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CIS-A2K

CIS-A2K (Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge) is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.
If you have a general proposal/suggestion for Access to Knowledge team you can write on the discussion page. If you have appreciations or feedback on our work, please share it on feedback page.

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Work plan July 2015 - June 2016

 Main page  Language plans  Movement resources  Budget  Stand alone projects  Community strengthening

An in-house video tutorial by CIS-A2K on using ULS on Marathi Wikipedia done in collaboration with Mahitgar, an active editor on Marathi Wikipedia

Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language which is predominantly spoken in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. It is also the official language of the state. It is estimated that there are approximately 72 million Marathi language speakers in India, which makes it the fourth most spoken language in the country. There are many Marathi speakers even in the neighboring states of Gujarat, Karnataka and Telangana.
Maharashtra has a literacy rate of 83 per cent. [1] In terms of higher education, the state has 45 universities and university-level higher education institutions and 4836 colleges.[2] It is also the wealthiest state in India, contributing about 15 per cent of the GDP.[3]

Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikiquote and Wikibooks are the Wikimedia projects that are live now in Marathi. The fact-sheet below provides a quick glimpse of the key data about the various Wikimedia projects in Marathi. CIS-A2K has designed the upcoming annual plan based on the community engagement activities and institutional partnerships that CIS-A2K has established. This plan has also learnt immensely from the formal and informal discussions that CIS-A2K team has had with the community members during various community engagement initiatives, outreach activities and TTT2015. Updated Fact Sheet (4th March 2015)

Fact Sheet

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Wikimedia projects No. of Editors (January 2014) No. of Editors (January 2015) No. of Active Editors (January 2014) No. of Active editors (January 2015) No. of Articles/entries (January 2014) No. of Articles/entries (January 2015)
Wikipedia 575 617 23 27 41,130 42,073
Wiktionary 23 24 0 0 1,852 1.9k+
Wikisource 30 32 0 1 944 966
Wikiquote 6 7 0 0 57 58

The above table is projected for a clear understanding of the current status of the Wikimedia projects. As CIS-A2K was unable to find a competent Programme Officer to anchor the Marathi programme during 2014, not much could be achieved during that plan period. CIS-A2K has been able to identify and recruit a Programme Associate to work with the CIS-A2K team towards growing and strengthening Marathi Wikipedia for the current plan year.

It can be gleamed from the above table that the rate of growth across Marathi Wikimedia projects is minimal and it needs a catalytic agent to spur growth and explore new avenues of engagement for Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K intends to play the role of a catalytic agent and along with the support of the Marathi community attempt to bring positive change during the next plan year across Marathi Wikipedia and Wikisource projects in specific and other projects in general.

Needs Assessment

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During the last 8 months, the A2K team personnel have had formal and informal discussions with Marathi Wikimedians based in Mumbai and Pune about the status of the Marathi Wikipedia and the associated projects of Wikimedia Foundation. In addition to these, discussions and meetings were also held with some of the active Marathi Wikipedia community volunteers. Based on these discussions, the A2K team has arrived at the following sets of needs.

Community

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Wikipedia Summit Pune-2013 participants sharing thoughts

Currently the majority of active Marathi Wikipedians are based out of Mumbai and Pune. A closer examination would show that the number of active editors has remained more or less unchanged almost since the beginning of 2009. An analysis of Wikitrends metrics related to the Marathi editors clearly shows a poor rate of growth of new editors over a period of last three to four years. It is imperative for the growth of Marathi Wikipedia that new editors are groomed and they take up responsibilities from the senior editors. Towards achieving this goal the Marathi community unanimously feels that there is an urgent need to diversify the community through sustained outreach programs, and at least double the number of active editors in a year or so. Thus a well-designed and sustained outreach engagement would not only enthuse the existing community but also strengthen the qualitative and quantitative growth of the Marathi Wikipedia. Although the Marathi Wikipedia has had new editors coming-in periodically (on an average of 5-6 every month), not many have been groomed into active editors. There is a need to understand this scenario so that we can catalyze a better conversion rate of ‘new editors to active editors’. During the last year there is a significant decline in terms of active editors, edit count and new articles being created.

