MENA Wikipedia Education Program meeting, Bassiyouni Hamada

is well connected

Bassiyouni Hamada, Cairo University, Faculty of Mass Communications

Dr. Basiyouni Hamada

• Interviewed on 10/17/11
• Cairo University
• Vice Dean of Mass Communications
• Connected through Adel Iskandar
• Kuliyat al Alam

Next Steps

• He wants to start now and create a wiki page for the courses.
• He wants to find editors to serve as Online Ambassadors

Style of Messaging

1. Adel introduces the program
2. Sara introduces herself
3. Adel describes the State of the Arabic Wikipedia, mentions that it's a disgrace that the Arabic content on WP is so minimal
4. Would be good to have a stronger online presence of the language

• He was mainly concerned about getting accurate information and the authorship of the articles
• If we are going to exchange ideas it's going to be hard to express this in an indigenous language
• Adel: a large contribution of editors for Arabic can and do potentially come from outside of the MENA region

Takeaways

• Basiyouni is excited about the program but he needed more convincing because of the democratic system of WP and how this works
• Basiyouni teaches Arabic classes with 100 students each in a methodology and communications class
• 350 students total, with 200 taking an Arabic class
• Students write about Current Affairs, Revolution, Elections, Arabic Image, Parliament, Tourism, History, Education, Economy
• 2nd year students take a Methods class
• 3rd year students take international communications
• B.H. think community is too ignorant to collaborate and that it might be too difficult. He believes that the majority is too ignorant
• Consider targeting Distance Learners who are a population of almost 100,000 students (for this dept. at Cairo)

Opportunities

• The Media resources at Cairo University are very good.
• Dr. Basiyouni's department wants to translate all Arabic text
• Cairo University has the largest Media libraries in the region. Dr. B has the goal of putting all of this information online
• Bassiyouni is very well connected with the region's communications/mass media channels. As the vice-chair, he attends a lot of conferences and

Challenges

• BH strong Arab Nationalist, educated at Cairo U.
• There is little material to work from
• Some courses are in English and Arabic
• 100% of the students use the computer and write papers
• Access to technology
• Self management of students
• Classification can be a challenge

Quotes

• "You have to empower your students; other professors don't want to do this." - BH
• "Unemployment in Cairo is most expensive, especially among educators." - Adel

Debrief

• We met with Professor Bassiouny who is the interested in the program but he's much more cautious and learning about how Wikipedia works.