Education/News/November 2025/United Architects of the Philippines Student Auxiliary - University of Nueva Caceres joins Wikisource Training

United Architects of the Philippines Student Auxiliary – University of Nueva Caceres joins Wikisource Training

Author: Filipinayzd

Summary: UAPSA UNC joined the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts PH Training of Trainers to support the development of local Wikisource editions.

UAPSA – UNC participants with PhilWiki Community president Maffeth Sto. Tomas (left) and UNC faculty Ar. Josenia Merencillo (right)

Officers and members of United Architects of the Philippines Student Auxiliary – University of Nueva Caceres (UAPSA UNC) attended a catch-up session on Wikisource Loves Manuscripts Philippines (WILMA PH) Training of Trainers Program Year 2 last November 15 at The Boardroom ― PhilWiki Community’s creative space. The activity aims to develop a pool of trainers who will work with GLAM institutions in building an accessible online repository of manuscripts through training, tutorials, and mentorship.

GLAM is an acronym for galleries, libraries, archives, museums and refers to cultural institutions with a mission to provide access to knowledge. The UNC Museum, the oldest university museum in the Bicol Region and the second oldest in the country, will be launching the Ignacio Meliton Archive Project to protect its archival and research documents.

The participants, comprising Architecture students at the University of Nueva Caceres, learned how to support the development of local Wikisource editions and how Wikisource helps improve translations powered by Large Language Models (LLM). During the Bikol Wikisource Training of Trainers conducted last year, Ar. Josenia Merencillo of the UNC College of Architecture and Engineering, with her students, formed the UNC Wiki Club, the first private university-based community of Wikimedians in the Philippines.

An LLM or Large Language Model is a type of artificial intelligence trained on massive datasets, and these models use deep learning to learn patterns in text, enabling them to perform tasks like writing content, translating languages, summarizing information, and answering questions. Twenty-five (25) Wikisource training participants and contributors have joined the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts Philippines Transcribe-a-thon Challenge 2025.

This year's WILMA PH training program, which started on October 11, highlighted the vital role of archiving, digitization, and digital repatriation in preserving cultural heritage and valuable manuscripts.

As of November 2025, there are Wikisource subdomains active for 82 languages comprising a total of 6,668,986 articles and 3,946 recently active editors. There are only two Wikisource editions in the Philippine languages, namely Bikol Wikisource and Tagalog Wikisource. Volunteers are currently working on creating six (6) other language editions, namely in Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Ilokano, Kapampangan, Pangasinan and Waray.

The WILMA PH Training of Trainers 2025 is a collaborative effort of PhilWiki Community, Nueva Caceres Heritage Movement and Bikol Wikipedia Community. The GLAM program, which the Naga City Government supports through the Raul S. Roco Library and the UNC Wiki Club, is a response to the call-to-action of the Wikimedia Foundation for the digitization.

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  WILMA PH TOT 2025 launch
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  Session 2
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  Session 3