Grants talk:IEG/Digitisation drive for Malayalam Wikisource

Paid content creation?

Hi, Manojk, Sugeesh, and Balasankarc,

Thanks for this proposal and for your efforts working to improve Malayalam Wikisource! Can you please describe a bit more clearly which tasks the paid grantees' time would be spent on? Scanning and uploading files to Wikisource yourself seems to be content creation (rather than, say, organizing a group of volunteers to do that task). Any further details you can share about your plans to help clarify this would be useful, so that we can confirm that this project would be eligible for an IEG. Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 23:28, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

The plan have 3 parts

Grantees are primarily organizers and community facilitators of following tasks

1. Building partnership with important libraries and Govt Institutions and source copyright expired Books(scanned/not) to Wikimedia commons. Scanning of books will be done through volunteer efforts and actual expenses (such as equipment rentals) will be supported by this project

1.1 Organize 2nd Edition of Malayalam Wikisource Digitization Competition(WSDC2015) for typing and proofreading books sourced from step 1

1.2 Train School teachers for adding books to malayalam wikisource and organize school level competition of WSDC2015 (Trainers will be Malayalam Wikisource volunteers , their expense and travel will be met by this project)

2. Work with various Authors/copyright holders of important literary works for freelicensing those works

3. Prepare Offline version of Malayalam WikiSource CD/DVD(V3) and epub version of books (done through volunteer efforts. Only production expenses will be part of budgets)

--AniVar (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for confirming, AniVar.

CD/DVD

What is the aim/content of the DVD/CD? --Ilario (talk) 21:17, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Jimmy Wales introduces Malayalam Wikipedia CD of 500 selected articles to WikiManians during his keynote address at Gdansk. This was the first offline version in any Non-Latin Languages in world.

In brief, that will be the next version of the legendary CD that Jimbo flashed at Wikimania Poland!

Certainly, someone from the team will soon elaborate here more on the upcoming edition of Malayalam Wikisource / Wikipedia CD and how it helps students and common people who barely have a reliable internet connection in their villages.

See these links too:

• http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/06/30/india-the-future-of-wikipedia/
• https://tommorris.org/posts/2605

Cheers! ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 23:06, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Malayalam Wikimedia Community have produced offline version of Wikipedia and wikisource (V1 and V2) in past with the technical help from Swathanthra Malayalam Computing read more about it here

Wikipedia Offline Cd http://thottingal.in/blog/2010/04/17/mlwikioncd/ http://shijualex.in/creating-malayalam-wikipedia-cd/

Wikisource Offline CD http://thottingal.in/blog/2011/06/11/malayalam-wikisource-offline-version/

Wikisource Offline v1 & v2 project pages

--AniVar (talk) 07:08, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Eligibility confirmed, round 2 2014

This Individual Engagement Grant proposal is under review!

We've confirmed your proposal is eligible for round 2 2014 review. Please feel free to ask questions and make changes to this proposal as discussions continue during this community comments period.

The committee's formal review for round 2 2014 begins on 21 October 2014, and grants will be announced in December. See the schedule for more details.

Questions? Contact us.

Jtud (WMF) (talk) 22:07, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

budget question - prizes distribution

Hello! Is it possible to provide a little bit more information about $6250 for prizes? How many prizes will be awarded? How much will a prize cost? What will be delivery costs? Thanks rubin16 (talk) 13:18, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

In previous year we distributed the prize to participants(E-Book Reader<First 3>, Portable scanners<Schools>, Book Bundles<First 10 & Schools> and Certificates <all>) spend around 1,50,000₹. We raised money from local Sponsorships and also got Grant from CIS-A2K Program. But it's too difficult to Convince the local Sponsors and at last we compeled to choose the option from CIS for the completion of the event. The Same patters we are following with a enlarged way.And this time we are planning more prizes, if possible small prizes to all participants.I Will share the exact details after discussing other members. Thanks--Manojk (talk) 15:17, 12 October 2014 (UTC)`

Thanks for your answer, waiting for details :) rubin16 (talk) 16:52, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

At first $6250 is not on prizes head. it is towards head Events Press and Publicity which includes one WSDC2015 Prize distribution event + 5 small events in libraries

