datathon was gifted as a birthday present to Wikidata from WikiProject India on 29 October 2020 along with other gifts from all over the world.
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7,179 painting items collected in National Museum, Delhi are now on Wikidata. The museum is now almost at the center of the bubble chart with other museums of the world. Verify
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Nandalal Bose has highest number of painting items in comparison to other painters from all over the world after the datathon. Verify
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Before the datathon, only few hundred items of paintings located in different museums in India created by handful of painters were there on Wikidata.
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After the datathon, 3,489 items of paintings, created by Nandalal Bose only, located in different museums in India are now on Wikidata. Verify
Wikidata WikiProject India Newsletter
editWikidata WikiProject India Newsletter is a quarterly newsletter intended to share news and updates about Wikidata activities in India and/or by the Indians. It was started from 1 October 2019 as an online newsletter and is published on Wikidata site. The major activities around Wikidata in Indian context happening for three months are tracked and a short one-line summary are added to describe the achievements, news or updates. In the last 6 months, fourth and fifth issues of the newsletter were published on 1 July 2020 and 1 October 2020 respectively. A post about the newsletter is shared to the WikiProject India participants and/or newsletter subscribers on their talk page along with wikidata-l and wikimediaindia-l mailing lists. It is a challenging task to track Wikidata activities happening around the country, which requires close communication among different Indian communities operating in different parts of the country. The process on how to do that more efficiently is still evolving. The newsletter will continue to be published in coming days.
Indic Wikisource Community Newsletter
editIndic Wikisource Community Newsletter is a quarterly online newsletter that provides updates about Wikisource activities in India. In the last 6 months, second and third issues of the newsletter were published on 1 July 2020 and 1 October 2020 respectively.
Request page
editCIS-A2K supports the Indian Wikimedia communities through the Requests page to conduct Wikimedia events/activities. This support is of three types, namely financial, non-financial & technical requests from the communities. The request page is open throughout the year. Due to COVID-19, it was closed from 13 March 2020 till further notice for offline/in- events.
Some of the requests received between 1 July 2020 and 31 Dec 2020:
- Gujarati Wikipedia edit-a-thon on Gujarati culture and civilisation: Gujarati Wikipedia community conducted an edit-a-thon to enhance the quality and quantity of the articles related to Guajarati culture. A total of seven members, took part in the edit-a-thon and created 119 articles and expanded 37 articles. CIS-A2K supported this request by providing prizes to the participants.
- Tamil Wiki Internship Programme 2020: Tamil Wikipedia community conducted a 30 days Internship programme for college Students to enhance the ongoing work. A total of 43 students took part in the event for 30 days and contributed to Wikisource with the help of experienced Wikimedians with two online sessions per week. This was first event of its kind with the school students.
- Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 in India: West Bengal Wikimedians User group organised the Wiki Loves Monuments 2020 in India (WLM) for the third year in a row. As the initiative was taken by West Bengal Wikimedians User Group to organise WLM 2020 in India for Indic Wikimedians, CIS-A2K supported them financially to provide gift vouchers and merchandise for the top ten contributors of the event. This was one of the major events where 4,483 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by Indic community.
The request page will continue to provide support through the request page. We'll follow Wikimedia Foundation's and Indian Government's direction before considering in-person support requests.
Research
In 2020–21, the A2K team continued working on research on Indian language Wikimedia content and communities, with the objective of addressing emerging questions and gaps in areas such as content creation, participation, access, and outreach. This year, work continued on the following:
- Bridging gender gap
- Wikimedia in Education
- Mapping GLAM in Maharashtra
- Understanding the Data Gaps in Wikidata Concerning Heritage Structures of West Bengal
- Content Creation on Punjabi Wikipedia
- A Comparative Study of Article Creation Campaigns on Wikipedia
Final reports of two of the studies have been published on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, reflected on the CIS website, and shared with the relevant mailing lists for community feedback. Translations of these reports in the respective Indian languages of their Wikimedia projects/areas of inquiry are presently underway. The rest of the projects are presently in various stages of consolidating observations and analyses, peer review and finalization. The process of developing and undertaking these research projects has been an interesting one, with specific kinds of challenges given the varied areas of interests and contexts of inquiry. The projects have also therefore been modified to adapt to these challenges and individual capacities and build on learnings from working with Wikimedia communities.
