WikiConference India 2011/Submissions/Wikimedia and student societies: present and future

Title of the submission

Wikimedia and student societies: present and future

Type of submission (workshop, tutorial, or presentation)

Talk

Author of the submission

vinesh.patel06@imperial.ac.uk

State of your origin (Country, if you are not based in India)

United Kingdom

Abstract

After the recent founding of student societies in a few universities worldwide, a range of new opportunities for collaboration and expansion into new areas exists for Wikimedia. Wikipedians at Imperial College is a UK student club founded March 2011. Since then there have been a number of projects that have grown including GLAM, Campus Ambassadors and an IC Wikihub (an internal wiki). During this presentation/workshop I wish to detail what we have done and then open a dialogue of what can be dine in other student societies and between student societies. I believe student clubs can take Wikimedia to new areas, and new heights. For GLAM, we are currently working with the natural history and science museums to create WP student article writing programs as well as move forward on digitisation. Furthermore, we are creating links that may aid our campus ambassadors program. The CA Program is due to begin 2012 with our biochemistry department. There will be adaptations from the US model based on the professor's views and also the British university system. Finally, IC Wikihub is an internal university wiki that was developed outside of the society using mediawiki. We have taken a significant role in moving the project forward as we believe it could be a future testing place for ideas and a way to interact with the student populace.