My experiments with Wikipedia Education Program: The Meeting of Life

Session two: Faculty

So, after receiving a bunch of positive responses from my previous blog post (check here), I freed my time to write the so-called sequel to my previous blog post.

As I previously mentioned, this post will share my experience with the faculty of SSPM College of Engineering with respect to Wikipedia Education Program.

The following day after my talk show, I was invited by the registrar of college to address the faculty and coordinators of college. The students shared positive feedbacks of WEP to their professors and after getting so many positive feedbacks, they were keen to know more about WEP, Open-Source and MediaWiki. In front of me, I had 8 coordinators, faculty of Department of Computer Science and the registrar of college. I started with Wikipedia Education Program. I explained them the benefits of the program and what students will gain if your college implements it. Some benefits included:

• Knowledge of students won't be limited to a sheet of paper.
• No more wastage of paper for assignments.
• They will learn to work collaboratively.
• Writing skills will be greatly enhanced.

Their reaction conveyed it all. They asked what can be the contribution of college towards its implementation. The question really made me happy. The college was interested in WEP. I elucidated the terms of program. Beginning from teaching the students the basics of Wiki editing, encouraging them to create their user page and help them with their first article. And ended it using the journals given by Vahid Masrour (WMF) at Wikimania 2016, to give them a better insight of WEP. And I must say, they were impressed. They agreed to implement it for the sake of better future of their students, and also for increasing the reputation of their college. WEP will be implemented but my mission wasn't over. After the thorough discussion on WEP, I introduced MediaWiki to them. Told them what it is, how it works etc. They were still quite unsure why I was talking about MediaWiki unless I introduced it as a part of Wikipedia Education Program. I stated,

"Even after 4 years of programming, the computer science graduates fail to get a job. The main reason behind this is lack of practical knowledge. If MediaWiki will be present in the syllabus, the students will be able to know more about Open-Source technologies, get themselves engaged with one of the best Open-Source communities, understand how big projects are undertaken, earn themselves a chance to crack GSoC and much more opportunities. The students fail to get involved in such activities on their own because they are already pre-occupied with assignments, college projects and other stuff. Lack of awareness is another major issue. Integrating MediaWiki in syllabus will provide every individual with the opportunity to contribute to Open-Source and they will do it at least for the marks and there will be no chance of cheating since no two students can complete the same task. And hence the chances of development on part of students will increase manifolds. MediaWiki can easily replace the weekly assignments that professors give to their students."

After listening to it, all the people were hit with curiosity since they never heard of any such program before. I also mentioned that their college will be the first one in India to implement it. After some time, the registrar of college said by himself that the college readily agrees to proposal and they wish to integrate MediaWiki in computer science syllabus and Wikipedia Education Program will be implemented uniformly. I congratulated them, but they thanked me for coming to their college and bringing revolutionary change in the education system. I gave them some additional tips such as:

• formation of FOSS club in the college,
• encouraging students to contribute to Open-Source,
• having regular workshops and meetings on Wikipedia and Open-Source and
• help the students to spread the message of free knowledge across the university.

The meeting was over. I experienced a moment of euphoria once again. I succeeded in my mission. After this, I had a small talk with the coordinators to help them get started with everything.

What's next?

I have been invited again in June to have a meeting with one of their trustee and help them with integrating WEP and MediaWiki from the new session as well. Thank you everyone who motivated and supported me all this while. It wouldn't have been possible without them. Looking forward to implement the program and spreading the message of free knowledge in different colleges across the country. Cheers!