User:Subodh (CIS-A2K)/Progress Report Jan 2019

Progress Report for the Period - July 2018 to December 2018

Global metrics overview - all programs

Metric	Achieved outcome	Explanation
1. Participants	380
2. Newly Registered	119
3. Content Pages	ANANTH WILL DO
4. Footprint tracker	9
5. Community Evaluation	1

Content enrichment

Edit-a-thons

Marathi Wikimedia community, supported by CIS-A2K conducted Indian Independence Struggle edit-a-thon on Marathi Wikipedia between 10–20 August 2018. The objective of this edit-a-thon was creating and improving articles related to India's independence struggle on Marathi Wikipedia. Total 29 Marathi Wikimedians participated in this edit-a-thon, created 35 new articles and improved 123 articles on this theme.

The community members actively took part in the discussions on the Marathi Wikipedia village pump and decided the structure and rules of the edit-a-thon which includes categorisation, usage of reliable references. A list of 36 reliable resources for citations was prepared to be used during this edit-a-thon. Outreach Dashboard of this edit-a-thon may be seen here.

The Marathi community also planned and conducted offline edit-a-thons. One offline edit-a-thon was conducted at Solapur University on 20 August 2018 in which 14 editors participated.

WIKI WOMEN T CIS-A2K also facilitated the Wiki Women for Women's Well Being campaign on Marathi Wikipedia during period 1 October 2018 to 24 November 2018. In this campaign two offline edit-a-thons were conducted. Total 33 users participated in this campaign. Train-the-trainer alumni User:Pooja Jadhav and User:आर्या जोशी spearheaded it successfully. Another Wiki Advanced Training alumni User:Rajendra prabhune prepared a manual that informs the best practices for article development process under the campaign.

Learnings

The listing of topic-wise reliable sources and manual on development of well structured content improves the quality of contributions in edit-a-thons. Such campaigns are instrumental in developing the leadership among the community.

Follow-up

The articles created during the campaign are being further improved in the thematic workshops. CIS-A2K shall facilitate these two campaigns every year to develop the community leadership.

‘’It was an event which not only gave me happiness but taught me many new things. I am pleased that I got an opportunity to deal with women’s health (Physical, social, mental aspects) and related subjects in a deep manner.
Guidance from subject experts - Dr. Rajendra Prabhune and Dr. Nilima Tillu- was instrumental in creating awareness about the aspects of women’s health within all the women participants. Future plan is to focus on rural women groups and encourage them to write about their health related issues. Many gynecologists have expressed interest in taking this campaign forward. The resources created during this edit-a-thon are being utilised meaningfully. ‘’ - Username:आर्या जोशी

Building Communities of interest

During the organisation of thematic workshops, it was realised that communities of concern in the society are genuinely interested in content generation. These communities are working for more than 10 years on one sector in a organised way. They have built cumulative knowledge through action and research with an objective to disseminate it to masses. Hence the following process in water and biodiversity sector is being evolved to integrate this approach with the Wikimedia projects for mutually beneficial impact.

Jal Bodh

As the water crisis is worsening day by day, the citizen's initiatives are taking more efforts to spread knowledge about it. We actively participated in the River Dialogue held on 20–21 April 2018 to introduce the potential of Wikimedia projects to organisations working across Maharashtra state. After this orientation, a follow-up plan is prepared in which various groups have expressed their readiness to start content building on water & rivers. Jeevit Nadi organisation took first initiative on 28 May 2018 to train team of activists in open knowledge and Wikimedia Projects. Total 15 activists and researchers from Jeevit Nadi, EcoUniv, Jal Biradari (Tarun Bharat Sangh), Ecological Society, Sagarmitra organisations participated in this workshop.

In the second iteration on 25 July 2018, five participants presented their work, the database and the resources with them. These include photographs, videos, training material and data collected on site. They also worked on category tree and structure of article on river. The media available in the repository were sorted and analysed for uploading. This team has started preparing the database of local issues, maps of rivers and heritage places on the banks for uploading in respective categories.

The third iteration for building content on rivers in Sangli district was organised on 7 December 2018 by Jal Biradari & Tarun Bharat Sangh organisation. In this one day workshop, 11 activists working in Agrani river basin participated. They were trained in basics of Wikipedia editing and uploading on Commons. They worked on category tree of Agrani river basin and structure of articles on water related structures.

The fourth national level iteration was conducted between 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan for activists of Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan from eight states. The 30 participants were trained in this four day workshop. They started contributing in various languages. Tarun Bharat Sangh has decided to re-license 30 books and training material on river in CC-BY-SA.