Content

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Abhay Natu, Abhishek Suryawanshi and Nikhil Kawale-Marathi Wikipedians interacting with other Indic language community volunteers at India Community Consultation.

The Marathi Wikipedia is the fourth largest Indian language Wikipedia. It has more than 40,000 articles. However, the quality of these articles is a major concern. More than 65 per cent of the articles (i.e. 27,000 out of 41,500) are stubs. A list of all stub articles in Marathi Wikipedia can be found here.[4] A comparative analysis of the quality of the Marathi Wikipedia articles with quality parameters followed in other language Wikipedias will give a better perspective for the improvement of stub articles in specific and the improvement of Marathi Wikipedia content in general. [5]

Content Donation Initiative

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Plan

To Digitize and relicense texts with encyclopedic content that shall be useful towards creating Wikipedia entries and other related Wikimedia projects. CIS-A2K shall also strive to relicense and release books, journals and magazines under CC license published by various departments of Pune University and other like minded organisations. CIS-A2K intends to approach Dr. Balaji Tambe a renowned Ayurveda Doctor regarding content donation to be released under CC license. CIS-A2K intends to partner with authors, higher education institutions and artists to donate their original work under CC license.

Execution
  1. Speaking with potential partners about Wikimedia projects and possible content donation under CC License.
  2. Signing of CC re-release agreement.
  3. Upload the 'content' on Wikimedia Commons.
  4. Digitise the uploaded content on Marathi Wikisource.
  5. CIS-A2K shall provide on site support and work closely with the Marathi community volunteers towards the digitisation and uploading efforts towards making the books available in Marathi Unicode.
  6. In collaboration with Marathi Wikimedians this content will be used to enrich Marathi Wikimedia projects.
Projection
  1. This will help in creation of at least 200 new articles and improve existing articles on Marathi Wikipedia.
  2. This content donation initiative could also trigger other authors and publishers to consider re-releasing more Marathi content under CC license.
  3. Increased public and media visibility to the importance of creative commons in Marathi circles.

Marathi Wiki Celebrates The Day

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Plan

Create And Improve articles in Marathi Wikipedia by conducting events and activities on The Special Days. Listed at Special Days

Execution
  1. Narrow down on the list of Special Days such that 1 special day per month will be selected.
  2. Prepare theme for the day and announce on event page and spread the news at least prior a month.
  3. Do edit-a-thon, hack-a-thon or photothon on this occasion.
  4. During edit-a-thon, photothon content related to the occasion will be added to the relevant Marathi Wikimedia projects or Commons.
Projection
  1. Adding 60 Articles and/or 300 unique photos. These will be uploaded on Commons.
  2. Getting on board new Wikipedians with the Theme of the Day by conducting outreach activities on special days.

Marathi Bhasha Divas

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Marathi Bhash Divas was celebrated by CIS-A2K and other Indic Wikimedians during TTT-2015 in Bangalore.
Plan

To celebrate Marathi Official language day with Marathi Wikimedians from across the globe in February 2016.

Execution
  1. Create a platform for celebrating a congregation of wikipedians. Plan a 1-2 day event that would also benefit the venue city.
  2. Use this as an opportunity to train some of the new active Marathi Wikipedians.
  3. Use this as a platform to link the new and old Marathi Wikimedians.
  4. Organize feedback and review sessions with the community on the growth and development of Marathi Wikipedia.
  5. Bring in other Indic Wikimedians to create strong inter-language networks and projects.
Projection
  1. Could help in bringing together 50% of all India-based Marathi editors onto a common platform.
  2. Could help in the Marathi Wikimedia community building efforts, which could lead to increased collaboration.

Cultivating new editors

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Institutional partnerships (Higher Education)

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MR community members in an outreach program at IIT-Bombay, Techfest. Active Marathi Wikipedian Rahul Deshmukh lead the outreach

.

Marathi Wikipedia Training Session at University of Pune, conducted by CIS-A2K during October 2014. 30 women editors were trained over 2 days.

