விக்கிமூலம் பேச்சு:கல்வியில் விக்கிப்பீடியா/கிறித்து பல்கலைக்கழகம்
Christ University UG students typing at Tamil Wikisource, A CIS-A2K project
தொகுவணக்கம்
First of all sorry for typing in English, as of now I could better communicate in English than Tamil, so I am using English here. Apologies for that. I am Rahmanuddin Shaik, Program Officer at CIS's A2K program and I anchor Telugu language work plan. I have been working with Wikipedia for last 10 years, and I am a sysop at Telugu Wikipedia and Telugu Wikisource. CIS-A2K is organizing a program called "Wikipedia in UG language classroom" at Christ University. As part of this, about 30 students with Tamil as their second language would take up Wikipedia, and Wikisource in the course of their second language curriculum. As most of you might be aware, we started with this program last year from November 2013 to January 2014. This prgram was done with the help of Sundar. We are thankful to him and Tamil community for all the support we got. During the valedictory of the program, we got feedback from the faculty and students that they liked the program and wanted it to be continued at Christ University. Students also said that there are difficulties with typing and that the pace of the program was too fast for students to follow. If the duration of the program be slowed down, then more students could follow. Also such short duration may not allow students to understand Wikipedia platform, policies and community interactions. So, based on faculty feedback, the program is redesigned. According to new program, Students would first learn to type in Tamil, with Wikisource as the platform, In the first semester, they would type 1 page each, in the second semester, they would type 4 pages. Third semester, they would be trained enough to write an article, they would write an article of their area of interest under the guidance of their faculty in their respective sandboxes. Finally, in the fourth semester, they would, under the guidance of their faculty, come up with a non-existent article in the area of their study. So, I request all the Tamil Wikipedia community members to extend their support in Welcoming the new wikipedians coming on board. Help them and mentor them online to groom them into good Wikipedians. --రహ్మానుద్దీన్ (பேச்சு) 04:06, 26 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
- Hi Rahim, thanks for bringing this on wiki. Based on your explanation, this 2 year program will have an output of (30*5) pages of text in Wikisource and 30 articles in Tamil Wikipedia. May I know the cost split for this from the total budget allocated for Christ University partnership? Once we know this detail, we can discuss further. P.S. Could you please mention your Wiki username that you use for contributing for the last 10 years?--இரவி (பேச்சு) 14:33, 26 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
- Hi Ravi, there is no specific budget allocated for the Christ University Partnership. It is mostly the Program Personnel and Volunteer time, currently. We also do not anticipate to incur any major expenditure in the future for the Christ University program, other than the A2K Program Personnel time and volunteers' time. It is difficult for us to clearly indicate how much time the A2K staff has spent on Tamil exactly, as we are working on multiple languages (i.e. Kannada, Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu in addition Tamil) simultaneously. As a rough estimate one could say probably 10 days of a Program Officer's time at CIS-A2K might go for Tamil in a semester or probably even less. Also our intention is that we train the Christ University faculty and students by the end of two years, such that this program will continue to sustain beyond CIS-A2K support. For instance, some of the last batch of students whom we worked with are already coming forward to help in training their juniors. Let's hope that this trend will continue and there will be a larger multi-lingual Wikimedian community at Christ University. Let me know if you have any further questions and any useful suggestions on who we could collectively do this better.--రహ్మానుద్దీన్ (பேச்சு) 06:26, 27 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
Today I had a one on one discussion with Sundar. And it proved to be very motivating for me. I thank Sundar for helping me out with the quiz and typing assignment. As I have already mentioned above, for this semester, the students would be typing in one page each. The work chosen for this is 1911 published book முல்லைப் பாட்டு. The students would start typing soon. As I do not see proofread page extension installed on Tamil Wikisource, I propose that the work be typed on wikisource domain itself and then transferred, once typing is done. Please let me know if any other work is more worthy to be typed. The book should be such that, it is only available in scan form, and is not typed anytime earlier. Also, ensure that no other project has taken up this work for digitization, otherwise it would be wastage of efforts from students. --రహ్మానుద్దీన్ (பேச்சு) 18:23, 26 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
- There are 3 separate issues as for as I can see: 1) overall resource to returns measure that is important from funding such projects 2) the potential benefit that this project can give and 3) the wider organic vs. inorganic issues like projects being done for course-sake, budget-sake and so on. All of those are important to discuss, but I personally see them separately. If there's some non-trivial benefit on #2 and the benefits are not disproportionately claimed in any report, it is okay to undertake such work, in my personal opinion. #1 and #3 need to be addressed for sure in appropriate forums. I'd ideally wish that we split that part of the discussion to separate threads if it's fine with రహ్మానుద్దీన్ and இரவி.
- As for #2, I think Wikisource can use some resources to supplement (not substitute) community efforts. For example, just yesterday we discovered that proofreader extension is not set up for this wiki. It's almost essential. So, some support there will help. Thanks for your efforts, Rahim. -- Sundar (பேச்சு) 10:29, 27 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
Rahim,
Primarily, I have two issues with this program:
1. It doesn't follow two important recommendations given for conducting Wikipedia Edcuation programs.
- Enrolling students compulsorily is a problem that is documented already
- Engaging the local community in planning is a recommended best practice as explained at
You haven't engaged the Tamil community in the planning but only seeking help where language skills and volunteer time is needed.
More over, CIS-A2K often says that Indian Wiki communities don't respond much on wiki and yet you preferred to work through few point of contacts even for active communities like Tamil. Only after pointing out this, you are reaching out to Tamil Wikisource community.
