Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Annual plan of the Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge/Midpoint Report

Midterm Learning Report

Report Status: Accepted

Due date: 2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

Funding program: Wikimedia Community Fund

Report type: Midterm

Application Final Learning Report

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General information

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This form is for organizations receiving Wikimedia Community Funds (General Support) or Wikimedia Alliances Funds to report on their mid-term learning and results. See the Wikimedia Community Fund application if you want to review the initial proposal.

  • Name of Organization: The Centre for Internet and Society
  • Title of Proposal: Annual plan of the Centre for Internet and Society Access to Knowledge
  • Amount awarded: 131379.05 USD, 9915400 INR
  • Amount spent: 3227492.85 INR

Part 1 Understanding your work

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1. Briefly describe how your strategies and activities proposed were implemented and if any changes to what was proposed are worth highlighting?

Partnerships were developed to explore the rare and valuable resources at Hyderabad based organisations - 100 year old Marathi Granth Sangrahalay and 70 year old Marathi Sahitya Parishad (MSP). The relicensing process of more than 100 publications and manuscripts (around 100,00 pages) is started. After the digitization project of 100 year old O Bharat newspaper in Goa, the partnerships are being developed with Konkani language literary institutions, publishers and authors to boost the process of relicensing and digitisation. As a result, the first set of 20 books by Ravindra kelekar was relicensed and uploaded in Category on Wikimedia Commons.

Two new GLAM projects were launched with institutional partners in Aurangabad. Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Research and Training Organisation is involved in building archive on Sayajirao Gaekwad's life achievements and the valuable reference publications facilitated by him during 1870 to 1939. The first batch of 60 books in this archive was relicensed and uploaded. Similar project started with Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada Institute Of Socio-Economic Research & National Integration which holds a valuable archive on Hyderabad Freedom Struggle. Digitisation program achieved scanning and uploading of total 297 books (678,95 pages) by three partners. Relicensing program is expanding in this year as well. Total 149 works were released by 10 copyright holders and 2 organisations.

We conducted 4th iteration of National Wikisource proofread-a-thon in which 12 language communities participated to proofread 226,88 pages. The skill building workshop was organised for Gujarati community. As part of the content enrichment program, Improve-a-thon was organised at national level. In this event, 31 members from 7 communities participated to improve 94 articles. General support for internet and events was provided to 4 individuals and 3 groups.

2. Were there any strategies or approaches that you feel are being effective in achieving your goals?

Our strategy to organise consistent activities and regular reviews for improvement has developed sustainable relationships with the institutions. Hence, some organisations are engaged in content enrichment for more than 2-3 years and further willing to explore innovative projects like Wikibase or Lingua Libre.

The digitisation process of public domain books is to be designed systematically from the beginning. The preparation of a database of authors and their works is must to resolve the copyright issues. Also, there is a need to network with old repositories holding valuable content as well as other institutions involved in similar digitisation work to avoid the unnecessary repetition. This outreach also creates a common platform for cross-learning and sharing of content ready for uploading. We have taken this approach for Marathi language, which proved to be effective. The relicensing of valuable content is a difficult task which needs patience, constant follow-up and transparency. The process with organisations is more critical as it involves consensus of governing members and resolutions. We have developed comprehensive awareness material to satisfy all the queries with concrete, successful case studies. We focus on the influential leaders in different sectors to convince the copyright holders. This strategy has given good results and is being replicated. The periodic national events like proofread-a-thon provides an opportunity for various language communities to share the experiences with each other, peer learning and extensive discussions on the processes and policies. The online meetings before the events are proving to be productive for improving the processes.

To support the community groups, an Indian Community Capacity Development program has been initiated. In the first phase, we reached out to four groups to start the discussions. Total four language groups have taken initiative to organise local events on their own as part of the national events.

