[WikiEN-l] Update on the Public Policy Initiative

[LiAnna Davis]

Hi all,

First off, I want to introduce myself: I'm LiAnna Davis, the 
communications associate for the Wikimedia Foundation's new Public 
Policy Initiative. The Initiative is a new project where we will work 
with professors at public policy schools in the United States to 
incorporate improving Wikipedia articles into the curriculum for their 
courses.

We will experiment with different methods of using Wikipedia as a 
teaching and learning tool in universities and ways to provide 
incentives and support participation by students, teachers, and 
Wikipedians. The goal of the project is both to improve public policy 
content during the duration of the project and also to produce 
information and infrastructure that could inform the design and 
development of a long­-term sustainable model.

We're finalizing our list of professors who will be participating in the 
Initiative for the fall, so stay tuned for more information about that 
-- but at the moment, we're in the middle of an article assessment 
drive, and we encourage everyone to join us. Our on-Wikipedia home is 
the WikiProject United States Public Policy 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy), 
and we've started a challenge 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Challenge) 
to tag and assess as many articles relevant to our project as you can.

We're using a more detailed assessment model (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Quality_rating) 
to meet the quantitative analysis needs of our project. Over the last 
few weeks, we've had great collaboration with several editors who have 
already joined our project on the first few drafts of our metric. Please 
join us help work out the bugs as we put it into action.

We're also looking for Campus Ambassadors and Online Ambassadors, 
experienced Wikipedians who can help students in the courses navigate 
editing Wikipedia. Campus Ambassadors (more info here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Campus_Ambassadors) 
are people who can physically be at the schools; Online Ambassadors 
(more info here: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_United_States_Public_Policy/Online_Ambassadors) 
can participate from anywhere.

I encourage any editors interested in U.S. public policy or using 
Wikipedia in the classroom to join our WikiProject and help out.

LiAnna

-- 
LiAnna Davis
Communications Associate - Public Policy
Wikimedia Foundation