Grants talk:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Rapid Fund/Reviving Malayalam Wikisource Community 2024 (ID: 22764382)

Transparency and Open Communication

To foster community involvement, share proposal details widely through appropriate channels. Transparency and open communication are essential for project success. Malayalam Wikisource Village Pump , Malayalam Wikipedia Village Pump Wikimedians of Kerala User Group, Malayalam Wikisource Telegram Working Group Manojk (talk) 10:57, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Status Update

Hello @Manojk,

Hope you are well. Sharing an update that we'll require more time to review your application and I'll look to provide an update (or outcome) next week. I noted your proposed start date is scheduled for 1 October. Thanks for your patience and we'll connect soon.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 07:38, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Jacqueline for the response. We are trying to start the activities with available community volunteer capacity - Manojk (talk) 19:56, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Your grant application has been approved

Hello @Manojk,

Congratulations! Your grant application has been approved in the amount of INR 405,500 from 2 October 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Observations/ Recommendations / Notes

Thank you for putting together this application. We particularly appreciated your addition of Wikisource statistics as well as your previous grant attempt. If you have more recent data snapshot (for comparison), do share the link with us. Some questions, comments and recommendations captured during the review process requires your response:

• 1) It was mentioned that they have to identify the books to digitise. Do they already have a list of books to digitize, their copyright status and availability of books. Is there a way to know if the list of target books for this project has been digitised in other digitisation projects? Would the applicant be able to provide more elaboration on this?

• 2) Re question 7 (on project management and platform enhancement), the dedicated resource refers to the staff related expense/ coordinator of the project (part time) line item in your proposed budget. Would that be correct?

• 3) Budget related clarifications - a) Metadata Survey and Collection - could you provide more information on what these fees are for? b) other expenses - do you refer to contingency fees (and have applied a 5% flat rate to the project budget?)

• 4) Re learning and metrics segment, a) As part of your learnings, we'll also like to recommend that you put together a short brief/ guideline of best practices in planning for and executing a digitisation (of books) project based on your local context and learnings. This best practices guideline that you produce will be useful for future teams who may be interested in doing similar work. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, they can re-purpose your documentation (i.e. planning, workflow, tracking tools etc) to support their project implmentation. Please include this as one of the outputs in your learning report. b) Do you plan to have a dedicated project page for this as well? Here is an example if you find it useful.

We know even the best thought through plans may change

In the event that there are changes to your implementation schedule, you can reach out to request for a grant extension (i.e. extend end date). Similarly, if there is a surplus budget or changes to your planned budget, you can reach out to me about reallocation (via email and on this talkpage). There is also the option to have the unspent funds deducted against a future grant. More details here: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Return_unused_funds_to_WMF

Additional resources which may be useful

• The reporting requirements and templates for the grant can be found here. All reports are to be completed and submitted via Fluxx.
• Timelines for reporting can be found in your grant agreement or on Fluxx.
• Instructions for post award: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Processing/Grantee_Portal/Post_award
• Documenting project expenses: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Documenting_project_expenses

We thank you for your participation in the grant application process and hope to continue to journey with you as you embark on this project. Let’s continue having regular conversations over the course of your grant implementation. Please let me know if you require support in any way or would like to share your experiences with a wider community through the Let's Connect Programme or on South Asia Open Community Calls.

Regards, Jacqueline on behalf of SA Regional Funds Committee JChen (WMF) (talk) 08:33, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for Approving the Grant.

(1) Our First Task is to create a list of books to work which are not digitized in the on going efforts by community and verify the copyright status.

(2)We are incorporating a dedicated person as the coordinator to make sure the project will running smoothly. With out a dedicated coordinator we cant streamline the communication between library, other supporting organizations and community.

(3)(a)As part of the effort we planning to visit some rural libraries in kerala which we can find old books. and extracting the catalog and verify the status of copyright for to make the list of the book to digitized. To doing this work we need some expertise from library. (b)For Unseen Challenges like possibility of hiring scanner, computers (currently we expected to use community/voluntary)

(4)Thanks for the valuable suggestion. We will try to work towards creating slimier documentation and dedicated page for tracking the project, tasks and leanings. --Manojk (talk) 01:25, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Ping to respond to WMF Grants Administration Team

Hello @Manojk

Hope you are well. Sending a ping on behalf of the WMF Grants Administration team.

Disbursement of Funds

To facilitate the funds disbursement process, we seek your prompt response on Fluxx and via emails with the WMF Grants Administrator team (grantsadmin@wikimedia.org). We highly encourage you to submit all supporting documents and endorse the grant agreements within the stipulated time frame. When in doubt, proactively reach out to the WMF Grants Administration team and copy your programme officer.

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping. I was checking the portal to proceed the steps. May need some help to complete the process. i will try to contact via email. Manojk (talk) 18:23, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Grant end date extension - approved

Hello @Manojk,

Hope you are well. Thank you for reaching out and sharing about your project progress. The project end date has been extended to 31 May 2025 and the report is due one month after on 30 June 2025. The final report can be submitted on Fluxx. More details here - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Project/Rapid#How_to_submit_report

Thank you.

Regards, Jacqueline JChen (WMF) (talk) 03:44, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks @User:JChen (WMF)--Manojk (talk) 04:29, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

I am requesting an extension for the final report deadline. Due to unforeseen challenges, the completion is delayed, and I would appreciate a new deadline of November 12th. Thanks. Regards. Manojk (talk) 00:03, 31 October 2025 (UTC)