Sawtpedia in the Igbo Wikimedia Community

HOW IT STARTED

On 12th October 2023, Wilson initiated a call for volunteers to implement Sawtpedia project on the Igbo Wikipedia after reading the SAWTPEDIA article posted on Diff by Yamen Bousrih. Responding to this call, a dedicated team comprising Wilson, Hilary, Charles, Paschaline, Chisom, and Chidera was formed (more people volunteered but had some practical challenge with availability).

Our collaborative efforts culminated in a series of four significant meetings held between mid October (19th) and end of November (23rd).

During these meetings, we brain stormed, planned and achieved several key milestones:

INSIGHTFUL MEETING WITH YAMEN

Hilary, Paschaline and Charles sought for, secured and attended a meeting with Yamen Bousrih (The brain behind Sawtpedia on the English Wikipedia). According to Yamen Bousrih, Sawtpedia is a generated QR code for a Wikipedia article (could be related to a monument, a museum collection etc..) that once scanned by a mobile device allows the user to listen to the Wikipedia page (if available) in the mobile phone's language.

Deployed at toolforge.org, Sawtpedia generates a QRCode related to a Wikipedia article that once scanned will fetch the Wikidata item for that article and then open, if available, the audio file from Commons for the Wikipedia article in the mobile device's language using the Wikidata property "P989 spoken text audio". If the audio recording does not exist on Commons, Sawtpedia will try to generate an audio from the lead of the Wikipedia article in the user language using gTTS Text-to-Speech System.

The audio can be recorded by human voice and be attached to wikidata item using the following steps:

1. Record the articles using your phone or any recording device.
2. Convert the recorded file to ogg.
3. Upload ogg to commons.
4. Update the wikidata item using the “P989” spoken text audio (don’t forget to add a property of the language, see this example )
5. Go to sawtpedia and generate QR code.
6. Download the QR code as an image.
7. Print and place where it can be scanned and read.

Pros: Sawtpedia can handle many languages and if there is no recording it will trigger a test to speech.

Cons: For the moment it's based on your phone language which means if your phone is in english, you will listen to the english version, if your phone language is french, you will listen in french. Work is going on in the background to provide options of reading in languages other than the phone language. That is sawtpedia will suggest to you to select a language audio you will like to listen to.

Alternative to sawtpedia

Since sawtpedia is not available in Igbo, we can use a standard QR code linked to an audio file on commons: You can use tool like adobe express to generate the QR code that is linked to an ogg file on commmons but in this case it will be in one language, that is the language it was recorded.

Steps

1. Record the articles using your phone or any recording device.
2. Convert the recorded file to ogg.
3. Upload ogg to commons.
4. Use a free website to generate QR code using the link to the ogg file on commons.
5. Download the QR code as an image.
6. Print and place where it can be scanned and read.

Delving into the workings of Sawtpedia, his guidance proved invaluable as he directed us on how to implement it effectively within the Igbo Wikipedia framework. Charles investigated and discovered that the backbone technology of Text-to-Speech is currently unavailable in Igbo language so we opted for the option of creating the audio record files.

ARTICLES ENRICHMENT PROCESS

Paschaline, Chisom and Chidera meticulously generated sample list of short articles to be worked on. Akwugo played a pivotal role in recording these articles. The audio recordings were then converted to .ogg format and uploaded on Commons.

INTEGRATION ON IGBO WIKIPEDIA

To enhance the user experience, Wilson successfully linked the recorded files to their respective Igbo Wikipedia articles using the Audio template. This integration allows users to access both written and audio content seamlessly.

ENHANCED ACCESSIBILITIES WITH QR CODES

With accessibility and knowledge innovation being the major focus, Hilary created QR codes for each article. These QR codes, when scanned, provide a direct link to the associated article, thus enriching the user experience.

CALL TO ACTION

Beatrice Utondu

Ruth Ogbeifo

Attached are QR codes representing the articles we've enriched. The articles Beatrice Utondu and Ruth Ogbeifo. We invite you to scan, Listen to the audio content, and share your valuable feedback on the discussion. Your insights will contribute to the ongoing success of implementing Sawtpedia in our fast growing Igbo Wikipedia community.