Education/Greenhouse/teamsubmissions/WBSU Wikimedia Education Program

Wikimedia & Education Greenhouse - Team Application Form

Before starting your application, make sure all members of your team have read and understood the team application guidelines.

Project idea

In this project we want to introduce Wikimedia to higher education as an academic curriculum. We believe that Wikimedia should be an integral part of academics and education. We have chosen West Bengal State University (WBSU) as a host institution to implement this Wikimedia Education Program (WEP). West Bengal State University is one of the youngest University of West Bengal with vibrant academic possibilities. WBSU has many constituent colleges, amongst those Rishi Bankim Chandra College's Hindi department is being involved to edit Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wikisource and Wiktionary) as an e-learning initiative. We want to make this initiative more organised so that a large number of academia can be benefited. Project will engage Post graduate and under-graduate students of the University and its constituent colleges. In this project we will use Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikidata and Commons as e-learning tools.

What idea do you want to bring to the W&E Greenhouse?

Describe the context, theme, goals, strategies, duration of your proposed initiative. Be as detailed as possible.

We want to make Wikimedia as a key pedagogical tool for academic curriculum. In this project we will make teaching more innovative and interactive affair. If we can add e-learning tools to classroom teaching, it can attract more ideas. We often talk about Wikipedia but more often than not we ignore Wikisource, Wiktionary, Wikidata and Commons as e-learning tools. In this project we will use all these tools step-by-step. At an early stage we will engage students to edit Wikisource and let them be familiar with the Wikimedia interface. Books, to be proofread, on Wikisource will be related to their subjects and courses so that they can easily cope-up with their respective syllabus. Once we understand the importance of Wikisource, issues of citation and authenticity of Wikipedia will be addressed accordingly. We will not be relying solely on translations but let the students edit in their own language. However we will be indulging them to learn new things and translate SVG files in Hindi. This will be a step towards lowering the technical gap. Editing Wikidata can also help students to learn how Wikimedia functions and interlinked with the knowledge repository. Proposed Departments:

• Department of Hindi, West Bengal State University, Barasat, West Bengal, India
• Department of Hindi, Rishi Bankim Chandra College, Naihati, West Bengal, India

Who would you engage in your initiative?

Describe the kind of relationships you have or plan to establish with potential partners in your community, both in your local Wikimedia community and education community.

Primarily we are banking on -

Under-graduate students of department of Hindi, Rishi Bankim Chandra College. Two of our team members has direct association with these students as their teachers, that's why So indulging them in this program is quite feasible.
Post-graduate students of department of Hindi, West Bengal State University. Some of our previous students, studying in the department, are already editing on Wikimedia. We will get new students on board through these students.

We need to contact concerned authorities to accommodate curriculum and get space for Wikimedia lab (i.e. language lab). For the execution we will contact -

Vice-Chancellor and Registrar, West Bengal State University. We have already contacted them for these kind of programs and got positive response.
Head of the department and faculties of the West Bengal State University. Two of our tea members has direct association with the department as their college is a constituent of the University.
Principal and faculties of the department of Hindi, Rishi Bankim Chandra College. Two of our team members are working as head of department and assistant professor in this college. Thus we are in direct and daily touch with the Principal and faculties and convinced them for Wikimedia education program.

To review the progress of this project, We will also contact and include -

Sysops on Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wiktionary, Commons etc. Two of our team members are admin on Hindi Wikipedia. We have cordial relation with other admins of Hindi Wikipedia and its sister projects. We already informed them for this project and got the confidence of co-operation accordingly.
Contact-Persons and members of Hindi Wikimedians User Group. One of our team members is a Contact-Person of Hindi Wikimedians User Group. Therefore, indulging whole group is quite feasible.
Experienced and active Hindi Wikipedians, Wikisource, Wiktionary and editors on other Hindi Wikimedia. We all are editors on Hindi Wikimedia so contacting every single person interested in betterment of it should be very feasible.

We have plans to develop our program in such a way that it create enthusiasm among students. We will engage students from reading to editing. After getting familiar with Wikimedia interface through Wikisource proofreading we will let them edit Wikipedia by expanding one liners to stub and stubs to good article level. After proper training we will let them take advantage of these tools to enhance their skill and e-knowledge. to achieve these goals, We will arrange occasional online/offline workshops and lightening sessions for students and faculty members using our fellow Wikimedians as trainers and resource persons. We will make a repository of trainers and resource persons and try to encourage potential Wikimedians who can run projects like this in future.

In terms of financial resources, how much money would you need to achieve your goals?

