Education/News/November 2023/Expansion of Wikipedia Education Program through Student Associations at Iranian Universities

Expansion of Wikipedia Education Program through Student Associations at Iranian Universities

Author: Arash

On November 22, 2023, the third general assembly of the Union of Student Associations of History was held at Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. More than 20 secretaries of the associations from across Iran participated in this assembly.

Summary: At its 3rd general assembly hosted by Shahid Beheshti University, the Union of Iranian Student Associations of History was introduced to Wikipedia's open access knowledge platform and its Education Program aimed at increasing Persian language content. Following vibrant discussions between the university's experienced Wikipedia editing community and secretaries of associations regarding quality control and scholarly standards, the majority expressed readiness to launch local Wikipedia education initiatives with editor support. This marks meaningful progress in involving more academic institutions into Wikipedia's open knowledge mission to mutually benefit both the participatory Persian Wikipedia resource and Iran's next generation of historians and academics through impactful exchanges.

Student Associations are non-profit, self-governing organizations run by students of different majors at each university. The mission of these associations is to promote knowledge related to their own field among students and the public.

In this meeting, Persian Wikipedia Education Program users at the university had a session to introduce Wikipedia and its Education Program to the secretaries of the associations. See A milestone in Wikimedia activities in Iran: a 5-Year Education Program story.

First, some background on the history of Wikipedia and its working procedures were presented. In addition, the necessity of building connections between universities and other educational institutions with Wikipedia was explained. After that, Wikipedia Educational Program, its history and achievements in Persian Wikipedia were elaborated based on Shahid Beheshti University experiences.

After the presentations, a Q&A session began between the association secretaries and Wikipedia Education Program users. One participant asked, "A while ago, I put great effort into improving the content of an article, but after a few days my edits were reverted." I (Arash) explained the Verifiability and Neutral Point of View Policy to answer him. Another participant asked, "Considering anyone can edit articles on Wikipedia, what mechanisms exist to counter vandalism?" In response, Borandokht explained the protection policy. Another participant asked about the process for featuring articles on Wikipedia. ImanFakhri, as the user with the highest number of featured articles via the Wikipedia Education Program at Shahid Beheshti University, explained the peer review process for making articles good and featured. Another participant asked, "Doesn’t writing Wikipedia entries discourage students from conducting proper academic research?" I replied that the format of academic research in history differs from encyclopedic entries. On the contrary, writing encyclopedic entries can be a great starting point for students to become familiar with a topic and related scholarly sources.

In the end, the majority of the secretaries of associations expressed interest in implementing the Wikipedia Education Program at their own universities with the help of the Wikipedia Education Program user community at Shahid Beheshti University.

It is expected that this fruitful experience will lead to the expansion of the Wikipedia Education Program across the country.