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

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

Applicants will be enrolled at the post secondary level at a Canadian university or college for the 2011/2012 year.

Submissions of applications

Submission will be made to Wikimedia Canada here

Selection of winner

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:

1. The overall improvement of the article by the editor in question
2. The criteria outlines at good article criteria and featured article criteria and whether or not promotion of the article took place
3. The importance of the article's subject matter within Wikiproject Medicine

Promotion

Press release

Promotion will be via press releases to media outlets. The press release has been sent to a number of university papers.

Presentations at universities

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

The poster

Posters placed at the Universities where the medical student hang out.

Research component

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

A number of methods will be in place to determine the success of the pilot. Metrics to be looked at included:

1. The number of new editors (with a look at which Universities and which years of students where most successful)
2. The number of articles brought to GA / FA and total number of articles worked on
3. The number of editors still contribution after defined periods of time (3 months, 6 months, 1 year)

Budget

1. Travel costs for visits to Universities $1500 (funding provided by the WMF)
2. Promotional items $200 (funding provided by the WMF)
3. Scholarship $1000 (funding provided by James Heilman, MD)

Discussion with other involved parties

Have been in discussion with Barry Newstead from the WMF and he agrees that this project has merit.

Members involved

--Doc James 12:27, 28 February 2011 (EST)