CIS-A2K/Work plan July 2015 - June 2016/Konkani

CIS-A2K

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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.
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Work plan July 2015 - June 2016

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

CIS-A2K initiated implementation of Konkani Wikipedia Work Plan (2014-2015) in July 2014. Konkani Wikipedia faces a critical problem of low level of activity and participation on Konkani Wikipedia.

Apart from the low level of participation on digital platforms, Konkani as a language faces 3 major challenges:

• Multiple scripts - Konkani speaking population is limited to 25 lakh approx., and the challenge of multiple scripts further divides this population into even smaller subsets.
• Dispersed population – Large number of Konkani speaking population settled outside of India which makes it difficult to unite Konkani diaspora towards a common objective or a common movement.
• Lack of formal Konkani education – There are inadequate opportunities and venues to formally study Konkani in schools and colleges in India.

Needs Assessment

CIS-A2K team is going to work with the Konkani Wikipedia community with renewed vigour and interest during this plan year. We have appointed an active Konkani Wikipedian as a Programme Associate to assist CIS-A2K with the Konkani annual plan.

Community

• Disconnected dispersed Konkani community

Konkani is the official language of Goa. However, with large number of Konkani speakers living outside of Goa there is a need to promote Konkani Wikipedia amongst the dispersed community members. The Census Department of India, 2001 figures put the number of Konkani speakers in India as 2,489,015. Out of these, around 6 lakh were in Goa, 7 lakh in Karnataka, 3 lakh in Maharashtra, 6 lakh in Kerala and rest live outside of India, either as expatriates or citizens of other countries.

With such a dispersed population, there seems to be a disconnect with events and activities taking place to foster Konkani language. In a small community like this, there is a definite need to go beyond borders to increase the outreach and build that connect.

• Sustainability

Since July 2013 CIS-A2K has invested a lot of time and effort to build and handhold the Konkani Wikipedia project and community. It is essential to make sure that we do not reach a situation where Konkani Wikipedia community is entirely dependent on CIS-A2K for its growth. The community should be able to sustain even if CIS-A2K pulls out of its Konkani work.

Thus, it is necessary that the existing Konkani Wikipedia editors take charge and build leadership to conduct offline and online outreach sessions, handhold new editors, conduct talks and events, prepare outreach material etc. The community should be able to generate enough momentum to grow Konkani Wikipedia with minimal external support.

The community also needs to be strengthened by having Konkani Wikipedia Admins and Sysops to regulate editing activity to observe high standard of conduct. Very soon the community, in order to foster its growth, will also have to build policies and guidelines that serve as best practices for the Konkani Wikipedia community.

• Need for diversity

Most of the current Konkani Wikipedia editors belong to the age group of 21-30 and are primarily postgraduate students. There is a need to break through this bracket and involve higher age groups (>30 years old) and other professions such as journalists, housewives, professionals, doctors, engineers etc.

• Retaining editors

There are 13 editors on an average every month editing Konkani Wikipedia since July 2013. There is a definite need to motivate and retain these editors.

Performance against Plans

During the last plan year the momentum of the activities in Konkani did not continue as the CIS-A2K team had expected it to. One of the main reason for this dip in momentum is because the CIS-A2K team member anchoring the Konkani language area left the team. However, CIS-A2K worked with the emerging Konkani Wikimedia community mostly remotely and offered support and advice. This resulted in the Konkani Wikimedians conducting 3 outreach events on their own in Goa. It is important to note that this was the first such attempt entirely led by the community towards organising outreach activities. The following are the Key activities during this quarter.

• 3 Konkani outreach events entirely led by the Konkani Wikimedians.
• CIS-A2K builds institutional partnership with Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa.
• T. Vishnu Vardhan of CIS-A2K took part in the Global Konkani conclave in Mangalore.
• T. Vishnu Vardhan of CIS-A2K invited to be part of the Steering Committee of the Konkani Language Planning efforts put in by Jogotik Konknni Songhotton (JKS) in association with Karnataka Konkani Sahitya Academy. Please see here for a detailed Konkani Langauge Plan

Update against the Goals set last year

Parameters	As on March 31, 2015	Expected Target by June 30, 2015
No. of Editors	287	370
No. of Active editors	15	20
No. of Articles	687 (in Devanagari script)	1200
No. of Outreach Events	6	10
No. of Books Donated	Not planned	12
No. of Folios Digitized	Not planned	1000
No. of Institutional Partnerships	2	5

Implementation Plan

Cultivating New Editors

As the earlier outreach sessions have been able to attract and sustain new editors, CIS-A2K would like to engage in further creative outreach sessions for building Konkani Wikipedia Community. The following activities have been planned for the period July 2015-June 2016.

