Grants:IEG/Localizing Offline Wikipedia and Deployment in Nigerian High Schools
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Project idea
editI plan to deploy the Offline Wiki and deploy to 100 High Schools in Nigeria with computer facilities but without internet access. Before the deployment, I and my team will localize the Offline Wiki so that it can have high relevance to the students before deploying to the schools. Each of these schools will have at least 500 students so that means by the end of the project, between 50,000 and 500,000 students (There is an average of 500 students in private high schools and 5,000 students in public high schools) will have access to Wikipedia. This project will have a ripple effect on the Wiki-Nigeria community. First of all, we will have the opportunity to involve volunteers in the editing of articles in the Offline Wiki. This will definitely jump-start editing in Nigeria. Secondly, we will have the opportunity to train the students and teachers on the importance of editing articles and encourage them to edit and create articles on Wikipedia Thirdly, this will be a good avenue to build a Wiki-Nigeria Volunteer Community which will eventually lead to been a User Group or Chapter
What is the problem you're trying to solve?
editDespite submarine fibre optic access, a lot of Nigerian high school students do not have access to information. As a student myself, I cannot imagine going through school without access to Wikipedia and unfortunately, there are lots of schools with computer centres but no internet access. Most of these schools had computer centres with internet access given or donated to them by either politicians/Government or philanthropists but fail to renew their internet access and I believe the Offline Wikipedia will do a lot to these schools. It will also rejuvenate their computer centres which is no more used since it has no internet access.
What is your solution?
editInstalling the Offline Wikipedia will give between 50,000 to 500,000 students access to information, it will encourage them to read because students see Wikipedia as an online library
Project goals
editAfter this project, we expect that students, especially those in rural areas will have more access to Wikipedia. We also expect that the media buzz we will create while going about the project will also encourage those in the urban areas to also try Wikipedia
Project PLAN
edit- I have started recruiting volunteers for the project. I presently have nine people willing to work with me on this project on volunteer basis.
- I am presently in talks with government representatives to give us permission to install the Offline Wikipedia in high schools with computer centres. With this approval, I will have access to the schools I want to install the Offline Wikipedia in.
- The team will be trained on writing Wikipedia articles. Jamie Tubers who is an experienced Nigerian editor will handle the training. He is the advisor for the project.
- My team and I will spend the first month writing articles about Nigeria, her people, her culture, national heroes, leaders politics and other interests a typical student will want to search Wikipedia for. The 1000 new articles will come from here. This is what I mean by localization
- We will get a copy of the Offline Wikipedia
- The team will be trained on the installations of the Offline Wikipedia
- The team of ten people will to volunteer, the volunteers will split into four teams of at least 2 people each.
- Each team will handle the installations for a state. That means we will carry out installations in five states consecutively.
will at the end of this have an updated Offline Wikipedia which will be installed in the Schools
- During the installations, we will train students and teachers on how to edit and create articles on online Wikipedia. After high school, most of the students move to urban areas to either further their education or get jobs. This training will inform them that there is an online Wikipedia and that they can contribute to it by editing and creating articles
Project Timeline
edit- Month 1: Localization/ Massive update of articles to the online Wikipedia by the team
- Month 2: The whole team works together deploying in Lagos State. This will give the team real life experience.
- Month 3, 4 & 5: Consecutive deployment to the other four states.
- Month 6: Monitoring of the project, fixing problems that might arise in the last 4 months and preparing the final report for the project.
Budget
edit| S/No | Item | Description | Cost (Naira) | Units | Total (Naira) | Total (Dollars) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Travel | A minimum of ten people have volunteered to spend a month travelling round five states (Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Ekiti and Ondo states) | 50,000 | 5 | 250,000 | 1470.58 |
| 2 | Hotel Accommodation | 300,000 | 1 | 300,000 | 1764.70 | |
| 3 | Logistics | Organizing Nigerian Based Wikipedians who are interested in the project, Internet costs, Phone calls etc | 50,000 | 1 | 50,000 | 294.12 |
| 4 | Wikimedia Swag | banners, stickers, tee shirts, hand bands and other things students love | 50,000 | 1 | 50,000 | 294.12 |
| 5 | Miscellaneous | Taxes, charges etc | 50,000 | 1 | 50,000 | 294.12 |
| Total | 700000 | 4117.65 |
Community engagement
editThis project is designed to build the Wikipedia community in Nigeria. We have a mail thread for people interested in the Wiki Nigeria community and 9 people out of this thread have indicated interest to support the project as volunteers. During the project, we will create a social media buzz and I believe more people will be interested in joining the project. We will also try to have a team on ground in each state. I will also work with more experienced Wikipedians across African and the world at large to make the project a success. Discussions are on with Ministries of Education so as to give us direct contact with the selected schools; During the project, the teachers and students of the schools will be trained on what the project entails.
Sustainability
editAfter the grant ends, I expect that we will have made considerable success in the states we have visited such that the Ministries of Education in other states can support our transportation and Logistics so as to spread this Offline Wiki. I also believe that we should have had enough followership such that the Offline Wikipedia can be sent to volunteers in other states. This means we do not need to travel to that state and it is cheaper for that volunteer to install
Measures of success
edit- After the project, I expect that Wikipedia will be a trusted source of information for students especially those in the rural areas
- I expect to see an improved Nigeria-based content Wikipedia
- I expect at least 1000 new articles on Wikipedia
- I expect that a lot more people will join us in the course of this project and be committed to the Wikipedia Nigeria dream
- I also believe we can have a viable Wikipedia Nigeria Community after this project
Need target-setting tips? Note: in addition to your project-specific measures of success, you will also be asked to report on some Global Metrics at the end of your final report. Please keep this in mind as you plan, and we'll support you as you begin your project.
