Education/News/August 2020/Introductory Wikipedia Workshop with Future Engineers: First Step of Education Program

Wikimedia Bangladesh Organizes the first Online Workshop with Future Engineers

Summary: Wikimedia Bangladesh organized the first online workshop with the engineering students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). In the post-workshop editing program, 10 participants from various departments created 22 articles on engineering topics within 10 days after learning how to edit Wikipedia.

Participants and organizers of the online workshop
E-poster of the workshop

In Bengali Wikipedia, there exists a shortage of qualitative technology-related articles, especially in the engineering-related topics. To reduce the gap, Wikimedia Bangladesh organized its first online workshop on 10 August with the engineering students of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) in cooperation with the BUET Energy Club. The motivation was to encourage future engineers to share their knowledge in the largest online encyclopedia — Wikipedia. Though it was scheduled to be an in-person workshop in March, due to the COVID-19 situation, the workshop was shifted to online. 25 students from various departments including Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering, Civil Engineering, etc. participated in the workshop. Many couldn't join the workshop due to the network problems, as they live in remote areas, they were provided with the workshop video. At the very beginning of the workshop, friendly space policy was discussed, and in the following parts, they learned about Wikipedia and its various aspects, how they can contribute here, and how Wiki Education Program works — which hasn't started officially in Bangladesh yet.

A post-workshop edit-a-thon was organized where 10 participants from various departments wrote 22 articles on their respective departmental topics, listed previously. Some of them faced the shortcomings of network coverage, but they carried their work on. They participated in a few surveys during this time, which shows that 90% of the participants never edited Wikipedia before. All the participants expressed their strong desire to participate in the Education Program in the coming days.

As almost all of them are newcomers, they are made aware of the ways to follow if any unwanted situation arises. It was a pilot program before the beginning of any official education program with the university through the club. We are looking forward to starting the education program officially with these wonderful enthusiastic future engineers for the first time in Bangladesh.

Social Media channels or hashtags: WMBD facebook, WMBD twitter, #WikimediaBD