A prolific year not stopping in July

Author: Iñaki LL

Summary: This academic year 2016-2017 has been indeed very prolific for the Basque Wikipedia and the Basque Wikimedians User Group. The 1-credit course offered for students from different university schools came to an end in June, but was followed by a crash course organized in collaboration with the UEU, the Basque Summer University, and Basque Wikimedians flying to Edinburgh's Celtic Knot.

3rd term in UPV-EHU drawn to a close

After the well attended edit-a-thon held in the Carlos Santamaria library on 6 April 2017, the course organized during this 3rd term in collaboration with the Basque Public University came to a conclusion in June. The cooperation has been considered fruitful and beneficial for both Basque Wikimedians and academic institutions, so the program is due for a fresh start in September.

Wikipedia articles with deficiencies, as well as topic gaps detected in the Basque Wikipedia by the relevant instructors and professors have provided the basis for this 3rd-term course that counted on an enrollment of 75 undergraduates from seven different disciplines, ranging from Law to Computing Sciences to Psychology. The course was coordinated by our member Xabier Cañas. (Further details here (Basque))

Wikimedia's foray into UEU

Basque Wikimedians got interested in expanding their Education Program to academic institutions other than EHU too. UEU, Udako Euskal Unibersitatea, the Basque Summer University, is an active, entrenched academic institution in the Basque society with whom we got in touch in December. Someone came up with the idea, let's get together and expand basic and latest wiki literacy by offering a one-day workshop catering to librarians engaged in Wiki-GLAM outreach programs taking place in Donostia and Bayonne, as well as professionals, academics and laymen with various degrees of Wiki knowledge. Members of the project Wikimujeres also joined us and participated.

A program to be conducted by several experienced Basque Wikimedians was put together, and it was developed on 3 July all-day long. The facilities were provided by the flagship International Centre for Contemporary Culture Tabakalera, located in Donostia. The workshop attended by nearly 50 people and coordinated by Aitzol Astigarraga, started with a general introduction to course and contents followed by a split of the attendees into different subject specific groups, as follows: Wikidata and its latest developments, Introduction to Wikipedia, and License use and Wikimedia Commons. A cold lunch was served during the pause, offering fabulous opportunities for discussion and mutual knowledge.

The experience lived up to expectations, and has come in for very positive reviews. With this initiative, the Basque Wikimedians intend to bolster existing relations with the academia, and initiate new ones where needed, as well as engaging new editors, any editors, but especially women, let's strike a gender balance! (See further pictures here)

Basque Wikimedians with ties to the Celtic Knot

The Celtic Knot is a meeting point for the Celtic language Wikipedias held this year for the first time. Three Basque Wikimedians flied to the event held at the University of Edinburgh to make the most of a meeting extended also to Wikipedia languages other than Celtic ones, share experiences with like minded projects, and deliver a presentation outlining the Basque Wikimedians path and current activity. (See all presentations here)

The event, attended by numerous Welsh representatives, provided an excellent opportunity for the Basque Wikimedians to familiarize with projects in different sociolinguistic contexts, starting from the tight Gaelic Wikipedia to consolidated projects and organizations like the Catalan Amical. Informal discussions and the official schedule revealed different technical, organizational and outreach challenges, as well as fertile grounds for cooperation, like that related to templates, with a special involvement of our member Galder Gonzalez, or potential avenues for joint initiatives in the future.

Tags: Basque Wikipedia Education Program, University of the Basque Country, Basque Summer University, minority languages