Hi Campus and Online Ambassadors!
As part of the effort to ensure that we're all providing high-quality
support to professors and students in the program, we are in the process of
developing more systematic ways of surfacing, recognizing, and awarding
highly successful Ambassadors. An important first step for that is figuring
out what are the measures of success for the Ambassador role — i.e. what it
means for an Ambassador to be "successful" — and we need your input!
We've put together a rough draft of the Ambassador measures of success [1].
Please take a look and provide your feedback on-wiki! You're welcome to
leave comments on the talk page, but we also encourage you to directly edit
the list (of measures of success) itself — feel free to add, edit, or
remove items on the list (unless your edits are completely opposite what
someone else has put there, in which case please provide reasons/comments
for your edits). In the interest of time, we'd like to ask you to please
provide your feedback by this Sunday, 11/4.
Thank you so much everyone!
Annie
[1]
http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ambassador_Program/Measures_of_success
--
Annie Lin
Global Education Program Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
alin(a)wikimedia.org
Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Wikipedia Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing or read the archives.
U.S. professor blogs about her experiences
Alverno College professor Jennifer Geigel Mikulay wrote a post for the Wikimedia Foundation blog about her experiences incorporating Wikipedia into her classroom. She asks her students to write Wikipedia articles about public artworks or create videos posted on Wikimedia Commons to illustrate article content, and the best part is that all of her students are women, so she's helping to address Wikipedia's gender gap. Learn more about her experiences by reading her post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
More than 20 classes join Egypt program this term
The Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt is kicking off its second term, with courses at the University of Alexandria joining Cairo University and Ain Shams University in participating. More than 20 courses are already on board, with both new and returning professors using Wikipedia in their classrooms this term. At Ain Shams University, courses will be working to translate high quality articles from the English, German, Hebrew, and French Wikipedias onto the Arabic Wikipedia this term. See the full list of courses.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Michigan hosts teaching with Wikipedia workshop
Open.Michigan, a University of Michigan open educational resources initiative, hosted Wikipedia Education Program staff member Jami Mathewson last month for a workshop on teaching with Wikipedia. More than 35 faculty, staff, and students at the University of Michigan attended an information session on the program, and a total of 16 people stayed for the in-depth workshop led by the University of Michigan student club. Learn more about the event by reading Open.Michigan's blog post about the workshop.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Working Group proposes new thematic organization
Since July 2012, the Education Working Group has volunteered hours of their time to propose an idea for how to spin out the U.S. and Canada Education Programs from the Wikimedia Foundation in May 2013. They've proposed the creation of a new non-profit, affiliated with the Wikimedia Foundation as a thematic organization, and have asked for comments on their proposal from the Wikipedia and academic community through what's known as a Request for Comment, or RfC, on Wikipedia. You're encouraged to comment if you'd like.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Wikipedia Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing or read the archives.
Research shows students improve English Wikipedia
Research data released today shows that Spring 2012 students in the U.S. and Canada programs improved the quality of articles by an average of 6.5 points on a 26-point assessment scale, with 87.9 percent of articles showing noticeable improvement after student edits. The new research is part of our ongoing efforts to determine success factors for future classes in the U.S. and Canada Education Programs. See the results.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Workshops introduce education program in Brazil
Two more workshops have introduced Brazilians to the idea of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education courses. On September 22, a group of experienced Campus Ambassadors and professors led an orientation in Rio de Janeiro for new program participants. More than 300 people attended a presentation in Porto Alegre the following weekend, with many of them joining three workshops afterward. Read more about the second event (in Portuguese).
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Professor argues for Wikipedia's use in class
Wikipedia belongs in university classrooms, argued Michigan State University professor Jonathan Obar in a piece posted on Read Write Web. The highly informative article walks people through why Wikipedia is a valuable tool for both teaching and research, and explains the benefits for each in terms of student learning. Read the article.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Cairo students' translation work featured
The Wikimedia Foundation blog featured a post highlighting the work of two students from the Cairo Pilot, Helana Fola and Mina Saber. Helana and Mina are both French literature students at Ain Shams University, and they discovered a skill for French to Arabic translation through their work with the Cairo Pilot. Learn more about their experiences with the program.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
Professor from Brazil profiled on blog
Edivaldo Moura Santos, a professor of physics at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, started using Wikipedia in his classroom in spring 2012 as part of the Wikipedia Education Program. His students improved articles on electromagnetism, and he was thrilled with the unique experience it afforded them, especially in regard to student learning and engagement. His work was featured in a blog post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Read the post.
https://contacts.wikimedia.org/sites/all/modules/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=7…
To unsubscribe from this newsletter, click this link:
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This email is sent from:
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
United States
Hi, Ambassadors!
In early 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) decided that the Wikipedia
Education Program in the US and Canada had expanded to a point beyond that
of a pilot program. With growing interest in the program, we have more and
more professors and students who seek support when contributing to
Wikipedia, and the current setup limits that potential support. In June
2012, WMF created a "Working
Group<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group>"[1]
of 16 volunteers, represented by both academia and Wikipedia, to come up
with a proposal for a new way of supporting professors, students, and
Ambassadors in the program.
The group has worked together to consider the future of the program and how
we can set our volunteers, professors and students up for success when
editing Wikipedia, in a way that will improve the encyclopedia. We are very
interested in getting feedback from the Wikipedia community, professors in
the program, and, of course, Ambassadors who are involved in the program.
Thus, the Working Group has now posted a Request for Comment
(RfC)<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/RfC>[2]
on Wikipedia. This is a space where you can read about the current plans
for the program, get some questions answered, and give your opinion about
how we should move forward with the program. As Ambassadors, this new
structure (currently being proposed as a new nonprofit organization that
has a relationship to the Wikimedia Foundation, or a "Thematic
Organization<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/Thematic_Organi…>"[3])
may affect you and your involvement in the program.
The Working Group wants to make sure Ambassadors are aware of what's going
on, have the opportunity to participate in the discussion, and are still
excited about the program once it moves from WMF in May 2013. You probably
have a lot of questions, and hopefully we have answered many of them on the
page linked above. If you are interested in participating in this
discussion, I encourage you to read more about the process, the proposal,
and others' comments/concerns.
If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them on the Talk Page of
the RfC, the discussion section on the bottom, or even to this listserv.
Ideally, we can keep the conversation on-wiki, in order to keep everyone
involved. Thank you guys, and we hope to use your insight to develop the
program to better meet your needs in the future!
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Education_Working_Group/RfC
[3]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_affiliation_models/Thematic_Organi…
On behalf of the Working Group,
Jami
--
Jami Mathewson
U.S./Canada Education Program Associate
Wikimedia Foundation
jmathewson(a)wikimedia.org
http://education.wikimedia.org
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