Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group

Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group
a group of professionals from diverse fields, coming together to contribute to Wikimedia projects...

The Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group is a user group dedicated to promoting free knowledge and Wikimedia projects to both working and retired and professionals in Nigeria in the use of Wikipedia and its sister projects.

According to staistics from Worldometer, the current population of Nigeria is 215,553,411 as at Sunday, May 8, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. From the population above, according to statistics from Statista, the working population in Nigeria is about 50million which forms the group of professionals from different fields. Although Wikipedia has been in Nigeria for seven years yet, only a few of these professionals are actively contributing to it and other sisters project as an Open Educational Resources.

According to a report published in the Vanguard Newspaper, over 139 participants in attendance during the drafting of the National Policy on Open Educational Resources(OER), with the aim to address the country's lack of learning resources in terms of quality, quantity, and currency are educational professionals; Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Provosts, Librarians, and Directors of ICT of Nigerian Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education, representatives of national and international non-governmental organisations, embassies, and tertiary education regulatory agencies e.t.c

It is observed that professionals connect with one another both locally and globally in order to influence and make positive contributions to topical issues and current trends relative to their industry.

However, premium relevance is not given to the use of Wikipedia as an OER for the Nigerian educational sector due to inadequate awareness and adoption by professionals across different fields. Moreso, the misconceptions about Wikipedia not being a reliable source has also discouraged some professionals in Nigeria from leveraging on the use of Wikipedia.

However in some higher institutions, the use of Wikipedia for research work is highly restrictive, some professionals, lecturers and students don't maximize the use of Wikipedia optimally for their research work. Hence there is a need to change the narrative.

Having observed the situation at hand, it has become imperative to start a User Group that is solely for professionals to change their misconceptions about Wikipedia as an OER,whilst creating awareness for the use and adoption of other wikimedia projects in Nigeria.

Unique Selling Proposition

The aim of the Wiki Nigerian Professional User Group is to leverage on professionalism to ensure increase in quality content production and consumption on Wikipedia and its sisters project.

To ensure that the exposure of professionals in the creation and use of Wikipedia in Nigeria will be another yard stick for employment requirement by different professional bodies and organisation. Hence the need for their involvement in the Wikimedia movement which this group wants to achieve. Moreso, professionals like Journalists who are to disseminate and report news and information from a neutral point of view are very important to the Wikimedia community. This will provide them with a place to document our histories, and notable events.

To create awareness for Wikicontribution hour in different offices, where professional staff will contribute to Wikipedia during their leisure time at work.

To increase participation of educators most especially teachers and students in secondary schools in the use of Wikipedia as a learning tool, and promote the use of educational resources in mother languages(Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa), enhance Teachers’ media and information literacy skills by promoting Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Program. Hence, the Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group is a group of Wikimedians in Nigeria who are committed to working on various wiki projects that promote education and create opportunities for all professionals in Nigeria to become Wikimedians.

To show professionals the value and importance of their contribution to Wikipedia and its sisters project.

Background history

After successfully completing and receiving certification at the end of the reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, some certified trainers came up with the idea of forming this user group to create awareness, promote the use of various Wikimedia products among professionals in different fields in Nigeria such as medicine, law, Nutrition, Linguist, Artiste, librarianship, Academics, Journalism, Accounting, Engineering,Business Administrators, Actors, Writers, among others.

while also promoting Wikimedia education related projects to enhance media and information literacy skills. Research has shown that Professionalism is an essential requirement to achieve building blocks of public value with distinguished attributes of competency, accountability, self regulation and specialized knowledge to their field and duties.1

Objectives

To promote the use of Wikipedia in education at all educational levels in Nigeria.
To ensure and promote the use of Wikimedia projects among professionals in different fields, and not involving students alone.
To promote Media and Information literacy skills among professionals using Wikipedia as a tool to fight against misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.
To create awareness of the use of various Wikimedia projects among professional associations and Organizations in Nigeria.
To ensure continuous contribution of Wikimedia volunteers.
To organize in-person gatherings of Wiki professionals in Nigeria.
To promote access to open knowledge, open course,open educational resources,and open access among professionals which include retired professionals in Nigeria.

Activities

This user group plans to hold and support the following activities:

Reading Wikipedia in-classroom program for teachers across secondary schools in Nigeria.
Wikipedia training for professional in different fields.
Nigerian-one-article-a-day campaign.
Capacity building for teachers using Wikimedia tools.
Wiki Access scholarship for teachers to provide teachers with offline ICT gadget to access wikipedia as an open educational resources.
Wiki loves Professional campaign.
Wiki loves Family edithaton to bring families together and increase their participation and involvement in open knowledge.
Editing contest among teachers and lecturers of Higher Learning.
Nigerian professional Wiki heroes(To celebrate our Wiki heroes who have contributed immensely to the Wikiproject).
Wiki Education Conference: To organize a conference that will bring everyone in the education sector together. The conference will foster unity in the Wikieducation community, increase diversity, collaboration, and also help to resolve challenges and improve contributions to Wikimedia projects. The conference will be a yearly project where people will showcase their contributions to the Wikieducational sector.
Organize boot camps for Wiki professionals. This is for professionals to brainstorm from a professional angle what needs to be improved and done in terms of contribution to Wikimedia projects in Nigeria
Organize WikiCEO Awareness Day: This will create awareness and partnerships among organizations, to have more financial donors from Nigeria. It want to invite CEOs from organizations across different sectors in Nigeria, to talk about Wikipedia and how it has helped shape the narratives in their various professions.
Organize Wiki Government Awareness Day.
Organizing Wikidata and Wikicommons trainings: Awareness and trainings among professionals.
Reading Wikipedia and its sister projects for professionals: Organising trainings on the various Wikimedia projects and it's community. This will be a one month course for interested professionals, to understand Wikipedia, its sister projects and how to collaborate, with other professionals in the Wikimedia community.
Establishing a Wiki professional clubs for all professional associations in Nigeria : All professional groups have associations. Creating a Wiki professional club will also help strengthen their contributions to Wikipedia and its sister projects in their specific subject interests and topics.
Creating and organizing a Wiki Reading and Writing program for professionals using Wikipedia tools to promote reading culture and writing among professionals.
Wiki Professional Mentorship program. This will provide continuous mentoring for professionals to improve their contributions to open knowledge.
WikiInterview Time: This is a media program to show case the different projects volunteers in the Wikimedia community to promote the Wikimedia projects. Every week we bring different people from across the globe to speak about their projects,and the impacts of the projects to their society and the Wikimedia community.. This project is to help improve the awareness of Wikimedia projects in Nigeria to prevent the misconceptions of professionals about Wikipedia by involving the broadcast and print media.
Wiki after school Reading and Writing Clubs for teachers and students in secondary schools.
Wikiretired professional training: Training retired professionals from different field to partake in Wikimedia projects.