"Rivers are very basic essence of existence of life in land. Thus, keeping sanctity, health and preservation of rivers are utmost important. The Wikimedia workshop during December in TBS on inclusion of river science, it's genesis and awareness to protect it through Wikipedia was really worthwhile. It provided wing to individuals like me to pendown more on revival of rivers because of present river pollution issues. The Wikipedia as an open forum can put an intense and long standing impact by including river as portal because mainstream can easily get the zeitgeist of problems, ways to tackle and sometimes use society as a whole to respond for revival of rivers." - Username:Mrityunjay1010

Understanding the river basin to design the category tree of articles
Participants of River knowledge workshop conducted in Pune
National level Workshop of river activists in Rajasthan
River activists involved in documentation of rivers

Van Bodh

CIS-A2K has started 'Van Bodh' project i.e. knowledge repository on biodiversity and forests with the organisations working in this sector. The partnerships with Tribal Research & Training Institute (TRTI) of State Government of Maharashtra, Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Mumbai University, Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL), Vrikshamitra and Gramsabha Mendha (Lekha) are being developed for the implementation of various activities. CIS-A2K is recognised as official agency through government resolution for - developing new and utilising existing Open & free platforms like Wikimedia Projects to build knowledge resources on Community Forest Management, Development of training modules in Unicode, Digitisation of reference books, training booklets, govt docs, archives, images etc and making it accessible. Community Advocate for Marathi Language is representing CIS-A2K in this group.

Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy, Mumbai University has started a "Diploma course in Community Resource Management " with the support of TRTI, Pune on 2 October 2018. The first pilot workshop was conducted at Mendha(Lekha) village in Dhanora block of Gadchiroli District to start the process of development of Open knowledge resources on Community Forest Resource and content development in Wikimedia projects with community participation. These contents will become a part of "Van Bodh Knowledge repository". The methodology for creation of village articles which include information on forest resources and management plans was finalised.

The capacity building sessions for technology partner Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) were conducted on 8 August 2018 and 11 September 2018 for exploring integration of Wikimedia projects.

Learnings

The rural communities are interested in documenting their local knowledge and exchange it with similar groups. The readership of this content is also increasing according to KPMG-Google report. These two projects have scaling up potential to bridge locally relevant knowledge gap on web.

Follow-up

Bi-monthly workshops are planned on both the themes
Regular support and discussions are continued on social media and email groups
The support from Open Source community is being taken to resolve the issues regarding maps and database for uploading on Wikimedia projects
The discussions for getting reference material re-licensed by authors are in progress. Till now 15 books are donated by two authors. The scanning of these books is in process.

The wiki-workshop on "Rivers on Wiki" has been my maiden experience in the context of commonning the Knowledge for the common good. The workshop gave me an another lens to see the usage of Wikipedia in regional languages as a medium for environmental consciousness building as well as conservation. Again, Wikipedia as a means for social audit was also another enriching experience in that workshop. Practical learning to edit the Wikipedia throughout the workshop has boosted my confidence and enthusiasm to create new pages on Wikipedia to devote myself in gap fulfilling for knowledge building and preservation (majorly documenting the local knowledge). The increase in cyber literacy and growing usage of smartphones have increased the context and significance of Wikipedia in recent times. I believe this campaign is worth devoting our time and concern. - Username:Simantabharati

Tribal youth being trained in building knowledge on forest & biodiversity at Gadchiroli
Hands-on activity of mapping with Open Street Maps
Participants creating village articles on Wikipedia

Institutional Partnerships

CIS-A2K has adopted comprehensive approach regarding Marathi language on web. It has involved various stakeholders in the dialogue. They include writers, publishers, printers, FOSS community, unicode font developers as well as State Language department - Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha. The central theme being Open knowledge and content generation in Wikimedia Projects. As a result Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Prakashak Sangh, an apex body of publishers at all India level invited us for a orientation session at their annual gathering in Pune. The organisers published press note also for awareness generation. Following this, we facilitated the process to organise extensive workshop with Rajya Marathi Vikas Sanstha and Publishers body. The workshop was held in two parallel sessions. Conceptual inputs and discussions held with publishers & writers which involved eminent experts like Prof. Madhav Gadgil (scientist & writer), Prof. Sunilkumar Lawate (writer), Vivek Sawant (MD-MKCL), Dipak Shikarpur (IT expert & writer), Laxmikant Deshmukh (Writer), Anand Katikar & Sushant Devalekar (Linguist), Manish Bavkar & Rohit Kokil (Designers) & A2K coordinator. The hands-on training sessions on Unicode, Google & Github resources, FOSS and Design (GIMP, Inkscape, LaTex), Digitisation process were conducted for DTP operators & designers.

