Wikipedia Primary School/Methodology

Wikipedia Primary School Methodology

Structure per country

National teams
Africa

Europe

International team

The aim of the project is to allow students, families and teachers to find on Wikipedia the documentation necessary to obtain the primary school qualification in their country, in their language. This means to strengthen the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions. By fostering content related to primary education in different countries, the project provides anyone with better, more complete and international articles on Wikipedia.

The aim and the challenge of bridging Wikipedia and primary education for students, families and teachers.

Among the human species there are several races. The humans of black race live mainly in Africa, Oceania and America. The humans of yellow race live mainly in Asia. And they are the most numerous. The humans of white race live mainly in Europe, America and North Africa . Jean Criaud et des enseignants camerounais, chapitre 21 Les races dans le monde, Histoire et géographie du Cameroun, C.E.2, Les classiques africains, 1992, p. 49.

To strengthen the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions, the project does not simply transfer content from national schoolbooks into Wikipedia. The methodology of the project is based on the idea of moving the Wikipedia community towards a focus on primary education, and at the same time to strengthen the capacity of the education ecosystem to contribute to Wikipedia, and in general to open collaborative knowledge.

Contributing to Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a very peculiar encyclopaedia. It is a living organism made of a wide community with specific policies, clusters and dynamics. Contributing to Wikipedia means to play a fair game, and to respect the way Wikipedia works, its rules and community. To strengthen the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions, the project does not simply transfer content from national schoolbooks into Wikipedia. The methodology is centred around research and fieldwork activities. Research activities focus on monitoring Wikipedia in different linguistic editions; understanding the different national education systems and identifying which are the content capable of responding to curriculum-based questions; involving a scientific committee in contributing to the project; establishing and managing a Wikipedia Scientific Journal, a peer-reviewed scientific publication in Creative Commons attributions share-alike license, designed to involve scholars and to assess Wikipedia articles, in collaboration with other scientific journals and by fostering synergies between scientific knowledge and Wikipedia and open access; producing datasets to generate stub articles on Wikipedia in all linguistic editions; uploading content, in particular OER Open Educational Resources already available and images and texts provided with an open license compatible with Wikipedia; supporting territorial development with tutors and with upload capacities (in particular for countries with low connectivity); monitoring and evaluating the project. Fieldwork activities focus on testing and enhancing the use of Wikipedia in primary school and it is developed in collaboration with the stakeholders already working in education. They provide training, in particular training for Wikipedians in residence; they organise Wikipedia events, in particular Wiki Loves Monuments; they allow networking with institutions and governments to facilitate the release of content with open licenses; they tutor institutions and people; they develop pilot projects in schools and in collaboration with NGOs working in education; they establish hotspots where needed; and they facilitate the distribution of Wikipedia offline in countries where relevant.
To contribute to Wikipedia the project follows the following general rules:

It offers content to Wikipedia and its community rather that contributing directly to Wikipedia. it develops content offshore, by becoming a source available for Wikipedia with a compatible license. The project can make uploads, but the community is of course always free to accept or refuse them. Wikipedia history shows that the community welcomes high quality content which respects its rules.
It involves Wikipedia community.
It encourages volunteers and institutions already contributing to Wikipedia in developing the project autonomously with different approaches.
It encourages scholars to contribute to Wikipedia through a specific peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Education Ecosystem

Education is at the centre of a wide ecosystem of people and institutions. Students, teachers, parents, NGOs, educational programmes, private and public initiatives, governments, grant makers are part of this ecosystem, together with all the people and institutions who produce knowledge, distribute it and facilitate its access with educational programmes. All those people and institutions are extremely valuable resources, they have specific knowledge and networks, and they are in any country of the world. It is also important to mention that many of those institutions and people already support Open Educational Resources: content provided with open licenses for educational purposes. For those reasons, to contribute to primary education the project follows the following general rules:

It considers that strengthening the capacity of Wikipedia to respond directly to curriculum-based questions requires the involvement of the education ecosystem in the process.
It supports institutions and people working in education to autonomously promote the project.
It encourages the production of Open Educational Resources for primary education.
It encourages the use of Creative Commons attribution-share alike licences or Creative Commons attribution for Open Educational Resources. Those licenses are necessary to use Open Educational Resources on Wikipedia.

