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Talk:CIS-A2K/Work plan April 2013 - June 2014/Odia

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Latest comment: 11 years ago by Ansumang in topic Odia EP, IIMC (continuance)
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Approach for Village/Block/District project

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Latest comment: 11 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Village/Block/District project in Telugu Wikipedia was not useful for growing Wikipedia, as even five years after stubs were created using a bot, large percentage of articles never grew into regular articles. It is better to take the top down approach of district articles and then based on that experience, expanding to include Block/Village articles.--Arjunaraoc (talk) 03:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for your feedback Arjuna. I feel the same, many stubs are being created for the sake of creating articles. I feel like A2K is missing the depth of issues and trying to jump to reach the goals. And sadly the simple and direct method, engaging with the community on-wiki has not been happening! All these plans only create question marks.

Final discussion summary

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Thanks a lot Arjuna and Ansuman. My sincere apologies for delay in answering here on Meta. There were two community meetups at Bhubaneswar and Cuttack to discuss about the Village/Block/District project. It was also discussed in the village pump. There was an IRC for discussion on executing the plans. In the entire process of discussion of deciding the WikiProject community was involved on meetup, mailing list, IRC and village pump discussions.

Answers to questions raised by Ansuman:

  • Can you explain how exactly Srujanika is going to help? Please address the license issue, otherwise it could create a big mess.
Srujanika has digitized over 500 books (in collaboration with National Institute of Tehnology, Rourkela) majority of which are out of copyright. The low resolution scanned PDFs are hosted on NIT, Rourkela's website. There are other books and several volumes of Bigyan Tarang published by Srujanika are also digitized. Srujanika has agreed to share the books online so that the community could make use of them as primary resources for creating articles. So there would be no copyvio.
  • Who is/are going to train who? And is this being planned to do it remotely or in a particular city?
This is been planned and would be communicated soon.
here. --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 00:09, 10 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Odia EP, IIMC (continuance)

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Latest comment: 11 years ago17 comments4 people in discussion
I don't know how to respond after 3 months. Sorry. And I don't understand how it became "Final discussion summary" when you never participated in this discussion before! User:Visdaviva how do you want me to react to this?
Seeing the standard of articles, anybody could say that the outcome in terms of having article is Zero. An education program can not be done like this. AFAIK 2nd workshop was attended by only Mrutyunjaya Bhai (correct me if I'm wrong), and 3rd was (not a workshop, just to evaluate and reward) by 4/5 Wikipedians. It's difficult to know who attended which events, the names are not listed properly. User:Visdaviva do you know yet the amount of money A2K spent for this particular EP? I'd like to know please share. Seeing the way A2K done this EP, I can't let this happen again on Odia Wikipedia. And please be honest and specific while writing reports and don't lie. User:Visdaviva you wanted me to help, this is the best i can do. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 12:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
And Mrutyunjaya Bhai, do you have anything to say in this? -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 12:32, 22 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks User:ansumang for considering my request to engage with the Odia plans. Appreciate your honest feedback. We would need your and other Odia Wikipedians' similar continuous participation and feedback.
Subhashish could you please address these important questions raised by User:ansumang comprehensively and accurately, at the earliest? I think it is important to exactly disclose the money A2K has spent on this Odia Education Programme and to discuss the impact/outcomes transparently with the Odia Wikimedia Community on OR WP, if not done already. Further, it is also essential to discuss the "Learning and Challenges" faced in implementing this programme with the Odia community's participation. As User:ansumang has rightly pointed out if A2K were to proceed further with this programme let's all be better informed. If this critical examination could result in bettering the EP design, Odia community could churn out the first successful Education Programme, and set a model for the rest of the Indian language communities to follow. Having personally witnessed the enthusiasm of the majority of the Odia community members, I believe WE CAN --Visdaviva (talk) 14:14, 22 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Thanks Ansuman, Apologies for mistakes incurred you have listed. I'm replying back next week with the details you have asked for. Appreciate your patience. --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 13:54, 23 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Dear Ansuman, Thanks a lot for your patience. Here is the answer to the individual queries you asked for:
Regarding Srujanika

Srujanika has digitized books (Literary books; Poetry, Fictions, Essays, Historical books), periodicals (Utkala Deepika and Asha), Encyclopedias (Jnanamandal, copyrighted) which are published by various publishers. Some of them are out of copyright and some are copyrighted by the publishers. Srujanika also has their own publications including the monthly magazine Bigyan Tarang’’. It is difficult to tell which portion of which book would be useful. Rather, it was discussed during the meeting with Srujanika about listing the articles the wikipedia community would like to write. Would you like to take lead in engaging the community for listing these articles? Please feel free to edit the draft I have created a draft for this project, will move this to namespace after the community discussion.

