User:Subodh (CIS-A2K)/Impact report 2020

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Content donation[edit]

What?
CIS-A2K facilitated the re-licensing of content by individuals as well as organisations in the third consecutive year. The authors, copyright holders as well as organisations approached for re-licensing their content. The content was digitised and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons after completing due process of OTRS. Some of the books were OCR'd and proofread on Wikisource.

When?
This process oriented activity continued throughout the programme year.

Where?
The visits to various places were made for follow-up. The places include - Pune, Satara, Pabal, Ambethan, Mumbai and Nagpur

How?
The content donation activity has been continued with wider outreach in the programme year 2019-2020. It has become a self-sufficient and sustainable process supported by the community, individuals and organisations. The archive projects with two organisations were developed. These will be pioneering projects in India. CIS-A2K signed MoU for these projects with Vigyan Ashram and Shetkari Sanghatana Trust.

In 2019-2020, total 10 authors or copyright holders have re-licensed 63 books and five organisations have re-licensed 41 books. All these 104 books are uploaded on Wikimedia Commons under various categories. The content on women’s legal & social issues released by organisation Lek Ladki Abhiyan is being used by many organisations. This has motivated other gender issues related organisations. CIS-A2K is planning a broader project of free knowledge repository on women with them. Another non-profit organisation Jnana Prabodhini has uploaded their content on Women empowerment. The publishing house, Saptahik Vivek Hindustan Prakashan Sanstha released their series of eight encyclopedias which are recently published and are being sold at high prices in the market. Vigyan Ashram re-licensed their four skill training manuals. Another non-profit organisation from Vidarbh region of Maharashtra, Vrikshamitra re-licensed valuable reference books on biodiversity, community forest management and forest acts. Shetkari Sanghatana Trust has taken initiative to upload first batch of 13 books by Sharad Joshi and two books on Sharad Joshi.

Impact made:
Due to consistent activity of re-licensing over the last 3 years, positive outlook towards free knowledge is developed among authors, publishers and organisations. This has made this movement sustainable. These recent and relevant books are attracting users to contribute on Wikisource project also. The simple manual on re-licensing in local language has facilitated the spreading of concept.

Learning:
CIS-A2K experienced difficulty in dealing with old/aged copyright holders regarding the completion of OTRS process and uploading on Wikimedia Commons. Nurturing the team of local Wikimedians is necessary to handle these issues. In case of organisations, the process needs to be carried out at the level of trustees, management and executives to comply with procedures. This procedure involves more stages and continuous follow-up.

As it is the need of an hour that important documents of knowledge should be archived on the digital network not only for present generation to access at any time and from any place of the world but also to keep available to generations to come. The ‘SHETKARI SANGHATANA’ trust was thinking on a scheme to do the same and came into contact with Subodh Kulkarni, representative of CIS-A2K who introduced us the to the Wikimedia projects. Under guidance of CIS-A2K, the trust has re-licensed 13 books by late Sharad Joshi, founder of the farmers organization Shetkari Sanghatana and a liberal party Swatantra Bharat Paksha. Also Sharad Joshi’s biography by Bhanu Kale and one collection of speeches elaborating ‘thought and method of work’ of the Shetkari Sanghatana were uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to CIS-A2K for providing a platform to make available the intellectual property of Sharad Joshi and Shetkari Sanghatana to the world. - Sureshchandra Mhatre, Trustee, Shetkari Sanghatana

Photo documentation[edit]

What?
Collaborated efforts with various organisations and individuals were taken to document thematic content on Wikimedia Commons. In this, diversity of themes was also focused. The themes include – women’s issues, floods, GLAMs, science & technology, diminishing handicrafts, monuments and heritage places.

When?
Various thematic events were conducted throughout the programme year.

Where?
The locations include - Pune, Satara, Nashik, Sangli, Pabal, Ichalkaranji, Uttan and Rajgurunagar in Maharashtra.

How?
CIS-A2K facilitated institutional partner Vigyan Ashram’s initiative to document the science and technology related content in their campus. The training of new Wikimedians was done by experienced users.

CIS-A2K conducted two innovative events to document the skills and lifestyles of coppersmith and fisherman communities. One event was conducted in Pune with active participation of two Wikimedians. All the participants of TTT2020 documented the activities in fisherman community around Uttan beach.

Three women Wikimedians from Pune worked on documentation of GLAM institutions and heritage structures.

As a part of Women History Month events, organization Jnana Prabodhini documented women at work in rural & urban areas. Another organisation working in flood affected areas, uploaded images of flood in Sangli district of Maharashtra.

