Sunday, March 4, 2012

pilot program in Cairo is part of a larger effort to win the editors of the students - and perhaps teach them something while they are at the

Wikipedia is looking to North Africa as the key to open a hearing that would increase the number of visitors to the online encyclopedia for millions of people.

While the English version of Wikipedia has approximately 3.8 million items, the Arabic version has only about 150,000 - despite the fact that Arabic is the fifth most common the world and has nearly 400 million speakers worldwide. Even the Japanese have a significantly higher presence on Wikipedia, with nearly 800,000 items, but there are only 130 million speakers worldwide.

Now, in an attempt to increase its editor core - the current community of writers is about 600 volunteers - Wikipedia launches a pilot program in Cairo this month, where students change and write for the online encyclopedia, as part of their class work under the guidance of their teachers.

"mission of Wikipedia is to provide knowledge of the free world," said Annie Lin, director of global education program that is leading the initiative in Cairo by the Wikimedia Foundation, San Francisco non-organization that operates Wikipedia. "I really see it as a problem than a language that is so common in the world has a version of Wikipedia is so small."

The pilot will take place in seven categories at Ain Shams University and Cairo University, where a limited number of students will contribute new Wikipedia content in Arabic and translated the Arabic content.

The online encyclopedia, which recently celebrated its 11th anniversary, has become an integral part of the daily lives of Internet users, especially the United States.

comScore estimates that Wikipedia has about 457 million unique monthly visitors worldwide, with 80.5 million of these United States, and about 10 million users were affected by recent the blackout to protest against legislation Wikipedia Soup against piracy and Pipa.

Wikipedia is home to more than 19m items in over 270 languages. The research firm said Alexa site traffic is the sixth most popular in the world.

Initiative

Cairo is part of a larger effort to expand its publisher network of students, a particularly important task for Wikipedia, because it is populated, edited and directed by a community of about 100,000 volunteers "Wikipedians". In recent years, this community has stagnated in size, despite the continued growth of the content.

"Since the beginning of Wikipedia in 2001, students have fueled its growth, as both contributors and readers," says Frank Schulenberg, Director of Global Education Wikipedia. "Students are immersed in a culture of learning and sharing, and started the education program to capture Wikipedia that academic work and to make knowledge freely shared. "

Real Estate

Wikipedia

education initiative back in the summer of 2010 when the beta launched its first pilot project on public policy. The program helped teachers integrate public policy Wikipedia in their classrooms, offer suggestions on the curriculum, workshops, publishing, online support through virtual ambassadors and support the person through ambassadors on campus.

Since then, the education program has been extended. There are 42 courses in the U.S. through 33 colleges and 10 courses at seven universities across Canada to integrate their programs into Wikipedia.

"We made some big mistakes," he says Lianna Davis, communications director for the education program of Wikipedia. "The classes were larger than we anticipated. Our general feeling is that it should have focused more on students who were really interested in the work. Because mandatory for all students completed a group to copy paste the content. "

plagiarism was not the only problem. "Writing in English in general - and in language encyclopedic in particular - has been difficult for many students," said Hisham Mundol, who oversees the education program in India. "The concepts that are central to the Wikipedia as a neutral point of view or fame or reference has been difficult for many students. There is also a very low level of appreciation of the difference between paraphrasing and copying. "


But Davis said the foundation will try again in India after having had time to assess what happened.


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