Institutional Partnerships (Higher Education)

Based on the institutional experience gathered by CIS-A2K’s work with higher educational institutions we have factored in the following institutions as prospective partners for the growth and development of Konkani Wikipedia Community. CIS-A2K will focus its energies in building institutional partnerships with the following institutions towards developing theme specific projects that shall create new content for Konkani Wikipedia Community (KWC).

Name of the Institution	Status
Goa University, Taleigao (Only institution in India to have PG Courses in Konkani)	MoU signed
Nirmala Institution for Education (CIS-A2K is an academic partner and T. Vishnu Vardhana has taught a course in this institution titled ‘Teaching in the Age of Wikipedia')	MoU signed
Dalgado Konknni Academy (Premier Institution in promoting Konkani writing using Romi script)	Exploratory Meetings
Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr (It publishes the only research journal in Konkani)	To be explored
Goa Konkani Academy (Government supported body with previous research and implementation knowledge)	To be explored
Konkani Bhasha Mandal (Active Community Support)	Exploratory meeting

Plan

To actively engage and establish institutional partnerships with at least four institutions from the list mentioned above towards developing thematic projects and to create a network of academicians that will actively use Konkani Wikipedia as part of their pedagogy. To try and introduce Wikimedia platform as a creative assessment tool. To reach out to five other higher education institutions to conduct Konkani Wikipedia Workshops mainly with an intention to spread awareness and to arrive at possibilities for long-term partnerships and build volunteers for the Konkani Wikipedia Movement.

Execution

1. Come up with a calendar of events/schedule for each of the institution in consultation with the anchor faculty/s.
2. Take into account specific challenges and opportunities at a micro level of institution (exams/vacations...) and at the regional level (festivals/monsoon…)
3. Enter into formal agreements with institutions to define scope of the activity and project the milestones with clarity.
4. Introduce and involve key Konkani Wikipedians in advanced conversations and benefit from their counsel and experience during implementation plans..
5. In collaboration with key Konkani Wikipedians, design and roll-out workshops, training programs and resources such as video tutorials for the Konkani Wikipedia Community.
6. Continuous mentoring (outreach sessions and Wiki counselling), monitoring (quality assessment criteria and watchlist) and evaluation (wiki meet ups) of the new users created under the project with the help of Konkani Wikipedians (i.e. Editor Engagement)
7. Create and sustain social media platforms for providing visibility to these projects and facilitate need-based technical and online support. For instance, motivate the faculty or student to maintain a blog on the project.
8. Constant liaison with the anchor faculty/department for resolving technical and content related issues in real time..
9. Quarterly review of the project progress with the Konkani Wikipedians mentoring the project and adopting course corrections if necessary.

Projection

1. Expected to enlist about 100 - 150 new editors on Konkani Wikipedia. Of this an attempt will be made to convert 10-15 people into active editors.
2. Will result in creation of new 100 thematic articles (start class).
3. Will result in the expansion and quality improvement of 200 existing stub articles.
4. Could become a model to attract the attention of bodies like UGC/ Other Universities/ NAAC in actively considering the use of Wikipedia as a pedagogic tool towards ensuring quality higher education in Indian languages.

Outreach Programme (with Community Collaboration)

Plan

Actively spread awareness about Konkani Wikipedia across Goa.

Execution

1. Do preliminary research on Mapusa city and collect data on various metrics. Eg: Religious Institutions, Educational Institutions, Heritage Buildings, Notable Personalities, Feasts, Cultural Practices,
2. Shortlist three potential institutions for focussed outreach in consultation with the Community.
3. Train enthusiastic volunteers to become active Konkani Wikipedians in executing successful Outreach programs.
4. Design and Roll-out of Wikipedia Training or Orientation programs
5. Focus on involving the new editors in quality improvement of articles on Konkani with small projects like Village Project.
6. Nurture local institutions and communities that have been working in the area of developing Konkani off-line and synchronise their efforts to plan and execute future programs.