Impact made:
These thematic photo documentation projects created valuable and diverse content on Wikimedia Commons. This concept has motivated the Wikimedians involved to take up further more focused projects.

Learning:
Thematic documentation needs background research and specific preparations at the field level. The projects have replication potential in various places across the country.

Women History Month activities[edit]

What?
CIS-A2K facilitated various events lead by women in the month of March. The planning of events for content generation in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons was meticulously done with gender based organisations. Total 46 women Wikimedians actively contributed in three Wikipedia events and two photo documentation events.

When?
The events were conducted in the month of March.

Where?
The events were conducted at Pune, Satara and Pabal.

How?
The active women Wikimedians in Maharashtra state took initiative to organise various events in collaboration with CIS-A2K. The thematic workshops were conducted after sufficient preparatory work on articles in Google doc. The analysis of gender gap in concerned categories was done. The organisations working on gender issues re-licensed content and made their reference material available during the events. Some subject experts also facilitated the writing process. The organisations - Lek Ladki Abhiyan, Saptahik Vivek, Samuchit Enviro-tech & Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited - collaborated with CIS-A2K to conduct these workshops.

Event pages on Marathi Wikipedia -

Books are uploaded here - Books published by Lek Ladaki Abhiyan

Impact made:
The events achieved bridging gender gap related to content as well as participation. The organisations have now adopted this open knowledge creation activity as standing feature of Women History Month events. This has made this activity sustainable and self-sufficient. As women are leading the events, more and more women are expressing their readiness to contribute in various areas. Hence, there was diversity in themes e.g. Science & Technology, Climate change etc. apart from gender issues.

Learning:
The event lead by women invites more participation of women. Women not only wish to contribute to gender issues, but variety of issues. For this, open & free dialogue and planning needs to be initiated. Networking and collaboration with gender based organisations is useful for making content donation process sustainable leading to bridging of gender gap.

When I first came to know about the very low participation of women in the Wikipedia project in general, and Wikipedia Marathi project in particular, I felt that this needs to be rectified. I had also noticed that environment and climate change are topics that do not have much resources in Marathi Wikipedia. Therefore I proposed that we should do a women lead effort to increase the content on Climate Change specifically. It was great to have the support of MKCL for this one day workshop. It was a bit challenging as majority of the participants had a lot of enthusiasm, but no experience of contributing to Wikipedia. There were a few experienced Wikipedians, and a few occasional ones, like myself! We tried to help each other and a few articles have been added as a result. I think more importantly several potential women wikipedians got an initial exposure to the process. We were hoping to do a follow up workshop focused mainly on the technical aspects of writing Wikis, but unfortunately, COVID-19 and lockdowns have interfered in that plan. - Dr. Priyadarshini Karve, Director, Samuchit Enviro Tech

Mapping GLAM in Maharashtra[edit]

This research comprised of a study of seven GLAM institutions located in two districts (Pune and Kolhapur) in Maharashtra, with the support of three active Wikimedians.The main objective was to document digitisation efforts, views towards making collections free & open, insitutional challenges and opportunities, and to develop recommendations for various stakeholders in GLAM. The methods for the study included desk research to identify major GLAM institutions across the state and their online online presence, and data collection from seven key institutions through a survey and field visits to document information related to the history and objectives of institutions, archival management practices, resources and challenges, future digitisation plans and potential collaborative projects. The volunteers also created Wikipedia articles and image galleries in Wikimedia Commons. The analysis of data and discussions lead to set of recommendations for different stakeholders such as volunteers, GLAM institutions, facilitating organisations and Wikimedia affiliates.These include several learnings on the need for awareness of copyright and open licenses, training resources in local languages, streamlined digitisation practices and better collaboration with policy makers to foster collaborative work in the sector.

Through GLAM mapping research study, I got an opportunity to explore various institutions. It helped me to grow as a researcher as well as a Wikimedian. I dealt with museums having collections related to Indian History and Culture. During the interviews, I learnt many aspects of open data, ancient books and antiquities from the key resource persons. I strongly felt the digitisation of this treasure and making it openly accessible to the public through Wikimedia projects. This will give new dimensions to the research and studies regarding the history to future generations. I am hoping for such collaborative work with CIS as well as Wikimedia Foundation in near future. - Username:आर्या जोशी

Story of Re-licensing[edit]

This story is about the various stakeholders involved in content donation to free knowledge sources in the state of Maharashtra in India. The authors, heirs of writers, copyright holders as well as organisations have generously re-licensed valuable content in the last two and half years. The works cover wide range of subjects - social issues, women empowerment, legal aid, culture, short stories, essays, agricultural issues, critiques, mental health, national conflicts, philosophy, biodiversity, education, thematic encyclopedias etc. The integration and searchability of Wikimedia projects attracted the attention of the stakeholders. The initiatives taken by eminent and influential personalities as well as reputed organisations for re-licensing their works also provided impetus to the movement. As a result, 20 authors or copyright holders and five organisations have re-licensed 148 books/works till June 2020.

