IIITH-OKI/Advance Train The Trainer 2025/Expression of Interest/Submitted/Stalinjeet Brar

Basic Information

Wikimedia Username

Stalinjeet Brar

Wikimedia Project(s) you primarily contribute to

Pa.wikipedia.org
pa.wiktionary.org
www.wikidata.org
commons.wikimedia.org

Active in Wikimedia since (Year)

2014

Your Affiliate or Community Group (if any):

Punjabi Wikimedians

Languages you work with (on-wiki or off-wiki):

Punjabi

Have you participated in any Train the Trainer or similar Wikimedia training before? If yes, please mention the name of the event along with the year in which you participated

Are you currently involved in any leadership, facilitation, or mentoring roles within the Wikimedia movement? If yes, briefly describe the imitative and your involvement in it

I'm an active contributor to Wikimedia projects and I'm scanning books for Punjabi Wikisource regularly. I have been an editor on Wiki projects for the last 11 years and I'm also an Administrator on Punjabi Wikipedia.

Another important thing that I would like to mention is that the topic of my PhD research was 'Comparative study of Punjabi Wikipedia and Punjabipedia in the context of knowledge management'. I am the first person to bring Wikipedia in Punjabi language into the academic research field. Apart from this, I have published more than five research papers in Punjabi research refereed journals based on articles from Punjabi Wikipedia.

Apart from this, the research topic of my research papers is the current status of open knowledge in Punjabi, participation of women in knowledge production on the internet, knowledge of minorities, knowledge of third generation, knowledge of backward areas on the internet etc.A video of my research paper presented at Punjabi University, Patiala (Punjab) regarding this research can be viewed.[1]

Track Preference

Your preferred track during the workshop

Track 1: Evaluation, Impact, and Data Storytelling
Track 2: Project Design Challenge – From Learning to Action
- Track 1: Evaluation, Impact, and Data Storytelling

Which track are you most interested in and why?

- Track 1: Evaluation, Impact, and Data Storytelling

Anyway, both tracks are important, both cannot be seen as less than each other. But according to the rules, only one track has to be chosen, so I have chosen track one. The reason for that is as follows.

I have also actively worked in the leadership team of Punjabi Wikipedia and have also contributed to knowledge production. But now my focus is on researching the knowledge content available on the internet. I have also written many research papers in this regard. Track one can help me in my research work. I want to make people aware about open knowledge through my research work and with the help of Wikipedia. Evaluation, Impact, and Data Storytelling, will help me evaluate the knowledge content available on Wikipedia and tell its impact. I hope to learn a lot from Data Storytelling to take my point to the people.

Tell us about one Wikimedia program, campaign, or initiative you’ve contributed to in a leadership role

I have leading many activities of Punjabi Wikimedians User Group like organizing Punjab Edit-a-thon 2016 during WikiConference India 2016. During the last one year I engaged in many diverse activities. This included organizing Strategy Meetup in Patiala [2] and two different workshops in Punjabi University, Patiala.[3] I, along with other Punjabi Wikimedians, went to a book fair and increased awareness about Wikimedia Projects. [4] I also embarked on an expedition to document remote regions of Punjab including pictures of International boundary markers which have been documented for the first time on Commons. [5] Being a leading member of the User Group, I have been working to draft the Annual Work Report which is available here [6] As a result of my activities, pageviews on Punjabi Wikipedia increased massively, especially when we did outreach at Faridkot Book Fair. Here is a link to the the siteviews of pa.wiki for the year 2017 [7] This indicates massive growth in the month of September 2017.By organizing Strategy Meetup in Patiala, Punjabi Wikimedians contributed in a great deal to the overall worldwide Wikimedia Movement Strategy 2030. The Meetup also helped us to form better relationship with the Punjabi University, Patiala. During my expedition to remote areas of Punjab, I was able to discover User:Jagmeet Singh Brar who has been created good quality on Punjabi Wikipedia since then and has over 45000 edits on pa wiki. [8] By organizing the first ever Wikipedia workshop in Kotakapura in January 2016 [9], I kickstarted work of the community in remote regions of Punjab.As far as collaborations are concerned, I am most proud of Punjab edit-a-thon which motivated Indian communities to write about Punjab in July 2016.[10] While organizing WikiConference India 2016 which was happening in India after a gap of 5 years, we kickstarted the Indian community where I was a part of two teams under the Organizing Committee. [11] I and other Wikimedians collaborated to improve Punjabi Wiktionary. This included adding new words as well as their pronunciations [12] I have been working along with other group members to document other forms of knowledge that are currently missing from the movement. This includes popular folklore of Punjab as well as interviews with Punjabi authors and celebrities. Here are some links of our work: [13], [14], [15]

At the beginning of 2018, I purposed the Punjabi Wikisource Grant and started working for Punjabi Wikisource. [16] Earlier, there was not much work on Punjabi Wikisource. With the help of this grant, we have been able to work a lot for Punjabi Wikisource, with which our project is in a good position.