Projection

1. Expected to enlist about 80-120 new editors on Konkani Wikipedia. Of this an attempt will be made to convert 6-10 people into active editors.
2. Will spread more awareness about Konkani Wikipedia beyond the boundaries of Goa
3. Will result in at least 3 local anchor institutions around which the local Konkani Wikipedia Community could organically grow.
4. Will result in the creation of 100 new start class articles around the earlier mentioned themes..
5. Will result in improving the quality of existing 50 village stub class articles on Konkani Wikipedia in a sustained manner.

Strengthening Existing Community

Advanced User Training

Plan

To train existing Wikipedians on advanced editing options on Konkani Wikipedia.

Execution

1. In order to generate enthusiasm and attention towards Mediawiki activities CIS-A2K intends to train enthusiastic Konkani Wikipedia Volunteers them in certain areas of advanced editing in Wikipedia such as Template creation and usage, use of mediawiki tools, etc.
2. CIS-A2K would release a document in multiple formats (print/video) on creating and using templates, infoboxes, references and citations.
3. Design a realistic training plan that could be implemented in an outreach session spanning for only couple of hours.

Projection

1. This advanced skill based workshop is aimed at strengthening and grooming about 15 existing Wikipedians.
2. Help improve the quality of Wikipedia articles at the same time.

Training on Copyrights and CC Licenses

Plan

Many of the Konkani Wikipedians are editing Konkani Wikipedia with high quotient of interest but it is essential that these editors must be made aware about the global policies and best practices as well. It becomes very important for the Konkani Wikipedia editors to have a comprehensive understanding of how Copyright laws and Creative Commons licenses work if the Konkani Wikipedia has to go live and attract attention from the other linguistic communities worldwide.. CIS-A2K will put efforts to create useful materials in Konkani about Indian copyright and Creative Commons. This is a cross cutting activity that will be taken up by CIS-A2K across 7 Indic languages.

Capacity Building Meet-ups

Plan

To facilitate more qualitative interactions amongst Community Members, with an aim to a) foster creation of new project ideas; b) periodic review and mitigation of troublesome issues; c) initiate a culture of collective review of the expansion of Konkani Wikipedia.

Execution

1. Facilitate 12 offline meetings/events over the next one year and club these with a particular project or theme based edit-a-thon events.
2. Organise/facilitate Google hangouts/Skype calls and IRCs. We'll 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 Konkani Wikipedians.

Content Generation and Quality Improvement

Most of these projects will be discussed at the community level and their inputs will be used before we finalise the design for this activity. Groups of Konkani Wikipedians will be taking lead in executing these projects. CIS-A2K will offer need based support and resources.

Sahitya Academy Awards (Literature Portal)

Plan

To help bring out major Konkani literary works and their details onto Konkani Wikipedia.

Execution

1. Konkani literature is very rich, and there are notable writers who have been awarded at national level. Attempts will be made to make their work available on Wikisource.
2. CIS-A2K will provide necessary resources and offer critical inputs in identifying resources for the successful completion of this project.

Projection

1. At least 10 books will be uploaded on wikisource.

Konkani Wikipedia Village Project

Plan

Support the Konkani Wikipedia community in converting several of stub articles into start class articles.

Execution

1. There are few village articles that were created by NIE students on Konkani Wikipedia.
2. The A2K team will work towards procuring and collating relevant data on these villages through RTIs and other means and facilitate the quality improvement of articles.
3. Facilitate at least 3 edit-a-thons on this particular theme towards improving quality of articles.

Projection

1. To potentially improve the quality of about 50 stub class village articles.

Konkani Writers Project

Plan

To create quality articles on notable Konkani writers.

Execution

1. CIS-A2K will design and develop a project to create quality articles on notable Konkani writers.
2. Collect, collate data on at least 50 notable Konkani writers.
3. Develop a basic article structure/template.
4. Make the articles available to Konkani Wikipedians who can further develop these and create articles on Konkani Wikipedia.We shall also try to develop a multi lingual collaborative project where Konkani writers articles will be taken up by other Indian languages including English.
5. Provide an evaluation framework for assessing the quality of the articles created under this project.

