Hey Guys<div><br></div><div>Would like to make a plug for a scholarship we have available here in Canada for post secondary students. Applications begin Sept 10th, 2011 with the award being given to the student who makes the greatest contribution to a disease related article. Am looking for people wishing to get involved with spreading this. An overview can be found here <a href="http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Projects/Medical_student_outreach">http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Projects/Medical_student_outreach</a> Have put together a bit of a press release:</div>
<div><br></div><blockquote class="webkit-indent-blockquote" style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Wikimedia Canada is offering a $1000 dollar scholarship to the Canadian post secondary student who makes the greatest improvement to a disease related article on Wikipedia. Applications open Sept 10th 2011 and run until Feb 28th 2012 and can be found online at <a href="http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Scholarship_application" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 204); ">http://wikimedia.ca/wiki/Scholarship_application</a></span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">Wikipedia, as most are aware, is the free online encyclopedia that covers nearly everything, almost anyone can edit, and nearly everybody reads. As of Aug 2011 it had over 3.7 million articles in the English language alone, of which approximately 23,000 pertained to the practice of medicine. These medical pages in a given month receive between 150 and 200 million page views and are being used extensively by medical professionals and the lay public alike.</span></div>
<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); "><br></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); ">While Wikipedia has significant quality information, further efforts are needed. Of the top 100 most viewed medical articles, only a quarter are deemed high quality. Thus those at WikiProject Medicine invite you to join us in our attempt to provide the people of the world with free access to reliable, understandable, and current health information and maybe win a scholarship while you are at it.</span></div>
</blockquote><div><div><br></div><div>Comments? Anyone else looking at this sort of initiative? This is being run as a pilot project and hopefully will present at next years Wikimania on the results.</div>-- <br>James Heilman, MD, CCFP(EM)<br>
Wikipedian, Wikimedia Canada<br><br>
</div>