CIS-A2K/Reports/Newsletter/June 2023
Community Engagement Calls and Activities[edit]
In the month of June, A2K has took two initiative called A2K's Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls and WikiConverse India Call. Two calls are already conducted under both initiatives, one call for each.
India Community Monthly Engagement Calls: 3 June 2023 call[edit]
A2K's Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls are monthly calls that attempt to improve collaboration in Indian language Wikimedia communities. These calls aim to provide a platform for Indian-language Wikimedians to connect with Wikimedians who are involved in building or working on various initiatives and the first call under Indic Community Monthly Engagement Calls initiative happened on 3rd June 2023 at 6:00 pm with Let's Connect. The speakers of the call were Jessica Stephenson, Learning and Evaluation Program Officer, WMF and Chinmayee Mishra, a representative of Let's Connect Working Group. Let’s Connect which is an initiative to create an open and safe learning space for any Wikimedian that read more...
Takeaways of Indian Wikimedians from EduWiki Conference & Hackathon[edit]
WikiConverse India Calls is an innovative initiative that aims to bridge the gap between Indic Wikimedia communities through engaging conversations. It is an extension of the recognized Wikimedia platform, bringing together volunteers, experts, and enthusiasts from various fields, projects or communities to foster knowledge exchange and empower individuals with information. The first call initiated under this idea was Takeaways of Indian Wikimedians from EduWiki Conference & Hackathon. This event focused on fostering collaborative discussions within the Indian language Wikimedia community, with a specific emphasis on the insights and experiences shared by participants, Manavpreet Kaur Akbar Ali, Jagseer S Sidhu, from the recent EduWiki Conference and Wikimedia Hackathon, however Hackathon speakers could make it due to some urgency. This interactive session, the purpose of it is to engage in enriching dialogue, exchange ideas, and explore read more...
Punjabi Wikisource Proofread-a-thon[edit]
Punjabi Wikimedians User Group organized a Punjabi Wikisource Proofread-a-thon June 2023 is being organized by the Punjabi Wikisource community in collaboration with CIS-A2K from 15th June 2023 to 30th June 2023. This effort was taken to increase the quality of books on Punjabi Wikisource and the platform to provide complete books. On the local event page of Punjabi Wikisource Proofread-a-thon, the two different list of the books were updated to recheck and proofread the books. Total of 19 people participated in the proofread-a-thon. The proofread-a-thon was read more...
Skill Development Programs[edit]
Indian Community Capacity Development is a program which is inspired by Community Capacity Development program because the idea of the program is similar to it. The program was run by Asaf (WMF). CIS-A2K is following the initiative and trying to implement it in India according to communities needs. CIS-A2K is trying to put the efforts to support Indian communities and User groups and trying to work on skill development programs. A2K is focusing on their activities, growth, leadership, building capacity and etc. The program is for all Indian communities who want to work for their growth and want to make a strong user group. A2K is still working on the model of this program, however, A2K already started working on the skill development actions.
Wikidata Training Sessions for Santali Community[edit]
A2K has planned and started a series of online training sessions for the community. These is a weekly series of the sessions which has been conducting each Sunday. A2K and the Jinoy and User:Satpal Dandiwal worked together to design a basic modules for the community. Jinoy, User:Satpal Dandiwal and User:Tulspal Kaur are the trainers of these Training Sessions. The series has started on 18 June 2023 with the introduction of the Wikidata. A total of 11 Santali Community members signed up on the event page for attending these sessions. The model of the training session is read more...
Wikisource Communities' Need Assessment and Transition Calls[edit]
A2K transition calls happened with Gujarati and Assamese Wikisource Communities for 2023-24. This is to take some time with Gujarati and Assamese Wikisource language communities to discuss existing plans A2K is having with these communities and explore opportunities to collaborate. The first call was happended with Gujurati Community about transition period and start of CIS-A2K new program year, discussion on the List of authors and status of tutorials, update on regulatory and finance issues of the CIS organization and Upcoming plans of the community. The call was happened on 25 June 25. The Assamese Community call happened on 28 June 2023 with the agenda list of author, list of authors in Wikidata, Coming year's program/planning, Video tutorial for Wikisource and read more...
Partnerships and Trainings[edit]
Academy of Comparative Philosophy and Religion GLAM Project[edit]
The Academy of Comparative Philosophy & Religion (ACPR) has approached CIS-A2K to facilitate the archive project on Gurudev Ranade, which will include works by Gurudev, works on Gurudev & his philosophy, images and audio-visuals. As the works of Gurudev Ranade are in public domain as per Indian Copyright law, the academy has planned to digitize the books published by them and others. The first session to introduce Wikimedia projects and archive process to ACPR trustees and members was conducted at Lokmanya Granthalaya hall, Belagavi on 24 October at 11am. In this session, elaborate demonstration of all Wikimedia projects was done. The discussion on copyright issues, relicensing procedure and organisational compliances was held. The basics of editing and uploading were also explained. Total 8 members participated in this session. The academy was founded in 1952 as a Public Trust in the Educational & Research category at Belagavi in Karnataka state. The academy was conceived by philosopher, scholar and saint R. D. alias Gurudev Ranade way back in 1924 in Pune and started it's work. It was formally registered in 1952 and read more...
Wikimedia Commons sessions with river activists[edit]
A couple of years back, CIS-A2K has initiated a project Jalbodh to facilitate water related knowledge creation on Wikimedia projects. The project has been actively supported by the organization Jal Biradari, headed by Dr. Rajendra Singh at the national level. The workshop of 50 river activists was organized by Jal Biradari from 10-12 June 2023 at Sangli. In this workshop, the discussions on documenting the rivers, the issues related to rivers and villages in the river basin were conducted with various organisations from five districts. The demonstrations of Wikimedia projects were given. The hands on session of 20 interested activists was conducted. The training session on opening the account and uploading photos using Wikimedia Commons app on mobile as well as laptop was conducted. After this training session, three organisations from Sangli and Solapur districts have started planning of documentation workshops to be conducted in August read more...
Introductory session on Wikibase for Academy of Comparative Philosophy and Religion members[edit]
CIS-A2K has started GLAM project with partner organisation, Academy of Comparative Philosophy and Religion, Belagavi, Karnataka. The digitisation of books is in progress at ACPR. The metadata of all the publications has been prepared and included in Wikidata. As the members of ACPR are interested in connecting their knowledge repository and data with the wider global community of scholars, researchers and enthusiasts, the idea of Wikibase project was introduced. The discussion was started with Wikimedia Deutschland regarding this potential collaboration few months back. An introductory session on Wikidata and Wikibase was conducted by Bodhisattwa Mandal, WMDE's Partner Manager for promoting Wikibase in India. The session was attended by 14 members of ACPR and was conducted on 17 June 2023. To develop the read more...