Submissions/Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt and Jordan: closing the gender gap and growing contributions to the Arabic Wikipedia

From Wikimania 2014 • London, United Kingdom

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 3046
Title of the submission
Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt and Jordan: closing the gender gap and growing contributions to the Arabic Wikipedia
Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop)
presentation
Author of the submission
Samir I. El-Sharbaty, Dr. Nidal Yousef, Tighe Flanagan
E-mail address
s.sharbaty@yahoo.com, nidal.yousef@ipu.edu.jo, tflanagan@wikimedia.org
Username
Samir I. Sharbaty, Nidal.yousef, Tflanagan (WMF)
Country of origin
Egypt, Jordan, USA
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
Ain Shams University (Cairo, Egypt), Isra Universtiy (Amman, Jordan), The Association for the Enrichment of Arabic Content (Jordan), Wikipedia Education Program (Egypt, Jordan), Wikimedia Foundation
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)
The Wikipedia Education Program recently completed its 4th consecutive term in Egypt, and second term in Jordan. Starting in March 2012, this program has contributed nearly 30 million bytes of content to the Arabic Wikipedia. Students in the program are also making up sizable numbers of the active and very active editors during the term -- and we are seeing a noticeable amount of editor retention months and years after students participate in the program.
The Wikipedia Education Program aims to add quality content to Wikipedia by having students edit as part of their coursework. With a strategic focus on the Arabic Wikipedia, the program has taken different shapes in different countries. In Egypt, where the regional pilot program first started, the WEP has transitioned from a WMF-led initiative to a local volunteer led program supported by WMF. In Jordan, the WEP has had a much more gradual and organic growth, and also witnessed a surprising amount of success at the secondary school level.
We will present the current state of the WEP in the Arab world including our challenges and how we are working to improve the program for future terms. We will also share our successes, particularly the high number of female student participants (between 70% and 88% depending on country and term) which we hope are leading to more diversity in both contributors and content.
Track
Education Outreach
Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long)
30 minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
Probably/hopefully!
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests


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  1. LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:05, 1 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Ocaasi (talk) 23:24, 6 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  3. FKoudijs (WMF) (talk) 22:50, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Dyolf77 (talk) 08:20, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:12, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  6. --ArildV (talk) 21:18, 14 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Alice d25 (talk) 22:28, 18 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  8. --لا روسا (talk) 10:22, 23 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  9. Bachounda (talk) 15:52, 15 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  10. Add your username here.