Projection

1. This would bring in at least 50 start class quality articles on notable Konkani writers on Konkani Wikipedia.
2. Improve 30 existing articles.

Content Donation/Release under CC-BY-SA 4.0 License

Institutional Partnerships

CIS-A2K will also focus its energies in building institutional partnerships with the following institutions towards getting Konkani Content Donation/release under creative commons license. These institutions have been identified for their pioneering work in the area of Konkani language. These institutions have a dual advantage of maintaining vast repositories pertaining to Konkani culture, history and social life.

Name of the Institution	Status
Dalgado Konknni Academy	To be explored
Thomas Stephens Konknni Kendr	To be explored
Konkani Bhasha Mandal	To be explored

Plan

To try and engage these institutions in getting Konkani content donation/re-release under Creative Commons license. This will enrich the Konkani Wikisource project primarily but will also help in creating quality articles on Konkani Wikipedia.

Execution

1. CIS-A2K will put efforts in formalizing the content donation or release under CC license agreements with the institution.
2. Organize public events or functions which would encourage other institutions to follow suit.
3. Digitization of collections if required
4. Conversion into unicode wherever possible.
5. Make available all the donated content on Konkani Wikisource.

Projection

1. To make available 1,000 digitized folios for Konkani Wikisource

Typing Sprint on Wikisource (Konkani focused)

Plan

To organise typing and proofreading sprint to enrich Konkani Wikisource.

Execution

1. Identify encyclopedic books that are available in public domain or in free license Creating typing sprints and proof-reading competitions on Konkani Wikisource to track the progress and trends

Projection

1. About 10 books to be made searchable on Konkani Wikisource.
2. Could help in improving quality of about 50 articles.

Dictionary Donation

Plan

CIS-A2K intends to approach a Konkani Lexicographer, who has worked on various dictionaries, to re-release them under an appropriate Creative Commons license.

Execution

1. Signing of the CC re-release agreement with the lexicographer in a public event
2. Upload these dictionaries on commons and Wikisource
3. CIS-A2K will work towards making these dictionaries available in Unicode fonts. In collaboration the Konkani Wikimedians these will be used to populate thousands of entries on Konkani Wiktionary.

Projection

1. As some of the dictionaries are of specialized thematic nature like scientific terms, engineering terms.
2. Also these could benefit numerous students in the higher education sector who are facing challenges understanding technical and scientific terms and increase the popularity of Wikimedia projects.
3. This donation could also trigger other authors and publishers to consider re-releasing more Konkani content under Creative Commons license.
4. Increased public and media visibility to the importance of Creative Commons in the Konkani speaking regions.

Individual Donations from Konkani Writers

Plan

CIS-A2K is in conversation with various noted Konkani writers from all fields to re-release the original and translated texts under CC-BY-SA 4.0 license.

Execution

1. Signing of the CC re-release agreement with the writers in a public event
2. Upload these texts on Commons and Wikisource
3. CIS-A2K will work towards making these books available in Unicode Konkani through typing sprints and code conversion

Projection

1. This would enrich Konkani wikisource and help in growing the community around it.

Goals

Goals for July 2015 - June 2016 (The data here would be updated as per latest available data by May end)

Parameters	As on March 31, 2015	Expected Target by June 30, 2016	Dream Target by June 30, 2016
No. of Editors	287	400	500
No. of Active editors	15	40	50
No. of Articles	687	1200	1500
No. of Outreach Events	6	10	20
No. of Books Donated	5	20	50
No. of Folios Digitized	3,500	5,000	10,000
No. of Institutional Partnerships	3	5	7

Budget

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 ***	120,000/-	1,939.20	50,000/-	808.00
Volunteer Support	70,000/-	1,131.20	20,000/-	323.20
Events/Meet-ups/Workshops	55,000/-	888.80	100,000/-	1,616.00
Equipment/Permissions/Licenses	10,000/-	161.60	-	-
Digitization	50,000/-	808.00	-	-
Consumables/Printing/Stationery/Swag	50,000/-	808.00	-	-
Miscellaneous	5,000/-	80.80	-	-
Total	818,400/-	13,225.34	251,600/-	4,065.86

Notes:
* 100% time of Fr. Luis 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

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