In addition to continuing work on the above, a research needs assessment exercise and a short research study were also initiated this year. The needs assessment is aimed at understanding broadly the existing knowledge gaps and areas of focus in Indian language Wikimedia communities, in terms of content, platforms and community engagement, and the role that research may play in addressing the same. The draft is presently under review by selected community members for some early feedback and will be shared on relevant community platforms in January 2021. A research study on mapping and documentation of content in regional languages on water resources in India has also been initiated, and will be led by an A2K team member. The concept note and research design for the study has been completed, and interviews/documentation (to be done mostly online) are due to commence in January 2021.
Updates on selected studies are as follows:
Bridging the Gender Gap on Indian Language Wikimedia
The objective of this research study is to analyse the gaps and bias in gender based participation and content in Indian language Wikimedia projects and communities. There are three thematic areas of focus, which include observations on online and offline participation of women in Wikimedia platforms and events, as well as challenges and strateiges for sustainable participation of women in the communities. The study comprised of 15 interviews and two Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) with prominent women contributors from Indian language Wikimedia communities. The observations and learnings from the study offer a set of recommendations in several areas such as the need for localised policies to encourage participation by women, recognition and visibility of work, training and increased awareness within communities on skill-building, creating safe spaces and addressing conflict etc, which could offer insights for key stakeholders on making Wikimedia projects and the free knowledge movement conducive to participation by women and other underrepresented groups.The research report is currently in the final stages of consolidation and review by the respondents and the team, and will be published shortly.
Mapping Glam Institutions in Maharashtra: The final research report on a study of seven GLAM institutions located in two districts (Pune and Kolhapur) in Maharashtra, conducted with the support of three active Wikimedians was published. The main objective was to document digitisation efforts, views towards making collections free & open, institutional challenges and opportunities for Wiki-GLAM collaboration.The methods for the study included desk research to identify major GLAM institutions across the state and data collection from seven key institutions through a survey and field visits to document information.The analysis of data and discussions lead to a set of recommendations for volunteers, GLAM institutions, facilitating organisations and Wikimedia affiliates. These include learnings on the need for awareness of copyright and open licenses, training resources in local languages, streamlined digitisation practices and better collaboration with policy makers to foster collaborative work in the sector. The report was published on meta, and as a blog on the CIS website on 23 October 2020, and shared in the GLAM Newsletter for October 2020. The links of this report were shared with the community on Marathi Wikipedia village pump, Wikimedia mailing list, Wikimedia India mailing list and Open-GLAM mailing list. The Marathi translation of the report is in progress, and will be published shortly.
Thank you so much for sharing this study. While our data mapping project focused on past collaborations between Wikimedians and GLAMs, I see that you have audited the GLAM sector itself in order to understand its needs and preparedness to engage with Wikimedia. This is extraordinarily useful research that I would love to see replicated in other areas in India, and beyond. I agree that you should engage with state and central government around these issues and that it would make sense to place Wikimedians in Residence in the most receptive institutions.
— Fiona Romeo, Senior Manager, GLAM and Culture (WMF)
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View of Pune Nagar Wachan Mandir
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Apte Vachan Mandir, Ichalkaranji
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Art gallery at Apte Vachan Mandir
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Music instruments section in Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum
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Mastani Mahal restored at Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum
Understanding the Data Gaps on Wikidata Concerning Heritage Structures in West Bengal:
A short research study was conducted to understand challenges related to gaps on Wikidata concerning heritage structures in West Bengal, and strategies for addressing the same. The study was undertaken between November 2019 and February 2020, where SPARQL-based queries in the Wikidata Query Service were used to identify gaps within the dataset related to heritage structures in West Bengal generated by the local community. Interviews were also conducted with people who were involved in the process of such data generation to understand the reasons behind these data gaps and identify and develop strategies to significantly reduce them in the future. During the month of November 2020, after meticulous internal review and feedback, the report has been published on meta here and on the CIS blog here.
Revenues received
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 ($US)* Explanation of variances from plan WMF ₹ (INR) 9,293,013 9,290,535 - - - 9,290,535 130,102.18 130,067.49 ₹ 2,478 was charged by the bank as bank transaction fees.
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
Spending
Table 3 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ 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 - INR 9,290,535 2,126,353 2,870,319 - - 4,996,672 130,067.49 69,953.41 54% -
* Provide estimates in US Dollars
Footnotes
- ↑ This includes only the state languages where CIS have offices. It definitely does not mention the language communities we are serving. CIS promotes diversity and inclusiveness, and respects all languages of the country.
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.
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 A2K, regards, --Tito (CIS-A2K) (talk) 14:01, 30 January 2021 (UTC)