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Access to Knowledge - Bulletin - April '13
by Nitika Tandon 17 May '13

17 May '13

Dear all, Here is the A2K newsletter for the month of April, 2013. Wikimedia Foundation, beginning from September 1, 2012, awarded the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. Consequently, Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program became the Access to Knowledge (A2K) program of CIS. In the third issue of our newsletter for 2013, we are pleased to bring you updates from the Indic Wikipedia Visualisation project, reports of events organised in Goa, and press coverage of the Kannada Wikipedia Workshop held in Mysore. The A2K team consists of three members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahiand one member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge) has resigned. April 24, 2013 was her last working day. Archives of our newsletters are here. Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications athttp://bit.ly/TOcXId. # Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages. # Blog Entries Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013). Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts & Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013). Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013). # Event Organised Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia. # Events Co-organised The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians: Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013). Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013). Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013). The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon: Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013. *About CIS* CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilitieswith ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?,Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award. *Follow us elsewhere* · Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter · Join the CIS group on Facebook · Visit us at http://cis-india.org *Support Us* Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71. *Request for Collaboration* We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil(a)cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant(a)cis-india.org CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet & Society

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Access to Knowledge - Bulletin - April '13
by Nitika Tandon 17 May '13

17 May '13

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IRC office hours with CIS-A2K Team
by Nitika Tandon 12 May '13

12 May '13

Dear All, The A2K team is organising an IRC on 13th May 2012, Monday from 8.30pm - 9.30 pm on: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-in. The main agenda for IRC is to discuss the A2K Work Plan for the year 2013-2014 [1] that we had shared with you earlier. We'd like to hear comments/suggestions from as many of you as possible. This mail is to invite each one of you to join us for this IRC and help improvise our work plan. Just incase you'd like to join but cannot due to prior commitments please drop me a private message and we'll arrange a call with your separately. Looking forward to see you tomorrow at IRC! Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet & Society [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge/Work_plan_April_20…

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CIS-A2K Budget, Utilization Report and proposed revision
by Vishnu t 06 May '13

06 May '13

Dear All, In our effort to increase transparency with the working of CIS-A2K programme, we are sharing with you the A2K Programme Budget along with the Utilization for the period Sept. 2012 to February 2013 [1]. We intended to share this with you by mid April, but it got delayed, as we felt the need to propose revisions to the budget in the context of the A2K Work Plans. Apologies for this delay. The proposed revisions to the budget along with some notes are here [2]. We would appreciate your feedback and suggestions on this. Based on the feedback received from you, we will approach the Wikimedia Foundation seeking for approval of the revised budget. It will be very useful to hear from you on the proposed revisions to the A2K grant budget before May 20, 2013. Looking forward to your feedback. Warmly, Vishnu Programme Director Access to Knowledge Programme CIS [1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Grant_Budget_and_Utilization… [2] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF-A2K_Revised_Budget_(draft)_and_U…

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Vacancy for Programme Officer, Pilot Projects (Access to Knowledge)
by Nitika Tandon 26 Apr '13