Sau Dhuni Teen Project:CIS-A2K has already started working with Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre (KSPWSC), University of Pune, Pune and Centre for Indian Languages in Higher Education (CILHE),Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in a multi institutional project which intends to achieve the following goals:

Under the Sau Dhuni Teen project, student and faculty volunteers will write digital content on one hundred notable persons, one hundred key books, and one hundred key concepts relating to women's studies, gender studies, and more broadly, interdisciplinary social sciences, between January 2015 and March 2016. Marathi and Hindi will be the two focus languages, with the potential of adding other languages and other institutional partnerships in future. The content contributors will be the very students who are undergoing the courses at WSC, and the research staff and faculty of the WSC who can volunteer some time.

The project's goals include
  1. Increase access to information regarding key concepts relating to women's studies, gender studies, and more broadly, interdisciplinary social sciences in Marathi and Hindi on a digital platform.
  2. Editing, enhancing and creating new articles or content related to women's studies, gender studies, and more broadly, interdisciplinary social sciences
  3. Increase total number of editors on Hindi and Marathi Wikipedia.
  4. Increase the number of photos on Wikimedia Commons related to the above mentioned themes.
Execution

Building on the collaborative knowledge production model pioneered by the Wikipedia, our project draws on the very people who will use the resources and turn them also into knowledge producers. It is a strong part of our pedagogic philosophy that instead of top-down lecturing or conventional class expositions the students should strengthen their competences in their field of study by grappling with primary texts and concepts, and learning how to annotate them by picking out the most important issues raised by the authors. They will learn the basics of content generation and Wikipedia editing through two special workshops conducted by KSPWSC faculty, the first to be conducted in March 2015 and the second in August 2015.

Based on a preliminary research the A2K team has prepared a list of higher education institutions that A2K team could approach for collaborative partnerships in Maharashtra.

Sl. No. Name of the Institution Status
1 Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai MoU signed with TISS. Two workshops conducted and one more scheduled.
2 SIES College of Arts, Science, and Commerce, Mumbai Exploratory visit done. Discussions under progress
3 University of Mumbai, Mumbai Exploration underway.
4 Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune Discussions with faculty in progress. Two workshops conducted and two more planned for 2015-16.
5 FLAME School of Liberal Education, Pune Discussion with faculty in progress
6 Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar Exploration underway.
7 People's College, Nanded Discussion with faculty in progress
8 SVERI, Pandharpur Discussion with faculty in progress
9 Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre (KSPWSC),
University of Pune		 One workshop conducted


Plan

To establish partnership with at least 3-4 higher education institutions in developing thematic projects and creating a network of academicians who will actively use Marathi Wikipedia as part of their pedagogy. To reach out to at least 3 other higher education institutions from the above list and conduct Marathi Wikipedia Workshops mainly with an intention to spread awareness and to arrive at possibilities for long-term partnerships.

Execution
  1. Conduct initial meetings with faculty from the short-listed higher education institutions.
  2. Work with faculty who are enthusiastic and active in listing out the expectations, incentives, broad framework of project design, mutually beneficial outputs for the institution and the Marathi Wikipedia.
  3. Introduce and involve key Marathi Wikipedians in advanced conversations with the possible partner institutions.
  4. Arrive at clear terms of reference (ToR) for the partnership between the institution and CIS-A2K.
  5. In collaboration with key Marathi Wikipedians, design and roll-out workshops and training programs.
  6. Continuous mentoring, monitoring and evaluation of the new users created under the project with the help of Marathi Wikipedians.
  7. Create social media platforms for visibility of these projects and facilitate need-based technical and online support. For instance, motivate the faculty or student to maintain a blog/facebook page on the project.
  8. Constant liaison with the anchor faculty/department.
  9. Periodic review of the project progress with the Marathi Wikipedians mentoring the project.
Projection
  1. Expected to enlist about 150 - 250 new editors on Marathi Wikipedia. Of this an attempt will be made to convert 5-10 people into active editors.
  2. Will result in creation of new 300 good quality thematic articles.
  3. Will result in the expansion and quality improvement of 200 existing stub class articles.

Institutional Partnerships(GLAM Project)

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Parvati Hill
Plan

To partner with 2-3 instituttions with a potential of having GLAM workshop.

Based on a preliminary research the A2K team has prepared a list of possible partnerships with GLAM institutions in Maharashtra.

