Wikimedia Blog/Drafts/Edit-a-thon in the 8th Spanish National Free Software Universitary Contest Awards ceremony
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Edit-a-thon in the 8th Spanish National Free Software Universitary Contest Awards ceremony
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On may 15th and 16th 2014 was held the Award ceremony of the Spanish National Free Software Universitary Contest (Concurso Universitario de Software Libre), a contest to promote Free/Libre/OpenSource software (FLOSS), hardware and technical documentation in the scope of the Spanish Universities[1]. This activity aims to fill the gap between university/school students and FLOSS to create longterm links that will provide benefits to both communities. This was the 8th edition of this activity, celebrated yearly since the 2006/7 academic year.
This was the first time that the event included a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. It was supported by WikiMedia Spain (in the person of Manuel Palomo Duarte, WikiMedia Spain board member for Communication and Media) thanks to the funding of a WikiMedia Foundation grant[2]. During the marathon more than 30 participants (some of them in the events, some other on-line) created 20 Wikipedian entries related to free software, and contributed to other 20 that already existed[3]. Keeping in mind that most attendants were people used to code and write (re)structured text, there was no workshop to learn how to edit, just needing a short 1-page on-line cheat sheet with comment enables to work.[4].
An unusual fact is that the edit-a-thon had an initial slot of time to start and then kept on in parallel with the rest of the events in the ceremony. Assistants were used to work in parallel task (coding, tweeter, email, etc), so it provided good results. Some members of Wikimedia Spanish Chapter provided on-line support for some issues that appeared. Additionally, some breaks were used to gamificate the event, providing t-shirts to those who edited more according to the rankings[5].
It was somehow shocking that the participants, who have usually spent long time setting up, using and programming free software (usually because of their principles) had just edited Wikipedia 2 or 3 times for "a minor correction". Contributing to a major free software project takes long time to learn the program, the community rules, etc. but Wikipedia contributions are "just one click away". So they were challenged to make at least "one Wikipedia contribution for every 1.000 readings". This "challenge" was promoted to the main screen of Barrapunto, the most important Spanish free software community portal[6]
The authors of the best projects of the contest presentated them in the ceremony. And there were other presentations about accesibility, OpenStreet Maps and a talk on "Amnisty for imprisioned pixels, the importance of open formats and free licencing in graphic design" ("Amnistía para los píxeles presos, la importancia de los formatos abiertos y el licenciamiento libre en diseño gráfico" in Spanish) by Carlos González Morcillo (Blender certified trainer and Associate-Professor in the Universidad de Castilla La Mancha) discussing about free knowledge and license.
The awared projects were:
- Special Community Award in the 8º Concurso Universitario de Software Libre was "Implementación del protocolo P2PSP usando WebRTC", by Cristóbal Medina López (University of Almeria).
- Accesibility Award was "VOPA", by Cecilio Delgado Hernández, Alberto Martínez García and Jorge Pérez Torregrosa (Miguel Hernandez University in Elche).
- Community Award was "EvalCourse", by Antonio Balderas Alberico and Álvaro Galán Piñero (University of Cadiz).
- Education and leisure Award for "Go Engine", by Daniel Herzog (University of Laguna).
- Innovation Award for "Icebuilder", by José Luis Sanroma Tato (University of Castilla la Mancha).
- Senio Award for "Qdemos", by Paco Martín Fernández (University of La Laguna).
Additionally, there were certificates for other three students project:
- AQUAgpusph project, by Jose Luis Cercós Pita (Technical University of Madrid - UPM).
- LockedShield project, by Moisés Lodeiro Santiago (University of La Laguna).
- CarMetry project, by Miguel Catalan Bañuls, Antonio Martos Ortega and Antonio Gabriel Orenes Andres (Miguel Hernández University in Elche).
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