Indicate your local currency and describe how you would divide your budget for this project.

We need most of the resources to create an infrastructure i.e. hardware and internet (~ INR. here is the expected expense.

S.N.	Subject	Amount in INR, 1$=70INR	Amount in $	Elements
1	For infrastructure	105,000	1500	tablets, netbooks, camera, router etc.
2	event- workshops, talk, lightening sessions, meetups	52,500	750	travel, literature & snacks for our participants
3	Printing and Stationary	45,500	650	publishing brochure, pamphlet, poster, reports, books etc required during this project.
4	Miscellaneous	7,000	100	other expenses which are not included.
	total	210,000	3000$

How will you know your project has succeeded?

Describe potential evaluation plans, indicators, tools, etc. that will help you identify if you have achieved your goals

We have got some readership measures like - if use of wikimedia contents students and faculties increase the page views significantly we will assume it a success of our project. However, its just a primary sign of increasing interest and awareness about Wikimedia. On editing end we will measure our success only if :

we will get at least 100 active participants (both students and faculties).
we will get at least 20 editors whose monthly contribution are more than 30 edit per month for the 9 consecutive months.
we will create at least 10,000 pages on Hindi Wikisource during this project course.
we will validate at least 1000 pages or transclude 5 books on Hindi Wikisource.
We will edit more than 1000 pages on Hindi Wikipedia and create at least 100 new good article or enhance stubs to good article level.
we will contribute on more than 1000 pages on Hindi Wiktionary.
we will make at least 1000 positive edits on Wikidata.
we will make at least 1000 positive edits on Commons.
we will translate at least 100 svg files in Hindi.
we will nurture at least one more team who would be able to take this project forward.

All these goals are measurable and we will assess our project at the end. beside these we will get feedback forms from participants which will have 5* rating system with 10 questions related to different dimension of participation experience. we will try to achieve at least more than 4.5*. Our success will open doors for other Wiki Education Green House like projects in other Universities of India.

What are the biggest challenges you foresee in the implementation of your idea and how would you address them?

Be as detailed as possible.

Reliability of Wikipedia and lesser awareness about its sister projects in Academia is the biggest challenge. Academia have a notion that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone that's why it is an unreliable source. Here comes the role of workshops and lightening sessions by seasoned Wikimedians. We can have the example of Wikisourse and Wikidata to establish the authenticity of Wikimedia among academic community. We can also use Wikipedia library initiative and its citation hunt tools to address the issue of authenticity and reliability.
Lack of basic infrastructure - Although in West Bengal we have a decent internet connectivity and types of required equipment's are available in local market but\ most of the students don't have access to these facilities. We can develop an infrastructure and provide them a resource center to find more potential contributors on Wikimedia.
Lack of an organised project- Although we do use some random Wikimedia tools like Wikisource and Wikipedia to engage our students in an innovative and interactive manner, however students need an organised platform and real time training to keep them motivated and occupied in Academia. We will do it by regular workshops and lightening talks/dialogues with students as well as with faculties. We will try to do it as frequent as possible however it will take a lot of patience, time and coordination.
Bureaucratic behavior of authorities - bureaucratic behavior of authorities can be a big hurdle in this project. However we have 3 academicians in our team and we have direct contacts with authorities as well so we hope to overcome these challenges easily.

Motivation

Why do Wikimedia projects belong in education?

Share your team’s perspectives on the value of Wikimedia projects in education.

Its our core belief that Wikimedia inherits the basic value of education. Its free knowledge ecosystem makes co-existence of Wikimedia projects and formal educational system a real possibility. Usage of Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikisource, Wikidata and Commons in daily routine of academia is an unavoidable need now. We just need to make it a two way traffic. Every single user of Wikimedia is a potential contributor. Keeping a free knowledge ecosystem in mind we will approach to Academic curriculum of the College and University. We badly and urgently need an organized way to connect both educational ecosystems.

Why do you want to join the W&E Greenhouse?

Share your main reasons for applying, motivation, expectations, and what you would like to achieve by the end of this experience.

We are looking at Wikimedia and Education Greenhouse to cultivate our ideas in more organized fashion. This program might be a tool to bridge the gap between two pillars of knowledge and information. Earlier we have tried and got some extra ordinary results in our unofficial educational program where we got the approval of Hindi Wikisource which was pending for almost a decade. Since November 2018 we have created more than 15000 pages in just 6 months duration. We believe that if we have to take this success forward we need to be more organised. W&E Greenhouse might be a tool for sustainable development of Wikimedia projects and it's accessibility to student community which consist a lot of potential to be Wikimedia contributors. W&E Greenhouse project might also enhance our chances to be more inclusive and innovative in academic curriculum by providing it's platform, courses and guidelines.

