Wikipedia Education Program/MENA/Arabic Education Plan

Executive Summary

Building on the successes of the Cairo Pilot (February–May 2012) — in which 7 professors assigned students to edit the Arabic Wikipedia — the Wikimedia Foundation plans to expand the program to more classes for the upcoming academic term. Between September 2012 and February 2013 ("Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program"), we will work with 20 classes, most of which will be in and near Cairo, Egypt, with the possibility of also involving classes from other countries where students have strong Arabic writing skills and where we can build a support infrastructure quickly. Greater focus will be placed on those types of classes (such as translations classes) that have been preliminarily shown during the Cairo Pilot to produce good content for the Arabic Wikipedia, and we will continue the proven practice of working with only the most motivated students from each class. Each participating class will be supported by Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors, Online Ambassadors, and tutorial materials, and Wikimedia Foundation staff will provide strategic and operational support to the program as a whole.

Background & Overview

The vision of Wikimedia and the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) is to create a world in which everyone on the planet can freely share in the sum of all knowledge, and it is a strategic priority for us to connect our projects to the 350 million speakers of Arabic who reside in Arabic countries and the millions more outside the region. Despite being the fifth most commonly spoken language in the world, the Arabic Wikipedia is still very small compared to other languages on Wikipedia.

Between January and June 2012, the Wikimedia Foundation ran a pilot project to test whether having university students contribute to Wikipedia as part of coursework would be an effective way to improve the quality and quantity of the Arabic Wikipedia. In the Cairo Pilot, seven university professors in Cairo, Egypt, assigned their students to edit the Arabic Wikipedia as an in-class assignment, supported by dedicated volunteers ("Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors" and "Wikipedia Online Ambassadors") who provided in-person and online mentorship to students on how to edit Wikipedia.

Evaluation of outcomes shows that the Cairo Pilot was a success. Even though only 54 students participated in the pilot (as measured by the number of user accounts created), altogether they added more than 350 printed pages to the Arabic Wikipedia. The impact of the program can be exemplarily seen in the work of a student at Ain Shams University who — as part of an extracurricular assignment — wrote an Arabic Wikipedia article that detailed the recent French presidential elections. The article informed thousands of readers about France’s elections, and is an example of an article with particular resonance among readers from Arabic speaking countries.

University instructors in Cairo were happy about the results as well. Dr. Dalia El-Toukhy, an assistant professor of the Faculty of Al-Alsun at Egypt’s Ain Shams University, assigned students to do French-to-Arabic translations. Wikipedia lets her students practice translations, on topics such as civil disobedience and the American Bank Panic of 1907. “My students were very motivated when it came to translating texts on Wikipedia,” Professor El-Toukhy says. “They understood the necessity of developing their skills and engaging in the ongoing practice of working in groups and working with technological tools like the Internet in order to gather information.”

Building on the successes of the Cairo Pilot, the Wikimedia Foundation plans to work in collaboration with Arabic Wikipedia community members to expand the education program. Preliminary discussions with Wikipedians and educators suggest that there is strong interest in other parts of Cairo and in cities near Cairo in this program. Keeping with our principle of not expanding faster than our support resources can handle, we aim to have at least 20 classes total on board for the September 2012 – February 2013 academic term. We will also explore the possibility of working with other Arabic countries where a local NGO (non-governmental organization) has demonstrated strong interest and ability to coordinate Wikipedia classes, and with classes taught in Arabic that are physically located outside the Arabic-speaking region. We are calling this second pilot phase — operating between September 2012 and February 2013 — the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program (with the assumption that the name will carry over into future terms if this second pilot is also a success). Our program design — laid out in detail below — draws heavily from our learnings from the Cairo Pilot and versions of the Wikipedia Education Program operating in other countries. We will plan to expand to more cities and countries for the February–May 2013 term.

