[Foundation-l] MENA Education Program?

[Barry Newstead]

Hi Katie,
Just to build on Moushira's response to tackle your questions a bit further.

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 5:26 AM, aude <aude.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:

> Erik, Sue, Frank, et al,
>
> Can you please say more about the plans for a Middle East education
> program? (yes I have read notes from the recent trip on outreach wiki)
>
> What is the timeframe? Who is going to run it? Will you establish a
> "trust" there? Where will the office be?
>

We are planning a pilot in Cairo, but have not yet firmed up the details.
Frank, Annie and Moushira will spend a week in Cairo in December to
investigate the opportunity further and see when it would make sense to run
a small pilot.  We are hoping for February, but want to make sure the
conditions are right for success.

>
> If the program is to be duplicated, I certainly hope there are not the
> same issues with quality, as has happened in Pune.  What lessons have
> you learned and what will you do differently?
>

We do not plan on duplicating the Pune experience. For one, we want to do a
much smaller pilot. We also want to dig into questions regarding copyright
and student writing ability in Arabic before we start the pilot.  Nitika
has captured a series of lessons on the pilot [1] and we are doing further
detailed evaluation work to ensure we mine the pilot fully.

>
> Knowing that there is quite a backlog, last time I checked, with
> pending changes on Arabic Wikipedia, I am very concerned for the
> ability of volunteers there to handle a massive influx of new content.
>

This is a concern we share...and we discussed this with the community
members in Doha as Moushira mentioned.  No easy solutions here and we'll
need to innovate.

>
> I am also concerned if you setup a trust in, say Egypt, that will put
> a damper on any efforts to form a chapter, which I know has been
> discussed.
>

We do plan on setting up a regional entity to support our program work in
the region. It is premature as to the actual structure.  I really don't see
this as being a damper on the formation of a chapter, but we don't really
have any evidence either way.

>
> If done carefully and well, I would be very delighted to see outreach
> programs be a success for Arabic Wikipedia, and hope that will be the
> case.
>

This is exactly the intention of the work in Arabic and was the spirit we
all came out of our Doha convening with.  We are all united in this
goal...recognizing that it will take a lot of effort by a lot of people to
truly reach the full potential of Arabic Wikipedia!

>
> Cheers,
> Katie
>
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[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_-_India_Programs/Education_Program

Best,
Barry

-- 
Barry Newstead
Chief Global Development Officer
Wikimedia Foundation

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