Project GLOW/Project Al-Ma'refa/Goal & Vision

مشروع المعرفة Project Al-Ma'refa	Goal & Vision	Timeline	Contact	Documentation, Reports, Reviews
	Goal & Vision	Timeline	Team Partnerships	Budget Reports Documentation

Overview

Project Al-Ma'refa is a 2-year program, supported by Google and Wikimedia, that aims to promote Arabic-language content on Wikipedia and to focus on producing missing content that local readers are searching for.

The project’s timeline consists of three phases: Preparation phase (1.5 months), Competition phase (3 months), and the Assessment phase (1.5 months). The overall duration of the first term of the project is 6 months.

During the preparation period, the project team will create set up by producing videos, advertise on social media, finalizing the articles’ lists, and doing outreach to engage the Arabic-speaking community.

Once this is in place, the Competition phase starts. The editing competition will consist of 3 rounds, with a single month dedicated for each one. There will be prizes for 23 high-performing participants in each round. The participants’ articles will be evaluated and assessed by an expert jury with 5 members, selected by the project team.

Finally comes the Assessment phase, in which the project team will assess and evaluate the overall results. The will also investigate the impact of the project activities and compare it with the specified outputs and outcomes (stated in detail below).

At the one-year mark, WMF, and Wikipedia communities will assess and determine whether to move forward with Year 2.

Goals & Vision

Primary objective of the project is to increase relevant content on Arabic Wikipedia. The project will encourage Wikipedia communities in the Arabic MENA region to create high-quality content in Arabic for the most searched for (but missing) relevant topics. Project Al-Ma'refa, supported by Google, will specifically target language communities with small but growing Wikipedias and focus their efforts on producing missing content that local readers are searching for. Project Al-Ma'refa program is a 2 year program; at the one year mark, Google, WMF, and Wikipedia communities will assess and determine whether to move forward with Year 2.

The goal of the project is to increase the amount of useful and accessible information online in Arabic Wikipedia. The high level metric for evaluating the impact of the project is ultimately the number of articles created as a result of the project’s interventions. Below are the proposed article targets for the project.

• Creating 1,500 new articles on Arabic Wikipedia (500 per month of the competition)
• Organizing 5-10 on-site events to attract new contributors
• Retaining participants through higher/more equal distribution of prizes

Activities

• Organizing three competitions (with 1 month duration for each one), to create 1500 articles.
• Organizing 5-10 online edit-a-thons to attract new contributors
• Producing advertisement videos to be published on 5 social media sites (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn.
• Producing high-quality videos about how to edit Ar-Wikipedia professionally from A to Z, its history, and the importance of free knowledge for absolute beginners. These videos will be very useful for the whole Arabic community and will surely be used in other projects, programs or competitions such as the education program editions.
• Evaluation of the participants’ articles by an expert jury
• Provide prizes to the best performing editors from the writing contest
• Document the whole steps and stages of the project in detail.
• Submit the final financial report