Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group/Overview

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Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group

Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group
a group of professionals from diverse fields, coming together to contribute to Wikimedia projects...

Chapters (38)
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Wikimedia user groups (148)

The Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group is a user group dedicated to promoting free knowledge to working and retired professionals in Nigeria.

According to statistics, the current population of Nigeria is 215,553,411 as of Sunday, May 8, 2022, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data. From the population above report according to Statista, the working population in Nigeria is about 50 million which forms the group of professionals from different fields. Although Wikipedia has been in Nigeria for seven years, yet only a few of these professionals compared to the Nigerian population are actively contributing to it and other Wikimedia sister project as an Open Educational Resources.

According to a report published in the Vanguard Newspaper, over 139 participants in attendance during the drafting of the National Policy on Open Educational Resources(OER), to address the country's lack of learning resources in terms of quality, quantity, and currency were educational professionals; Vice Chancellors, Rectors, Provosts, Librarians, and Directors of ICT of Nigerian Universities, Polytechnics, and Colleges of Education, representatives of national and international non-governmental organisations, embassies, and tertiary education regulatory agencies in Nigeria, Nigerian University Commission, National Board for Technical Education (NBTE), and National Commission for Colleges of Education. However, little relevance is given to the use of Wikipedia as an OER for the Nigerian educational sector. Due to inadequate awareness and adoption by professionals across different fields. Moreso, the misconceptions about Wikipedia not being a reliable source has also discouraged some professionals in Nigeria from contributing using Wikipedia. As Lecturers and students in higher institutions are not permitted to use Wikipedia for research purpose, and neither are professionals in other fields. Hence there is a need to change this narratives.

Having duly studied and analysed this challenges, it has become imperative to start a User Group that is solely for professionals to change their misconceptions about Wikipedia as an OER, and create awareness for the use and adoption of other wikimedia projects in Nigeria.

It is observed that professionals form different groups to officially connect to their peers both locally and globally in other to affect their contributions to issues and current trends in the society. Hence, this User group will bring together different professionals on board.

Unique Selling Proposition[edit]

  • The aim of the Wiki Nigerian Professional User Group is to leverage on professionalism to ensure increase in quality content production and consumption on Wikipedia and its sisters project.
  • To ensure that the exposure of professionals in the creation and use of Wikipedia in Nigeria will be another yard stick for employment requirement by different professional bodies and organisation. Hence the need for their involvement in the Wikimedia movement which this group wants to achieve. Moreso, professionals like Journalists who are to disseminate and report news and information from a neutral point of view are very important to the Wikimedia community. This will provide them with a place to document our histories, and notable events.
  • To create awareness for Wikicontribution hour in different offices, where professional staff will contribute to Wikipedia during their leisure time at work.
  • To increase participation of educators most especially teachers and students in secondary schools in the use of Wikipedia as a learning tool, and promote the use of educational resources in mother languages(Yoruba, Igbo, and Hausa), enhance Teachers’ media and information literacy skills by promoting Reading Wikipedia in the Classroom Program. Hence, the Wiki Nigerian Professionals User Group is a group of Wikimedians in Nigeria who are committed to working on various wiki projects that promote education and create opportunities for all professionals in Nigeria to become Wikimedians.
  • To show professionals the value and importance of their contribution to Wikipedia and its sisters project.
  • We are not only bringing the working professionals on board but also the retired professionals will also be willing to be a part of the community. Introducing them to free knowledge and Wikimedia projects.

Background history[edit]

After successfully completing and receiving certification at the end of the reading Wikipedia in the Classroom program, some certified trainers came up with the idea of forming this user group to create awareness, promote the use of various Wikimedia products among professionals in different fields in Nigeria such as medicine, law, Nutrition, Linguist, Artiste, librarianship, academics, Journalism, Accounting, and Engineering among others, whilst also promote wikimedia education related projects to enhance media and information literacy skills. Research has shown that Professionalism is an essential requirement to achieve building blocks of public value with distinguished attributes of competency, accountability, self regulation and specialized knowledge to their field and duties.1

Objectives[edit]

  • To promote the use of Wikipedia in education at all educational levels in Nigeria.
  • To ensure and promote the use of Wikimedia projects among professionals in different fields, and not involving students alone.
  • To promote Media and Information literacy skills among professionals using Wikipedia as a tool to fight against misinformation, disinformation, and fake news.
  • To create awareness of the use of various Wikimedia projects amonng professional associations and Organizations in Nigeria.
  • To ensure continuous contribution of Wikimedia volunteers.
  • To organize in-person gatherings of Wiki professionals in Nigeria.
  • To promote access to open knowledge, open courseware,open education resources,and open access among professionals in Nigeria.
  • To promote access to free knowledge to retired professionals. Many retired professionals have free time to contribute to Wikipedia but this can only be possible if they are aware that they can contribute to free knowledge.

Activities[edit]

This user group plans to hold and support the following activities:

  • Reading Wikipedia in-classroom program for teachers across secondary schools in Nigeria.
  • Wikipedia training for professional in different fields.
  • Nigerian-one-article-a-day campaign.
  • Capacity building for teachers using Wikimedia tools.
  • Wiki Access scholarship for teachers to provide teachers with offline ICT gadget to access wikipedia as an open educational resources.
  • Wiki loves Professional campaign.
  • Wiki loves Family edithaton to bring families together and increase their participation and involvement in open knowledge.
  • Editing contest among teachers and lecturers of Higher Learning.
  • Nigerian professional Wiki heroes(To celebrate our Wiki heroes who have contributed immensely to the Wikiproject).
  • Wiki Education Conference: To organize a conference that will bring everyone in the education sector together. The conference will foster unity in the Wikieducation community, increase diversity, ollaboration, and also help to resolve challenges and improve contributions to Wikimedia projects. The conference will be a yearly project where people will showcase their contributions to the Wikieducational sector.
  • Organize boot camps for Wiki professionals. This is for professionals to brainstorm from a professional angle what needs to be improved and done in terms of contribution to Wikimedia projects.
  • Organize WikiCEO Awareness Day: This will create awareness and partnership among organizations, to have more financial donors from Nigeria. It tends to invite CEOs from organizations across sectors in Nigeria, to talk about Wikipedia and how it has helped shape the narratives in their various professions.
  • Organize Wiki Government Awareness Day.
  • Organizing Wikidata and Wikicommons Awareness and trainings among professionals.
  • Reading Wikipedia and its sister projects for professional: Organising trainings on the various Wikimedia projects and it's community. This will be a one month course for interested professionals, to understand Wikipedia, its sister projects and how to collaborate, with other professional in the Wikimedia community.
  • Establishing a Wikiprofessional clubs for all professional associations in Nigeria : All professional groups have associations according so creating a Wikiprofessional club will also help strengthen their contributions to Wikipedia and its sister projects in their specific subject interests and topics.
  • Creating and organizing a Wiki Reading and Writing program for professionals using Wikipedia tools to promote reading culture and writing among professionals.
  • WikiProfessional Mentorship program. This will provide continuous mentoring for professionals to improve their contributions to open knowledge.
  • WikiInterview Time: This is a media program to show case the different projects volunteers in the Wikimedia community to promote the Wikimedia projects. Every week we bring different people from across the globe to speak about their projects,and the impacts of learnings. This project is to help improve the awareness of Wikimedia projects in Nigeria to prevent the misconceptions of professionals about Wikipedia by involving the broadcast and print media.
  • Wiki after school Reading and Writing Clubs for teachers and students in secondary schools.
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