Wikipedia:India Education Program/Analysis/WMF interviews

After significant problems with students adding copyright violations to Wikipedia emerged during the Pune Pilot of the India Education Program, Wikimedia Foundation staff set out to discover how different people connected to the program viewed copyright. Wikimedia Foundation staff Frank Schulenburg and LiAnna Davis interviewed experienced Wikipedia editors from India and India-educated WMF staff. Campus Ambassador Abhishek Suryawanshi volunteered to conduct interviews with students, professors, and Campus Ambassadors in Pune as well. We promised all interviewees that any personal identifying information would be removed from this analysis to encourage them to speak freely. What follows is an analysis of our findings.

Copyright in India

Nearly every interviewee said that culturally, copyright is not important in India like it is in the United States or Europe. Over and over, respondents said that copyright simply wasn't taught in schools in India:

• "People (in India) have absolutely no idea about copyright... There's just no cultural awareness of copyright. It only happens when you go to master's or grad level. Then you understand a little more about copyright. It's the same for software. If you want Word, you just download a bootleg copy."
• "They're not taught in the school system about copyright. Most of them are unaware of copyright. We live in a country where piracy is rampant, and that reduces concerns about copyright."
• (Response to question: Was copyright/plagiarism ever mentioned in any of your classes in India?) "Never. Not a word."
• "I don't think any of my professors ever used the term copyright or plagiarism."

Course setup

Most interviewees said the lack of attention by professors to copyright violations and plagiarism emerged out of the way Indian students are assessed. In general, professors teach to an exam at the end of the term, and students are encouraged to memorize textbook answers. To get full points, a student needs to parrot back the exact right answer. Students are given assignments throughout the term, but these are often not read by the professor. Interviewees described the concept of a "master copy" of an essay; usually, more than half of students turn in the exact same copied and pasted assignment (often the Wikipedia article on the assignment's topic). Since these assignments don't count toward grades, students aren't penalized for doing so. "We all studied for the same exam. They made a bunch of assignments as part of the curriculum, but you just copy and paste it from the Internet," said one interviewee.

"Answers to homework questions were supposed to be copied from the textbook itself for subjects like history/geography (and even non numericals in science!). Very rarely were we forced to use any form of original thought (everything is memorized by most students usually). Even most computer science students memorize programs, and CS is one of the subjects which should force a student to think logically and originally. Note that this does not mean that everybody copypastes/memorizes. I know plenty of people who are sincere enough to abhor plagiarism (even when they don't know what it means, having never been taught about it). But such people are in a minority," one interviewee said. "It isn't always a teacher's fault when original thought is discouraged, either. When I once expressed my discontent at having to quote the textbook word-to-word for certain questions, the teacher agreed with me, but at the same time explained that it would be the only way to get good marks in the certifying exams. The system just doesn't have room for original thought. It's unfortunate, but true. This doesn't mean that the students can't think originally, though."

Two interviewees separately estimated that about 5% of students in India never copy and paste, and generally these students do so because they feel that copying and pasting is wrong.

Not enough time

Students in the program said they had copied and pasted, even after Campus Ambassadors has told them not to for this assignment, because they were short on time. "Because there were deadlines, we had a thing in our minds that we should just copy and paste it," one student said. "We pleaded [with the instructor] to give us more time. We didn't want to just copy and paste it but we didn't have time."

According to one interviewee, this is partially because of the competition due to the large population in India encourages students to take many courses and extracurricular activities. Often, students simply don't have the time to do proper research, so they take the easy way out and copy and paste. But often, the interviewee said, students fail to even meet those deadlines.

"Students submit assignments months after the due date (school teachers usually don't raise a fuss)," said one interviewee. "I've always thought that starting an assignment (which is due in a month) a week before the the due date is procrastinating. Most students [in India] start the projects two days before the due date. They think that 'it's only procrastination when you start it the morning it's due.' That's actually the answer I got when I had asked someone about it."

Extension of other piracy

Several interviewees mentioned that differences in cultural awareness of copyright stem from piracy that is rampant throughout India. "In India, awareness of plagiarism is never inculcated in students. Most people don't even know that downloading copyrighted stuff is illegal. The indifference towards copyright isn't just at the individual level, either. Nowadays, most Indian movies are copied from English movies. Not just the general idea of the movie, but almost the entire storyline is copied. The same goes for a lot of music. And almost nobody gets caught, even if these things are evident to all and the sundry," one interviewee said.

"There are degree of wrong," says another interviewee. "I'd say 70-90% know it's wrong at some level, but (A) it's not enforced, and (b), it's not really looked down upon as much as it is here [in the United States], so it isn't really considered to be such big deal. It's kinda like jaywalking; everyone knows it's illegal but everyone does it. Nobody frowns on you if you use a pirated copy of Microsoft Windows or if you buy a pirated movie off the street. Awareness is a problem. When I was a kid, I couldn't tell pirated and original software apart. The first time I was aware you had to even buy software was when my dad brought home his laptop from work and showed me a CD of software, and it was something you could buy... Once I became aware, it had an effect on my consumption of illegal material; that being said, there's a lot of content out there that isn't available in India, so we would download movies that weren't available otherwise. As broadband got cheap, music and movie piracy got bigger. "

Suggested changes

Interviewees had many suggestions for changes to the India Education Program that could address the copyright violation issues.

