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Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Israel/September 2011

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IDF Spokesperson releases images under CC-BY-SA license

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The spokesperson unit of the Israel Defense Forces began publishing its photographs online (on its Flickr account) under a free Creative Commons license. This move follows a long and protracted process of legislation promoted by WMIL in discussions in the Science and Technology Committee of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. While legislation meant to free any work created by the Israeli government of copyright has not yet been accepted, the move by the IDF is certainly motivated by it. Hundreds of IDF Spokesperson images are now in use on Wikimedia projects. WMIL released a widely circulated press release condoning the move by the IDF spokesperson.

Wikimedian-in-Residence in Israel Museum, Jerusalem

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On September 18th, Yair Talmor became the first ever Wikimedian-in-Residence in the Israel Museum and in Israel in general. Talmor, an art teacher with academic background in art, will be employed for a two months period at the museum, concentrating on tutoring museum staff on wiki editing, organizing events of public outreach such as editathons and backstage tours, uploading material from the museum's library and enhancing Wikipedia articles about prominent Israeli artists. His employment is funded in part by WMIL. While the focus of the project is in Hebrew, there's also some work on material in English.

Haifa University Faculty of the Humanities

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On September 22nd, a large meeting was held at Haifa University between members of staff from the Faculty of the Humanities and volunteers from Wikimedia Israel. This was a preparatory session for a large-scale project in which students in various courses will write Wikipedia articles as part of their academic assignments.

Training of Haifa Linux club

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On September 12th, Tomer Ashur gave a hands-on training session on Wikipedia editing to members of Haifa Linux club (Haifux). Eight people took part and five articles were written during the training session.

Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs

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WMIL representatives met with a Deputy Director of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They are very interested in releasing some of their material under free licenses and in receiving further training from WMIL about Wikipedia editing. A training session is planned for October 5th.

Israeli Ministry of Education

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Tomer Ashur, Deror Lin and Amir Aharoni met with the people responsible for Internet ethics and safety education in the Ministry of Education to start planning one-time experimental classes for elementary school pupils that will teach them to understand Wikipedia's background, to read it correctly and to understand the right conduct on talk pages. The lessons are scheduled for November and chapter members are preparing the detailed lesson plans.

Photoshooting excursion in Haifa

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As part of the "Elef Milim" project about 20 Wikimedians took part in an educational excursion in Haifa.

Thank-you event for Wikimania volunteers

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A thank-you picnic was held for the many volunteers that helped us make Wikimania 2011 succssful. The event was attended by about 50 volunteers.

Board Meeting

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The WMIL board met on September 13th in Ramat Gan. The Board approved and signed the Chapter's Agreement with the Foundation and decided to raise a few more questions about the Grants Agreement. The Board also approved the 2012 workplan with a couple of minor items on the plan reserved for future discussion. The workplan will be posted shortly on Meta.

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