Goa University announces plan to upload Konkani encyclopedia on Wikipedia
http://www.navhindtimes.in/goa-news/goa-university-announces-plan-upload-ko…
PANAJI: The Goa University, on Thursday, re-launched the four volumes of Konkani
Vishwakosh (Konkani encyclopedia), and announced its ambitious plan to upload the same on
Wikipedia – a free encyclopedia built collaboratively using Wiki software – so as to build
the Konkani Wikipedia.
The university has entered into a 3-year memorandum of understanding with the Centre for
Internet and Society (CIS), for building up the Konkani Wikipedia.
Vice Chancellor of Goa University Dr Satish Shetye, speaking during the event held at the
university said that Wikipedia is a global phenomenon and a platform to bring people
together for making creative activities possible, which in fact, has challenged the
monopoly of publishers and created a movement in order to put together knowledge, further
making it accessible to public.
“This platform will bring together Konkani speaking people of the world, besides providing
an opportunity to learn about digitisation, and write Konkani of global standard.”
Dr Shetye, who incidentally noticed large number of volumes of the Konkani encyclopedia
stacked in the Goa University premises, decided to take them to maximum people through
their re-launch and upload on the Wikipedia.
The work for the Konkani encyclopedia project was commissioned during the tenure of vice
chancellor Prof B Sheik Ali, and was carried out by various people from Dr Manoharrai
Sardesai to Dr Tanaji Halarnakar, with the aid of the Konkani department at the
university.
The four volumes of the 3,632 page Konkani encyclopedia are being re-released under
Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA 3.0 to support the movement of open knowledge and open
access. The programme director for the Access to Knowledge Programme of the Centre for
Internet and Society, Vishnu Vardhan, speaking on the occasion said that the process of
uploading the four volumes of Konkani encyclopedia on the Wikipedia would be complete in
six months time, and includes processes like scanning, digitisation and creating articles
as per the requirement of Wikipedia. He also stressed on the need to rewrite some of the
articles in Konkani encyclopedia so as to contemporarise their contents.
Vardhan also informed that relevant training programme would be specially co-designed by
the CIS as well as the university to put up the content on the Wikipedia.
Goa University is the first university in the country to re-license copyright of its
content, and hence can be termed as the ‘Champion of open knowledge’, he observed.
Registrar Prof V P Kamat and head of Konkani department Priyadarshini Tadkodkar were also
present on the occasion.
Thanks
Nitika