Questions to answer

These are the questions we would like to answer by March 2013 through the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program:

Would the Wikipedia Education Program work — and to what extent — on an enlarged scale (20 classes versus 7 classes)? How do our learnings from the Cairo Pilot carry over or change with this expanded scale?
How can we scale the Wikipedia Education Program in countries with a small number of existing Wikipedians?
How can we restructure our support structure so that the support provided to different classes is consistent and effective?
How successful can in-class assignments be for retaining students as active editors?
How successful can on-campus outreach activities (outside classes) be in generating content and editors for the Arabic Wikipedia?
How much personnel (staff, volunteers) is necessary to successfully run an expanded education pilot in the Arabic-speaking region?
What other countries in the Arabic-speaking region have high potential for the Wikipedia Education Program in upcoming academic terms?
What role can like-minded local NGO's play in raising interest in improving the Arabic Wikipedia?
How should the Arabic Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation move forward based on the experience of the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program of September 2012 – February 2013? What resources should be dedicated to the program going forward?

Measures of Success

A. Smooth start of the second pilot

By early October 2012, 20 classes that will edit the Arabic Wikipedia are participating in the program.
By end of October 2012, each participating class has 2 Campus Ambassadors and 1 Online Ambassador assigned to support the class (the same Ambassador could support more than 1 class).
By end of October 2012, all participating professors, Campus Ambassadors, and Online Ambassadors have gone through orientation (professors who participated in the Cairo Pilot do not need to go through orientation again).

B. Involvement of Arabic Wikipedia community

By early August 2012, we've released the program plan for the second pilot (this document) on a public wiki, and sought community feedback on it. Arabic Wikipedia community members are supportive of the final program plan and volunteer to participate in it.
Arabic Wikipedians and Wikipedia Education Program community members (not Wikimedia Foundation staff members) lead at least 75% of the orientation for professors, Campus Ambassadors, and Online Ambassadors.
100% of the Online Ambassadors are experienced Arabic Wikipedians. There are at least 6 experienced Arabic Wikipedians among the Campus Ambassadors.
Between August 2012 and March 2013, we publish at least 3 interim progress reports (on the Wikimedia Foundation blog and elsewhere as appropriate), and we provide monthly updates on the Arabic Wikipedia about progress and learnings from the program.
By end of January 2013, the Wikimedia Foundation has selected at least one local organizations in the Arabic-speaking region (outside Egypt) that is fully committed to take on the planning, recruiting, and coordinating work of the education program in their respective geographic area for the Spring 2013 academic term.

C. Significant, high-quality contributions to Arabic Wikipedia articles

By end of March 2013, the average number of bytes added per student to the Arabic Wikipedia article namespace is at least 31,000 bytes (which is a 50% increase from the average from the Cairo Pilot).
By end of March 2013, the median number of bytes contributed per student to the Arabic Wikipedia is more than 2,000 bytes (which is more than a 50% increase from the median from the Cairo Pilot).
At least 50% of the content contributed by students survives.

D. Student-to-editor retention

At least 5% of students who created an user account make at least 5 edits to the Arabic Wikipedia (any namespace) within the three months following the end of classes.

E. Participants are happy/satisfied with their experience in the program

More than 50% of the students indicate that they would prefer a Wikipedia assignment to a traditional assignment in the future (assuming a good representative sample).
More than 50% of the instructors indicate that they would use Wikipedia as a teaching tool again (assuming a good representative sample).
More than 75% of the community volunteers involved in the pilot indicate that it was worth their time (assuming a good representative sample).
Members of the Arabic Wikipedia indicate support for continuing to build an education program in the Arabic-speaking region.

F. The road ahead

An outcome / lessons learned / the road ahead document will be completed by end of March 2013.

Program design: participants & resources

Locations

To further test various models of Wikipedia assignments via involving a larger quantity of classes, and to keep our expansion in line with what our resources can support, we will continue working with educators and students in and nearby Cairo during the September 2012 – February 2013 academic term. Another consideration is timing: the major holiday of Ramadan — spanning from late July to late August — leaves only a few weeks for recruiting and training program participants before classes commence in mid-September; this limitation makes it sensible to focus expansion in the region (Cairo area) where we already have a support infrastructure and networks built up. In addition to working with classes in and nearby Cairo, we will also explore the possibility of working with a very small number of classes in other Arabic countries where a local NGO (non-governmental organization) has demonstrated strong interest and ability to coordinate classes as part of the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program. Furthermore, we will explore the possibility of involving classes taught in Arabic but physically located outside the Arabic-speaking region (for example, Arabic-taught classes in the United States).