Regarding the discrepancy of data

Sincere apologies for the mistakes. I have corrected the data on the blog. The total no. of articles created is 8 after the user sub page articles are moved. Initially the plan was for more than 4 months. But because of the exams in December one workshop could not be conducted. Because of the exams in February the program has to be closed by January end. So apart from one initial workshop which I attended and the second workshop (attended by Mrutyunjaya bhai and Manoranjan Mallik bhai) we could not conduct any workshop for the students. The first workshop was introductory workshop and students were not aware of typing. Part of the second workshop was spent in teaching them Odia typing and editing. Because of other cultural programs the third workshop has to be kept limited only distributing certificates.

Regarding expenses

I travelled twice to Odisha during the program: One in November and the other one in January. Here are the expenses for the trips:
November:
Air ticket: ₹ 15,272
Accommodation, local travel and meals: ₹ 25,478
Total: ₹ 40,750
January:
Air ticket: ₹ 18,465
Accommodation, local travel and meals: ₹ 17,468
Payment to Academy of Media Learning: ₹ 9,464
Total: ₹ 45,397
EP was not the only work I had done during these trips. I also attended other workshops, community meet ups. During my first trip in November I had attended the Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 and two other workshops in Bhubaneswar (one Academy of Media Learning in which you were present and one at KMBB College of Engineering). During my second trip in January I had attended the 9th anniversary celebration of Odia Wikipedia in Bhubaneswar. During the EP I had stayed in the staff quarter of wikipedian Manoranjan Mallik at NALCO for which I had not paid for. The expenses includes some of the meals I had with the community members and travel and lunch organized during the 9th Odia Wikipedia celebration. --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 12:53, 26 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

Can you please elaborate the payment to AML? And how much was spent on 9th anniversary celebration of Odia Wikipedia and Odisha Youth Inspiration Award? Details please. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 13:29, 27 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Subhashish Panigrahi, User:ansumang & User:MKar can we please also discuss about the learning and challenges faced in executing this EP? What has worked and what has not worked? For me it looks like the time of this OR EP was really bad. Also clear expectations from the students and institution seem to be lacking. Also more per-preparatory work would have helped? More On-Wiki engagement by the OR community?...etc.
  • Subhashish Panigrahi, I think your experience has also changed since this Odia EP and probably it will be nice if you can share what kind of design changes need to be made for this EP to be more successful. Probably, you could reflect on this based on the recent Konkani work A2K has done. It is very useful to cross pollinate the Lessons and success stories. Why don't you share this with User:ansumang, User:MKar and others from OR WP?
  • Could I also suggest that the wider Odia community be involved in this? Probably you Subhashish Panigrahi and User:ansumang could also take back all these discussions and disclosures in Odia on OR WP? You know it better :) --Visdaviva (talk) 05:41, 28 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Ansuman, there was a small confusion from the accounts section. ₹ 9,464 was spent during the ninth celebration at AML in the month of January for travel for guests, meals, rent for the venue and other administrative/logistics expenses. I have corrected the mistake. We did not pay anything to AML during November and apart from all these expenses for travel, accommodation and meals nothing was spent for the Odisha Youth Inspiration Award.
Vishnu, I'm working on a [[:w:or:ବ୍ୟବହାରକାରୀ:Psubhashish/ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଶିକ୍ଷା ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ/ଭାରତୀୟ_ଜନସଂଚାର_ସଂସ୍ଥାନ,_ଢେଙ୍କାନାଳ-୧/Learning|learning section]] which would include the points you've mentioned.Ansuman and Mrutyunjaya bhai, please feel free to share your feedback, ideas, experience and learning in the same page. Once finalized we can share with the community. Could I also request you both to keep this in English. We can always translate the final version to Odia and share that with the community.--Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 09:12, 28 August 2013 (UTC)Reply

┌─────────────┘
You should have corrected by striking out the old expenses and provide the new one. You said confusion! Why? Now i doubt the amounts you mentioned are exact. ₹ 9,464 for 9th celebration! I don't like the way A2K spending money. Perhaps you should discuss the budget before spending with the community from now on. Why you had to pay for the venue? What other logistics expenses? AML has everything, projector and all. How many guests had to travel and from where? I understand the printing expenses, and cake. Still how it became ₹ 9,464? I see only 8-10 existing Wikipedians attended all are based in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Angul.

  • On EP; A2K spent ₹ 80,000 for 8 stubs!
  • Who are responsible for this? User:Visdaviva doesn't take the responsibility as he was not in the team. User:Ijon? WMF? CIS?
  • Please spend the donation money wisely. Just because WMF granted the money, it's not yours. I know you know, then stop messing around!
  • User:Visdaviva, if you want to conduct another EP, First get at least 10 volunteers in the same city then train them for at least 1 month by conducting 3-4, 5-6 hour long workshops (You have planned to train the volunteers, right? Why not train them first then conduct EP). During this one month, those are new should write at least 2 good articles each. So when you conduct EP, you could assign them, 2/3 students per 1 volunteer. Also get at least 4-6 volunteers for on-wiki assistance, if the total number of participating students are within 10-20. And get at least 2 A2K employees on ground for an EP. Else No EP. And what success story of Konkani you are talking about? First show us the list of articles. If you can train new users and get success then what is the need of EP? Go ahead train the students of the institutes.
  • I'm sorry i don't talk politely, to liars and dishonest people. And for own sake, stop making excuses and apologizing, you don't need to apologize to me. Have the shame and be honest. Thanks. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 12:50, 28 August 2013 (UTC)Reply
Dear Ansuman, Thanks for sharing this detailed feedback on this. I'd answer to the questions soon. --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 12:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Amount of money spent for EP

₹ 80,000 was not spent entirely for the EP. Part of it was spent. I already have given details about the other events/meetings/wikipedia/celebrations I had to attend. In both of these trips I also met wikipedians in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack and Nalconagar. They were not put up on wiki as events apart from some documentation. Writing here again just to clarify:

  1. November:
    1. Community meetup in Kolkata
    2. Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012
    3. Odia Wikipedia workshop at Academy of Media Learning in which you were present
    4. Odia Wikipedia workshop at KMBB College of Engineering
  2. January:
    1. 9th anniversary celebration of Odia Wikipedia
    2. Celebrattion event at IIMC, Dhenkanal
Why we had to pay for the venue

₹ 9,464 was the total amount spent including taxes. We tried to find a suitable venue for free, but could not find any then. If you want details about this amount please visit our office or write to usha cis-india.org. --Subhashish Panigrahi (talk) 13:25, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

  • Thanks. I think everyone here could figure out that 80k was not spent entirely on EP. The total amount was somewhere 86-87. So this 9+k and amount spent in those events you mentioned would be around 3-4K. Then total amount spent on EP, lets say 86 minus 14, 72. Happy! No i don't want to know more details on this, the details you could share should be enough.
  • I don't know what you guys think is the proper way. But in my opinion, from now on whenever A2K wants to spend money on any events, visits, celebrations you guys should notify the community on-wiki about the details of the budget in advance. I think in the community everyone deserves to know and decide if the amount is fair, much or less. Also, the way the money should be spent, e.g. if the community wants to pay for the venue for a celebration or/and meetup. This'd also help others to know how things work and measure the success. Lets also discuss this at Odia Wikipedia. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 14:49, 3 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
Subhashish Panigrahi & User:ansumang Not sure if this is how we need to take the discussion forward? Travelling right now. Will soon get back on this. --Visdaviva (talk) 16:26, 5 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
My Comments
  • Reasons of failure: Completely agree with Subhasish
    • Could not organise the required number of wokshops.
    • During EP participants were typing using a proprietary keyboard layout for their everyday assignments.
    • I was not able to give my 100% effort, due to my personal professional workloads :(
  • Till now I am not aware about the SOP of an EP.
    • Even though I am not trained (for conducting EP), I was involved in the EP from start to finish both on-site and on-wiki, So I am partly taking responsibility for the failure of the EP.
  • I was not aware about the budget before August 2013.
    • I had not received any financial benefit for the Dhenkanal EP, even if I was offered for the same . (Till now also I am not interested for any financial benefit.)
  • Future plan?
    • Future EP (if any happens...)/ other wiki activities can be improved with support of more wikipedians/ community members and more detailed planning.
    • Yes, Yes and Yes, together We can do it definitely; no doubt about it :)--Mrutyunjaya Kar (talk) 08:40, 8 September 2013 (UTC)Reply
  • Thanks for the response, and thanks for being modest. But i do not think you are responsible a bit. I'm surprised, A2K hasn't responded on this yet. You did more than A2K, A2K didn't come, didn't provide sufficient support and resources. I hope A2K or whoever in charge of this takes the complete responsibility. -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 08:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Key Pointers and (my) learning from the discussion on IIMC Dhenkanal

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  • It is important to recognize that the planned OR EP at IIMC, Dhenkanal was not successfully rolled out due to various issues.
I feel a thorough due diligence, planning and continuous evaluation should be in place before rolling out such programs in future. This discussion on the IIMC EP Program would have been much more productive had it happened when the Program was in progress 9 months ago.
  • There is no clarity on how much CIS-A2K spent on this program. User:ansumang claims that it could be INR 72,000/-. User:Psubhashish claims that it cannot be that much as the majority of the expense was incurred for travel and stay (twice to Odisha) and he has also taken part in 5 other activities (cumulatively) during these visits.
CIS-A2K in consultation with the WP Community (in this case it is Odia Community) should find means of informing the community the expenses involved in executing such program/s. This should be part of the Program evaluation and design. I feel, we need to also include CIS-A2K staff time, as part of the costs incurred for the program.
  • User:ansumang has specifically asked who (specific person) is going to take responsibility for the failure of IIMC, Dhenkanal program.
As Program Director of CIS-A2K, I will take full responsibility for it. I am open to any punitive measure the Odia WP community collectively suggests.