3. What challenges or obstacles have you encountered so far?

 
Sorting of rare and public domain books in Marathi Granth Sangrahalay, Hyderabad

The GLAM project with RIWATCH in Arunachal Pradesh could not be continued due to adverse climatic conditions and frequent power and internet shutdowns. The Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) program at Tarun Bharat Sangh in Rajasthan could not take off as suitable candidates from urban background are not willing to stay in this remote region. Hence, we have identified potential local candidates who are willing to develop themselves as Wikimedians. The program will be launched in the second half. The digitisation of public domain books in various Indian languages is a gigantic task. It needs a wider strategy and resources. We have established some structures for the Marathi language through consistent efforts for the last 4 years. We plan to expand digitisation programs in various states with community engagement. We need support from the Foundation and movement to address these challenges. We are consistently promoting the relicensing program over the last 4 years. The organisational process for relicensing is a bit tedious as it involves resolutions by trustees and several sittings to convince all of them to arrive at consensus. The relicensing efforts at many institutions or individuals were not successful, as they insist for non-commercial and non-derivative license. There is a potential to get more content if we could develop some alternatives such as the NC Commons project by WikiProjectMed. We faced a lot of challenges while coordinating with 12 language communities during the Wikisource proofread-a-thon. Every community has unique issues regarding the rules, selection of books, reviewer & admin actions, quality issues etc. The Wikisource contest tool needs improvement for updating the stats regularly. We wish to collaborate with the tech team of Foundation to resolve the issues.

4. Please describe how different communities are participating and being informed about your work.

 
Digitisation skill training at Lek Ladki Abhiyan, Satara
 
Participants of Wikisource skill building workshop

The newsletters explaining the activities are published and shared regularly with the communities on mailing lists and village pumps of all the projects. The reports on GLAM projects were published in the September and December 2022 GLAM newsletters.

 
Relicensed book

CIS-A2K representative discussed the possibilities for collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland members in the recent Wikimedia Summit. CIS-A2K had detailed meetings with Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir library and Tarun Bharat Sangh trustees about the proposed Wikibase pilot projects. The format for preparing the structured data of authors and their works for Marathi language was finalised. The library has initiated the metadata activity. The database of all these books with keywords, tags etc. will be prepared. Tarun Bharat Sangh has started organising database of all rivers across India. Both the projects are being discussed with WMDE to shape up the proposal. Similar collaboration is being developed with Wikimedia France to expand the Lingua Libre projects for documentation of endangered languages in India. We have conducted two online meetings before the events to invite the ideas, communicate the process and increase the sharing among various communities. We also notified communities via A2K’s social media channels as well. Around 13 social media posts were published to engage the Wikimedians.

 
After the event under Filmi datathon, the Marathi songs increased significantly in numbers on Wikidata

5. Please share reflections on how your efforts are helping to engage participants and/or build content, particularly for underrepresented groups.

The knowledge about the north-east region of India is underrepresented on Wikimedia projects and the internet as well. The first project with RIWATCH in Arunachal Pradesh has influenced organisations and Government agencies in other states. The local indigenous tribal organisations and a 100 year old institution from Meghalaya approached us to develop a GLAM project about heritage and culture. We organised several meetings and Wikimedia sessions for these stakeholders to develop a pilot project in collaboration with NECTAR, an agency for knowledge and technology dissemination in this underrepresented region. This project is partly funded by NECTAR. The similar experiences were with archives of some of the underrepresented histories like Goa and Hyderabad Liberation struggles. We patiently pursued the proposals and finally after 6 months, the repository holders agreed to donate the content under free license on Wiki projects. The limited awareness about the Wiki projects and some misconceptions about the editing process on Wikipedia poses a lot of challenges in the initial conversations.

We are partnering with the groups having knowledge repositories but are underrepresented. After a few successful projects, the organisations are coming forward to understand the free knowledge platforms and taking initiatives to organise capacity building programs. The concept of developing a wing for free knowledge creation in every organisation is getting positive response gradually.

6. In your application, you outlined your learning priorities. What have you learned so far about these areas during this period?