Sl. No. Name of the Institution Status
1 Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum Exploration underway
2 Parvati Hill Exploration underway
3 Mahatma Phule Museum Exploration underway

Pune was once center of power of Maratha Empire. These museums conserve objects of not only historical but also cultural importance. The Raja Dinkar Kelkar museum holds over 3000 artifacts on display.These consists mainly decorative items, armors and other art objects mostly from 17th and 18th centuries. This collection depicts the skill of the Indian artist of the time. Parvati hill temple is one of the oldest heritage structure in Pune and was built during Peshwa dynasty. Mahatma Phule museum is one of the oldest museum in Pune. Museum contains pictures, charts, science models and machines. The artifacts in Mahatma Phule museum are related to Engineering, Geology, Agriculture, Forestry and Armoury.


Execution
  1. Exploring the possibilities of GLAM in the institutions.
  2. Discussing with concerned person for GLAM project possibility.
  3. Plan and implement GLAM edit-a-thon.
  4. Post event reports and documentation.
Projection
  1. Bring in 50 new Wikipedians on Marathi Wikipedia.
  2. Plan and groom 10 new wikipedians to active Wikipedians.
  3. Upload 1000 photos on Commons.
  4. Create 100 articles on Marathi Wikipedia.

Strengthening Existing Community

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Capacity Building Meet-ups

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Two Marathi volunteers (from right) at the Wikipedia help desk put up at Swatanthra 2014. CIS-A2K sponsored the participation of 4 Marathi Wikipedians for the event.
Plan

To facilitate more qualitative interactions amongst community members, with an aim to
a) foster linkages between new and existing users;
b) creating learning and support space for new Wikimedians;
c) foster a culture of collective review of the expansion of Marathi Wikipedia.

Execution
  1. Facilitate 4 offline meetings/events over the next one year. Other than community interactions the group will be encouraged to participate in a specific theme based edit-a-thon, fix a couple of pages, test some specific new tools, etc. This has been successfully done by CIS-A2K in Telugu Wikipedia during the last year, which proved beneficial.
  2. Organise/facilitate Google hangouts/Skype calls and IRCs. We will aim to organise/facilitate minimum of three meetings in the next one year in addition to the above.
Projection
  1. These community building efforts will further strengthen the community spirit among the Marathi Wikipedians and in ensuring that new editors get converted into active editors especially in the small cities and towns.
  2. Could result in the quality improvement and creation of 100 articles.

Train-the-Trainer program

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Participants recording Articles for spoken Wikipedia.-2013
Plan

To build expertise among community members by providing capacity building trainings during the train-the-trainer programs, individual training by one-on-one coaching, mentor on-wiki and explore ways to provide online training.

Execution
  • Identifying interests of Wikimedians and plan for various ways of interaction and training; one-on-one interaction, encouraging Wikimedians to participate in Train-The-Trainer and MediaWiki Train-the-Trainer programs, online interaction in a regular basis.
Projection
  • Regular remote interaction with individual community members on subjects of their interest, finding experts willing to provide support and connecting local Wikimedians with other South Asian and global Wikimedians who are experts in the respective subjects.
  • Personal interaction during work related visit by CIS-A2K and coaching Wikimedians based on team.

Special Interest group:- Pune Instagrammers Club & GLAM project Collaborations Creating Marathi Wikipedians from Marathi social media groups

Social Media Group for

User Interest Groups

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Plan

Target and enrol existing collectives/groups (both physical and virtual) and motivate them to utilize Marathi Wikipedia and Commons as platform. During this year A2K will aim to nurture at least 4 smaller interest groups.

Execution
  1. Identify potential User Interest Groups which are active on social media.
  2. Explore their possibilities to support Wiki Projects.
  3. Establish linkages between these groups and the enthusiastic members from the Marathi Wiki Community.
  4. Design and roll-out of Wikipedia Training programmes in collaboration with Marathi Wiki Community.
  5. Post training programme follow-up.
  6. Facilitate support and mentoring of the new editors, by the Marathi Wiki Community, to cultivate into active editors.
Projection
  1. Expected to enlist about 50-60 new editors on Marathi Wikipedia. Of this an attempt will be made to convert 5-10 people into active editors.
  2. Will result in improving the quality of specific thematic articles on Marathi Wikipedia in a sustained manner and in improving the diversification of content.
Botany Project
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Plan

To create articles on plant taxonomy, especially pertaining to agricultural sector in Maharashtra and India.