Assignment & class types

Results from the Cairo Pilot (February–May 2012) suggest the following: (1) mandatory assignments could result in lower motivation among students and therefore poorer on-wiki contributions; (2) translation assignments could yield great results; (3) extracurricular assignments often result in a smaller number of students who edit Wikipedia, but those students tend to contribute huge quantities; (4) "student working groups" (whereby a professor gathers together a group of students highly interested in editing Wikipedia) could perform just as well as — and possibly better than — formal "classes"; and (5) non-text contributions could be a viable alternative to text-based Wikipedia assignments.

We saw strong evidence for these points from the Cairo Pilot, but due to the small size of that Pilot (only seven classes participated), we were unable to make conclusive generalizations from these results alone. A major goal of the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program (September 2012 – February 2013), then, is to more specifically explore what kinds of assignment and class types are conclusively more effective than others at generating significant high-quality student contributions to the Arabic Wikipedia, based on the learnings from the Cairo Pilot. As such, we have built the following class/assignment type ratios into the program design, as follows. Our goal here is to dedicate more resources to the class/assignment types that were shown to perform better during the Cairo Pilot without completely excluding other class/assignment types, and to run other A/B tests that were not done during the Cairo Pilot. The ratios below are approximations and are subject to minor adjustments.

Assignment type: (a) 50% Research and write new content for the Arabic Wikipedia; (b) 50% Translation from another language Wikipedia to the Arabic Wikipedia
Grading structure: (a) 65% Optional but graded assignment (students can choose to another another assignment rather the Wikipedia assignment, and the assignment will be graded); (b) 25% Extracurricular assignment (students will get no grade or credit for contributing to Wikipedia); (c) 10% "Student working group"; (d) 0% Mandatory assignment.
Subject area: (a) 90% Areas in which students already do a lot of research and writing (or translating), such as social sciences and humanities; (b) 10% Areas like engineering or architecture where students don't do a lot of writing — these students will make non-text contributions like pictures and diagrams to Wikipedia.

Participating instructors

In order to make sure that participants in this program do not overwhelm the existing Arabic Wikipedia community (which is small), while still making sure we have enough classes to allow for meaningful analysis and comparisons, we aim to involve approximately 20 classes total in the program for the September 2012–February 2013 academic term.

Number: 20 classes total
Requirements for selection and participation:

The instructor has students who are familiar with research and writing (or translating) in Arabic.
The instructor has a solid understanding of — and is aligned with — the mission of Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Education Program.
The instructor's boss/department is supportive of the project, or at least does not pose obstacles to the professor doing the project.
The instructor genuinely cares about students' learning.
The instructor is willing to commit the time and energy needed to guide students closely through the Wikipedia assignment.

Orientation: all participating professors — with the exception of professors who already participated in the Cairo Pilot — are required to attend an orientation that will go over an overview of the program, how Wikipedia works, core Wikipedia policies, very basic Wikipedia-editing skills, guidance on assignment design, and best practices for using Wikipedia in the classroom.

Participating students

One of our biggest learnings from the various wings of the Wikipedia Education Program (across multiple continents) is that there a wide range of performance quality among students in a given class: some students will turn in great work while others will lag behind. In order to make sure that the overall student contributions to the Arabic Wikipedia as part of this program are as high quality as possible, we will involve only the 5–15 best, most motivated students in each class.

Number: 100–300 students total (5–15 students per class)
Requirement for selection and participation:

The student has good Arabic research and writing (or translation) skills.
The student is highly interested in contributing to Wikipedia.
The student is reliable and self-motivated (will get work done on time).

