Wikimedia Education SAARC conference
20-22 June 2019
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Wikimedia Education SAARC conference was took place on 20-22 June 2019 at Christ University, Bangalore. Wikimedians from SAARC countries such as India, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Afghanistan can take part and share their best practices and help the other community members to understand the Wikimedia Education movement.
Education is a core function of the Wikipedia project. Many Wiki chapters, the Wikimedia movement, user groups and affiliates are developing programs involving Wikimedia and Education across the globe. Wiki has been used as a teaching resource by many teachers. Students are doing assignments on Wiki and adopting modern technologies. The Wikimedia and Education movements have the same goal - to ensure that knowledge is made accessible to every person across the world.
The CIS-A2K team, for instance, is working with the language department of Christ University and other educational institutions to enrich the content of Indic Wikimedia projects with the help of students. Globally many students and educators are involved in the Wikimedia movement and the Education movement working towards democratising education and increasing the accessibility of educational materials. We believe that students should not only consume knowledge available on the internet but also be a part of the larger Open Internet movement, and help in creating open knowledge resources. The Wikimedia Education SAARC conference was the first of its kind conference involving SAARC countries, engaging students, leaders, educators and researchers working with the Open Education and free knowledge movement.
This conference allowed us to understand the different efforts made by the communities involved in the Wikimedia Education movement. This help us to create models, templates and documents that can be replicated in by other institutions or programs. We at CIS A2K were inspired to host such a conference through the course of our work with Christ University. This would be one of the many projects that will be able to use the conference as a platform to showcase their work among the global Wikimedia movement.
- To generate awareness of Wikipedian in Education and activities happening in Asia by different community members/languages.
- Sharing the knowledge and best practices of how to build "trust relationship" with new partners/teachers and how to improve trust in Wikipedia.
- To understand Challenges on student retention and how to engage students in the broader Wikimedia movement.
- The best method to evaluate and measure the quality of the work done by students.
- To introduce tools like the dashboard, across diverse languages, and other tools which will be useful for tracking, assessment, allocation of the topics and others.
- Integration of Wiki activities with academic assignments, regular course syllabus.
- To bridge the gap and develop a mutually beneficial liaison between Wiki communities and Wikimedia Education stakeholders.
The Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019 was organized by Christ (Deemed to be University) Bangalore, in association with the Access to Knowledge Programme, Centre for Internet and Society, from June 20-22. The event was supported by the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikipedia and Education User group. The objective of the conference was to bring together different community efforts in the Wikimedia education movement, identify and discuss learnings and challenges, and forge new collaborations to realise the broader goal of democratizing education for all.
Organized under the aegis of the Department of Languages, Christ (Deemed-to-be University), this three-day event showcased Wikipedia Education programme initiatives across several languages, including the six-year-long education programme conducted by the University. Apart from discussions on learnings, knowledge gaps and best practices of these initiatives, the event also looked at broader strategies for developing institutional partnerships, addressing issues of student retention, developing new pedagogic models and increasing diversity in education. The programme also is composed of an introduction to Wikimedia tools and initiatives, such as Dashboard, Petscan, Wikidata, and GLAM. Questions of open access to education and the digital divide, the development of open educational resources and integration of these efforts with Wikimedia were discussed. The event helped in bringing together diverse stakeholders in the Wikimedia Education Movement, and opening up several avenues for collaboration, research and practice.
- Please read and follow the Code of Conduct (COC) during the event. The link is here.
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