26 Apr '13

Dear All, The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer, Pilot Projects for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS. Position Summary As Programme Officer, Pilot Projects, your job will be to drive and support the growth of Indian language Wikipedias and its sister projects. Your primary responsibility will be to design and implement different pilot projects with an aim to create high quality content and cultivate new editors on different language Wikipedias in a time bound manner. One of the main pilots you will be spearheading immediately will be on ‘Indian Performing Arts’. The pilots will be premised on themes and seek to create a multi-lingual repository of knowledge using Wikimedia projects as knowledge platforms. In addition to this you will be anchoring the development and growth of at least one Indian language Wikipedia. You are encouraged to deeply engage with the A2K Work Plan before making the application. You will work cohesively with the Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia India Chapter to meet specific goals of each language community in India. You will be a part of a small team of 5 to 6 doing high visibility and high impact work. Responsibilities Support India-focused initiatives to improve quality of India-relevant content and number of editors on Indian language Wikimedia projects. Support the growth of Indian language Wikimedia communities and projects by designing and implementing community collaborations and partnerships pilot projects – detailing rationale, aim and objective, execution, evaluation, timeline, resource investment, etc. Spearhead A2K’s pilot projects. Identify institutions/groups that have ready-made content/archived material and aggregate available material in respective languages. Create a network of state institutions, university departments, non-government organisations, academics, artists, researchers and wikipedia community members that will work towards creating a repository of knowledge on specific themes by using Wikimedia projects as a platform. Conduct initial meetings with the principal investigators from each of the shortlisted institutions and share project idea. Facilitate Wikimedia community involvement with the core network of institutions and principal investigators to collaboratively participate on specific content/area modules. Create social media platforms for visibility of these projects and facilitate need-based technical and online support. Conduct a series of wiki-training workshops for various nodes within the network. Conduct periodic monitoring and evaluation of the pilot projects in progress. Generate and document lessons from programme activities that can inform the work of Indian communities and similar programmes in other countries. Providing ad hoc support to the Wikipedia community on all aspects of Indian languages as may be deemed necessary. Candidate's Background & Experience At least two to three years of professional experience with a strong track record of success in high performance organizations. Prior experience of working with schools of performing arts and/or cultural departments. A deep understanding of the varied cultural context of India. Good understanding of the basics of program design and management. Experience of working in a collaborative community (preferably online). Strong academic results from highly-regarded university. Strong understanding of the Internet and the forces that underpin the success of Wikipedia. Active participation as a Wikimedia volunteer would be an asset, though not a prerequisite (must be prepared to demonstrate knowledge of how Wikipedia works in interviews). Demonstrated experience working in a global, multi-cultural team environment. Good writing skills in English and Indic languages and must be fluent in English and at least one Indic language. Women are strongly encouraged to apply. Characteristics of the Programme Officer High level of commitment: The Programme Officer should believe in the values of CIS and Wikimedia projects, exude enthusiasm for the mission and can powerfully embody and communicate the mission. Intellectual curiosity and flexibility: Must enjoy tackling difficult, ambiguous problems and able to incorporate new knowledge into how one approaches situations and generates solutions, loves learning from others while expanding intellectual horizons. Open and transparent: Have a high level of integrity and be comfortable working in a highly transparent fashion, open to input and feedback, a proactive and candid communicator who wants people to know what s/he is doing and isn't afraid to bring others in when things are off-track or when you need help and should able to handle criticism in a mature fashion. Community builder: It is essential that the Programme Officer sees herself/himself as a partner to and supporter of the Wikimedians who have and will continue to be the leaders in building the Wikimedia projects. The Programme Officer must be willing and able to work with a diverse array of people, many of whom come from non-traditional backgrounds and have a fervent commitment to Wikimedia’s community-led nature. Strong cultural competency: Able to navigate in a global movement and on a global team in addition to navigating the complexity of India. Partnership developer: Able to initiate, negotiate and operate partnerships that advance the Wikimedia mission in Indic languages and English (as relevant to India) with a wide range of institutions across the public, NGO, universities, philanthropic and private sector. Willing to travel: The Programme Officer must regularly travel within India to engage with Wikimedia communities and partner with institutions. Location: The position is based out of the CIS Bangalore office. Remuneration: Compensation structure will be determined by the level of expertise, experience and current remuneration. To apply, please send your resume to T. Vishnu Vardhan (vishnu(a)cis-india.org). You can also find the job posting on our website (http://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-pilot-projects-access-to-knowle…). Please feel free to share this mail with your networks. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet & Society

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Resignation of Noopur Raval, Programme Officer, A2K Team
by Nitika Tandon 15 Apr '13

15 Apr '13

Dear All, It’s with deep regret that I announce the resignation of Noopur Raval as Programme Officer CIS-A2K Team. The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) would like to thank her for all her valuable contributions to the Wikimedia movement. Noopur has been a great asset to the A2K team. We'd like to thank her for all her leadership and work in the past year around PR, communications, GLAM, outreach and social media. In her formal capacity Noopur has worked to promote Wikimedia movement in India for over a year. We're hoping that she'll continue to be a part of the movement as a treasured volunteer. It is with warmest regards that CIS wishes her best in all her future endeavors. Please join us as we bid a fond farewell to Noopur and and send her off with hopes for more success and fulfillment. I will personally retain many wonderful memories working with her. In a day or two CIS-A2K Team will send out an advertisement for the opening of Programme Officer which has been created due to Noopur's departure. Thanks Nitika Tandon Program Manager Access to Knowledge The Centre for Internet & Society