Apart from this, the Guerilla GLAM was my wonderful work. In this, I stole books from Punjabi University's library and upload to the Wikimedia Commons. I uploaded those books which are in Public Domain. I/We have still uploaded 7 books by this kind of work. This is going to be very beneficial for Research scholars who have to physically go the library every day to access these books. Although, Punjabi Wikisource is still in its infancy but with projects like this, we will soon be able to reach a wide Punjabi audience especially Punjabi diaspora. We found some manuscripts and had a hard time to figure out the year of publication to ensure that they are Public Domain. [17]

I have been started the GLAM project with the collaboration of Punjabi Wikimedians and Punjabi Sahitya Akademi. The project was started by me and till now I have uploaded most of the books. [18] Working on Punjabi Wikisource, I have uploaded nearly 53 books on Wikimedia Commons. [19] In addition, I participated in the GLAM conference in Tel Aviv (Israel) and I joined the panel discussion entitled the State of Wikisource, and I shared my learnings with the entire GLAM community. [20]

The above-mentioned work was related to Punjabi Wikisource. In addition to this, I have organized WikiLoves Monuments 2018 in India in collaboration with Punjabi Wikimedians and West Bengal Wikimedians. We got 14,694 photos by this event. [21] In addition, I am the local coordinator of the Punjabi community in SVG Translation Campaign 2019 in India. The Punjabi community is taking part in this event. [22]

Most of the activities of Punjabi Wikimedians were done in the Patiala area of Punjab. This year, a stall of Punjabi Wikimedians was imposed at Bathinda, in the People's Literature Festival by me/us. We give information about Wikipedia, Punjabi Wikisource, and Commons to the incoming people. From this Literature Festival, we got photos of about 10 Punjabi authors. [23] In addition, with the help of some of the Punjabi Wikimedians, the photos of villages surrounding Patiala were clicked and uploaded to the Commons and Punjabi Wikipedia articles. [24]

I have participated in Project Tiger Editathon and organized offline events related to this Editathon in Patiala. [25]

I took part in Proofreading events related to Punjabi Wikisource. [26] [27]

I have completed 100Wikidays challenge on Wikidata.[28]

A project has been started to develop the Wikidata entries of the religious places of Punjab. In which I am participating actively.[29]

The Punjabi community made a video for promotion of Wikipedia on social media. I was part of the making team and I gave voice to this video.[30]

What skills or knowledge do you hope to gain from this training?

My goal is to gain advanced skills in program evaluation, impact measurement, and data storytelling. These skills will help me to elaborate on my open knowledge research and the Wiki movement to fellow Wikipedians.Specifically, I want to learn practical ways to track long-term engagement, assess qualitative impact, and present results in ways that resonate with both community members and external stakeholders.

Based on your selected track, what is one challenge you have encountered in either evaluating Wikimedia programs or designing impactful projects? Please share your experience relevant to your chosen track.

When I had to write my research papers or tell other academics about open knowledge, I had problems evaluating the available data or telling that data to people.

For example, how many articles on Punjab Wikipedia are related to women? How many of them are women related to Punjab? What is the standard of knowledge in articles related to women? Which areas have not yet been written about women? How to deal with such questions. How to tell these problems of knowledge gap on Wikipedia to people and to the people of our Wiki community.

There are other examples like which authors have not yet been written about articles on Punjabi Wikipedia or which authors do not yet have photos in their articles, how to evaluate them. How to tell our community about this?

Apart from this, how to get books from authors for open knowledge i.e. Wikisource. Telling authors about Wiki projects or other open knowledge resources, along with information on how to obtain books from them under open licenses.

These are just a few examples of the challenges that have been faced.

How do you plan to apply what you learn after the event?

This training is very important for me. It will play a role in strengthening my research work on open knowledge as well as the Punjabi Wiki community. At the community level, I will try to share the knowledge learned in this training with my Punjabi Wiki community. I will be able to express my views on the Wiki movement and open knowledge in the Punjabi academic world with more maturity.

(Optional) Are you open to mentorship (either receiving or offering it)?

I am open to furthering my knowledge and would love to share my learnings with my wiki colleagues.