GLAM/Newsletter/April 2012/Contents/Australia and New Zealand report
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Australian and New Zealand GLAM efforts
Training in North Queensland
North Queensland was the focus of Wikimedia outreach this month, as part of a partnership between Wikimedia Australia and the State Library of Queensland that continues to provide Wiki training to regional Queensland. Ruth Gardiner, Troy Keith, John Vandenberg and Chris Watkins spent a week in Townsville and Ingham running three training workshops for librarians, Local Studies historians and writers. Last month Liam Wyatt and whiteghost.ink were training in Tambo & Quilpie. Workshops are being held at Hervey Bay, Gympie, Hughenden and Charters Towers in the next two months.
The North Queensland workshops included attendees from Toowoomba (near Brisbane), Charters Towers (134 kilometres inland) and Far North Queensland. Each person created a draft article and uploaded one or more image. In the morning sessions the content is uploaded and the draft and DYK processes are explained. During lunch the Wikimedia contributors join the workshop virtually to review and improve the draft articles. After lunch we review the ongoing improvements and discuss how articles improve by collaboration in real time. Participants leave with a manual, a certificate, and a support network to help them continue to work on their chosen topic with the goal that it will be favourably reviewed by Wikipedia community. 28 drafts were created during the workshops this month, with 11 published a fornight after the first session. Two drafts were published during sessions, and many more were published within 24 hrs.
The culural sector in Hinchinbrook and Cassowary Coast are considering holding their own Wiki workshops to support each other as they develop their Wiki skills. As the participants at these workshops were predominately women (five men attended), and all but one were editing Wikimedia projects for the first time, the sessions provide an opportunity to introduce new users who can help address the gender gap.
See w:Wikipedia:GLAM/SLQ for details.