Support for participants

Campus Ambassadors (volunteers)

Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors provide face-to-face guidance to students on how to edit the Arabic Wikipedia. Some of them are experienced Wikipedians; others are new Wikipedians. Campus Ambassadors also advise participating professors to make sure assignments are in line with the Arabic Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Campus Ambassadors played a significant role in the Cairo Pilot, but they will play an even more important role in the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program: one feedback we received from Cairo Pilot students is that some students (especially female students) feel uncomfortable reaching out to people (especially men) online they've never met in person before, which means that much of the detailed Wikipedia help traditionally provided by Online Ambassadors will also need to be provided by Campus Ambassadors in the Arabic-speaking region. Campus Ambassadors will provide this help in two ways:

Holding multiple workshops with students throughout the academic term (see "Workshop guidance" below)
Holding "office hours" regularly — students with questions can go to the office hours to get their questions answered

Number needed: 30 in the Cairo area (2 paired with each class, with the assumption that some Campus Ambassadors can support more than one class at once). These could be new or experienced Arabic Wikipedians. At least 6 experienced Arabic Wikipedians living in the Cairo area will serve as mentors for the Campus Ambassadors who are new Wikipedians (efficiently answering the newer Wikipedians' questions as they come up).

If we work with classes in other countries, each of the classes in those other countries will need to have 2 Campus Ambassadors living near the campus.

Requirements for selection and participation:

The person has a solid understanding of — and is aligned with — the mission of Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Education Program
The person is a good presenter and teacher, and enjoys talking in front of groups
This person is able and willing to commit 3–5 hours on average a week throughout the entire academic term (September to February)
This person has a track record of being dependable (shows up to events on time, follows through on promises, etc.)

Orientation: all Campus Ambassadors — including people who already participated in the Cairo Pilot — are required to attend an orientation that will go over expectations of the role, overview of the program, how Wikipedia works, core Wikipedia policies, basic Wikipedia-editing skills, some public speaking skills, and best practices on working with professors, students, and other Campus/Online Ambassadors in this project.

Workshop guidance: Campus Ambassadors from the Cairo Pilot provided the feedback that they would like to be provided with more detailed structure on what exactly they should teach students in the workshops they run. In addition, we found in the Cairo Pilot that there is wide variation in what each Campus Ambassador taught students (the result was that students in a few classes felt they were not taught sufficient information). As such, for the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program we will prepare a detailed guide for each workshop that Campus Ambassadors should lead; the guide will include information about the suggested timing and content for each of the multiple workshop during the academic term, and is a set of recommendations rather than requirements for Campus Ambassadors. This guide will be thoroughly explained to the Campus Ambassadors during their orientation.

Online Ambassadors (volunteers)

We are significantly changing the Online Ambassador role because — as mentioned above — some students in the Arabic-speaking region expressed discomfort at reaching out to men online they've never met in person before. The Wikipedia mentorship formerly taken on by Online Ambassadors will now be the responsibility of the Campus Ambassadors. Instead, the role of the Wikipedia Online Ambassadors will become a proactive and hands-on contribution coach role. Online Ambassadors should proactively do the following: monitor student writing; approve student edits if appropriate; "wikify" student articles, fix wiki markup problems, and fix wiki etiquette and policy issues for students — then leave a message for the student to let them know what has been fixed and how the student can avoid those issues going forward; and regularly provide recommendations to students on how they can further improve the article. They will also nominate well-performing students for the formal editor status on the Arabic Wikipedia. Online Ambassadors are expected to be friendly and encouraging in all their interactions with students, professors, and Campus Ambassadors, and are expected to provide constructive feedback geared toward bringing the student article to an even higher level rather than criticizing student work.

Number needed: 20 Online Ambassadors total (1 per class).

Requirements for selection and participation:

This person has a solid understanding of — and is aligned with — the mission of Wikimedia, Wikipedia, and the Wikipedia Education Program.
This person enjoys helping newbies and making newbies feel welcomed on Wikipedia.
This person has extensive experience adding substantial content to articles on the Arabic Wikipedia, and is highly familiar with the policies and guidelines on the Arabic Wikipedia.
This person enjoys taking a proactive role in helping students to improve their on-wiki contributions. This person is willing to fix wiki markup and wiki etiquette issues on student articles for students.
This person is able to interact with Wikipedia newbies in a friendly, clear, concise, and encouraging manner; is patient with people of varying technical familiarity.
This person is able and willing to commit 3–5 hours on average a week throughout the entire academic term (September to February).