--Visdaviva (talk) 02:55, 8 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

  • I asked about the expenses for EP. You guys only shared the amount. Now you are saying there is no clarity! You should share why there is no clarity? Based on your response, i cut down the amount from 87 to 72. Now i don't understand what you are trying to say? Why are you telling us that "we need to also include staff time, ..."? Yes do that, make a note of it. But be specific on what and where you spend the time. Do whatever you want to do, but don't do anything on Odia Wikipedia without community's approval.
  • You will take full responsibility! When? Why? Punitive measure! really, how? Can you suggest few options how the community could do that! :D -- ɑηsuмaη «Talk» 13:01, 10 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

Cross posting the learning here for reference:

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What worked

Active involvement of WP community members

Wikipedians who were based close to Dhenkanal (Mrutyunjaya Kar and Manoranjan Mallick) provided on-ground support for the workshops. Mrutyunjaya Kar was present for all the three events and also for on-wiki coordination of the project page. Wikipedians from Cuttack (Srikant Kedia and Kamalakanta Nayak) supported for the first workshop and were present during the first meeting. Other Odia Wikipedians (Subas Chandra Rout and Manoranjan Behera) were present on the final day of event.

Institutional collaboration

The initial discussion with Prof. Mrinal Chatterjee from IIMC was attended by Odia Wikipedians Mrutyunjaya Kar, Srikant Kedia, Manoranjan Mallick, and Kamalakanta Nayak and myself along with faculty member Jitendra Pati and teaching associates Sucharita and Bhagaban Sahu. The college arranged for computer labs and classrooms very efficiently.

Learning

Clarity on expectations and deliverables

The goals and deliverables from the students, guide-faculty members, CIS-A2K and supporting Wikipedians could have been defined explicitly. Pre-deciding on these parameters can bring more clarity, momentum and success. Part of this was also because of the short time of the program (i.e. two 1-2 hour workshops) which was not enough for any substantial amount of content generation or expanding a sustainable community.

Short term workshops

Workshops organsied for aspiring Wikipedians should be longer than 1-2 hour workshops. Indic language typing is a critical part of the workshop and needs more practice for correct and efficient typing. During this education program students were engaged for 1-2 hours and two workshops were not sufficient for them to learn and practice very well. Ideally we should try and organise 2 day event with minimum of 5-6 hrs long workshops each day.

Thorough preparation and logistics

Wikipedians were not prepared for such a long term program at that moment. With a small community based in various places whose primary contribution is limited more in on-wiki participation there is a need for good preparation for the logistical arrangements for wikipedians to conduct workshops. In this case it was not that easy for the Wikipedians to travel far and conduct workshops. Majority of the first workshop was spent in creating user accounts for the students and basic typing training. The second workshop was partially spent for typing training and creating and editing articles.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Learning something without fun doesn't last long and doesn't bring excitement to contribute, especially voluntarily. Though it was difficult for the wikipedians to make the workshops more fun in the very limited time this could be a great learning for all of us. Education programs need day long workshops with a lot of exciting fun activities. Otherwise workshops would be boring like regular lectures and students would not be excited enough to continue for long.

Community level involvement

Though it is very difficult to get everyone from the community on board for a program because of many reasons (Primarily due to availability of wikipedians, time constraint, logistics and most importantly interest of Wikipedians) a proper support system was not set up in place. Mrutyunjaya Kar, who was primarily involved in this project was overburdened with his other administrative contribution to Wikipedia, community building initiatives in Nalconagar and professional occupation. There is always a need of dividing work among the wikipedians who are interested and specifically mention the amount of amount of involvement that would be needed from the coordinators.

Incentives and retention

These two parameters are very critical. To keep the contribution purely voluntary it is hard to define the incentive for the hard work done by the students. Not everyone is equally excited for the philosophical reason (Love for language, growth of free content). Especially for students something that would help their career could be the biggest incentive. This bit of Wikipedia contribution helping students in their long term career needs to be poured to the students in a more lucid way. Retention is also another biggest challenge for Wikipedia outreach. Posted by User:Psubhashish

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