For the recent Tamil Wikipedia essay contests, we have many school students as winners and I wonder why would anyone find Tamil typing a difficult exercise to be learn over two semesters. If you had enrolled volunteers who are willing to undergo active training and put some effort on their own, then typing skill shouldn't be a problem at all. Perhaps, you may not have enough student strength enrolled in this program if you make it voluntary enrollment.
2. Even based on the salary for a newcoming program officer , the cost for this program is 4 semesters * 10 days * 1833 INR = 73,333 INR. This doesn't take in to account the volunteer time and energy spent by both Wikipedians and college seniors. And with this cost, we are going to achieve what? 150 pages of typed text and 30 articles in Tamil Wikipedia? Tamil Wikipedia creates 30 articles per day many times already and we can get 150 pages typed in local DTP center for 1500 INR. Why should we wait for 2 years and spend so much of money and volunteer time to get this done?
Please justify your program design. Thanks.--இரவி (பேச்சு) 11:35, 27 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
ஆதரவு I do agree with இரவி's point. Please consider making some changes on the program design, రహ్మానుద్దీన్. --தினேஷ்குமார் பொன்னுசாமி (பேச்சு) 06:37, 28 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
- As proof read page extension is not configured properly on this Wikisource, the students from Christ university are typing their assignments at Wikisource domain itself. --రహ్మానుద్దీన్ (பேச்சு) 16:37, 30 ஆகஸ்ட் 2014 (UTC)
Some Replies and Thoughts
தொகுDear Sundar, இரவி and Dineshkumar,
Thank you for actively engaging with this project and for raising useful questions. Apologies for this much delayed reply. Though Ravi and Rahimanuddin did point me to these discussions (via e-mail) early on, I could not join this earlier as I was taken ill badly for about a week and then got busy travelling on work.
As I understand there are two key aspects that are raised here. One is about the Program Design and the second is about the process of community consultation. The former being more crucial to the discussion, I would like to begin with it and come to the later.
//Cost of the program and the returns do not seem justified. As per Ravi's calculations above, we could get 150 pages typed in local DTP for INR 1,500/- and why bother to wait for 2 years and spend about 75,000 INR on this program? //
On the face of it, this looks like a very valid and compelling observation, but I am afraid it is a rather simplistic cost-benefit analysis and may not be a productive to either assess the Christ University Program Design or to help improve it. This is not to say we should not do a cost-benefit analysis. I am only saying pitched in this way we are being penny wise, pound foolish. To give a simple example, from our context, it is like saying that the Road tax or the number of vehicles plying is too less to lay a road to a village.
Part of the confusion is also arising because we have not detailed the objectives of the Christ University Program adequately. (It is high time we did a detailed project page for this. We started one on Meta and hope to share it, once it is up). The Program is designed as an initiative to introduce Wikimedia projects as a pedagogic tool to re-imagine the second language undergraduate classroom. The objectives are to give a UG student some key sills like: a) ability to critically think or imagine; b) language proficiency in terms of cohesively presenting an idea or concept; c) ability to closely read/assess information or data; d) ability to collaborate in a team environment often in a virtual context; and e) ability to be a producer of knowledge than a passive consumer. So the objective is not 150 pages or 200 pages or 35 students. Rather it could be an initial outcome. What we hope to achieve is to integrate Wikimedia into the teaching learning processes of second language at Christ University. Hindi, Kannada, Sanskrit and Tamil are the Indian languages currently offered as second languages in the University and typically about 500 students opt for Hindi, 400 for Kannada, 100 for Sanskrit and 40 for Tamil (important to note that the effort that goes into working with each language department does not seem to vary much because of the size of the students). If we can achieve this there will be more longer term contributions to the Wikimedia projects. For instance, after the November-December 2013 pilot program 10 students came forward to help in the digitization of Mysore University Kannada Encyclopedias and put them up on Wikisource. The last I heard is that they helped in digitizing more than 1000 pages. (Also let's not equate a printed page to just A4. They come in all sizes and shapes and contain different amount of printed text).
What I would like us to be open about are the possibilities this sort of program presents. One at the level of getting a set of new contributors year on year. Two if the program design could excite at least some students to contribute (like the 10 students who helped with digitization) actively beyond the program and what if somebody latches onto becoming an active editor. Three, the possibility of scaling and replicating this model once successful. Four, creating an ecosystem for open knowledge and Indic computing in a campus that attracts thousands of students year on year. Also we could do various activities like running competitions, etc.. Of course we are working with a lot of (informed) assumptions and there will be various pain points that we will encounter in the implementation. We are doing and we would like to do this program with all earnestness and openly share the learning and challenges. So I would say we should look at this program as a long time investment into creating one of a sustained model within the Indian Higher Education context.
What would be more productive is for us to better the design of the program. We have arrived at the current design based on the learning from the initial pilot we did in November-December. I would welcome you to join in thinking through bettering the design of the program and if are willing to invest time, take over the program in a gradual manner.
The process of informing and involving the Tamil community may look a bit tardy, mainly because we were asked to advance the roll out of the program with a short notice and also we were not sure if the Tamil faculty and students wanted to be part of this. We did our best to move as fast as we can in responding to the request and in informing the Tamil community and reaching out to people like Sundar directly, who was generous to help during the pilot phase.
Re. the point about //Enrolling students compulsorily is a problem that is documented already//, it is important to note that CIS-A2K never insisted that students be compulsorily be enrolled into this program. In fact what we have done is we have simply dovetailed this program into the current course assignments the students anyhow do, because it is the requirement for the course than anything else. Hope to hear more suggestions and ideas on how best we can design and implement this program. --Visdaviva (பேச்சு) 03:23, 26 செப்டம்பர் 2014 (UTC)