Team

Who are the members of your team?

Indicate who will be the main focal point and the roles/responsibilities each member would have during the development of your project. Make sure your Wikimedia usernames are properly linked.

no	member name	user name	roles/responsibilities	present status
1	Ajit Kumar Tiwari	User:अजीत कुमार तिवारी	1. Main focal point / Project coordinator 2. Design the course and set goals for the project 3. Local partnerships, contact and engage the faculties and students of the WBS University & RBC College 4. Contact and coordinate with Hindi Wikimedians and WMF	1. Admin of Hindi Wikipedia 2. Organizer of Kolkata Wikisammelan 2019 (Hindi Wikipedia Conference 2019). 3. One of the members who initiated edit-a-thon for the approval of Hindi Wikisource 4.Assistant Professor of Hindi in Rishi Bankim Chandra College, a constituent of West Bengal State University. 5. Instructor of an informal/unofficial educational project in Wikisource which resulted in approval of Hindi Wikisource's own domain.
2	ANIRUDDHA KUMAR	user:अनिरुद्ध!	1. Instructor and event manager 2. Responsible for designing workshops, lectures, edit-a-thon & other events 3. Prepair pamphlet, brochure, poster, report & help materials for faculties and students 4. Care taker of maximum accessibility in documents and events for persons with disability.	1. One of the Contact-Persons of Hindi Wikimedians User Group 2. Admin on Hindi Wikipedia 3. 2nd best contributer on Hindi Wikisource 4. Assistant Professor, P.G.D.A.V. College (EVE), Delhi University
3	Hrishikesh Kumar Singh	User:हृषिकेश कुमार सिंह	1. Finance & logistics coordinator 2. Event manager	1. Active editor on Wikisource 2. Organizer of Hindi Wikipedia and Wikisource workshop in RBC college on 1st February, 2019 3. Assistant Professor & Head, Department of Hindi, Rishi Bankim Chandra College, West Bengal State University.
4	Rajeeb Dutta	User:Marajozkee	1. Technical instructor & supervisor 2. Arrange and manage equipments 3. Provide technical and soft skills training and support to students and faculties 4. Instruct about Commons & SVG translation	1. very active editor on Commons 2. Active editor on Bangla Wikipedia 3. Active contributor on Wikidata 4. Instructor & event organizer of Wikigap & SVG translation project on Wikimedia
5	Neelam Kumari	User:नीलम	1. Gender gap supervisor 2. Responsible for bridging gender gap and take care of related issues 3. Provide training, motivation & dedicated support to girl students and women faculties 4. Offer soft skill support for Wikisource	1. Best contributor on Hindi Wikisource 2. Autopatrolled editor on Hindi Wikipedia 3. Serve as trainer in workshop held in Girls High School, Karnal, Haryana 4. Research Scholar in Delhi University

Where is your team located?

Keep in mind that all team members should be in the same location for the on-site visits from the WMF Education team. These visits will be scheduled in advance in consultation with the selected team.

Our team is located in West Bengal, India.

What languages does your team speak?

Please, keep in mind that for this first edition of the Greenhouse the main language of communication will be English.

Our team can speak Hindi, Bangla and English.

Have any members of your team been involved in organizing other Wikimedia outreach initiatives?

Please, provide links to newsletters/photos/documentation if available.

Ajit Kumar Tiwari and Aniruddha Kumar have been co-organizers of Wikisammelan Kolkata 2019, a Hindi Wikimedia Conference.
Rajeeb Dutta has organised WikiGap 2019 Kolkata India.

Which members of your team will join the “Wikimedia & Education Project Management” online course?

Remember at least one member of your team needs to join and fully complete the online course.

Ajit Kumar Tiwari (User:अजीत कुमार तिवारी)
Aniruddha Kumar (User:अनिरुद्ध!)
Rajeeb Dutta (User:Marajozkee)

How did you learn about this opportunity?

We got to know about this opportunity through Wikimedia education mailing list.

Get involved

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc.--> Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions.

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected to participate in the W&E Greenhouse? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

It is great initiative towards sharing knowledge--Sushma Sharma (talk) 14:17, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I endorse this program because there is a great scope for Wikimedia Foundation's projects in colleges and universities. Lack of awareness is the biggest issue Hindi projects are facing. And I believe this program's participants are capable of achieving their goals as mentioned here.--Hindust@ni^{क्या करें? बातें!} 15:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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