Hello,
I watch the education noticeboard and am a fan of school outreach. I am
going to share a contact seeking support through the education program and
will try to keep doing this when I see professors in the region. I am not
expecting anyone to respond to this but wanted to share that the demand
exists.
I know that this Cascadia community hardly has capacity now to manage an
odd flow of incoming projects, but I wanted to express that odd projects
continually come in through various channels. One of those channels is the
education board.
See here for example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard&…
A professor teaching advanced Latin has a class of 5 students and they plan
to edit Wikipedia, both in English and in Latin. The professor knows little
about Wikipedia and the students probably also have not edited. They are
requesting some support. Obviously they will have a hard time and limited
response on Latin Wikipedia and probably so in editing Latin articles here.
There is an organization called the Wikipedia Education Foundation which
will provide some support to this professor, including directions to online
training and 1-2 phone calls. This is definitely better than nothing, and
in my opinion is enough to allow the class to at least give minimally
useful contributions, but there is little chance of engagement after the
class using this process.
In my opinion, the next step in engagement is having some Wikipedian try to
work with the professor to encourage them to come back next year with more
students. Recruiting students to stay is very difficult.
Still, this opportunity exists, it is easier to recruit people who come to
us than to go out in the world and pitch people cold, and professors and
classes really do mean well and will contribute a lot of time and good
information.
I think that if Cascadia is funded, then having one of the paid positions
on point to greet and be a point of contact for professors should be an
outreach strategy which is considered.
yours,
--
Lane Rasberry
user:bluerasberry on Wikipedia
206.801.0814
lane(a)bluerasberry.com