2014 Activity Plan/University and Education Outreach

Lead members of staff

Daria Cybulska and Toni Sant

Indicative budget amount

£18,000 to allow for a major education event in the range of £10,000

Description and overall rationale

Wikimedia UK is working with some of the country's most respected and innovative institutions to explore how Wikimedia projects can benefit UK education. In partnership with universities and support bodies, we are gradually establishing Wikimedia as part of the landscape of UK education (as on the UK wiki).

WMUK engages with the Education sector to provide the following opportunities:

1. Better awareness, especially among senior managers in the education sector about the appropriate use of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in education.
2. Stronger engagement in higher education institutions towards more university tutors assigning the editing of Wikipedia articles and/or contributing to other Wikimedia projects for assessment (course credit).
3. Broader reach across the education sector (lifelong learning as well as school children, along with higher education) towards better understanding of Wikimedia’s projects and direct engagement with content sharing.
4. Enabling UK-based academic researchers to develop a UK-based network with others working on Wikimedia-related academic research, as well as ensuring more participation in the existing WikiSym community.

The aim is to be extending the education work through local and national events, lead by the Education Organiser and also resulting from the initiatives from the volunteers. Working with our community to find opportunities to improve content, secure material for open use, train new editors. This is done through outreach activities, workshop/conference-style events, partnerships with particular education institutions.

For 2013 EduWiki programme plan, please see here.

For 2013 Education programme, please see here.

Timelines - i.e. what happens quarter by quarter

Success criteria and Metrics - overall and quarter by quarter breakdown if relevant

will be rewritten

Goals

Build relationships with Education institutions, increasing their awareness of Wikimedia projects, open knowledge movement, and how they can work with Wikimedia UK. The aim is to encourage students to contribute, and to influence academics to accept Wikipedia as a valuable resource:

• Run an EduWiki conference to promote the use of Wikimedia projects in education and support dialogue of best practice
  • At least 10 new institutions attracted, 50% of which go on to run a project with WMUK.
  • Aim of 100 attendees (survey, event page, contacts on office wiki)
• One pilot project run with an organisation involved with education in schools with a view to developing strategies to promote wikis in schools
• Run activities with 5 institutions/year (contacts on office wiki)
• Presence at external sector conferences and events - up to 3 a year (wiki event list)
• Distribution/production of the education brochure, explaining the benefits of working with the Wikimedia projects - 300 copies circulated to educators within a year (stock on gdoc)
• Run activities (joint event, joint publication) with 2 sector bodies such as Jisc (building on our 2013-14 project) (contacts on office wiki)

Engage with Wikimedia community to gain new and retain existing volunteers:

• Opportunities for volunteers (including inactive ones) to contribute to the Education projects - 2 editathons bringing in on average 10 volunteers (event list on wiki).
• Education workshops - hold up to 8 Education related training sessions/editathons with focus on new contributors. They will attract an average of 15 people each, 10 of whom will be new to editing (event list on wiki).
• Student societies - working with 5-10 universities; presence at 5 Fresher’s Fairs; societies delivering 2 events/year each (on wiki).
• University classroom assignments - working with 2-3 universities on improving content created/edited by students for assessment.

Risks

• Size of sector leads to lack of focus and impact.
• Becomes too disparate to deliver lasting benefits.