The state of Maharashtra in India and Marathi language has a great legacy of literature right from the 13th century. Till 15th century, mainly cultural, devotional, religious and mythological literature was produced. Under the support of dynasties, literature on astrology, astronomy, ayurveda, vedanta flourished till the 15th century. In the 19th century the publishing of standardised Marathi dictionaries, grammar books, progressive literature, modern prose-poetry and newspapers started with more outreach. The 20th century saw renaissance in Marathi language with creation of books on scientific subjects, history, critiques, thesaurus’ on various topics, dictionaries, encyclopedias, classical literature and translations.

In spite of this glorious history, in 2017, while analysing the content on Wikimedia Commons, it was realised that there are only 10+ books in Marathi uploaded under free license. This situation impacted the participation of Wikimedians in the Marathi Wikisource project also. In the discussions, volunteers expressed their willingness to contribute if there are good reference value books, classic literature made available.

CIS-A2K has been able to build digitisation and content donation process in the last three years in the state of Maharashtra. Various multi-pronged approaches were adopted to reach out to authors, copyright holders, publishers and the non-profit social organisations. All the content was released in CC-BY-SA. A simple manual on OTRS process for re-licensing was developed in Marathi to make the procedure convenient for the copyright holders.

The process started after the event for science writers coorganised by CIS-A2K in October 2017. After the event, three scientists, Prof. Jayant Narlikar, Prof. Mangala Narlikar and Prof. Madhav Gadgil re-licensed one book each on Mathematics and Ecology. After this, daughter of anthropologist Iravati Karve, Dr. Jai Nimbkar generously donated Iravati Karve’s very popular 6 books under free license. All these books are milestones in Marathi literature. Thus total 8 books were re-licensed in the programme year 2017-2018.

In the programme year 2018-2019, more concerted efforts were taken to address writers, copyright holders, publishers, libraries and thematic organisations. The collaborations with the State level literary body of Marathi authors, All India Marathi Publishers’ Consortium, and Government departments were made to organise these events. Considering the requirements, two hands-on workshops were conducted. The mutually beneficial relationships were built due to these workshops.

To emphasize the free knowledge and content donation, the occasions such as Marathi language day and Women’s History Month were focused for promotion. The feature articles and special editorials were published in Diwali magazines and leading Marathi newspapers. Some special articles were developed with eminent personalities as co-author.  

As a result of this comprehensive approach, a positive atmosphere towards content donation in free knowledge sources and Wikimedia projects was created in Maharashtra. In the programme year 2018-2019, 7 notable authors and one leading organisation on Women’s issues re-licensed 36 books on Wikimedia Commons. The discussions started in  various literary events and knowledge outreach programmes around this which triggered curiosity among copyright holders/heirs of notable authors. The organisations which have developed knowledge repositories over the years on various thematic areas, also came forward to understand the process of re-licensing.

To digitise the re-licensed content, a scanning center was established at Pabal near Pune in collaboration with Vigyan Ashram. The dedicated cell of rural women trainees is developed for scanning and processing of books. The organisation gradually integrated the knowledge creation activity with their skill building courses. The volunteers from Vigyan Ashram have generated content in Wikimedia projects along with the digitisation activity. The short documentary - Savitrichya Online Leki (Savitri’s Online Daughters) - was made on the process of scanning & processing and further uploading on Wikimedia Commons as well as Wikisource by the volunteers of Vigyan Ashram, Pabal. The film is also being used in promotion of content donation drives.

The content donation drive gained momentum in the programme year 2019-2020. It has become a self-propelled process supported by the community, individuals and organisations. In 2019-2020, the response for content donation was overwhelming. Till June 2020, 10 authors or copyright holders have re-licensed 63 books and five organisations have re-licensed 41 books. All these 104 books are uploaded on Wikimedia Commons under various categories. The major re-licensing consists of content on women’s legal & social issues released by organisation Lek Ladki Abhiyan, Jnana Prabodhini’s content on Women empowerment, series of 8 encyclopedias by Saptahik Vivek Hindustan Prakashan Sanstha, 4 skill training manuals by Vigyan Ashram, Another non-profit organisation from Vidarbh region of Maharashtra, reference books on biodiversity, community forest management by Vrikshamitra and 13 works of Sharad Joshi by Shetkari Sanghatana Trust.