  • Sustainability – We reached out to FCRA experts and explored ways to support communities in the grant process. The guidelines about the support process are almost finalised after extensive study and discussions.
  • Wikimedian in Residence – The appropriate candidates are not interested in working part time with less remunerations. They are not interested in joining the organisations in rural and remote areas.
  • Post-pandemic event organising and collaboration – The schedules of the academic institutions are totally disturbed due to pandemic. The institutions are struggling to regularise the timings of coursework, project submissions and examinations. Hence, they could not collaborate with us in the first half. Some of the potential partners have shown keen interest in launching the activities in the second half.
  • Partnerships and synergy - Over the years, some partnerships have imbibed the concept of contributing free knowledge to Wikimedia projects. These organisations can become the hubs for advocacy and capacity building to expand the programs in other regions. We are evolving the idea of conducting partnerships clinics with these organisations in the second half.

7. What are the next steps and opportunities you’ll be focusing on for the second half of your work?

Major activities planned -
  • Launching of the GLAM project in partnership with local organisations in Meghalaya
  • Digitisation & relicensing partnerships in two more states
  • Thematic content enrichment – history, water, birds
  • WiR programs in environmental institutions
  • Wikibase pilot project with one institution
  • Two photowalks and two Women History Month events
  • Two meetings for Community capacity development
  • One national Wikisource event and four skill building workshops

Part 2: Metrics

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8a. Open and additional metrics data.

Open Metrics
Open Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants in Wikisource proofread-a-thon Total number of participants in Wikisource proofread-a-thon (count of participants in proofread-a-thon events) 150 113 Participants from 12 Indian language communities participated. Contest tool - [1]
Total number of language communities served Total number of language communities served. For example if A2K supports Assamese, Marathi community and conducts/supports to conduct an event for them, the count will be two. However, individual participation will not be counted in the community metric. To clarify, if six Wikimedians from six language communities participate in an skill-development event, that would not be counted in this metric. Community here means existing Wikimedia community. 6 7 A2K supported Gujarati, Tulu, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Santali and Urdu language communities A2K supported community groups to conduct various events or execute their projects and also organised skill building events.
Total number of supports provided on the request page Total number of supports provided on the request page. This includes both individual and group support. This does not include internet support requests. We are not counting internet support, because we get many internet support request in a year, and counting that count would not help in the metric. 12 5 A2K has introduced clear policies for various supports from this program year. The individuals or community groups can submit the requests for Internet support, IT allowance, Community events or projects and Project-specific IT allowance. We provided technical and financial support to the community led events and projects submitted on the request page.
Total number of geographical footprints Unique footprints across India. Events organised in cities/towns in different regions in India. This will be city/town level. If multiple events are organised in Pune, it will be counted once only. The metric will be reported both as a number and data visualisation (map). 10 11 Events were organised in 5 states of India. The cities/towns include - Ahmedabad, Pune, Pabal, Kolhapur, Sangli, Satara, Aurangabad, Belagavi, Panaji, Madgaon, Hyderabad The details of the events are given on the monthly events section on CIS-A2K meta page.
Total number of blog posts Total number of blog posts published on Diff sharing learning etc. This does not include event announcement. 10 N/A Two blogs were published in the newsletters on GLAM-WIKI. The sharing with like-minded partners has opened new doors for future collaborations. Published on Wikimedia Outreach website.
Additional Metrics
Additional Metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of editors that continue to participate/retained after activities Retention after 7 days of an event (as suggested on the guide) 280 125 We are regularly communicating with the active Wikimedians to engage them in various activities from time to time. Average number of active editors who participate in the activities. We are manually tracking these members.
Number of organizers that continue to participate/retained after activities Number of organisers active on Wikimedia and continue to collaborate after activities 30 12 The organisers include community members, partners, institutional members etc. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of strategic partnerships that contribute to longer term growth, diversity and sustainability Partnerships with like-minded institutions 8 6 Sayajirao Archive, Nayakwadi Trust, Konkani language institutions, Hyderabad libraries, SRT research institute, Meghalaya partners Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Feedback from participants on effective strategies for attracting and retaining contributors Total number of unique feedback collected on different program N/A N/A N/A N/A
Diversity of participants brought in by grantees N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A
Number of people reached through social media publications Number of digital footprints on social media posts, as per their analytics 4000 1300 A2K Facebook channel visitors N/A
Number of activities developed Number of events, programs, activities conducted 20 8 The Wikimedia workshops with organisations and communities were held. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of volunteer hours N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

8b. Additional core metrics data.

