CIS-A2K/Konkani Wikipedia @Goa University/Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project

Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume encyclopedia published by Goa University. It encompasses all the world information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc.

Goa University has generously approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public and thus preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era.

Goa University in collaboration with the Centre for Internet & Society’s Access to Knowledge Programme (CIS-A2K) is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. In this project we will work with group of individuals who will help digitize the encyclopedia in a time bound manner. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized.

This workshop is organised for students, professors, faculty, professionals or anyone who is interested to preserve Konkani language and culture!

Time & Venue

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization

19th-20th Oct 2013; 10am-4pm

List of Participants

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization

Total number of participants = 37

Volume 1 (Total pages: 863)

Supriya kankumbikar‌ Volume 1; Page 1 - 100
Dias neves‌ Volume 1; Page 101 - 200
Pritam barve‌ Volume 1; Page 201 - 300
Bandodkarneha‌ Volume 1; Page 301 - 400
Shivram10‌ Volume 1; Page 401 - 500
Ashvini Chari‌ Volume 1; Page 501 - 600
Goenkar sameer‌ Volume 1; Page 601 - 700
Concyfeds‌ Volume 1; Page 701 - 800
Cliffa fernandes‌ Volume 1; Page 801 - 863

Volume 2 (Total pages: 934)

Abigail dias‌ Volume 2; Page 1 - 100
Darshan kandolkar‌ Volume 2; Page 101 - 200
Ramadas Vassudev‌ Volume 2; Page 201 - 300
Vaishali Parab‌ Volume 2; Page 301 - 400
John Noronha‌ Volume 2; Page 401 - 500
Sulochana Pednekar‌ Volume 2; Page 501 - 600
Gauns vindiya ‌ Volume 2; Page 601 - 700
Frania pereira‌ Volume 2; Page 701 - 800
Rusita paryekar‌ Volume 2; Page 801 - 900
VIRAJ HOLKAR‌ Volume 2; Page 901 - 934

Volume 3 (Total pages: 824)

Marizma mascarenhas‌ Volume 3; Page 1 - 100
Sawantsona‌ Volume 3; Page 101 - 200
Paresh wadji‌ Volume 3; Page 201 - 300
Pooja tople‌ Volume 3; Page 301 - 400
Darshana mandrekar‌ Volume 3; Page 401 - 500
Reena Mascarenhas‌ Volume 3; Page 501 - 600
Linette saldanha‌ Volume 3; Page 601 - 700
Shaina‌ Volume 3; Page 701 - 800
Marizma mascarenhas‌ Volume 3; Page 801 - 824

Volume 4 (Total pages: 1011)

Suchitra Bhandari‌ Volume 4; Page 1 - 100
Savidha Talekar‌ Volume 4; Page 101 - 200
Zorekanchan‌ Volume 4; Page 201 - 300
Sulaxa moraskar‌ Volume 4; Page 301 - 400
Sampada naik‌ Volume 4; Page 401 - 500
Gauri Prabhugaonkar‌ Volume 4; Page 501 - 600
Suma parab gaonkarr‌ Volume 4; Page 601 - 700
Varsha kavlekar‌ Volume 4; Page 701 - 800
Priyanka kudaskar‌ Volume 4; Page 801 - 900
Rohit naroji‌ Volume 4; Page 901 - 1000
Akshay naroji‌ Volume 4; Page 1001 - 1011

Pictures

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project

Report

Calling out for participants
On 18th September CIS-A2K opened the registrations for Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project. As a part of the registration process interested candidates were required to fill out a form detailing their name, motivation to be a part of the program, comfort level with Devanagari typing etc. The form could be found here.

CIS-A2K also prepared a brochure for the program which was used as an invitation to call out for registrations. The invite was sent through various channels; such as:

Konkani Wikipedia Facebook page
Konkani Facebook page
Konkani Rocks Facebook page
Konkani mailing lists
Goa University mailing list
Goa University bulletin board
Prints of the registration form were circulated
Word of mouth

Registrations
By 5th October (in about 2.5 weeks) CIS-A2K received:

Total Registrations = 40
No. of people who already knew typing = 33
No. of people who didn't know typing = 5
No. of people who knew a bit of typing but were not comfortable = 2
No. of people from Goa University = 18 students
No. of people who are Goa University alum = 4

Scheduling initial orientation workshop
CIS-A2K wanted to organise the initial orientation workshop on the 12-13th Oct however due to Dussehra festivities the date had to be postponed and finally the workshops were organised the following weekend;19th-20th Oct. 40 participants were broken down into 2 different groups of 20 each; while the first group attended the workshop on 19th Oct and the second group on 20th Oct; from 9am - 4pm on both the days.

Scanning of Vishwakosh
CIS-A2K got the Vishwakosh book scanned in a PDF document. It is 861 MB file constituting of all 4 volumes.

Organising initial orientation workshop
Out of 40; 37 participants attended the workshop over 2 days. Several aspects were covered during the workshop including introduction to Wikipedia, Konkani Vishwakosh, digitization process, typing in Devanagari for those who were not comfortable; allocation of pages from Vishwakosh to the participants etc. Each participant has been allocated approx 100 pages to be digitized over a period of next 2 months. List of participants usernames and pages allotted for them to digitize can be found on program page.[7]

Plans ahead (for Nov)
CIS-A2K will organise open house Skype/Google hangout to help resolve any problems that the participants might face during digitization. One month after; on 20th November CIS-A2K will organise a follow up session to clarify any doubts that the participants may have. This will also serve an opportunity for CIS-A2K to schedule a mid-program review of all the work done by participants. CIS-A2K will produce a mid-program report in Nov that can be shared with all.

Challenges

Quality check: Participants are currently digitizing Vishwakosh but there are ought to be spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. CIS-A2K wants to make sure that the digitized product is of best quality and would want involve few resource persons to proof-read the final product. Finding resource people has been a challenge so far.
Compiling work: Vishwakosh is a huge book with about 3600 pages. All 37 participants are doing their bit to digitize 100 pages each. Compiling all these efforts to finally produce 1 book seems to be a challenge. However details of this could be spelt only once the process starts.
Adding tables and equations: Participants have been facing trouble to add tables and equations. They have been asked to park these issues and make a note so that we could discuss it in the follow up session in Nov.

Successes

CIS-A2K received high number of registrations (40) in just about two and a half weeks.
Out of 40 registrations; 37 of them attended the orientation workshop; with only a 7.5% drop out.
The orientation workshops were organised successfully.
Scanning of Vishwakosh was done efficiently and in high quality.
Division of work amongst the participants was done methodologically and fairly.

Follow up Sessions

Follow up sessions will be orgniased to help participants clear their doubts. CIS-A2K will also organise editing sprints to help speed up the work. This section gives details of all follow up workshops organised:

December 9, 2013 - Konkani Translation Sprint at Goa University Library
December 8, 2013 - Konkani Vishwakosh Wikipedia Workshop at Goa University Library
November 30, 2013 - Editing Sprint for Vishwakosh at Goa Central State Library
November 28, 2013 - Konkani Vishwakosh : Doubt Solving Session at Goa Central Library
November 26, 2013 - Konkani Vishwakosh : Doubt Solving Session at Goa Central Library