Wikipedia articles made more popular

The students of Alva’s College have embraced technology to make Wikipedia articles more popular among masses.

Alva’s College Wikipedia Students’ Association (comprising students from Mass Communication and Journalism department) has uploaded more than 100 articles on Wikipedia, apart from the information about medicinal plants in Shobhavana herbal garden, maintained by Alva’s Education Foundation. The garden is a source of practical learning for the students of Ayurveda and Botany in the institution.

Also, the herbs grown here are used for the preparation of Ayurveda medicine at Alva’s Pharmacy. Two thousand doctors are being supplied of about 500 types of medicines prepared in the pharmacy, apart from exporting the medicines to the foreign countries.

In order to enable a wide outreach of the knowledge on the rare herbs, Wikipedia Students Association and Karavali Wikemedians had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on uploading informative articles on rare medicinal plants in Shobhavana, Mijar, on Wikipedia, through ‘Shobhavana QR code project’, said Shrigouri Joshi, coordinator, Alva’s College Wikipedia Students Association.

The project is guided by technological expert U B Pavanaja.

She said that such an effort is first of its kind in any botanical garden in India. Soon after uploading an article about a particular herb, the QR code of the article is generated and attached to the plant in Shobhavana.

The visitors may scan the QR code through their mobile phone and access the link to the related article on Wikipedia. The project is done in Kannada as there is not much information on plants in the Kannada language on the online portal.

“The QR code installation is being adopted in different museums and other places of interests in foreign countries. Adaptation of the technology in the region will compliment tourism activities.  The project was officially launched during the inaugural session of 'Alva’s Nudisiri-2018[," the team members said.