Education/News/July 2023/Wikimedia Serbia published a paper Promoting Equity in Access to Open Knowledge: An Example of the Wikipedia Educational Program
Wikimedia Serbia published a paper "Promoting Equity in Access to Open Knowledge: An Example of the Wikipedia Educational Program"
The Handbook of Research on Implementing Inclusive Educational Models and Technologies for Equity and Diversity was published, in which there is a paper entitled "Promoting Equity in Access to Open Knowledge: An Example of the Wikipedia Educational Program" written by the Manager of the Education Program of Wikimedia Serbia Nebojša Ratković and the Manager of Diversity Projects of Wikimedia Serbia Nevena Rudinac.
In this chapter, the main objective is to showcase the project of Wikimedia Serbia that can serve as a way to bridge the gap in accessibility of knowledge and information caused by centralization in Serbia and to promote equity through Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia. Nebojša and Nevena brought the attention, and presented the Professional development of teachers project. This project aimed at educating teachers from various provincial towns to work independently to implement Wiki-projects, such as Wikipedia and its sister projects, in their institutions to help their students to gain access to the knowledge they cannot access otherwise and teach them how to approach online information in the correct manner. In this chapter, attention is also brought to the feedback acquired from teachers who participated in this project. A few projects that teachers implemented in their schools and which were inspired by this project and serve as its extensions are also presented. However, firstly the problem of centralization in Serbia and unequal access to knowledge and information when it comes to people who live in rural areas in Serbia is addressed. Nebojša and Nevena also introduced a few solutions to this problem, one of which is using Wikipedia as a didactic tool.