IP Intellectual Propriety and OER Open Educational Resources

Enriching Wikipedia with content relevant to primary education means to deal with intellectual propriety and OER Open Educational Resources. Wikipedia has a Creative Commons attribution share-alike license. This means that all content uploaded on Wikipedia (text and multimedia file) require a compatible license. OER Open Educational Resources are existing content provided with open licenses; this means that those resources can be used for educational purpose, but it does not mean that this content can be used on Wikipedia. Often OER have a more restrictive license than Wikipedia. For this reason

It respect intellectual propriety.
It relies on existing OER Open Educational Resources.
It invites and support institutions in providing OER Open Educational Resources with a license compatible with Wikipedia.

What we do

Involving government in releasing dataset about public administrations (to contribute to Wikidata and produce stub articles; at the moment only Botswana was documented)
Asking OER open educational resources to be released in cc by or cc by-sa (and not cc by-sa-nc-nd).
Asking other institutions working in education to contribute to OER.
Assessing Wikipedia articles by creating a Wikipedia Scientific Journal. The idea is to assess wikipedia articles with the involvement of academic peer-revierwes. this is specifically necessary for content related to Africa because it needs to acknowledge the last 60 years of postcolonial studies (which at the moment they are not well represented on Wikipedia). the Wikipedia Scientific Journal is established in partnerships with existing scientific journals; the peer-reviewers of those scientific journals review the articles (existing ones and new ones) and we can make calls for papers. those call for papers can address existing Wikipedia authors but also scholars (who can add those publications to their cv since they ae peer-reviewed and made in collaborations with scientific journals). it is not a direct way of working on Wikipedia but i think it is the most relevant on the long run. Once articles are peer-reviewed they can be translated and they can be rewritten in specific ways. At the same time also articles from Vikidia can be a source.
Establishing a scientific committee who defines which articles contribute to primary education and they overview and evaluate the project. the scientific committee is also a communication tool which makes sure stakeholders are involved.
Fostering communication and community building among the different Wikipedia/Wikimedia clusters (project pages on Wikipedia, different projects, different wikipedia linguistic editions, wikimedia chapters, project such as wiki loves monuments which helps to understand what wikipedia is and to start contributing)
Monitor what happens with data analysis.

What we do NOT do

Wikipedia Primary School is a scalable and international project with a specific goal: it responds to a real need, it relies on existing networks and resources, and it is structured to allow people and institutions to contribute to it. The very nature of the project is meant to produce a broad impact. If the project Wikipedia Primary School is successful, it can be developed in the future by producing content for other cycle of education.

We do not break Wikipedia rules. The project respects Wikipedia pillars and the opinions of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia communities.
We do not believe the project substitutes in any way the essential role of people and institutions working in education. We want to contribute in a specific way to the work many people and institutions are already implementing and we believe only a collaborative approach can really allow the project to be effective and relevant.
We do not produce a selection of Wikipedia articles. We want people to access and benefit from the whole Wikipedia.
We do not address students, teachers and families only. Contributing to Wikipedia is meant to provide better knowledge for everyone everywhere.
We do not work for governments and ministries of education. The project is meant to be independent. It selects articles to be based on national educational systems, but it does not implement on Wikipedia governments’ strategies or requests.
We do not provide offline access to Wikipedia over online access. We consider online access to Wikipedia a priority and the best way to access Wikipedia, because it allows to contribute to it.
We do not consider Wikipedia a schoolbook. Wikipedia is not a schoolbook and it can not substitute teachers and educators and other appropriate educational resources.
We do not simplify Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia and it requires a certain level of literacy in order to access it. We do not want to adapt Wikipedia to primary school level; we want to include topics and content relevant for primary education.
We do not make content available for Wikipedia only. Using Creative Commons as part of the project methodology allows contents to be available beyond Wikipedia.
We do not promote Wikipedia as a stable and passive resource. We consider essential that people who use Wikipedia understand what Wikipedia is. To understand it, the only appropriate way is to contribute to it and being part of it.
We do not provide Wikipedia as it is. The project aims at fostering a joint effort to improve Wikipedia and to assess its quality.
We do not centralise all the activities. The project can only reach its goal and produce high quality content and impact, if people and institutions can adapt them to their context, vision and work.