dear Wikipedians in Kenya,
with Tobias Schönwetter and Kelsey Wiens from the University of Cape Town and CC Africa,
Isaac Rutenberg from the Strathmore University Centre for IP and IT Law, and another
partner from Germany we are currently identifying, we are planning to apply for a project
which it would great to link with you.
The project is called Wikipedia Primary School and it aims at providing on Wikipedia the
information necessary to complete the cycle of primary education in the languages used by
the different education systems.
Our idea is to focus on Kenya and South Africa with the ERAfrica New Ideas programme
(2014-2016). you find below an overall description of the project.
The project actually comes from your experience of distributing offline Wikipedia in Kenya
and it would be great if some of you would like to contribute to it.
Also the Africa Centre is working to organize trainings and activities for wikipedians in
residence in Kenya.
We don't need an official letter, but simply a letter for the people interested in the
project. you can also contact me directly or you can maybe discuss among you if the
project is relevant and write together a letter with the names of the people who would
like to participate. for the moment i will keep you updated on the project development and
invite you to join the activities or to apply for open positions. I think it would be also
very precious to document your experience with offline Wikipedia, maybe with some
interviews. this could also be a specific activity directed by your group. Maybe also the
link with the Strathmore University Centre for IP and IT Law can be useful for further
initiatives linked to GLAMs. I also just wrote to OER Africa - Open Educational Resources
Africa which is based in Nairobi.
what do think? would it be possible to collaborate on this project?
please consider that i would be more than pleased to change the project also according to
your ideas and proposals.
looking forward to hear your impressions and my very best regards
iolanda/iopensa
--
Iolanda Pensa - via Rabolini, 10 - 20125 Milano - Italia. Tel. +39 335 655 36 33,
io(a)pensa.it -
http://www.iopensa.it - Skype: iopensa.
Researcher at SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
--------------------------------------
Wikipedia Primary School
Providing on Wikipedia the information necessary to complete the cycle of primary
education in the languages used by the different education systems.
A project allowing students, families and teachers to find on Wikipedia the documentation
necessary to obtain the primary school qualification in their country, in their language.
Wikipedia is meant to be an educational tool and it is currently available online, via
mobile phones and offline. Experiences have shown that, once accessible, Wikipedia does
not provide information that responds directly to curriculum-based questions. The project
relies on Wikipedia as an existing and growing resource, it solves the need for an
encyclopaedia capable of responding to curriculum-based questions, and it fosters
Wikipedia content, quality and outreach.
More specifically the project aims at:
Bridging Wikipedia and primary education. This objective implies to move the Wikipedia
community towards a focus on primary education, and at the same time to strengthen the
capacity of the education ecosystem to contribute to Wikipedia, and in general to open
collaborative knowledge.
Enriching Wikipedia with new content relevant to primary education. This objective implies
an assessment of the articles produced.
Fostering the development of translations and new content in different Wikipedia
linguistic editions. This objective implies the release of existing educational resources
(OER in cc by or cc by-sa), the production of datasets and the involvement of the
Wikimedia movement.
Verifying and evaluating the use of Wikipedia as a source of information for primary
education. This objective implies the involvement of stakeholders and data analysis.
Wikipedia Primary School contributes to universal primary education and to the Millennium
Development Goals (MDG2: Achieve Universal Primary Education). Even if it is scalable and
international, the project is conceived primarily to address African countries and
languages.
Wikipedia is a very peculiar encyclopaedia. It is a living organism made of a wide
community with specific policies, clusters and dynamics. Contributing to Wikipedia means
to play a fair game, and to respect the way Wikipedia works, its rules and community. To
strengthen the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions,
the project does not simply transfer content from national schoolbooks into Wikipedia. The
methodology is centred around research and fieldwork activities.
Research activities focus on monitoring Wikipedia in different linguistic editions;
understanding the different national education systems and identifying which are the
content capable of responding to curriculum-based questions; involving a scientific
committee in contributing to the project; establishing and managing a Wikipedia Scientific
Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific publication in Creative Commons attributions
share-alike license, designed to involve scholars and to assess Wikipedia articles, in
collaboration with other scientific journals and by fostering synergies between scientific
knowledge and Wikipedia and open access; producing datasets to generate stub articles on
Wikipedia in all linguistic editions; uploading content, in particular OER Open
Educational Resources already available and images and texts provided with an open license
compatible with Wikipedia; supporting territorial development with tutors and with upload
capacities (in particular for countries with low connectivity); monitoring and evaluating
the project.
Fieldwork activities focus on testing and enhancing the use of Wikipedia in primary school
and it is developed in collaboration with the stakeholders already working in education.
They provide training, in particular training for Wikipedians in residence; they organise
Wikipedia events, in particular Wiki Loves Monuments; they allow networking with
institutions and governments to facilitate the release of content with open licenses; they
tutor institutions and people; they develop pilot projects in schools and in collaboration
with NGOs working in education; they establish hotspots where needed; and they facilitate
the distribution of Wikipedia offline in countries where relevant.
