1. Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain
A meeting was scheduled with the Vice Chancellor Dr. Satish R
discuss the possibility of bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in public domain. As for now the four volume Konkani Encyclopedia is under copyright of University of Goa. Dr. Shetye has gifted one whole set of Konkani Encyclopedia to CIS and is interested to relinquish the copyright to release it under creative common license and digitize it on Wikipedia.
In the coming weeks we'll be working closely with Dr. Shetye and his team to digitize this free encyclopedia on Wikipedia.
Special thanks to Goa State Library, Goa University, Dr. Shetye,
Prof. Gopakumar for such a wonderful gift. And a big thanks to Harriet Vidyasagar and Debanjan and all those who helped to pull this through.
2&3. Two Days Wikipedia workshop at Goa University
A two day Wikipedia session was organized for MA, research and PhD students at Goa University on the 12th and 13th Dec 2012.
A special thanks to Prof. Alito Siqueira from Department of Sociology Goa University, Harriet Vidyasagar from OLPC, Prof. Gopakumar from Goa University, Debanjan and Frederick from Wikipedia community and CIS team for making this workshop a huge success. All efforts invested in discussions and planning the workshop over multiple mail trails, conference calls, one-on-one calls paid off extremely well. Over 35 participants attended the two day workshop and throughly enjoyed the sessions.
Most of the participants had already created their usernames before the 1st session, as it was instructed to them earlier, though there were some participants who created their user accounts during the session. Despite creating a
ticket for releasing the IP from 7 accounts creation limit we ran into an IP block. This was the second time we encountered such a problem and we'll be looking closely into this matter for smooth operations going forward.
It was pre-decided by the organisers that the 1st session will be theoretical while the 2nd session will be a complete hands-on-traning session. Hence the 1st session started with general introduction about Wikipedia, 5 pillars, how Wikipedia works, brief about Wikipedia community, state of Wikipedia in India etc. The following day participants pre-selected articles that they wanted to edit during the course of the 2nd session. They were taught how to do minor edits, add edit summary, add references, understand view history and page statistics, importance of article and user talk pages.
The 2 day long workshop came to an end with a meeting organised by all the participants to decide what should be their next steps. The workshop created a lot of enthusiasm in the participants and they were already thinking how individual students, researchers and professors will be building up pages on Wikipedia, one page at a time. They also showed keen interest to understand how monthly meet ups are organised in other cities so that they could also organise meet ups in Goa starting 2013 (the proposed date as for now is 16th Jan 2013 - also to celebrate Wikipedia's anniversary).
The feedback received from the participants was extremely positive. In the meanwhile there have been some discussion about forthcoming workshops - we have already received inquires from 5 more institutes to organise similar events in Goa. It seems like the initial seeds have been sown for a flourishing Wikipedia community in Goa.
4. Konkani in Wikipedia incubator - Taking it to the next level
An introductory session was organised in the Konkani Department at Goa University on the 12th Dec 2012. The Konkani staff and students were exhilarated to learn about Konkani in Wikipedia incubation. They have shown keen interest to kick start this project and get the translations done in any or all scripts -
Devanagari,
Roman,
Kannada,
Malayalam and
Perso-Arabic for Konkani Wikipedia.
We've been in touch with the Director of Konkani Department, Madhavi Sardesai and we are currently discussing the possibility of organising a follow up meeting in Jan/Feb 2013. In the meanwhile,
User:Fredericknoronha, one of the Wikimedia Incubator members contributing to Konkani Wikipedia, has been helping us get in touch with more Konkani writers and organising a common meeting sometime in early 2013 to take this project to the next level. To begin with, i
f we can just get the translations done a lot of things will fall in place and will also help build confidence too.
Some useful links
Konkani in Wikipedia incubator
Some pages contributed already - much work needs to be done to improve quality
List of tasks as viewed by volunteers
An example of a well-translated article, on the "Pinto's Revolt" by Isidore Dantas
We organised an introductory GLAM session at Goa State Central Library on the 13th Dec 2012. It was well attended by about 45 interested people coming from over 10 different GLAM institutes in Goa. Nitika from CIS and Debanjan from Pune community led the session about Wikipedia and GLAM activities that have been undertaken by our global community since 2010. The talk instilled a lot of enthusiasm in librarians and curators in Goa to start similar programs in their associated institutes.
Some of the institutes attending the session were - Museum of Christian Art, Goa Chitra, Bookworm Library, K.S. Goa State Library, GTL Bicholini, DFLG District Library. Participants had lot of interesting questions about starting GLAM projects in English/Marathi/Konkani, starting point of the project, logistical/financial support required to run a GLAM project etc.
To begin with we'll be meeting Victor Hugos Gomes from
Goa Chitra who has shown keen interest to start a GLAM project. Goa Chitra showcases the rich tradition of implements, tools, arts and crafts. Goa Chitra has archived Goa's cultural heritage through documents, books, photographs, handcrafts, electronic recordings, costumes, musical instruments, artifacts. I
n the coming weeks we'll be following up with Goa Chitra and more institutions to figure out the possibility of starting new projects in 2013.
Here's an audio recording of the entire event:
6. Wikipedia event at St. Xavier's College, Goa
A three hour workshop was organised in the morning of 14th Dec 2012 at St. Xavier's College, Goa. Over 30 participants attended the session. The workshop started with a short introductory presentation followed by learning how to edit Wikipedia. Since there were lesser number of computers participants were divided in groups of 2 or 3 maximum. Each group made at least 3 edits with the help of volunteers present in the room. A follow up session will be organised in Jan/Feb 2013 to organise an edit-a-thon for all the interested and enthusiastic participants.
A special thanks to everyone who helped organising this event - Harriet Vidyasagar, Frederick, Debanjan - all from Wikipedia family and Nitin Volvoikar, Head of Journalism from St. Xavier's.
