Hoi,
When I read the Unesco website my impression was that our medical content
is not really what they are on about. What we have is encyclopaedic but it
is not educational. When you think about educational it is very much about
subjects that matter to the teachers and students. Key is availability and
there are several components to think about. When we consider content,
Kiwix is a tool with a proven track record to make things available, it
allows for having the content local. The next thing is language. English is
understood by many but the fact of the matter is that for students local
language is key. This is where we often suck. This may mean that our
content may be understood by teachers but not by students.
When you consider Wikipedia, it is served from servers mainly in the USA.
This means that Internet availability is key. Wikipedia Zero is in this
relevant. It makes our content available at no additional cost. The biggest
problem but also the biggest opportunity is to enable them to write
Wikipedia articles or to translate Wikipedia articles. Only then will
people really familiarise themselves with Wikipedia and only then they will
get the most out of it.
When you consider the sheer number of refugees in our world, you may like I
do a pent up demand for positive activity. These people are often well
educated and they have nothing to do. Give them a possibility to edit
Wikipedia in their own language on the subjects they deem important and our
Wikipedias in the languages of the refugees will mushroom.
When we are serious about content in other languages we will consider such
approaches. We do have the contacts and ideas like this have been floated
before. Some arguments for bigots; when you give these people something to
do locally, when they are cared for locally they will remain local. An
approach like this is cheaper and less dramatic.
We spend a lot of money on our projects. I am sure an approach like this
will get a heartfelt welcome by anyone who knows about refugees and refugee
camps. It does not need to cost much and it can be operated by local NGO's.
It will make Wikipedia a genuine world brand, a brand known worldwide.
Thanks,
GerardM
On 11 January 2017 at 15:20, Shani <shani.even(a)gmail.com> wrote:
If I understand you correctly, seems like a good
opportunity to mention
medical content on Wikipedia, and the efforts to translate the 100 most
important medical articles (now already 700) to as many languages as
possible, as well as create an offline app with all medical content, which
we now have in 10 languages. This can literally be the difference between
life and death in the developing world and could come in handy in times of
various types of crises.
CCing Doc James, who can direct you to the best and most updated resource
about that.
Best,
Shani.
On Wed, Jan 11, 2017 at 4:06 PM, john cummings <mrjohncummings(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi all
I have the possibility of presenting at the UNESCO Learning Week in March
on the role of open licensing and Wikimedia in education in emergencies and
crises. I haven't been able to find out much information about the subject,
does anyone have any resources they could recommend?
www.unesco.org/new/en/mlw
Thanks
John
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l