Dear all,
We thank you all for your support and collaboration. Please find below the details of our work in the month of October 2013.
Train the Trainer Program
Wikipedians, about 20 of them, from 10 different cities, speaking 8 different languages, joined together for the first ever four days "Train the Trainer Program" organised by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in Bangalore from October 3 to 6, 2013. CIS-A2K organised the residency training program to build capacities amongst different language Wikimedia communities. A good diversity of Wikipedians from various language communities such as Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia, came over for the event. Two prominent reasons identified for organizing the event were the limitations of a virtual sphere and the limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities. Seventeen people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/18hjw0n
► Events Organised
Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/HIiC30.
వికీపీడియా:సమావేశం/బెంగుళూరు/అక్టోబర్ (UTC, Bangalore, October 12, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1hpmXrt.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event: http://bit.ly/1a9m8N2. Nitika Tandon shares a detailed blog post on the re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC License: http://bit.ly/1cm9wBH.
► Event Participated In
Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”: http://bit.ly/18Obr2P.
► Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:
Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ek8AzW.
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/Hfh7sI.
कोंकणी विश्वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh: http://bit.ly/18J3YlB.
Wikimedia Foundation has funded A2K to anchor the growth of Wikimedia movement in India. The A2K team consists of six members, four based in Bangalore: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Muzammiluddin Syed, one member Nitika Tandon in Delhi and one Advisor Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana. Archives of our newsletters can be accessed here (http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters). Wikipedians from various communities can request for outreach programs, technical bugs, logistics-merchandize and media, public relations and communications at http://bit.ly/TOcXId.
About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.
Follow us elsewhere
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
CIS group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cis.india
Visit us at: https://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. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu(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
Dear All,
I am delighted to inform you that CIS-A2K has signed an MoU with the Christ
University, Bangalore. As part of this MoU Christ University and CIS-A2K will
work together to introduce “Wikipedia in the Indian Under Graduate Language
Classroom” at Christ University, Bangalore.
The broad objective of this program is to instil the following skills in
the Under Graduate student using Indian language Wikipedias as part of the
Christ University pedagogy:
a) Writing Skills (ability to write in an objective fashion/NPOV);
b) digital information literacy skills;
c) ability to critically engage with a concept/theme; and
d) language proficiency skills
CIS-A2K will be doing a one hour orientation on Wikipedia and the program
to almost 1,600 students. As part of the orientation we will reach out to
about 800 students who have Hindi as a second language, 600 students who
have chosen Kannada as a second language, 150 Sanskrit students and about
40 Tamil students and 10 Urdu students. Post the orientation the students
will be given an option to do one out of the three continuous internal
assignments (CIA), as a group assignment, on an Indian language Wikipedia.
We are currently working on the design of this program and will soon share
a detailed FAQ for your feedback and inputs.
Christ University and CIS-A2K have also agreed to license all material
developed and produced under this partnership under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
Please join me in thanking Dr. Anil Pinto (Registrar, Christ University)
and faculty of Christ University, who have shown great leadership in
building this partnership.
Best,
Vishnu