Orientation: all Online Ambassadors — including people who already participated in the Cairo Pilot — are required to attend an online orientation that will go over expectations of the role, an overview of the program, and best practices on working with professors, students, and other Campus/Online Ambassadors in this project.

Tutorials

Participants of the Cairo Pilot provided the feedback that different classes received different qualities of Wikipedia support, due to variation among the Wikipedia Ambassadors. To standardize the quality of support, we will provide "tutorials" (in the form of printed handouts and possibly videos) that will guide students throughout the core Wikipedia-editing skills they need to learn, such as:

Basic formatting wiki-markup
How to leave talk page messages
NEED COMMUNITY INPUT ON THIS!

Students will be expected to complete the various tutorials within the first third of the academic term period, and will publicly indicate their progress with completing the tutorials on their course page on the Arabic Wikipedia, which will also allow the wider Arabic Wikipedia community to see what skills each student has gained. These tutorials will supplement (not replace) the workshops that Campus Ambassadors will lead with students.

Wikimedia Foundation staff

The Wikimedia Foundation will also provide support in the following forms:

Sharing best practices and learnings, including how to design an effective Wikipedia assignment, how to teach students about Wikipedia-editing, and how to work well with the other participants of the program
Ensuring that high-quality orientations are provided for all participating instructors, Campus Ambassadors, and Online Ambassadors, so that all participants are ready for their responsibilities in the program
Providing printed materials in Arabic that explain how Wikipedia-editing works
Facilitating the smooth operating of the program. This includes daily management of program operations (e.g. of the volunteers and staff involved in the program), regular check-in's with participating professors and Ambassadors both on the ground and remotely, and coordinating program adjustments mid-semester in accordance with new learnings and problems that may arise.

These are the Wikimedia Foundation staff and contractors who will be directly involved in the Arabic Wikipedia Education Pilot:

Global Education Program Director: responsible for high-level strategic planning and ensuring that program activities meet overall strategic goals
Arabic Projects Consultant (before September 2012): responsible for providing local guidance and knowledge on program planning and implementation in the beginning of the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program
Global Education Program Manager: responsible for local strategic planning, and overseeing the expansion of the program to new cities and the documentation/sharing of learnings
Global Education Program Communications Manager: responsible for overseeing the creation and localization of printed support materials, as well as local storytelling
Campus Coordinator: responsible for directly coordinating with participating professors and Ambassadors on the ground
Local Education Lead: shadows other staff members during the Wikipedia in Arabic Education Program, to prepare for assuming direct planning and on-the-ground responsibilities after March 2013

On-campus outreach activities

During the Cairo Pilot we explored running on-campus outreach activities encouraging students to edit Wikipedia. Even though these outreach activities did not yield conclusive results, the high level of enthusiasm demonstrated by students shows that there is very strong potential in using outreach activities to generate content and editors for the Arabic Wikipedia. Between September 2012 and February 2013, we will explore the possibility of conducting outreach activities — with clear goals and plans — in various Arabic-speaking countries. Decisions around whether and where to conduct such outreach activities will depend on criteria such as:

Level of interest in Wikipedia-editing on campus
Ease of access to campus, rooms, equipment, and other resources needed for successful outreach activities
Reliability and availability of internet on campus
Level of support from university staff and faculty
Level of support from the local Arabic Wikipedia community as well as the larger Arabic Wikipedia community as a whole

General Timeline

June: Program planning
July: Conference convening Cairo Pilot participants to celebrate achievements and discuss learnings
July–September: Recruitment (professors and Ambassadors)
September–October: Orientation for professors and Ambassadors
September–October: Classes begin
October: Systematic mid-term check in's with program participants, on the ground
February–March 2013: Evaluation of program outcomes