Execution

This is an ongoing project on Marathi Wikipedia as part of which plant related Wikipedia articles are being created. However, this project could benefit with more momentum and resource.

  1. CIS-A2K will get useful information and resources that could enrich these articles.
  2. Assess the need from the Marathi community's point of view in successfully executing this project and provide necessary support.
  3. Provide an evaluation framework for assessing the quality of the articles.
  4. Help organize article writing competition in select higher education institutions.
Projection
  1. About 100 above start class articles to be created.
  2. Improve quality of stub articles related to botany.

Content Donation/Release under CC-BY-SA 3.0

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Plan: Channelize encyclopaedic content into public domain or license it under CC-BY-SA 3.0

Execution:

  1. Identify data/material in public domain.
  2. Identify digitized content and public institutions, which are into digitization.
  3. Do a study of all the digitization efforts that have taken place so far.
  4. CC events to build perspective of institutions.

Projection:

  1. To get about 50 books donated in Marathi that could enrich Marathi Wikisource.
  2. To add about 5,000 new folios to Marathi Wikisource.
  3. To build and rejuvenate community around Marathi Wikisource.

Wikipedia In Education

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Plan

In collaboration with a Government Organization Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) work closely towards setting up of a

-Digital University and

-Digital Library.

Execution
  1. Department of Higher and Technical Education and Government of Maharashtra is currently working on Digital Library and Digital University project.
  2. Conduct initial meeting with program officers of MKCL.
  3. Find out interested officers and work with them to design project framework, expected outcome on mutual benefits for government organization as well as Marathi Wikipedia.
  4. Introduce and involve key Marathi Wikipedians in advanced conversations with organizations.
  5. Arrive at clear terms of reference (ToR) for the partnership between the institution and CIS-A2K.
  6. In collaboration with key Marathi Wikipedians, design and roll-out workshops and training programs.
  7. Continuous mentoring, monitoring and evaluation of the new users created under the project with the help of Marathi Wikipedians.
  8. Periodic review of the project progress.
Projection
  1. Increasing Marathi Wikipedia user base.
  2. Adding quality educational resources and content .
  3. Putting already available resources and the resources produced during the collaboration on Marathi Wikipedia.

Budget

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Expenditure Item FDC Support (INR) FDC Support (US$) Other Sources and in kind Support (INR) Other Sources and in kind Support (US$)
1 PA x 100% * 300,000/- 4,848.00 - -
1 PD x 10% ** 158,400/- 2,559.74 81,600/- 1,318.66
Travel and Stay *** 150,000/- 2,424.00 - -
Volunteer Support 100,000/- 1,616.00 -
Events/Meet-ups/Workshops 100,000/- 1,616.00 50,000/- 808.00
Equipment/Permissions/Licenses 10,000/- 161.60 - -
Consumables/Printing/Stationery/Swag 50,000/- 808.00 - -
Miscellaneous 5,000/- 80.80 - -
Total 873,400/- 14,114.14 131,600/- 2,126.66

Notes:
* 100% time of Abhinav Garule as Program Associate (consultant) who will anchor this plan at CIS-A2K
** 10% of the time of Program Director, CIS-A2K
*** Expenses incurred by the CIS-A2K program team towards executing the plan

List of contributors

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  • Rahul Deshmukh
  • Santosh Shingare
  • Abhishek Suryawanshi
  • Yohan Thomas
  • Sanket Oswal
  • Kalyani Jha (MKCL Project)

Endorsements

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Notes

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  1. ↑ Maharashtra 2011 census (Accessed on 10 March, 2014)
  2. ↑ Higher Education at a Glance 2013 by UGC
  3. ↑ http://www.rediff.com/money/slide-show/slide-show-1-top-25-states-with-highest-gdp/20120223.htm
  4. ↑ https://mr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%B0%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%97:%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B8%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%A4%E0%A4%BE%E0%A4%B0_%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%A8%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%A4%E0%A5%80
  5. ↑ http://shijualex.in/analysis-of-the-indic-language-statistical-report-2012/
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