What we do not do
Wikipedia Primary School is a scalable and international project with a specific goal: it
responds to a real need, it relies on existing networks and resources, and it is
structured to allow people and institutions to contribute to it. The very nature of the
project is meant to produce a broad impact. If the project Wikipedia Primary School is
successful, it can be developed in the future by producing content for other cycle of
education.
We do not break Wikipedia rules. The project respects Wikipedia pillars and the opinions
of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia communities.
We do not believe the project substitutes in any way the essential role of people and
institutions working in education. We want to contribute in a specific way to the work
many people and institutions are already implementing and we believe only a collaborative
approach can really allow the project to be effective and relevant.
We do not produce a selection of Wikipedia articles. We want people to access and benefit
from the whole Wikipedia.
We do not address students, teachers and families only. Contributing to Wikipedia is meant
to provide better knowledge for everyone everywhere.
We do not work for governments and ministries of education. The project is meant to be
independent. It selects articles to be based on national educational systems, but it does
not implement on Wikipedia governments’ strategies or requests.
We do not provide offline access to Wikipedia over online access. We consider online
access to Wikipedia a priority and the best way to access Wikipedia, because it allows to
contribute to it.
We do not consider Wikipedia a schoolbook. Wikipedia is not a schoolbook and it can not
substitute teachers and educators and other appropriate educational resources.
We do not simplify Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and it requires a
certain level of literacy in order to access it. We do not want to adapt Wikipedia to
primary school level; we want to include topics and content relevant for primary
education.
We do not make content available for Wikipedia only. Using Creative Commons as part of the
project methodology allows contents to be available beyond Wikipedia.
We do not promote Wikipedia as a stable and passive resource. We consider essential that
people who use Wikipedia understand what Wikipedia is. To understand it, the only
appropriate way is to contribute to it and being part of it.
We do not provide Wikipedia as it is. The project aims at fostering a joint effort to
improve Wikipedia and to assess its quality.
We do not centralise all the activities. The project can only reach its goal and produce
high quality content and impact, if people and institutions can adapt them to their
context, vision and work.
What practically we want to do
1) Involving governments in releasing dataset about public administrations (to contribute
to Wikidata and produce stub articles; at the moment only Botswana is fully documented)
2) Asking OER open educational resources to be released in cc by or cc by-sa (and not cc
by-sa-nc-nd).
3) Asking other institutions working in education to contribute to OER.
4) Assessing Wikipedia articles by creating a Wikipedia Scientific Journal. the idea is to
assess wikipedia articles with the involvement of academic peer-revierwes. this is
specifically necessary for content related to Africa because it needs to acknowledge the
last 60 years of postcolonial studies (which at the moment they are not well represented
on Wikipedia). the Wikipedia Scientific Journal is established in partnerships with
existing scientific journals; the peer-reviewers of those scientific journals review the
articles (existing ones and new ones) and we can make calls for papers. those call for
papers can address existing Wikipedia authors but also scholars (who can add those
publications to their cv since they ae peer-reviewed and made in collaborations with
scientific journals). it is not a direct way of working on Wikipedia but i think it is the
most relevant on the long run.
Once articles are peer-reviewed they can be translated and they can be rewritten in
specific ways. At the same time also articles from Vikidia can be a source.
5) Establishing a scientific committee who defines which articles contribute to primary
education and they overview and evaluate the project. the scientific committee is also a
communication tool which makes sure stakeholders are involved.
6) Fostering communication and community building among the different Wikipedia/Wikimedia
clusters (project pages on Wikipedia, different projects, different wikipedia linguistic
editions, wikimedia chapters, project such as wiki loves monuments which helps to
understand what wikipedia is and to start contributing)
7) Monitoring what happens with data analysis.
The project Wikipedia Primary School and all its documentation is under Creative Commons
attribution share alike license. Iolanda Pensa drafted the project in 2012.
At the moment WikiAfrica Cameroon promoted by doual'art with the support of Orange
Foundation is implementing a pilot project around Wikipedia and primary school
(2012-2013).The WikiAfrica Primary School Feasibility Study has been developed in 2012
with the support of volunteers and lettera27 Foundation to evaluate the possible synergies
between Wikipedia and primary school with a focus on the linguistic editions of Wikipedia
and their use in primary education in Africa, current Wikimedia projects, OER-Open
Educational Resources and case studies on the primary schools systems and current relevant
projects in the field of education in Italy, Cameroon and South Africa. The Africa Centre
based in Cape Town is currently developing trainings in Africa for Wikipedians in
residence. SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland and
University of Cape Town, in collaboration with Wikimedia Switzerland and the Africa Centre
based in Cape Town have applied in March 2013 for a Swiss South African research project
related to Wikipedia Primary School within the SSAJRP programme.