Core Metrics Summary
Core metrics Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Number of participants Total number of participants— New participants + returning participants in different programs. The count will be unique in a program event. For example if User:Example attends two events in a program year, the count will be one. 2000 219 The events with the educational institutions could not be held due to disturbed academic schedules. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of editors Number of editors with a Wikimedia account, and at least five edits. This does not include partners, content donors, institution faculty who may not edit directly. We'll get this metric using tools like Outreach Dashboard, event metrics etc. 1000 180 The Wikimedians engaged in edit-a-thons, proofread-a-thons, skill building workshops and digitisation programs. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of organizers Number of trainers + number of institutional lead (such as professor, museum curator) who are directly getting involved in project planning and execution. This does not include the count of CIS-A2K team member. 52 30 The partner organisations and GLAM institutions are constantly involved in the implementation of the programs. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Number of new content contributions per Wikimedia project
Wikimedia Project Description Target Results Comments Methodology
Wikimedia Commons Number of images uploaded 1000 419 Books uploaded in language-wise categories on Commons. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Wikisource Total number of pages proofread in the proofread-a-thon events. A few communities prefer not to score or count "number of validated pages", similarly we are mentioning only proofread pages. Necessary attempts will be made to ensure quality proofreading. 10000 22688 The participants from the proofread-a-thon events. Wikisource contest tool.
Wikisource Number of books relicensed + Number of books scanned and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons (200+350) 550 419 The digitised books include 270 public domain books and 149 relicensed books. Tracked manually from the event documentation and categories on Wikimedia Commons.
Wikipedia Number of Wikipedia articles (in Indian language) created or improved. 1000 115 Content enrichment events. Tracked manually from the event documentation.
Wikidata Number of edits during events, or as a result of collaboration with partners. A label, description edit/addition or data edit/addition will be counted as one edit, as per Wikidata log. Relevant noticeboards such as WikiProject India will be informed about the initiatives. 18000 750 Contribution from Marathi community event under Filmi datathon. Tracked manually from the event documentation.

9. Are you having any difficulties collecting data to measure your results?

No.

10. Are you collaborating and sharing learning with Wikimedia affiliates or community members?

Yes

10a. Please describe how you have already shared them and if you would like to do more sharing, and if so how?

We are regularly sharing experiences and learning with different communities on mailing lists. We are collaborating with West Bengal Wikimedians User Group to implement the projects in North-East region of India. We are developing partnership with Wikimedia Deutschland to launch Wikibase pilot projects. We are also in discussion with Wikimedia France to expand the Lingua Libre projects for documentation of endangered languages in India. We are planning to create resource material to share the learning more effectively in the second half.

11. Documentation of your work process, story, and impact.

  • Below there is a section to upload files, videos, sound files, images (photos and infographics, e.g. communications materials, blog posts, compelling quotes, social media posts, etc.). This can be anything that would be useful to understand and show your learning and results to date (e.g., training material, dashboards, presentations, communications material, training material, etc).
  • Below is an additional field to type in link URLs.

Part 3: Financial reporting and compliance

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12. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.

3227492.85

13. Local currency type

INR

14. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.

  • Upload Documents, Templates, and Files.
  • Provide links to your financial reporting documents.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13y6Bb80PU3DIyt58wX_ALvbUYTyCz6lV/edit#gid=910847911

15. Based on your implementation and learning to date, do you have any plans to make changes to the budget spending?

Yes

15a. Please provide an explanation on how you hope to adjust this.

As we are expanding the digitisation program in second half, we need to increase the budget from INR 4 lakhs to INR 6 lakhs. We request you to allocate INR 1 lakh from Skill and capacity building initiatives budget head and INR 1 lakh from Staff Travel and Stay budget head on Digitisation budget head.

16. We’d love to hear any thoughts you have on how the experience of being a grantee has been so far.

The South Asia regional learning session organised by CR team in October 2022 was thought provoking and nice learning experience for us. Such sharing sessions are needed to bring cohesiveness among the grantees and develop healthy relationships with the foundation. They can also create scope for global collaborations. We request the Foundation to conduct quarterly online meet-ups for grantees to increase the peer learning in the movement.