Get involved
editParticipants
edit- Olaniyan Olushola is an editor he participated in wikiindaba. He has been working on a couple of edit and of resent he has just registered has a member of discography in wiki. He has submitted Discography of Late Alhaji. Sikiru Ayinde barrister.
- Jamie Tubers is an active editor on Wikipedia. He has created more than 28 pages on English Wikipedia and has made significant contributions to several other articles; he has uploaded several images on Wikipedia and commons as well. Currently, he has made about 4,000 edits to the Wikipedia. He also contributes to other wikimedia projects such as Commons and Wikitionary. He is currently a college student, who concluded high school few years ago. He's apparently one of the youngest in the team and as a result has a more recent knowledge on the current situations in Nigerian high schools. His experience on Wikipedia and him being a student is essential in making the idea a success.
- Volunteer I would make myself available for the outreach. Emadapoet (talk) 04:03, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
- Volunteer Any assistance especially in the area of editing Wiki-pages and in social media publicity. I did a similar project on my own when I was a student at the University of Ghana in 2011 by deploying Wikitaxi and later Kiwix, it worked pretty well and proved very useful to students as such I could weight in with my experience. Since then I've always had the intention of expanding it till at least Wikipedia-Zero reaches Ghana. I am hoping to learn and to acquire new ideas from this project. Masssly (talk) 13:56, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
- Volunteer I am a new Wikipedian and I am interested in the growth of the community in Nigeria. I'd use the opportunity of localising 1000 articles to learn how to write articles. - think this will also help the community building in Nigeria because newbies like me can get involved and build interest in Wiki NigeriaTundakit1 (talk) 18:35, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
- Volunteer I would love to be a part of the project because of the effect and result it is capable of achieving.
- Volunteer I would like to contribute my own quota in making this project a reality as this might be the opportunity someone might have to get a good quality education in high school in Nigeria. Femiogunmade (talk) 20:59, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
- Volunteer I would like to be part of this history-in-the-making project as this will equip the younger generation with knowledge and as they say "knowledge is power" lets empower them for the future of this great nation Nigeria. Jemkob (talk) 00:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
- Volunteer I would be educating the student during the outreach so as to ensure effective usage. Tayofag (talk) 11:58, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Community Notification
editPlease paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Nigeria#Comment_on_the_Localizing_Offline_Wikipedia_and_Deployment_in_Nigerian_High_Schools_Proposal
- African Wikipedia Mailing List
Endorsements
editDo you think this project should be selected for an Individual Engagement Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project in the list below. (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the talk page of this proposal).
- Community member: add your name and rationale here.
- It tends to address the need of our educational needs in area of research. Since most schools in Nigeria lacks internet access and also need an affordable search engine for research by Teachers and home work by students.
- An off-line access to Wikimedia will surely cut the difficulties experience with internet connectivity. Olaniyan Olushola (talk) 12:39, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
- An offline Wikipedia is definitely a welcome development. It would give Nigerian students an easy way to obtain knowledge on a wide range of subjects and aspects of education. It would also cut the cost on internet access for schools.--Jamie Tubers (talk) 14:20, 3 October 2014 (UTC)
- Considering the fact that most of our high schools are internet-limited, the offline Wikipedia will, no doubt, make learning and research more interesting for our students. Emadapoet (talk) 04:14, 12 October 2014 (UTC)
- It is a good idea that I feel passionately about. I personally was engaged in the deployment of Wikitaxi at University of Ghana when I was a student there in 2011. I stumbled on the Wikitaxi database when I was searching for a replacement encyclopedia for Encarta which ended its updates in 2009. At first I shared the dump with my roomies and classmates thereafter it spread very quickly and became very popular even among faculty members as many more students copied it, mainly because of the lack of easy access to internet. Since Wikipedia-Zero has still not covered Nigeria entirely I would expect to see similar results. Most of the students were actually engaging with Wikipedia for the first time althogugh some might have used it before unknowingly from Google search entries. I hope to see this project succeed not only in Nigeria but across the continent especially in rural communities, and this can only be done if grants are released towards its fulfillment.Masssly (talk) 15:07, 13 October 2014 (UTC)
- I would love to support this proposal because the end result will be for a Real purposeful and meaningful cause. The need of offline wikki cant be overemphasized as it would help in improving the educational levels of our already decaying education sector. Tundakit1 (talk) 18:58, 19 October 2014 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is the go-to resource for most students. Though many student still have access to internet as a major setback in using the information available of on Wikipedia. This project will therefore bridge that gap and I believe that it will not just benefit secondary school students, it will be of benefit to all students in general in the long run. I will thus love to be a part of the project. Daretinto 197.253.6.248 00:28, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
- Internet Connectivity is yet prevalent in Nigeria, with an Offline Wiki, young people in high school will have the best of learning experience in school as they will have to access to information without needing to get online. Femiogunmade (talk) 20:57, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
- Majority of the educational institutions are still housing large volumes of encyclopedic information on paper and the cost of accessing the internet for information is still on the high side in some part of Nigeria, with this soft copy and offline Wikipedia deployment access to information will be made easy and at a reduced cost (if any). Jemkob (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
- The project is paramount so as to create more access to Wikipedia through the offline Wikipedia.The student get educated and there is more accessibility despite challenges which lack of internet provides. Tayofag (talk) 11:53, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
Support A project speaking to the local needs of making free and open knowledge accessible. Best wishes. --Visdaviva (talk) 12:04, 27 October 2014 (UTC)