The WSDC2015 Prize distribution event is budgeted as ₹ 225000 (3750$) > It includes Pre event publicity , Venue Rentals , refreshments during event , Guest travels , Prizes and certificates . Same Event venue is also used for honouring famous authors who licensed their books under free license . We are budgeting ~ ₹100000 ($1666.67) towards organising this event and logistical expenses. For the WSDC2015 participation certificates and prizes we are budgeting ₹ 125000 ($2083.33) . As Manojk explained , it is budgeted less than last year expense . This year we are hopeful that this competition can mobilize more partners and sponsors for WSDC2015. The prizes will be decided only during the project period in consultation with partners after establishing partnerships . --AniVar (talk) 19:01, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Also I want to point that based on last year learnings we are hosting WSDC2015 as two parts . Sourcing of books and online typing and proofreeding contest for individuals will be done in first phase and School level digitization trainings and competitions + offline versions will be done in second phase . It is moved as a seperate phase to suit academic shedules and student and teachers time availabilitybased on last year feedback. We have budgeted only for event expenses in second phase and we are hopeful that we can mobilize prize sponsors for school level competition this year. --AniVar (talk) 19:24, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Copyediting

Please fix the interpunction and typos, they are disturbing. --Nemo 08:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

I have fixed those which were immediately visible to me. It would be nice if you are able to particularly pinpoint where more such typos exist.

Please also note that these applicants are not from a region where English is used as a native language. While every effort will be spared to ensure maximum clarity, please be considerate to them on minor errors if we can live with them. Thanks :) ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 11:14, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Focus

Thanks for specifying the amount of part time hours. However, given equipment and lack of focus, the same as in [1] [2] applies. --Nemo 08:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Can you explain? This project does not budgeted for any equipment purchases . It budgets only for scanning costs. I cant understand your concern on focus. This project is built on the basis of last year effort which generated digitization of 12500+ printed pages from 150 public domain books. The current year effort focuses on upscaling it with better coordination --AniVar (talk) 17:41, 17 October 2014 (UTC)

Although it may not be exactly relevant here, please note the explanation towards your query at Palm Leaf Digitization Project regarding Salary. I suppose, if at all such questions apply to this proposal, that explanation must do well here too. :) ViswaPrabhaവിശ്വപ്രഭ^talk 11:20, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

Aggregated feedback from the committee for Digitisation drive for Malayalam Wikisource

Scoring criteria (see the rubric for background)	Score 1=weak alignment 10=strong alignment
(A) Impact potential Does it fit with Wikimedia's strategic priorities? Does it have potential for online impact? Can it be sustained, scaled, or adapted elsewhere after the grant ends?	6.7
(B) Innovation and learning Does it take an Innovative approach to solving a key problem? Is the potential impact greater than the risks? Can we measure success?	6.0
(C) Ability to execute Can the scope be accomplished in 6 months? How realistic/efficient is the budget? Do the participants have the necessary skills/experience?	6.7
(D) Community engagement Does it have a specific target community and plan to engage it often? Does it have community support? Does it support diversity?	7.7
Comments from the committee: Fits with the Wikimedia strategic priorities to increase participation (by encouraging diversity through support for leaders from underrepresented groups and supporting the recruitment and participation of newer contributors) and to improve quality (by facilitating access to Malayalam language resources). While the Malayalam community may be relatively small, the past track record of its members and their activities suggest a high degree of dedication to this type of work and that there will therefore be a significant online impact for both the Malayalam Wikipedia and Wikisource projects. Many endorsements indicate that the predecessor project was a success and that the local community would be willing to engage. The Malayalam community has been quite vocal with their support for their project. Success is easy to measure, and there is little risk. Considering that this is a reproduction of an earlier project on a larger scale, we don't see lots of innovation or experimentation here. Budget seems high, and some of the budget items--particularly those related to event press and publicity--may be unnecessary. Is it possible to find sponsors for things like equipment rental and internet fees? Project may have been placed better as a PEG, and we would have been pleased to see it funded there. It is somewhat less-well aligned with the focus of IEG. The proposed project presents an approach for solving a key problem: the lack of available sources of information/books in Malayalam for contributors to draw upon while creating high-quality content. The fact that similar initiatives (such as the January 2014 digitization competition) were able to produce significant results and demonstrate online impact without much in the way of a budget, however, which calls into question the need for a grant. Sustainability seems to be an issue. From looking at the statistics (http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesWikipediaML.htm), without a dedicated program behind this initiative, the impact is temporary. After two months the project in Malayalam continued with the same trend of the previous months. A retention plan for new editors should be considered. The grantees seem capable and dedicated, and have relevant experience leading and contributing to community efforts to increase the volume of content available on the Malayalam Wikisource. This project should also be commended for seeking to encourage, recruit, support, and motivate new contributors through events for students.

