Grants:Project/MSIG/Amrit Sufi/Needs assessment for documentation and revitalization of Indic languages using Wikimedia projects/Report

Movement Strategy Implementation Grant Report
Accepted

Please review the notes below before submitting your report.

Your draft implementation plan document should address the following questions clearly:

What movement strategy initiative or goal are you addressing?
What activities will you be doing to address that initiative?
What do you expect will happen as a result of your activities? How do those outcomes address the movement strategy initiative?
How will you measure or evaluate your activities? What tools or methods will you use to evaluate your activities?

To create a draft implementation plan, we recommend the use of a logic model, which will help you and your team think about goals, activities, outcomes, and other factors in an organized way. Please refer the following resources to develop a logic model:

Overview of logic models on Meta-wiki
Example logic models for reference for other movement activities (such as partnerships and edit-a-thons)
Blank logic model template on Google Drive

Outcomes[edit]

Please respond to the following questions below:

Where have you published your project report? Share the link to it here:

Needs assessment for documentation and revitalization of Indic languages using Wikimedia projects

What Movement Strategy initiative is this project supporting?

- Global Approach for Local Skill Development- Gathering data, matching peers, mentorship, and recognition
- Resources for newcomers
- Skill Development Infrastructure
- Content Initiatives in Underrepresented Communities
- Invest in Skills and Leadership Development
- Innovate in Free Knowledge

What activities have you completed to produce this project report?

- Global Approach for Local Skill Development- Gathering data, matching peers, mentorship, and recognition - Surveys and Interviews, trained the trainees from last project
- Resources for newcomers- Oral Culture TranscriptionToolkit was edited. Edited sections in the toolkit: Elicitation tips and short interview questions
- Skill Development Infrastructure- expanded research report, edited and translated toolkit, train the trainee
- Content Initiatives in Underrepresented Communities- Wikisource and Commons as spaces to digitize oral culture and languages for small communities. Participants from various languages like Braj and Mising participated in the workshops.
- Invest in Skills and Leadership Development - Trainees trained newcomers, focused on female trainees
- Innovate in Free Knowledge - Oral culture (Wikisource and Commons)

In which community channels have you announced your project report? We intend to share the project report on these channels by the end of January 2023:

Diff
India mailing list
Bangladesh mailing list
Telegram groups: Wikimedia Commons group, Language diversity group, Wikisource global community group
Presentation at Naija Office Hour on 18th February 2023

Goals[edit]

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes, we have met our goals. We are happy with how the project went. We accomplished our set goals and the outcomes exceeded our expectations in certain aspects.

Project Outcomes[edit]


Target Outcome	Achieved Outcome	Explanation
Editing the 'Oral Culture Transcription Toolkit' as per feedback	Toolkit edited	As per feedback from project volunteers and participants of the Oral Culture and Language Documentation Workshops, the Oral Culture Transcription toolkit was edited. The questionnaire section was edited in collaboration with Wikitongues.
Survey research	Surveys for 2 groups: Wikimedians and non-Wikimedians (at the time of filling the survey)	We managed to get 139 responses. This is approximately 3 times more than the actual aim i.e. 45 survey responses.
Interview research	15 people interviewed	We interviewed 15 people. We had initially aimed for 12 people but continued to interview more for a more well-rounded research.
Creation of research report	Research report created	Based on surveys by 139 respondents and 15 interviewees.
Translation of edited toolkit and research report into Hindi, Punjabi, and Bengali	Translation into Hindi, Bengali and Punjabi in progress	We will be able to produce the translations.
Conducting workshops	4 workshops conducted	3 online and 1 in-person workshop were conducted. This exceeded the number of workshops we had aimed for i.e. 3. Since the Covid situation had calmed down, we also decided to conduct a 2-day hands-on workshop.
	Train the trainer	Overall two trainees from the previous project were part in this project. Down the line, three more volunteers got connected with the project.

Engagements and presentations:[edit]

During the course of the project we shared about the project on these platforms:

European Dialogue on Internet Governance “EuroDIG” on 20th June 2022: “Multilingualism on the Internet”
Dainik Bhaskar, a Hindi Newspaper, covered an interview about the Project
Created a Twitter profile: Oral Culture and Language Documentation Workshops to share about the workshops
Diff article- https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/08/08/how-to-help-save-endangered-languages-in-india-a-project-on-oral-culture-digitization/
Surveys shared on India mailing list and Bangladesh mailing list
Telegram Groups: Wikimedia Commons group, Language diversity group, Wikimedia Wikisource group

Finances[edit]

Grant funds spent[edit]

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Funds received

Remaining funds from previous project: 27,266 INR
Funds received for this project: 5,27,170 INR
Additional funds requested: ~65,800 INR (808 USD)
Total: 620236 INR (~7618 USD)

Please find the spreadsheet with details on the budget here.

Remaining funds[edit]

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No.

Anything else[edit]

Anything else you want to share about your project?

During the Oral Culture Documentation workshops conducted as a part of this project, the participants faced the issue of being unable to transcribe the recorded content after returning from the field. This happened because they did not understand the language. This problem wouldn't happen if native speakers themselves are in charge or are associated with such tasks significantly.

Thank you for supporting this project. We would like to thank Daniel and Subhashish for guiding and supporting us towards a successful conclusion to this project.

Gallery and links[edit]

We are sharing the screenshots of a few interviews conducted as part of the research. We are also sharing the category of the media (oral culture interviews, recordings, and pictures) created during the workshops conducted under this project.