WikiConference India 2016/Call for Participation

Hashtag: #WCI2016

The call for participation is now closed. The accepted programs will be announced soon.

Call for Papers

Expectation and Approach

The following are the expectations from the conference:

Indian Wikimedia community is unique. It is heterogeneous, with people representing multiple languages, literature & cultures. Yet there are many commonalities. The conference aims to provide a meeting place for various communities to interact, share, learn and know each other.
The conference will not be about talks or presentations all the time. We expect interactive, creative and interesting discussions on various tracks identified.
To provide an opportunity to every Wikimedian in the conference to talk if they wish to share anything interesting with the rest of community. We are providing 10 minutes lightning talks in this regard. These talks may not require prior registration.
To utilize the expertise and experience of Wikimedians in the conference, we plan to have open discussions on each track between a panel of experts and interested Wikimedians. Anything related to Wikimedia can be discussed, asked and be commented upon. There will be a moderator for each of these discussions.

The conference will have a mix of

Invited Expert's speech
Submitted presentations
Panels
Tutorials
Workshops
Open space meetings
Lightning talks
Poster presentations
Skype sessions

Submissions will be reviewed and selected in advance by the program committee. Selection of the talks is the prerogative of the program committee and all decisions will be final and binding.

Submissions can be made online, via email or hand to hand to our Wikimedia volunteers listed under the registration page. The online Submission link is placed at the bottom of this page. Before submitting the program proposals, please read the guidelines below.

Tracks

This year's conference offers four tracks for submissions: Community, Technology, Knowledge and Outreach. Additionally papers are also invited in the areas of Open source software and technology, Technological glitches of softwares/platforms/interfaces developed in Indian Languages. We also offer scholarships for papers from various Indian languages. See Scholarships for details.

Community:

Proposals in the community track typically deal with the contributors to Wikimedia projects, ways to enhance collaboration, measure collaboration, contribution and impact.

Technology

Proposals in the technology track may deal with Mediawiki server, enhancements, workarounds as well as tools to monitor, measure and enhance contribution and impact.

Knowledge

Proposals in the knowledge track can include studies on the pipeline from abstract forms of knowledge to formal expression on the various projects. These could also involve studies on citations, librarianship, impact of open-access etc. related to Wikimedia projects.

Outreach

Proposals in the outreach track can deal with case studies of programs to enhance participation and increase contribution, use in education and collaboration to the Wikimedia projects in various languages.

The presentations should be in any of the tracks mentioned above.Each Track will have the following sessions:

A 30 minutes talk, workshop, or a tutorial - Proposals are invited for these from all. The 30 minutes duration is as per the standard guideline and can be extended on need basis. The expectations about these sessions are to present innovative solutions, present the existing issues, and case studies or best practices from the communities.
Lightning talks related to each track- These are 10 minute talks by community members and do not require registration. Speaker can just inform the track lead during the session. Duration of the talks may be increased if needed.
Organizers will present an expert panel on each track- Wikimedians interested/working on that track can discuss any issues, experiences, suggestions etc. openly with the panel and within the audience. The discussion will be moderated by the track lead.
Skype sessions - If substantial number of papers come for this mode then skype sessions can be arranged. Duration will be 15-30 minutes as required.
Posters - Some of the innovative ideas can be represented through posters.

Abstracts/full Papers of these talks should be submitted prior to the conference and they should be selected by organizers. Proposals can be sent via email to - TBD

Mode & Format

Format of the abstract

Abstracts must not exceed two A4 pages in length (including data and references) have one inch margins (2.5 cm) on all sides in Times New Roman font with a font size no smaller than 12 pt and single line spacing.
For papers written other than English unicode fonts need to be used. If Unicode fonts are not used, the name of the keyboard/ software used must be mentioned.
The authors must clearly mention the track name, mode, duration and state whether the abstract should be considered for 30 minutes talk/ panel/ workshop/ 10 minutes lightning talk/ Skype session/ Poster presentation.
Submissions in .odt, .docx, .doc, .rtf, .pdf-format will be accepted.

Format of the paper

Papers must not exceed 10 (Ten) A4 pages in length (including data and references), have one inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides, be set in Times New Roman with a font size no smaller than 12pt and single line spacing. Other instructions as above.

Format of the Poster

Posters can be sent in A0 size format.

Format of the presentation

.odp/.ppt/.pptx files can be sent prior for consideration. For a 10 minutes talk 10 slides and for a 30 minutes talk the slide numbers may not exceed 30; excluding title and thank you slides.

What if you don't have a paper

In case you think you can't manage paper in the given timeline, you can also prepare a power point presentation or a handout. We encourage that too. In that case you can express your interest to us by shooting an email or by sending an abstract.

Important dates (updated)

The deadline for submissions is given below

Call for abstracts/proposals opens: 22 June 2016
Deadline for abstracts: 20 July 2016, 23:59:59 hours IST (UTC +5.30)
Notification for accepted abstracts : 25 July 2016 23:59:59 hours IST (UTC +5.30)
Deadline for submitting Full papers: 30 July, 23:59:59 hours IST (UTC +5.30)

Submission of proposals

The above guidelines are only meant as a pointer to help speakers and is not expected to be exhaustive. You can submit talks within all aspects of Wikimedia even if the topic is not specifically included here. Be Bold/Be innovative.

How to upload paper/ abstract proposals here

In the input box delete 'your proposal title' and write the title of your proposal, click on create page and It will redirect you to a new page, fill in all the details. If you can't do it this way kindly send your proposals through emails. Mention 'Abstract submission' in the subject line

The call for participation is now closed. The accepted programs will be announced soon.

See also: