ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ:ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ ଶିକ୍ଷା ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ/ଭାରତୀୟ ଜନସଂଚାର ସଂସ୍ଥାନ, ଢେଙ୍କାନାଳ-୧/Learning

Subhashish, CIS-A2K team member

What worked

Active involvement of WP community members

Wikipedians who were based close to Dhenkanal (Mrutyunjaya Kar and Manoranjan Mallick) provided on-ground support for the workshops. Mrutyunjaya Kar was present for all the three events and also for on-wiki coordination of the project page. Wikipedians from Cuttack (Srikant Kedia and [[User::Kamalakanta777|Kamalakanta Nayak]]) supported for the first workshop and were present during the first meeting. Other Odia Wikipedians (Subas Chandra Rout and Manoranjan Behera) were present on the final day of event.

Institutional collaboration

The initial discussion with Prof. Mrinal Chatterjee from IIMC was attended by Odia Wikipedians Mrutyunjaya Kar, Srikant Kedia, Manoranjan Mallick, and [[User::Kamalakanta777|Kamalakanta Nayak]] and myself along with faculty member Jitendra Pati and teaching associates Sucharita and Bhagaban Sahu. The college arranged for computer labs and classrooms very efficiently.

Learning

Clarity on expectations and deliverables

The goals and deliverables from the students, guide-faculty members, CIS-A2K and supporting Wikipedians could have been defined explicitly. Pre-deciding on these parameters can bring more clarity, momentum and success. Part of this was also because of the short time of the program (i.e. two 1-2 hour workshops) which was not enough for any substantial amount of content generation or expanding a sustainable community.

Short term workshops

Workshops organsied for aspiring Wikipedians should be longer than 1-2 hour workshops. Indic language typing is a critical part of the workshop and needs more practice for correct and efficient typing. During this education program students were engaged for 1-2 hours and two workshops were not sufficient for them to learn and practice very well. Ideally we should try and organise 2 day event with minimum of 5-6 hrs long workshops each day.

Thorough preparation and logistics

Wikipedians were not prepared for such a long term program at that moment. With a small community based in various places whose primary contribution is limited more in on-wiki participation there is a need for good preparation for the logistical arrangements for wikipedians to conduct workshops. In this case it was not that easy for the Wikipedians to travel far and conduct workshops. Majority of the first workshop was spent in creating user accounts for the students and basic typing training. The second workshop was partially spent for typing training and creating and editing articles.

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

Learning something without fun doesn't last long and doesn't bring excitement to contribute, especially voluntarily. Though it was difficult for the wikipedians to make the workshops more fun in the very limited time this could be a great learning for all of us. Education programs need day long workshops with a lot of exciting fun activities. Otherwise workshops would be boring like regular lectures and students would not be excited enough to continue for long.

Community level involvement

Though it is very difficult to get everyone from the community on board for a program because of many reasons (Primarily due to availability of wikipedians, time constraint, logistics and most importantly interest of Wikipedians) a proper support system was not set up in place. Mrutyunjaya Kar, who was primarily involved in this project was overburdened with his other administrative contribution to Wikipedia, community building initiatives in Nalconagar and professional occupation. There is always a need of dividing work among the wikipedians who are interested and specifically mention the amount of amount of involvement that would be needed from the coordinators.

Incentives and retention

These two parameters are very critical. To keep the contribution purely voluntary it is hard to define the incentive for the hard work done by the students. Not everyone is equally excited for the philosophical reason (Love for language, growth of free content). Especially for students something that would help their career could be the biggest incentive. This bit of Wikipedia contribution helping students in their long term career needs to be poured to the students in a more lucid way. Retention is also another biggest challenge for Wikipedia outreach.