Event:Open Knowledge Practices Through Wikimedia Projects for Librarians in Benue State University

Open Knowledge Practices Through Wikimedia Projects for Librarians in Benue State University

• Campaign overview
• Training schedule
• Articles to be Edited
• Wikidata Items to created
• Project Team

File:Open Knowledge Practices Flyer.jpg

Open Knowledge Practices Through Wikimedia Projects for Librarians in Benue State Universityis a project aimed at empowering librarians as information professionals to become active contributors to Wikimedia projects, particularly Wikipedia, Wikidata and wikimedia Commons.

Librarians play a vital role in organizing, managing, and promoting access to credible information. With the rise of digital technology, their role has expanded into teaching information literacy and advocating for open access, aligning with Wikimedia’s mission. This project seeks to build librarians’ skills for enhancing local knowledge visibility and fostering digital collaboration.

The project supports librarians to better understand how Wikimedia aligns with the mission of libraries — promoting access to free, verifiable information for all.

Our Goals:

• Introduce participants to Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia and Wikidata.
• Empower librarians to participate actively in the #1Lib1Ref (One Librarian, One Reference) campaign.
• Build capacity for improving Benue State-related content on Wikipedia.
• Promote visibility of local knowledge, culture, and scholarly resources.
• Strengthen information literacy and digital collaboration skills.
• Increase awareness and practice of Open Knowledge principles in university libraries.
• Strengthen Rev.FR.Moses Orshio Adasu University's presence in global knowledge ecosystems.

Activities

Training Sessions: Hybrid training sessions will introduce participants to Wikipedia editing, Wikidata contributions, and Wikimedia Commons usage, with an emphasis on improving Benue State-related content and promoting the #1Lib1Ref campaign.

Edit-a-thons: Participants will engage in practical edit-a-thons aimed at creating, expanding, and sourcing articles about Benue State, academic resources, and library-related topics.

Wikidata Item Creation: Librarians will learn to create and enrich Wikidata items focused on local institutions, notable individuals, and cultural heritage entities.

Image Uploads and Licensing: Participants will be trained on licensing basics and how to upload relevant images to Wikimedia Commons to enhance visual representation.

Rules

• Read all participation guidelines carefully before contributing.
• Only contributions in the mainspace will be counted for recognition.
• Articles must be verifiable, properly referenced, and meet Wikimedia notability standards.
• Copying from sources (plagiarism) is strictly prohibited.
• Participants must manually edit — no auto-generation tools permitted.

Prizes

Outstanding participants will receive the following:

• Top Contributor – NGN 20,000 Gift Voucher
• Second Position – NGN 15,000 Gift Voucher
• Third Position – NGN 10,000 Gift Voucher
• Fourth Position – NGN 5,000 Gift Voucher

Wikimedia commons

• Best Wikimedia Commons Contributor – NGN 10,000 Gift Voucher

Jury Process

All contributions will be reviewed based on:

• Quality and depth of content added
• Proper sourcing
• Respect for copyright
• Compliance with Wikimedia's editing standards

To ensure transparency and fairness, article and item scoring will follow a qualitative system while adhering to Wikimedia’s standards for notability and sourcing.

Only contributions related to libraries, education, and Benue State topics will be scored.

Scoring System:

1 point for adding a Wikilink to an article on Wikipedia 20 points for creating a stub Wikipedia article 10 points for creating a new Wikidata item with at least 5 statements 2 points for adding a category to an article 5 points for adding a new section to an article 3 points for adding a citation 3 points for each image added 5 points for adding a complete infobox to a stub article

Training Schedule

Date	Type of Event	Meeting Link & Passcode	Venue/Time	Recordings & Slides	Details
Friday 16/05/2025	Virtual Launch and Introduction	Launch Meeting	Zoom (11:00 AM – 1:00 AM WAT)	[Link to Recording]	Introduction to Wikimedia Projects and Open Knowledge
Saturday 17/05/2025	Wikipedia Editing Training (Physical Training)	Wikipedia Training Link	BSU Main Library (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM WAT)	[Link to Recording]	Practical training on Wikipedia editing
Friday 9th/05/2025	Wikidata Training (Physical Training)	Wikidata Training Link	Zoom (10:00 AM – 2:00 PM WAT)	[Link to Recording]	Introduction to Wikidata and hands-on session

Quick Links

• Training Schedule
• Articles to be Edited
• Wikidata Items Added
• Project Team