To summarise, CIS-A2K facilitated re-licensing of total 148 books in the last 2.5 years. It contains 115 Marathi books, 32 English books and one Hindi book in Maharashtra. All these books were uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. The re-licensing is now owned up by the society in Maharashtra, which will foster growth in freely accessible content in the coming years. CIS-A2K has started replicating this process and model in other states of India as well.

TTT2020[edit]

Train the trainer 2020 was the seventh iteration of Train the trainer programme organized by CIS-A2K and was conducted in the suburb Uttan of Mumbai on 28 February to 1 March 2020 while 27 March was considered as Day 0. TTT was conducted in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019 previously. Total 24 participants were selected for this programme, out of which 23 Wikimedians (15 male, 8 female) attended the programme. These participants represented 13 language communities.

The schedule of the programme was designed as per the needs spelt out by participants in the application forms. On 27 February, Marathi Language day was celebrated by all the participants by lighting lamps for all the languages. The participants were divided into five groups, which discussed the initiatives within their communities. The best practices from each group were presented. Dr. Suraj Pandit, an eminent archaeologist working on Kanheri caves, presented a session on process & importance of factual knowledge creation and documenting monuments. User:THasan (WMF) from WMF discussed the recommendations of Wikimedia Strategy 2030. In another group session, the participants worked rigorously to evolve project plans on the topics - GLAM, Edit-a-thon, Workshop & meet-up and Photo-documentation. Revolving Cafe was organised on topics - Copyrights, Wikidata, Wikisource and Research & documentation. The participants were taken to a short excursion to a nearby fishing village Uttan for 'Community Photo Documentation' activity. The participants learnt about the daily routine, lifestyle & livelihood activities of fishing community and they captured it in the images. They also visited Uttan lighthouse. From the participants, User:Brihaspati gave a short presentation on 'How pseudoscience and fake news affects Wikipedia' and User:Rangan Datta Wiki on Wikivoyage. The sessions on bridging gender gap, metrics and outreach dashboard were conducted. A panel discussion on Wikimedia education programme was held to share the experiences. The campfire and cultural programme was arranged in which the participants presented their performances in the field of music, dance and drama.

Impact

Total 16 participants have registered their feedback. The participants expressed willingness and started planning for GLAM, Wikisource and Wikidata projects for their communities. The thematic photo documentation activity opened new avenues for Wikimedians. The venue was a serene & quiet place away from bustling city. This atmosphere helped to create more cohesive group and focused discussions around Wikimedia movement.

West Bengal Partnerships mission[edit]

CIS-A2K conducted a West Bengal Mission from 12-18 February 2020 to explore various partnerships. During the meeting with Swami Vedtattwananda, Principal of Ved Vidyalaya at Belur Math, Kolkata, some of the evolved proposed plans include - Sharing of digitised content suitable for Sanskrit Wikisource, Development of OERs for Sanskrit learning and Orientation programmes for institutions in Belur Math campus and Sanskrit departments in the institutions.

A day long meeting and some demonstration sessions were conducted at School of Cultural Texts & Records, Jadavpur University. The faculty and research scholars attended the sessions. Some of the proposed projects in collaboration are - Integrating the metadata of the archives and library with Wikidata, Uploading the copyright free material such as books, images, audio files already digitised on Wikimedia projects to make it searchable and accessible across the world. We discussed about working on OCR related issues and Shabda Kosha project.

In this mission, the collaborative projects with Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan were also unfolded. CIS-A2K and West Bengal Wikimedians User group (WBG) have jointly submitted a project proposal to Visva-Bharati University after the meeting with officials in Rabindra Bhavana Museum. The major components of the proposal include - Digital documentation of the of heritage structures in the university campus along with museum collections, Online storage and display of the digitally documented products in Wikimedia projects and building a long term partnership between the Wikimedia world and the university. In another meeting with officials of Sangit Bhavana, the proposed projects evolved are - Digital documentation of the teaching methodology of the departments of Sangit Bhavana, Digital documentation of all aspects of Indian classical music and music produced by departments of Sangit Bhavan.

The discussions with non-profit social organisation, Development Research Communication and Services Centre (DRCSC) were fruitful as they showed interest in releasing their content in the form of training material. The topics of this content include - sustainable agriculture and scientific management of natural resources.

In this mission, various authors were approached for content donation. The discussions were held with three authors, while re-licensing session with author Trishna Basak who shared her two books.