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Fwd: [A2K] Workshop at NMAMIT, Karkala in Karnataka
by Subhashish Panigrahi 12 Dec '12

12 Dec '12

Dear all, We have an opportunity to organize a Wikipedia workshop at NMAMIT, Karkala in Karnataka on 21st December. It will be a day long workshop with over 100 students, mostly to tell them about Wikipedia in Indian languages and how they can contribute. I am yet to confirm the time for the workshop but it will be held at NMAMIT on 21st December. Would any Wikipedians from the Bangalore community want to join me? CIS would be willing to support the travel expense for upto 2 wikipedians to and from Bangalore (or any other place in Karnataka which is close to Karkala). If you know any wikipedian from any other nearby places do let me know. We are still planning it out and the more the merrier it is! Please write to me offlist if you are interested. Best! Subhashish Panigrahi Programme Officer, Access To Knowledge, Centre for Internet and Society, New Delhi

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Farewell
by Hisham 30 Jul '12

30 Jul '12

Dear Mangalore Community I'm writing to inform you that I plan to leave my current role supporting Wikimedia in India. I am going to be exploring opportunities and evaluating options that are closer to my career aspirations and my personal circumstances. I will be working through to ensure that there is a smooth transition - and this is likely to take 2-3 months. I am writing now because I felt it appropriate and opportune to inform you as early as possible. I want to start off by thanking the Wikimedia community and movement for giving me this extraordinary opportunity. Working on something like India Program has been something that has been professionally enriching and personally fulfilling. Over the past 1 1/2 years, I have been supported by so many of you - and I want to thank you for everything you have done! The passion and intellectual firepower of our community has been my constant source of drive and guidance. There are so many examples of powerful stories from all over the country: the incredible efforts put in by the IEP Campus Ambassadors in Pune; the army of volunteers that drove the outreach push across the country in the first few months of this year; the beautiful stories of fantastic community initiatives from far and wide across the country and sub-continent, and indeed the world; the remarkable stories from so many communities - large, small and tiny ones! I want to thank the team that I have had the pleasure and privilege of working with - Nitika, Noopur, Shiju & Subha. You guys have been wonderful. The work that we are doing is experimental and we have been innovating every day, and I know the circumstances have not always been easy. Take strength and inspiration from the large number of community members who have been touched by you and appreciate your efforts and value your work. I will send an actual "over and out" message later. In the meantime, I will continue to work on everything that needs working on. Happy Editing! Warmest Regards, hisham

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India Program: Community Building Pilot Update: Fantastic Story from Assam
by Hisham 30 May '12

