Wikimedia Armenia/Reports/2023-03

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2023

March

Collaboration with Brusov State University

The cooperation with V. Brusov State University, which started on February 9, continued in March. The Senior students of Bachelor’s and Master's degrees of the Faculty of Translation and Intercultural Communication and Russian and Foreign Languages of the V. Brusov State University conducted their internship at the Wikimedia Armenia office. In the second phase of the internship, students continued to translate articles from Chinese, Korean, English and Russian Wikipedias. Once a week they visited the WMAM office to consult with Wikimedia Armenia employees and to seek help in technical matters, as well as to do on-site translations. The rest of the translations and publishing they did at home. In March, 50 students created articles, in total 112 articles with a volume of 5,912,449 bytes. During the internship, 175 articles with a volume of 8,229,956 bytes were created by the interns The internship ended on March 17.

Teachers' Wikipedia Spring Course and Wiki Gathering

From March 30 to April 2, the Teachers’ Wiki Gathering 2023 organized by Wikimedia Armenia took place in Tsaghkadzor. It was organized for the teachers of educational institutions of Armenia. A total of 280 teachers applied to participate in the gathering, out of which the best 30 were to be selected. In order to make the selection, a “Wikipedia course for teachers” was organized, in which the participants who had no experience of editing in Wikipedia took part. Out of 280 teachers, 235 applicants had no experience of editing in Wikipedia. They were divided into 6 groups of 35-40 people; for four groups, the course was organized online using the Zoom platform, and the other two groups took part in the course at the Wikimedia Armenia office. Ninety-one of the registered teachers attended the course. The course was held on March 3-24. Five 2-hour sessions were held with each group, during which teachers mastered the basic rules of Wikipedia, learned editing tools, and acquired skills in creating and publishing articles in Armenian Wikipedia. In the process, they started translating or creating new articles themselves, as well as improving the existing ones. In total, during the course, 26 of the participants wrote or improved 52 articles with a volume of 590,590 bytes. The rest of the participants worked in their sandboxes, but did not publish articles. Those participants who registered to participate in the Teachers’ Wiki Gathering and had experience in editing Wikipedia, were offered to create new articles or improve existing ones during the period of the Wikipedia course for the beginners. This was done to select the best of them. Ten out of the 45 registered experienced participants created and improved 43 articles with a volume of 410,101 bytes in parallel with the ongoing course. In total, 95 articles with a volume of 1,000,691 bytes were created and improved during the selection phase preceding the Wiki Gathering (beginners’ course + experienced participants). According to the results of the selection, 30 teachers were selected to participate in the Teachers’ Wiki Gathering. During three days, the teachers participating in the gathering created 190 articles in Armenian Wikipedia with a volume of 2,121,101 bytes by translating from English and Russian languages. As a result of the Teachers’ Wiki Gathering and the course that preceded it, 285 articles with a volume of 3,121,792 bytes were both written and improved. The Teachers’ Wiki Gathering was held in Tsakhkadzor and lasted 3 days. During the meeting, the participants visited the House-Museum of the Orbel brothers in Tsaghkadzor. They got acquainted with the biography, scientific and professional activities of the Orbel brothers. In order to make the gathering more entertaining, bowling, table tennis, hiking and various board games were organized for the teachers.

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Collaboration with the Ijevan Branch of Yerevan State University

In February Wikimedia Armenia started a collaboration with the Ijevan Branch of Yerevan State University. During March, 15 students from the Faculty of History and the Faculty of Armenian Literature finished creating or improving articles on Armenian Wikipedia. The special wiki course for them ended in February and during March the students continued working on their articles.

Throughout March, 35 articles were created and 39 articles were improved by the students, in total 495,000 bytes. For the duration of the collaboration, 50 articles were created and 42 articles were improved with a volume of 710,572 bytes.

CEE Spring 2023

As previously, this year Wikimedia Armenia joined CEE Spring 2023 contest-edit-a-thon. This contest strengthens the ties among Central and Eastern European countries, acts as an awareness raising mechanism.

During the first 10 days of the contest, 20 participants created 59 articles with a volume of 908,619 bytes.

Wikiclubs

As of March 31, there are 6 active Wikiclubs (Goris, Ddmashen, Lernapat, Koghb, Hatsik, Stepanakert) which have 108 active members. In March 2023, Wikiclub members participated in the “A Walk through the Continents” project during which they translated articles from other language Wikipedias. Each decade of the month was dedicated to a continent. Within the framework of this project, 29 Wikiclub members created 104 new articles with a volume of 1,150,430 bytes. The project will last for two months and it will end on 30 April. During the month out of 108 Wikiclub members 50 contributed to Wikipedia. Altogether they created 202 articles and made 1004 edits. The contribution was 2,317,681 bytes. Fifteen Wikiclub members edited on Wikisource where they made 144 edits by creating 45 pages and proofreading 48. Overall, their contribution was 130,938 bytes.