Online session on heritage documentation[edit]

The online training session on heritage documentation by Dr. Suraj Pandit, Archaeologist and art historian, whose area of interest is Western Indian Buddhist rock-cut architecture was conducted on 26 June 2020. This was follow-up activity of TTT 2020 in which Dr. Pandit participated as an expert. The session was attended by 17 Wikimedians across India and four A2K members. The topics covered were - objectives of documentation, personal biases & perceptions affecting the process, the importance of scales and the Government departments dealing with the monuments. The rules of photography, recording and the protocols were discussed. The expert demonstrated the actual cases of documentation where tripods, ladders and artificial lights were used with permission. he also explained the pros and cons of the process. The importance of scales was explained with various examples. The second part dealt with documentation of traditions, oral histories for building context to images and examples from Kanheri caves documentation.

Quotes[edit]

Content donation[edit]

As it is the need of an hour that important documents of knowledge should be archived on the digital network not only for present generation to access at any time and from any place of the world but also to keep available to generations to come. The ‘SHETKARI SANGHATANA’ trust was thinking on a scheme to do the same and came into contact with Subodh Kulkarni, representative of CIS-A2K who introduced us the to the Wikimedia projects. Under guidance of CIS-A2K, the trust has re-licensed 13 books by late Sharad Joshi, founder of the farmers organization Shetkari Sanghatana and a liberal party Swatantra Bharat Paksha. Also Sharad Joshi’s biography by Bhanu Kale and one collection of speeches elaborating ‘thought and method of work’ of the Shetkari Sanghatana were uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to CIS-A2K for providing a platform to make available the intellectual property of Sharad Joshi and Shetkari Sanghatana to the world. - Sureshchandra Mhatre, Trustee, Shetkari Sanghatana

Women History Month[edit]

When I first came to know about the very low participation of women in the Wikipedia project in general, and Wikipedia Marathi project in particular, I felt that this needs to be rectified. I had also noticed that environment and climate change are topics that do not have much resources in Marathi Wikipedia. Therefore I proposed that we should do a women lead effort to increase the content on Climate Change specifically. It was great to have the support of MKCL for this one day workshop. It was a bit challenging as majority of the participants had a lot of enthusiasm, but no experience of contributing to Wikipedia. There were a few experienced Wikipedians, and a few occasional ones, like myself! We tried to help each other and a few articles have been added as a result. I think more importantly several potential women wikipedians got an initial exposure to the process. We were hoping to do a follow up workshop focused mainly on the technical aspects of writing Wikis, but unfortunately, COVID-19 and lockdowns have interfered in that plan. - Dr. Priyadarshini Karve, Director, Samuchit Enviro Tech

GLAM Mapping[edit]

Through GLAM mapping research study, I got an opportunity to explore various institutions. It helped me to grow as a researcher as well as a Wikimedian. I dealt with museums having collections related to Indian History and Culture. During the interviews, I learnt many aspects of open data, ancient books and antiquities from the key resource persons. I strongly felt the digitisation of this treasure and making it openly accessible to the public through Wikimedia projects. This will give new dimensions to the research and studies regarding the history to future generations. I am hoping for such collaborative work with CIS as well as Wikimedia Foundation in near future. - Username:आर्या जोशी

Advance Wikisource[edit]

Realising the importance of Wikisource project as free reference library, Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE) has collaborated with CIS-A2K in organising TWL conference and Advance Wikisource Training events. Once again thank you for giving us an opportunity to work with CIS-A2K Team.

In the coming years, searchability of reference material, standard cataloging and linking of resources across various languages is crucial for multi-disciplinary research projects. I feel that building Indian language Wikisource projects based on customized classification and library science systems is need of an hour. The cataloging and digitization projects with libraries to integrate their knowledge resources with Wikimedia projects is also important. Both Prof. Rajas Parchure, Director, GIPE and myself in personal capacity will be happy to extend support for this open knowledge movement in the near future. - Dr. Nanaji Shewale, Librarian (Professor Cadre), GIPE

TTT 2020[edit]

TTT 2020 was indeed a great experience. The training programme was well designed. All the sessions were conducted systematically. All the trainers were very friendly to us. The enthusiasm showed by the participants was great. I'm sure they would continue to contribute to the projects in the coming years. The sessions went smoothly without any hiccups. Other arrangements like food, accommodation were good, too. The photo documentation walk was well organised and all our time was well utilized. The talk by archaeologist Dr. Suraj Pandit was also very informative. During the cultural programme we enjoyed a lot. In future, kindly try to organise the workshop for a week so that we can go through each and every points about the various Wikimedia projects. - Username:অজয় দাস
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