Projects/Medical student outreach
The project is attempting to increase the participation of post secondary students and staff in actively contributing to Wikimedia projects. It will involve a number of different measures including: presentations to students and staff at their Universities, promotional material (pencils, etc.), and an editing competition tied to a scholarship in collaboration with WikiProject Medicine.
Further ideas can be found at the corresponding page at Wikiproject medicine [1].
The creation of a scholarship has been previously proposed on Wikimedia Strategic Planning [2] As to my knowledge no one has piloted these ideas to determine if it is an effective measure to get academics / post secondary students contributing to improving the quality of Wikipedia content.
Scholarship
[edit]I am creating a scholarship in the amount of $1000 to cover some tuition at a Canadian University. The application process will involve contributing to Wikipedia and the winner being he or she who makes the most significant contribution to a single disease related article within the field of medicine. This will increase the profile of both Wikimedia Canada and get more student involved in contributing.
Eligibility
[edit]Applicants will be enrolled at the post secondary level at a Canadian university or college for the 2011/2012 year.
Submissions of applications
[edit]Submission will be made to Wikimedia Canada here
Selection of winner
[edit]The selection committee will be appointed by the Wiki Canada board of directors. It will be comprised of 2-3 Wikipedians who will evaluate the applicants based on the following criteria.
The judging of the article will take into account:
- The overall improvement of the article by the editor in question
- The criteria outlines at good article criteria and featured article criteria and whether or not promotion of the article took place
- The importance of the article's subject matter within Wikiproject Medicine
Promotion
[edit]Press release
[edit]Promotion will be via press releases to media outlets. The press release has been sent to a number of university papers.
Presentations at universities
[edit]Presentations to University students and faculty regarding Wikipedian ( some of which will be based on this paper [3]).
- A half day at McMaster is being arranged for Oct 4th,2011 (see: Wikipedia at McMaster for further details)
- A half day at UBC is being arranged Oct 6/7th of 2011 (see: Wikipedia at UBC).
- A half day at New Delhi is being arranged for Nov 1st 2011.
- A half day at a UK University is being arranged for 2012.
Posters
[edit]
Posters placed at the Universities where the medical student hang out.
Research component
[edit]As we will be going out to speak to medical students this will give us an opportunity to administer a questionnaire looking at current internet / Wikipedia usage by this group of people. Further details on research can be found here
Determining success
[edit]A number of methods will be in place to determine the success of the pilot. Metrics to be looked at included:
- The number of new editors (with a look at which Universities and which years of students where most successful)
- The number of articles brought to GA / FA and total number of articles worked on
- The number of editors still contribution after defined periods of time (3 months, 6 months, 1 year)
Budget
[edit]- Travel costs for visits to Universities $1500 (funding provided by the WMF)
- Promotional items $200 (funding provided by the WMF)
- Scholarship $1000 (funding provided by James Heilman, MD)
Discussion with other involved parties
[edit]Have been in discussion with Barry Newstead from the WMF and he agrees that this project has merit.
Members involved
[edit]--Doc James 12:27, 28 February 2011 (EST)