Sorry for the delay in responding.

• Responding to the point "Considering that this is a reproduction of an earlier project on a larger scale, we don't see lots of innovation or experimentation here." . We think the importance of this expansion is not oberved with needed weight. There are 3 project components (WSCD2014, OfflineCD+Epubs, Free Licensing New Books) and only a segment of it is the expansion of a previous year plot to a wider program . This project is an experimentation to build a content sourcing mechanism from small libraries in Indian Context . In our previous experience GLAM and wikipedian in residence model does not work well with small libraries and governmrnt institutions in India. Last year experimentation was with oly one partner for sourcing books and it was successful . This year project experiments with increasing the reach to more libraries. Las year Books were already digitized by Sahitya Academy using state funds, but this year we have to address that as well apart from building relationship to libraries .

• Responding to "Budget seems high, and some of the budget items--particularly those related to event press and publicity--may be unnecessary." . A breakown of Event Press and Publicity is given at | this comment earlier.

It includes one WSDC2015 Prize distribution event + 5 small events in libraries. The WSDC2015 Prize distribution event is budgeted as ₹ 225000 (3750$) > It includes Pre event publicity , Venue Rentals , refreshments during event , Guest travels , Prizes and certificates . Same Event venue is also used for honouring famous authors who licensed their books under free license . We are budgeting ~ ₹100000 ($1666.67) towards organising this event and logistical expenses. For the WSDC2015 participation certificates and prizes we are budgeting ₹ 125000 ($2083.33) . Since WSDC2014 is an event attaracting new people to wikisource , there is a need of publicty and press coverage

• Responding to "Is it possible to find sponsors for things like equipment rental and internet fees?" . This project covers schools and libraries spread across a state and involves travelling . There are many practical difficulty in Sourcing books from libraries . They may not allow taking books outside library premises and needs to use the scanning facility in library (usually with a higher per page rate) for Digitizing . Some may allow taking out books in a condition that it need to be returned within few hours . In such cases depening on Library /outside scanning facilities is the only possibility and a single scanning unit rental and carrying it all over the state is not practically possible . Since the work involves travelling there is a need of USB dongles for internet access . We can ofcourse find sponsors of workdesks (so not budgeted) and internet access there, when the team is not travelling .

• Responding to "Project may have been placed better as a PEG, and we would have been pleased to see it funded there. It is somewhat less-well aligned with the focus of IEG". As We explianed earlier , the project is still more an experiment this year , and not a solid program yet . We need to build it as a sustainable model before converting it as a Program. At this stage , involvement of many individuals (Project team) is key in the success of this and their time need to be compensated as well. We hope by next year this will attain the baseline for applying in PEG . But this year we want to go with IEG . Time compensation of team , Travel and Prizemoney are enabling elements of this proposal.

• retention plan for new editors is a priority and we need to attaract them to other wikiprojects as well . We are planning tobuild an online support desk of wikimedians for helping them to write wikipedia pages using the data in wikisource pages

--AniVar (talk) 06:21, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for submitting this proposal. The committee is now deliberating based on these scoring results, and WMF is proceeding with its due-diligence. You are welcome to continue making updates to your proposal pages during this period. Funding decisions will be announced by early December. — ΛΧΣ²¹ 17:01, 13 November 2014 (UTC)

Moving from IEG to PEG

Hi Manojk, Sugeesh and Balasankarc,

Thank you again for this thoughtful proposal, and congratulations on the Malayalam community's successes so far! You've clearly gathered a wonderful group of Wikimedians to support and participate in this initiative, which is great to see. Based on the IEG committee's comments above and recommendations so far, as well as the WMF grantmaking program officers' review of this proposal, we would like to invite you to apply for funding via the Project and Events Grant (PEG) Program instead of via IEG. The reasons for this are as follows:

1. The Malayalam community (with leadership from some members of this project team) has already demonstrated some experimental success with a digitalisation drive model and are now aiming to grow this outreach initiative into something more sustainable via a year-long project
2. IEG has limited funding and we tend to reserve it for experimental initiatives, with a key focus on activities related to online community organizing, tool-building, or research.
3. We find that offline outreach and local community organizing projects of this size and shape tend to be better served by the Project and Event Grants program, where staff and committee members can offer you more targeted advice on scoping a fundable proposal for local growth beyond your first experiment and supporting your project to have the most success in execution.
4. We understand that funding for some organizers' time may be a key component of this initiative, and this may have been one reason that led you to IEG. However, although many Project and Event Grants don't fund people's time, the PEG program is indeed able to provide this funding if requested and need is demonstrated, so that should not present a barrier to your application.