Learnings

The stakeholders in language and knowledge sector are unaware about the advanced options in Open Source softwares. As the developments in this sector are limited to few big cities, the organisers have felt need to reach other districts in the state.

Follow-up

It is proposed to conduct such workshops region-wise across the state. Special interest groups were formed on translation, development of Unicode fonts and spellchecker in Marathi. Some of the publishers and authors expressed willingness to re-license their books for Wikisource. User:सुनीलकुमार लवटे started the process by uploading 2018 edition of his book on Commons. He has also planned to upload 22 more books from his archive on web.

The exemplary training and awareness building about the powerful Wikimedia projects was very important in the workshop conducted at Pune. Often the language professionals are awed by the probable hi-tech working and restrain themselves from contributing. [A2K Community advocate] explained the need of various wiki initiatives and the need of contributions by language professionals. [A2K Community advocate] also demonstrated how easy it was to upload, edit and contribute content in any Indian language. [A2K Community advocate] addressed the basic issues like typing in unicode script, using inscript keyboard, voice to text conversion. We will be happy to contribute our bit by partnering in language-related projects like building online dictionaries, subject specific vocabulary (परिभाषा कोश), editing, proofing the online content and any other way possible. We are willing to discuss about the possible synergy. - Username:विदुला टोकेकर

Workshop on FOSS, Unicode & Wikimedia Projects for Publishers, Printers, designers & writers
Cover page of the book - 'V. S. Khandekar Biography'- 3rd edition published in 2018 re-licensed by author Sunilkumar Lawate

Capacity building

To enhance the skills of seven very active Marathi editors (four women and three men), an Intensive Personalised Wiki Training Session was conducted at Pune on 6 August 2018. All the participants are consistently active for one year on Marathi Wiki projects. Taking into consideration their needs individually, this intensive program was planned. They were introduced to user scripts, maintenance modules, tools & gadgets etc. Detailed discussion on status of Marathi Wikimedia projects, areas of improvement and required policies were also conducted. To track the progress of participants along-with other active editors, outreach dashboard is created.

Learnings

The capacity building is achieved better in specific group of participants with defined needs. The sufficient personal attention given to each member increases confidence in them.
These sort of the activity should be a residential event for more interaction and team building.

Follow-up

The group members collectively worked in Independence Struggle edit-a-thon and Wiki Women for Women Well Being Campaign. The members worked on new ideas and qualitative improvements in the articles under this campaign. The participation in the policy discussions regarding article grading process on Village pump was also increased.

The intensive wiki training on 6 August enhanced my editing skills as well as confidence. My specific requirements such as manual of style, referencing, usage of templates were fulfilled due to personal attention by A2K trainer. I utilised this skills during awareness workshops and Wiki Women for Women Well being campaign. - User:कल्याणी कोतकर

Practising tools in capacity building session
Capacity building in MKCL for Van Bodh Project
IPWT Pune participants

Upcoming events

Wikipedia workshops in the state on occasion of Marathi language fortnight and Language day in collaboration with State Government
Wikipedia Orientation programs in digital schools
Wikisource workshops
Wikidata workshops
Workshops with libraries
Thematic workshop on Gender Gap
Photothons
One Wiki Women Conference
Mini TTT & MWT
One Regional Wiki conference
Wiki loves pilot campaign

In-kind support

Table 2 Please report all spending in the currency of your grant unless US$ is requested.

Please also include any in-kind contributions or resources that you have received in this revenues table. This might include donated office space, services, prizes, food, etc. If you are to provide a monetary equivalent (e.g. $500 for food from Organization X for service Y), please include it in this table. Otherwise, please highlight the contribution, as well as the name of the partner, in the notes section.

Revenue source	Currency	Anticipated	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Cumulative	Anticipated ($US)*	Cumulative ($US)*	Explanation of variances from plan
Volunteer support	INR		-	26000	-	-
Travel & Stay	INR		-	18000	-	-
Event organization and logistics	INR		-	37500	-	-

* Provide estimates in US Dollars

Resources for storytelling

WMF storytelling series and toolkit (DRAFT)
Online workshop on Storytelling. By Frameworks institute
- The origin of storytelling
- Story frames, with a focus on news-worthiness.
Reading guide: Storytelling and Social change. By Working Narratives
- The uses of the story.
- Case studies.
Blog: 3 Tips on telling stories that move people to action. By Paul VanDeCarr (Working Narratives), on Philanthropy.com
Building bridges using narrative techniques. By Sparknow.net
- Differences between a report and a story
- Question guides and exercises.
Guide: Tools for Knowledge and Learning. By Overseas Development Institute (UK).
- Developing a strategy
- Collaboration mechanisms
- Knowledge sharing and learning
- Capturing and storing knowledge.