Media Release

Mangaluru, Oct 22: The Wiki Club of St Aloysius (Deemed to be University), in association with the School of Engineering, organised a two-day technical workshop on Wiki Projects on October 16 and 17 at the university’s Engineering Block. The workshop introduced engineering students to MediaWiki, the open-source software platform that powers Wikipedia, and provided hands-on training in wiki editing, application programming interfaces (APIs) and content automation.

The sessions were led by Krishna Chaitanya Velaga, Navya Sri Kalli and Punith B Nayak from the Indic MediaWiki Developers User Group (IMDUG). Santhosh Notagar, president of the university’s Wiki Club, and Dr Hariprasad Shetty were also associated with the workshop. The first day focused on the fundamentals of MediaWiki, including the use of Wikitext to format content and the structure of wiki articles. Participants also created a practice environment, named Aloysian Wiki, using a cloud shell. The platform enabled them to create and edit user pages and experiment with wiki functionalities without affecting live Wikipedia pages.

The second day focused on the technical aspects of wiki development and automation. Participants explored the MediaWiki API, configured bot passwords and used Python scripts to authenticate, modify wiki content and automate article creation. They were also introduced to tools, bots and related projects used to maintain and enhance wiki-based platforms.

The workshop highlighted the applications of MediaWiki beyond Wikipedia, particularly in collaborative knowledge management, digital content development and open-source software projects. The hands-on sessions provided students with an understanding of how programming and automation can be used to develop and manage collaborative digital resources.

The workshop was coordinated by Dr S Ruban, dean of the School of Engineering, and Santhosh Notagar, president of the Wiki Club, St Aloysius (Deemed to be) University.