Talk:Community Resources and Partnerships/India Rapid Project/Digitization and Advance Assamese Wikisource Workshop

Follow up on your application

Dear @-chanakyakdas,

Hope you are well. Thank you for applying for India rapid project. Before reaching a final decision, we have below clarifying questions

1. How do you plan to ensure sustained engagement of participants after the workshop? Do you have any plans on post workshop mentorship, or structured follow-up activities?

2. Beyond participant numbers, what concrete output targets (digitized books, proofread pages, re-licensed works) do you aim to achieve, and how will you track progress?

3. From the mentioned 15,000 Wikisource pages target, could you clarify how many of these are expected to be proofread and validated during the project, versus just uploaded or OCR-processed

4. What strategies will you use to address possible risks, such as copyright challenges, technical barriers, or low community participation?

5. Travel (Kolkata-Guwahati to and fro + local travels at Guwahati for the 2 resource persons) is unclear. Could you clarify? What is the role of these resources?

6. Is it possible to get the conference hall as in-kind donation from a local partner institution rather than the paid?

7. Why there is a component of Institutional partner Fees and forex exchange in the budget? Is it for the partner institution? Please clarify.

8. Could you please share the breakdown of budget line item “Prizes and awards” (how many prizes, cost etc) and “Scanning and uploading with food for 6 months” (what is the cost per page? How many meals and at what cost?)?

Looking forward to your response by 2nd Oct, 2025. Thanks PDas (WMF) (talk) 18:00, 25 September 2025 (UTC)

Hello @PDas (WMF), Thank you for your message and for reviewing our proposal. We are happy to provide the following clarifications.

1. To ensure long-term engagement after the workshop, we will organize two follow-up proofread-a-thons for practical application, maintain a dedicated support chat group for quick help, and provide proactive mentorship, possibly one-to-one to keep participants active and supported.

2. Our primary objective is to secure and digitize a collection of 100 rare books. From this digitized content, we have set a definitive target to upload and meticulously proofread 15,000 pages on Assamese Wikisource. We will diligently track our progress toward this goal using native wiki tools, such as dedicated project categories and page validation indexes, to maintain transparency and measure our impact.

3. Regarding the 15,000-page target for Wikisource, our goal is unequivocal: every single page must be fully proofread. To achieve this, we have a structured two-phase approach.

Phase 1: Focused Proofread-a-thons

• The project will launch with a 15-day online proofread-a-thon. The initial goal for this event is to fully proofread 30 books from the GLAM collection, totaling approximately 6,000 pages (30 x 200 pages).
• A second proofread-a-thon will be conducted after an additional 40 books have been uploaded.

Phase 2: Sustained Community Proofreading

• In the months to come, our community will focus on proofreading the remaining pages as much as possible from the final 30 books.

Our goal is to proofread at least 12,000 pages in the proofread-a-thon, and then maintain momentum to tackle the remainder.

4. To proactively manage project risks, we have implemented targeted strategies. Regarding copyright, we have preemptively mitigated any potential issues by exclusively selecting books that are verified to be copyright-free, ensuring a smooth and legally compliant digitization process. To overcome technical barriers, we are holding an Advanced Wikisource Workshop focused on building practical skills and will maintain a dedicated support chat where participants can get immediate help from our technical lead and experienced community members. Finally, to prevent low community participation, we are using a multi-pronged approach: we will kickstart contributions with a focused 15-day proofread-a-thon, a following proofread-a-thon and sustain long-term engagement.

5. The travel costs cover round-trip and local transport for two expert resource persons we are inviting from other communities (one from Bengali Wikisource). Though our community has benefited from a past skill-building session conducted by CIS-A2K in 2022, our community has not had a workshop since the initial session, leading to a decline in active, experienced contributors. This mentorship is essential to fill that gap.

Their primary roles are to provide hands-on technical guidance for complex proofreading challenges and serve as motivators for our participants. By having these experienced contributors on-site, we not only solve technical issues instantly but also inspire our local community through their expertise and enthusiasm, boosting both the skills and morale of our editors. This will further inspire to achieve more engagement in cross-community collaborations.

6. Regarding the conference hall, we have explored the possibility of securing it as an in-kind donation from a local partner institution. Unfortunately, based on our initial inquiries, this is not a feasible option for this specific event and location.

However, we are confident in our ability to manage these costs effectively. Drawing on our experience from a previous workshop where we successfully secured a suitable venue for Rs. 50,000, we will negotiate diligently to book a conference hall this time also within or even below this budget for the current event.

7. We want to clarify that the total amount we are requesting from the project is ₹266,400 INR. This requested amount has already been calculated separately and does not include the fee for the institutional partner. We have excluded their fee from our funding request to ensure the project solely covers the direct costs of our community activities.

8. Detailed Breakdown of Prizes and Awards (For Proofread-a-thon) (Total: ₹20,000 INR)

1. FIRST Proofread-a-thon Awards (₹10,000 INR)

This is for the intensive 15-day competition to kickstart the project.

• 1st Prize: ₹3,000.00
• 2nd Prize: ₹2,000.00
• 3rd Prize: ₹1,000.00
• Consolation Prizes (x3): ₹500.00 each = ₹1,500.00
• Judges' Honorarium (x2): ₹1,000.00 each = ₹2,000.00
• Certificates for all participants = ₹500.00

2. SECOND Proofread-a-thon Awards (₹10,000 INR)

This is for the second competition of the project.

• 1st Prize: ₹3,000.00
• 2nd Prize: ₹2,000.00
• 3rd Prize: ₹1,000.00
• Consolation Prizes (x3): ₹500.00 each = ₹1,500.00
• Judges' Honorarium (x2): ₹1,000.00 each = ₹2,000.00
• Certificates for all participants = ₹500.00

Total = ₹10,000 + ₹10,000 = ₹20,000 INR

Breakdown of Prizes and Awards (For Workshop) (Total: ₹7,200 INR)

• Swag for Participants & Resource Persons: This covers promotional items like notebooks, pens, bags, or stickers for all workshop attendees and the two invited experts to encourage participation and create a sense of community.

Grand Total = ₹20,000.00 + ₹7,200 = ₹27,200 INR

Stipend for Scanning, Uploading, and Food (6 Months Total: ₹100,800 INR)

A total amount of ₹100,800 INR is allocated as stipends to support the digitization process, which includes scanning, processing, uploading, basic refreshments, and local travel.

This amount will be provided as stipends to three project assistants, each receiving ₹5,600 per month for six months, as follows:

₹5,600 × 6 months × 3 persons = ₹100,800 INR

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Please feel free to reach out if you require any further information. We believe your guidance would be invaluable to the project's success, and we welcome any insights or suggestions you may have throughout the process.

Best regards,
-chanakyakdas (talk) 06:23, 30 September 2025 (UTC)

Your Project Application is Approved

Dear @-chanakyakdas,

We appreciate your effort in responding to the questions. We have completed the review of the application and I am pleased to inform you that your project application is approved for ₹270,200.

Kindly reflect the budgetary split shared on the discussion page in the budget sheet as well. Please make sure to document all of your achievements and learning in the final report for review and others to learn from. Looking forward to seeing impactful outcome in this project. Wishing you all the best!

Thanks ~2025-28986-65 (talk) 07:46, 18 October 2025 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for the approval! Budget sheet updated as per the discussed split. Will document outcomes and learnings in the final report.

Regards, -chanakyakdas (talk) 10:34, 18 October 2025 (UTC)