Deterring copyright

"When I did commit my first copyright violation in one of my first edits, I had a friendly user who told me how not to. I took it seriously," says one experienced Wikipedia editor from India unconnected to the program. "If I told my peers to not copy stuff, nobody would really listen to me. There's no deterrent for it."

The lack of deterrence is a common theme in the interviewees, as did the idea that to make the India Education Program work in the future, we should use a carrot and stick approach. Professors need to be 100% on board with the program, interviewees said, and strictly enforce failing grades for students who add copyright violations to Wikipedia.

"People are capable of doing original stuff, they're just desensitized to assignments. They think nobody will look at them beyond a tick mark at the top of the page that says they turned it in," one interviewee said. "You have to make it very clear what you mean when you say original work, because many of them don't understand because they've never had to do it. The best way to do it is give them examples -- walk them through a good Wikipedia article. See how people cite sources, have citations, link to other Wikipedia articles. Walk them through the process of how you do that. Then show a bad article, and contrast why those pages are better. Give them a scenario so they understand why its it important to have sources, link stuff, and not just paste stuff and why it's more useful for people using the article."

Other interviewees agreed: "Praise students who hand in original, well written work, while also penalising students who plagiarise (This, of course is in the prof's hands, so he/she must have full understanding of the gravity of the situation, and must be cooperative). DYKs are also a pretty good 'carrot' (Who wouldn't want their work visible on the front page of Wikipedia?). This sort of accomplishment would carry quite a bit of weight in India, as Wikipedia is widely known, but it is not widely known how easy it is  to edit. If they are told that copyvios will disqualify any DYK attempt, some students may refrain from doing so. … A lecture could have been titled 'Get your work on the front page!', and stickers/buttons/etc proclaiming that 'My work was I on the front page of Wikipedia' could be given to successful students. That would have increased the enthusiasm (and thus participation) a lot."

School selection

Several interviewees suggested that research-oriented universities would be a good fit for such a program, because professors and students have had to write original work already that describes their research that they've done:

• "If you want to avoid copyright issues, you need a university where most profs do research and publish papers. That way, the profs (and maybe students) will be well acquainted with the entire concept of refs/copyright/etc."
• "To mitigate the problem to begin with, it's better to go to a research university, where teachers have a little more stake. Look for places with more flexible curriculum. If the teacher's not involved, it won't be successful."

Engineering colleges

Interviewees had mixed reactions to whether we should pursue engineering colleges in India or not. All agreed that in India, parents and teachers push the best and brightest students toward engineering because it is perceived as a very good career, regardless of students' interest in the subject matter. While this does mean that the top students are generally in engineering rather than other subject matters, it also means students are less interested in the subject matter, and may be less inclined to put in any extra effort to learn about it to write a Wikipedia article. Coupled with the good coverage of engineering topics already on Wikipedia, it may be wise to avoid working with engineering colleges in the future, many interviewees said. One interviewee, a graduate of an engineering college in India, estimated that only about 5% of students at engineering colleges would be suited for such a project, because writing is not emphasized at all in engineering courses; the only time this interviewee ever wrote original content for his coursework was to have documentation for source code. Several interviewees suggested working with the original India Institute of Technology if we do pursue engineering schools, because they believed it was the best in the country.

Language comfort

Several interviewees said that working with students in urban or semi-urban areas would be better, as students from more urban areas have a better grasp of English. One interviewee suggested looking for students who watch a lot of English movies, listen to a lot of English music, or have another link to Western culture, which improves their English skills.

Student level

In general, everyone suggested that they tend to avoid working with freshmen and sophomores, and focusing more on graduate students or juniors and seniors. If the students have enough knowledge, the more likely they are to have been exposed to copyright. Interviewees who attended undergraduate schools in India but graduate schools in the United States said they learned how to write originally when they moved to the United States.

Student selection

Interviewees suggested looking for the best students by making the assignment optional rather than mandatory. An optional assignment would draw students who are truly interested in contributing to Wikipedia, even if it means the extra effort.

"We should have restricted the work to those interested in doing it, rather than forcing everyone to do it during the last term." quoted one professor.

One interviewee attributed his success to the fact that he enjoys writing, and suggested we look for students who participate in college magazines or other forms of writing, as they are a self-selected group of people who already enjoy writing. "I certainly wasn't taught to write. I enjoy writing, so I liked doing original work. That helps a lot. English is my second language, which is a challenge, even though I speak it and write it all the time and almost like it more than Hindi, which is my mother tongue. My [graduate] program [in the United States] wasn't a technical program, which meant that it was a lot of writing that's not just technical writing, but a lot of exploratory and analytical writing. It was a big change for me. I struggled a lot, but I think the thing that carried me through it was I liked writing. I see it as something you create, and I like creating things."

Conclusion

All interviewees wanted to see the program continue, and they wanted more people in India to contribute to Wikipedia in general. But all agreed it won't be easy.

"You're not just getting a bunch of Indian kids to edit Wikipedia, you're trying to go against the India education system. It's not going to be easy. So many of us come here [to the United States] because of how the system works," said one.

"The Global Education Program is a wonderful idea. I'd hate it if India was bypassed by the GEP just because of copyvio issues. I want to see the IEP back on its feet next year as much as you do," said another.

One Campus Ambassador asked for better training on how to explain and detect copyright violations on Wikipedia, then ended with this plea: "We as Campus Ambassadors have been emotionally attached to Wikipedia, and we deserve a second chance! We can always improve the situation and make the IEP a success."