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CIS-A2K/Reports/CIS-A2K Quarterly Report 1

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CIS-A2K

CIS-A2K (Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge) is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.
If you have a general proposal/suggestion for Access to Knowledge team you can write on the discussion page. If you have appreciations or feedback on our work, please share it on feedback page.

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Quarterly Report: (July - September 2013)

Project: Access to Knowledge Programme
Grantee: Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, India
Grantor: Wikimedia Foundation
Grant Period: 22 months
Grant Sanctioned: INR 26,000,000/-
Grant Disbursed: INR 25,782,032/-

Background to the Access to Knowledge Programme

The Wikimedia Foundation approved a grant to support the growth of Indian language Wikimedia communities to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) to expand their Access to Knowledge program (A2K) in India. The grant enabled CIS to work with the Wikimedia community of volunteers in India to expand upon Wikimedia’s Indic language free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia in Indic languages. Further, the grant aims to generate improvements in India-relevant free knowledge in Wikimedia’s English projects and wider distribution of Wikimedia’s free knowledge within India.

Introduction

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As against the Annual Work Plan, this is the first quarterly report CIS-A2K has published for the time period July-September 2013. The report provides a brief overview of the quarterly progress of CIS-A2K Program. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over this time frame. (The report is published on Meta at a much later date. Apologies for the delay)

Overview

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By the beginning of July 2013 the work-plans developed by CIS-A2K, in consultation with the Wikimedia communities in India and WMIN Chapter, were finalized. Efforts were put in to roll-out the five language area plans. Below we have shared a quick snapshot of the progress in these five language Wikipedias.
Across all these languages concerted efforts were put to build institutional partnerships. Some of these were established whereas some continued to be in the pipeline. However, it should be noted that we could not achieve much progress with the Bengali work-plan as we were short of staff. Focussed Wikimedia outreach was done across all the focus languages other than Bengali. Small but subtle activities were carried out to strengthen the existing communities, which include community meet-ups, triggering on-wiki projects and showcasing the work of the Wikipedians that were not noticed otherwise.
In addition to the efforts put in these five language areas, CIS-A2K has also extended support to the Wikimedia communities across India to help them organize various community led events. Further, CIS-A2K has also organized various activities and events in other Indian languages and also worked on the technical front in giving need-based support to the communities.

Progress achieved (focused language areas)

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The following are the key highlights of CIS-A2K's work during this quarter which gives a glimpse of the progress. A detailed quarterly growth of the five language Wikipedias is capture below:

Telugu

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Main article: /Telugu

The effect of the Telugu Wikipedia Mahotsavam held in April 2013 was very positive in bringing the various active editors together on wiki and off wiki. The impact of this is quite visible in terms of starting new collaborative projects on Telugu Wikipedia and in terms of bringing some old timers back to Telugu Wikipedia, while bringing some newer editors on board. CIS-A2K enabled regular monthly meet-ups in Hyderabad and Bangalore through this quarter. Some of the key highlights during this quarter include:

For more details on the progress of Telugu Wikipedia see here.

Odia

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Main article: /Odia

Workplan for Odia Wikimedia projects was shared and discussed with the Odia Wikimedia community. During this quarter a series of Wikipedia editing training workshops were introduced in the classrooms of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Dhenkanal. The planning and preparation for this program happened during this quarter. This was one of the major programs that was implemented during this quarter by the community with programmatic support from the CIS-A2K program. Building partnerships with two other organizations: Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar and KIIT University were initiated with the idea of including students and faculty of these two institutions to use Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects as an educational tool.

Detailed work plan for Odia Wikipedia could be read here. Some of the key initiatives during this quarter include:

  • ଲୀଳାବତୀଙ୍କ କନ୍ୟାଗଣ (Lilavati's daughters) project: A major initiative to enrich Wikipedia with women Indian scientists across many Indic languages was started. Odia Wikipedian Subas Chandra Rout has been majorly contributing to this project since the initiation of this project whereas 23 articles have been created till date.
  • Initiation of of a new model of Wikipedia workshop series: Due to the low output during the Odia Wikipedia Education Program the Education program was modified to more sustainable rigorous Wikipedia training workshops. Planning and preparation for this program was one key activity during this quarter.
  • Partnership building at KISS and KIIT: Assessment of students from indigenous tribes and the faculty at KISS and students from management and engineering disciplines at KIIT.

The detailed quarterly report here.

Konkani

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Main article: /Konkani

Partnership with Goa University was one big achievement for Konkani Wikipedia during the quarter of July-September 2013. Upon CIS-A2K‘s explicit request, Goa University approved the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to the public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume hard copy encyclopedia (3632 pages) published by Goa University; a work that took over 14 years to develop. To celebrate and further the movement of open knowledge and open access, Goa University in collaboration with CIS-A2K organised a big event on 26th September 2013; which helped create awareness and achieve massive media coverage around Konkani Wikipedia.

Time and effort was invested to create Konkani Wikipedia content in all scripts alike - Devanagari, Roman, Kannada. Efforts were put in to built partnerships with other institutes such as St.Xavier's College Goa, Kings College, Rosary College, St. Aloysius College and more. Additional details about the work during this quarter and its impact can be found here.

Kannada

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Main article: /Kannada

Outreach was used as a primary tool to create awareness about Kannada Wikipedia. These series of outreach events resulted in creating massive awareness about Kannada Wikipedia. Several new editors joined Kannada Wikipedia community which is showcased in increase in number of editors. Total number of articles and page views also went up during this quarter. CIS-A2K's efforts also resulted in mass media coverage. Social media was also effectively used for outreach.Detailed progress report can be found here.

Bengali

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Main article: /Bengali

A visit was made to build partnerships with Media Lab, Department of Film Studies and School of Cultural Texts and Records at Jadavpur University. A community meet up was organised during the same trip. However, not much work was undertaken in the Bengali work plan. Growth of Bengali Wikipedia can be seen here.

Support to Community

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Technical support

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  • Helped conduct beta testing for Visual Editor on several Indian language Wikipedias and shared feedback with WMF Engineering Team.
  • Filed 4 bugs pertaining to Indic Wikipedias.
  • Participated in WMF Language Engineering team's Office Hour IRC

Other key events or activities

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