On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 6:36 PM, Hisham <hmundol@wikimedia.org> wrote:

I thought I'd share with you a couple of links that are of relevance to the India Education Program. As you are aware, we are running a pilot of the education program in Pune. We are collating hard numbers to evaluate the pilot - and we'll share a full evaluation as soon as it is ready. However, it is clear that there are a number of mistakes that have been made - some of which ought to have been avoided (especially with regards to communicating stronger with the global wikipedia community, not agreeing to so many students signing up, anticipating the copy-pasting issue, etc.)

There've been many learnings that we're taking from it and Nitika has been collating these at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program Please do note that this page is a draft and is very much work-in-progress. In addition, do also check out the discussion page - which we are trying to have as a focal point for all discussion regarding the education program.

In addition, Signpost covered the education program on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2011-11-07/Interview and there are some very nuanced and insightful comments on it.

Many thanks for sharing these links, Hisham. I spent the last couple of hours poring over all of them before my eyes started glazing.

I read this talk page [1] from top to bottom - it was particularly useful in seeing how the whole copyvio issue started, then grew bigger and bigger.

Apart from the content, I was struck by:
*the helpful, purposive and constructive suggestions and analysis from editors
*a general absence of combativeness or baiting
*an overall openness to feedback and responsiveness on the part of the India Education Program team

The statistical discussion on this talk page [2] was very useful to get a sense of the magnitude of the problem.

It looks like many of the suggestions made on these pages have directly been incorporated into the learnings page at [3] - this is an excellent step.

There are so many good points on all these pages, such a willingness to help strengthen the program, and so much openness to doing so, that I now feel more hopeful for the future.

Best
Bishakha

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:India_Education_Program
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program#Serious_issues_with_this_program
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program