Wikipedian Student Organizations/Activities

This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference.
Either the page is no longer relevant, or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. If you want to revive discussion regarding the subject, you should seek broader input via a forum such as the Village pump.

Wikipedian student organizations
Start a Wikipedian student organization
Information about Wikipedian student organizations
Create your organization's page here on Outreach Wiki
Resources and activities for students

Are you interested in creating a community of Wikipedia editors on your campus?

This page might give your organization some ideas about how to get started.

If you have a great idea that isn't listed below, please add it to the list. If you've participated in any of these activities in the past, please see the section below on past activities.

Activities for student organizations

Content Development

Contribute local content (GLAM)
Edit content in local languages
Engage in peer review of newly created content (actively improve one another's articles)
Join and contribute to WikiProjects
Contribute or improve content in your group's areas of expertise
Organize editing parties or editing sprints with a particular theme

Tech editing

Solve problems on the website
Expand web offerings
Work on tangent / new projects (e.g., Offline development, mobile offerings)

Outreach and classroom support

Develop and / or distribute outreach materials in your local language
Mentor or tutor new editors on campus
Lead Wikipedia-themed workshops for students and faculty
Hold trivia nights and organize social events to raise awareness and / or funds
Represent Wikipedia at student fairs to recruit new editors and participants in your organization
Conduct outreach on campus by discussing Wikipedia and other projects with students and faculty
Assist professors in course/syllabus development to help integrate Wikipedia into the classroom

Open-source advocacy

Sponsor speakers from open-source movements
Work with other open-source advocates on campus to organize events and conduct outreach
Lobby university administration to make educational content more accessible (see w:Open educational resources)

Past activities section

This page serves to collect ideas for Wikipedia student club activities and to share your experiences with others. Please describe your idea in a way that makes it easy for others

to understand the purpose and the expected impact of the activity;
to understand the activity itself (short description of what the activity is about and how it works);
to understand the steps that are necessary to carry the activity into execution.

If you've organized the activity with your club members in the past, please feel free to share your experiences and add some pictures (if available).

Group Collaboration

Purpose: Make a group of your student club members start contributing collaboratively to Wikipedia.

Description: You can go facilitate a group collaborations in one of two ways,

have someone bring a whole bunch of library books about a topic to your meeting space and divvy up the books, and have each person read the pertinent sections and source the article. Time spent in meeting: 1 -1.5 Hours. Prep time:30–45 minutes. Continued time: 1–2 hours of outside editing, per interested person.
pick a topic before or during a meeting and clean it up using digital sources. Time spent in meeting: 1 hour. Time after meeting: 2–3 hours for the article to really improve in quality.

The first has the advantage of not requiring as much research time in the meeting so more content can be developed, and thus can be done very quickly, but requires a little bit of prep time. The second option is quite the opposite. In both formats, the leaders of the group can discuss issues and give direct feedback during the meeting, and it saves lots of time in discussing planning for the article on wiki. Editing can continue after the meeting, but the collaboration in the meeting is a good place to get a good start and organize.

Who has done something similar? James Madison University Wikipedians (fall semester 2010) - example article, Agnes Grey, diff of changes from initial collaboration in meeting to a about a week later with a couple other Wikipedians chipping in.

What was the feedback you got? / Was it a success? …

Contact: User:Sadads (Alex Stinson)

Trivia Night

Purpose: To raise awareness about our student organization and about how easy it is to contribute to Wikipedia. This was intended to be a fun event to expose the general public to the behind-the-scenes work at Wikipedia.

Description: We organized a pub quiz style Trivia Night (free and open to the public) and offered snacks and prizes. The event was held in the University of Michigan's Hatcher Graduate Library. Publicity began approximately a month and a half before the event and planning for the event began about five months before. Our main methods of publicizing the event were the Wikipedia Ten site (link below), Facebook, a poster in the center of campus, local newspapers, and various announcements on the MLibrary (the University's library system, our sponsor) website. In preparation for the Trivia Night, each member was asked to prepare one or two sets of themed trivia questions (some categories: Cars, The Simpsons, and a picture round where teams were to name the person, place, or thing pictured). Participants formed teams of up to five and answered questions on a sheet of paper as they were read by the MC. After a round of 20 questions, the answers were collected and graded by the Wikipedians while the next round began. The top teams won prizes—we decided to give Amazon.com gift cards and also received a donation of posters for a pub-trivia-themed movie, but practically any prize is acceptable, monetary or otherwise.

Sorry, but I have another question: How did Wikipedia come into play? Did the participants bring laptops which enabled them to look things up on Wikipedia? --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 16:48, 17 February 2011 (UTC) Wikipedia played a large role in writing the questions. Participants were not allowed to use any resources to answer the questions as they could all be easily answered using the Internet.[reply]

Who has done something similar? Wikipedians of the University of Michigan (February 2011)

What was the feedback you got? / Was it a success? Everybody seemed to have fun and many participants came up to us after the event to ask when the next one was. The UM Wikipedians deem it a success. Our co-sponsor, the Michigan Libraries, were also very excited about the project and found that this event was a great way to both advertise the club and the resources of the Library.

Contact: Charles

Links
Wikipedia Ten page
Questions used at the event

Presentation how to start editing

Purpose: …

Description: …

Who has done something similar? Wikipedians of the University of Michigan (fall semester 2010)

What was the feedback you got? / Was it a success? …

Contact: …