30 May '12

Dear All I wanted to share with you an update on the work that Shiju[1] is doing on Indic languages[2] as part of India Program.[3] A guiding principle for the thinking and efforts of our team is that community building should be the most essential aspect of all the work that we do. In the context of small Indic communities, Shiju has been working to try and identify the various elements that need to come together to foster community building. This update is about the Community Building pilot[4] that was run for the Assamese community. For context, community building means different things to different people and in fact there was a very interesting post[5] that Shiju put out that articulated his thinking on this and, hence, our priorities. The results of these efforts have been outstanding number of editors on Assamese Wikipedia has increased to 31 in April 2012 (from 18 in December 2011 and just 10 in November 2011.) number of Wikiprojects increased to 6 (from a situation where there were no reasonably active ones in December 2011- and including 5 Wikiprojects independently conceptualised and managed by the community) average monthly edits on Assamese Wikipedia increased to about 5000 in April 2012 from around 3000 in November 2011 There are 5 key factors that are responsible for this remarkable growth Strong communication. This started with Shiju building personal connections with Assamese editors and then encouraging them to communicate with each other on-wiki, online and in meet--ups and outreach sessions. Initial push. Shiju visited Assam in January where he spent time in 2 towns with 7 of the most active community members, who also conducted 2 outreach sessions. This visit has proved to be really useful because it helped to energise the community and also helped to establish a personal relationship between Shiju and these editors (and also, amongst the editors themselves.) Encouraging collaboration. Wikiprojects and outreach are really useful to galvanise a community and helped build personal equations. It's wonderful to see the increase in Wikiprojects and Building capacity & confidence. In all the work that has been done for the Assamese community, the endeavour has been to build capacity. For instance, support was given to get basic outreach material including FAQs prepared and outreach sessions were guided by Shiju. It's inspiring to see the Assamese community now take things to a whole new level and plan out an ambitious 10th anniversary.[6] Healthy environment. This is the last - but probably the most essential point - and it is something I want to call out because it is what will help or severely hinder the abilities of individual communities realise their dreams and potential. The reason why the Assamese community is making such wonderful steps forward is because there is a set of editors with the right level of initiative and motivation a strong sense of co-operation and good spirit amongst the editors an extremely welcoming approach to new editors None of this would have been possible without the efforts of every single Assamese community members. In the early days when Shiju started off, he was interacting with Bishnu, Dipankar, Gitartha, Jyoti & Prabhakar - who helped organise the first meet-ups and outreach sessions. Thanks to their efforts, a list of thank-yous would now be 31 strong! Thank you and congratulations to all of you! To the Assamese community, I wish you the very best for your 10th anniversary.[6] There are exciting plans including your photo contest and your article contest and the meet-up and the outreach session. I know that you are doing most of the event largely independently (with Noopur[7] providing media assistance for the 10th anniversary and an India Chapter[8] grant[9] supporting you.) This is the true signs of a community that is coming of age. There are tremendous opportunities in outreach to get new editors, initiatives like your article & photo contests to improve content and in proposed projects like offline to make transformational changes in the community. With regard to the way forward for India Program, the pilot design page[4] on meta[3] has now been updated. The next steps are going to be to see how we can adapt or build on these experiences with other communities, and as we move to other communities, do them in a more scaleable manner. To all community members - across languages across India - if you did want any help in any aspect of community building, please feel free to reach out to Shiju[1] at shiju(a)wikimedia.org. Please also do add comments or ideas or suggestions you might have to the Community Building Pilot's talk page.[10] hisham[11] Notes [1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Shiju [2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program [4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Community_… [5] http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaindia-l/2011-December/005813.… [6] http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/05/16/ten-glorious-years-of-assamese-wikipedi… [7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Noopur28 [8] http://wikimedia.in/ [9] http://wiki.wikimedia.in/Grants/Photo_and_Article_Competition_and_Wiki_Work… [10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:India_Program/Pilot_Designs/Basic_Commu… [11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hisham

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India Program: Fortnightly IRC: Indic Languages: Thursday April 5th 9pm (IST): #wikimedia-office
by Hisham 05 Apr '12

05 Apr '12

Hi Folks Reminder about the IRC today (9pm IST on Thursday April 5th) Do join us using this link: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#wikimedia-office. Here is what we would like to discuss today - which we shall do for the first 45 minutes and then throw it open for 15 minutes for any other topics that anyone wants to discuss related to India Program. You may have noticed that we are increasing our emphasis on Wikisource. Please see Shiju's post on using simple technology to support digitazation (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Program/Indic_Languages/Digitization_o…) and Noopur's story of the Gujarati Wikisource (http://blog.wikimedia.in/2012/04/04/realizing-the-dreams-of-communities-3-y…) In addition, Shiju has been engaged with other communities on how to start or accelerate their respective language Wikisources. Wikisource has some very important characteristics that make it attractive. It's a (relatively) easier way for newbies to start contributing than the respective Wikipedia It's a great way to reach out to language lovers - and love for a language is an important motivator for contribution (on this and other projects) There is a much lower gender gap on Wikisource, and it's easy for a wider age group to contribute It's more "accessible" as an entry point to newbies because it has less policies than other projects It's can act as a gateway to other projects In today's IRC, we'd like to talk through the work that's happening on Wikisource by many communities, discuss best practices and provide a channel of support for anyone interested in joining the project from any language. Speak soon. hisham

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