I encourage you to connect with my colleague Alex Wang, PEG program officer, to discuss next steps - Alex can help you move your proposal into the PEG format and likely provide some guidance on scope, budget etc as you make any updates to this proposal based on the feedback you've received so far. Please let us know if you have any questions as you consider next steps, and thanks again for engaging in the IEG process.

Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 22:27, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi Siko (WMF),

Sorry for the delay in commenting earlier.

• At first this is still an expetrimental initiative, and thats why we approached IEG . There are 3 components in this grant request. 1) Wikisource Digitization Contest 2014 and and splitting it as 2 seperate programs for individuals and schools in 2 different timespans 2) Producing Offline CD and Epubs 3) Generating more free licensed Books . In short the team still conider this as an experimental initiative in this scale .

• Point one is based on past year learnings but unlike last year there is no partner at this stage for book sourcing . So it is primarily depends on support for the persons to search and find books and institutional tieups.Another enabler for this is the prize money and evennt expenses The 2 is already proven model in regards to CDs, and Epubs is a new area to be explored , and again depends on time of individuals. 3 is Totally new area and again depends on personal and their travel .

• As you noticed funding for some organizers' time may be a key component of this initiative. Without persons and their commitment this project is not possible . And we selected IEG considering this factor . Considering your suggestions , I think it is better to this factor within IEG and move the event and prizemoney expenses within this grant to PEG . Does that sounds good ? If that is OK , we will do it As early as possible.

--AniVar (talk) 08:44, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Hi AniVar, thanks for your message. I see that you may be feeling like we have misunderstood some elements of your proposal. And so I want to underscore the message that we do see value in many of the ideas that this Malayalam team has put forward here. Unfortunately, though, at this point it is not possible to split this proposal into different smaller parts or projects and move only part to PEG. The IEG committee did not recommend this project highly enough for it to be assured IEG funding in this round - as you're probably aware we have limited funding available for each round, and there are a lot of ideas that we just won't be able to fund at this time. The committee did, however, see a lot of value in some version of your project being funded via other means, and the grantmaking staff who have reviewed your proposal agree. So my strong suggestion is to take our invitation to move to PEG, rather than wait to have your IEG proposal declined in this round. And as I said, in your PEG proposal you can ask for funding for the organizers' time where you need it. To be clear, PEG is perfectly able to also offer funding for people's time, as long as you offer good rationale for why this is needed. I believe you can offer this rationale, Alex can support you to develop that conversation, and PEG should ultimately be able to provide for what's needed to achieve your key goals. I would also encourage you to be willing to make some adjustments to the scope of your initial proposal as your conversations continue with Alex and the PEG committee members, and based on careful consideration of the feedback already given by the IEG committee, so that we can help you achieve your vision. Trying to work on a lot of different components at once could become quite complicated, and may be costly not only in terms of budget, but also take away focus from some of the core impact you're aiming for. Simplifying can sometimes be is a good way to get you where you want to go more quickly, if you see what I mean. At any rate, I will ping Alex from PEG to reach out to you, and I do hope you'll carry forward the conversation with her from there. Best wishes, Siko (WMF) (talk) 00:22, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Hi AniVar. As Siko mentioned above, I would be happy to talk with you about this project idea, potentially revising some of the components and scope, and moving it to a PEG request. Please reach out to me at grants"at"wikimedia.org so we can move forward. Looking forward to working with you. Cheers, Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 05:07, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Mailed yesterday --AniVar (talk) 10:39, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

Status update

Hi AniVar. Thanks once again for drafting this proposal last year.

I just wanted to give you a heads up that I'm going to mark your proposal as 'withdrawn' because we've launched a new open call for IEG proposals for 2015 and I want to make sure that community reviewers don't mistake this idea as a current submission.

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Of course, you are welcome to submit a new proposal in the current round.

Warm regards, --Marti (WMF) (talk) 19:09, 8 September 2015 (UTC)