Wikimedia chapters/Reports/Wikimedia Canada/May - August 2012

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Conferences and forums

Itech

James Heilman gave the keynote address at a local tech conference regarding Wikipedia / Wikimedia. One of the printing companies present was interested in the possibility of printing low cost, open source, medical textbooks based on Wikipedia content for distribution to Africa and other areas with poor access to the Internet. These copies would ideally be in the languages of the local population.

International Scientific Conference on ICT in Education

Presentation in Montreal by Simon Villeneuve and Antoine Letarte

On 4 May 12, Antoine Letarte and Simon Villeneuve, both Cégep teachers and active members of Quebec Committee, gave a presentation during the International Scientific Confenrence on ICT in Education held in Montreal. It was a moment for them to establish contact with the french speaking teaching community of all over the world.

Both teachers also presented their educational projects and explained how they use Wikipedia in their classrooms. A video was produced and is now available under a free license on Commons.

• "Utiliser Wikipédia en pédagogie" (work page from the speakers, in French)
• File:Utiliser Wikipédia_en_pédagogie_commons.pdf (presentation slides, in French)
• Commons:Category:Colloque scientifique international portant sur les TIC en éducation
• International Scientific Conference on ICT and Education

Forum mondial de la langue française

From July 2^nd to 6^th, 2012, four wikimedians kept a stand at the Forum mondial de la langue française held in Quebec City, Canada. It was the first time that people speaking French from around the World met together to exchange on the French language. Letartean and Adrienne Alix were invited on a panel to speak about the state of Wikipedia in French. Simon Villeneuve was invited to another panel. Cantons-de-l'Est was only at the stand. All the four answered visitors questions and gave very short introduction to Wikipedia to many : how to contribute, what is Wikipedia, etc.

• Wikipédia:Forum mondial de la langue française
• FMLF, observations
• Table ronde au Forum mondial de la langue française
• Forum mondial de la langue française
• À la radio ce soir

• 
  Opening of FMLF. From left to right, Régis Labeaume mayor of Quebec City, Stephen Harper Prime Minister of Canada, Jean Charest Premier of Québec.
• 
  Stand of Wikimedia Canada and Wikimedia France.
• 
  New contributors!
• 
  Simon Villeneuve at left helping a newcomer to make its first contributions to Wikipedia.

Wikimania 2012 in Washington DC

Photographic scavenger hunts presentation, WTMTL and WPQC.

From 12 to 15 July 2012, several members of the board of Wikimedia Canada and Quebec Committee participated, mainly for the first time at Wikimania in Washington, DC : Dr. James Heilman (WMCA President), Jeffery Nichols (WMCA Secretary), Ray Saintonge (WMCA treasurer), Benoit Rochon (WMCA coordinator, COMQC member), Antoine Letarte (COMQC member), Simon Villeneuve (COMQC member). In addition to all of the presentations that we attended, the conference was an opportunity to meet and develop relationships between the two Canadian entities who nationnaly supports Wikimedia projects in both official languages of Canada.

On July 13, Benoit Rochon and Antoine Letarte did a presentation of the photographic scavenger hunts Wikipedia Takes Montreal (2011) and Wikipedia prend Québec (2012) in the Grand Ballroom. It was an opportunity to explain the advantages and disadvantages of these events from the media visibility, financial and organizational point of views. This was followed by the "Local Photo panel events" where Benoit Rochon and other panel members were answering questions from those present in the room, and explain differences between all type photographic events.

On July 14, members of Francophone Wikimedia chapters & supporters (France, Switzerland, Belgium, Canada, Tunesia, Italy) organise a meetup in order to have discussions about coordination and future collaborations. It appears that an association of Francophones and Francophiles chapters should be established to allow a better cohesion of French Wikimedia sister projects. Due to the dispersion of the Francophonie, this was a unique opportunity to allow contributors working together for years to meet face to face, and fraternize.

Photography

Wikipedia Takes Quebec City

The winning picture from the WTQC contest, as decided by a jury of photographs from different photo clubs

On June 16th, people from Quebec City gathered for the Wikipedia takes Quebec City contest. Organised by the Comité Québec (Quebec Committee), the contest took place at the cégep Limoilou in downtown Quebec City. 30 people went all around the capital to take quality and useful pictures of this historic city. On a perfect day for photography, participants took over 5000 pictures of which 1071 were uploaded on Commons after a selection by the users.

The winners were selected in the summer and were announced by the end of August. It was particularly hard to choose a winning picture and portfolio because of the great quality of the images taken by the participants. Two great winners were declared in two categories: best picture and best portfolio and each won an iPad. Also, two runnerups received prizes for their uploads of the second and third best pictures.

The event was a success on many levels. First, many participants from the contest became regular Commons users. In particular, users Mcturcotte and Malimage are now active uploaders and contributors on Commons and French Wikipedia. Second, the event received a good media coverage in the regional medias and helped build bridges with many people in the Quebec City community (Cégep Limoilou, local antena of Radio-Canada, other media partners as Le Soleil and Vox, local tourism bureau, etc.). Participants were informed of the existence of the contest by different means, suggesting a good communication strategy. Also, the contest was innovative in its ways. Users uploaded themselves the pictures and used Commons, a conference about free-licenced photography was given in the morning, the contest was aimed at quality images more than at images illustrating things on a list with points. Finally, Commons received a very nice set of free-licenced images about Quebec City and its surroundings. Some images received the Quality Image status on Commons.

• 
  One of the runnerups
• 
  Second runnerup
• 
  Letartean giving a presentation before the contest
• 
  Slides from the presentation given in Washington during Wikimania 2012

Interested users can find more information (in French) on the official webpage of the contest and in the links below.

• Official webpage
• All the media coverage about the event
• Commons category of the event

Aboriginal languages

Outreach to Aboriginal communities

Outreach has been performed with the Gwi'chin Social & Cultural Institute in Northwest Territories and discussions are on-going to develop the Gwi'chin Wikipedia. Discussions on the Cree Wikipedia are still on-going and two new contributors speaking Cree have started to contribute. A plan to have a session to teach other Cree speakers how to contribute to Wikipedia is also being developed in partnership with a Cree language coordinator.

• Gwi'chin Social & Cultural Institute
• Cree Wikipedia

Wikimedia Incubator

Six new Wikipedias in Canadian Aboriginal languages have been created in the Wikimedia Incubator.

• Wikipedia in Michif
• Wikipedia in Gwi'chin
• Wikipedia in Stoney
• Wikipedia in Assiniboine
• Wikipedia in Chipewyan
• Wikipedia in Ktunaxa

Wikimedia Indigenous Languages

Amqui, founder of the Canadian Aboriginal Languages Wikipedia Coordination group and active Wikimedia Canada member, has engaged discussion with the wider Wikimedia movement to put in place a new international body to encourage the cooperation in the development of small and endangered languages Wikimedia projects, Wikimedia Indigenous Languages. Amqui also initiated the creation of a new Wikimedia mailing list dedicated to languages.

• Wikimedia Indigenous Languages
• Languages list

Google's Endangered Languages Project

Amqui has engaged a discussion with the newly created Google's Endangered Languages Project to explore how the Google project and Wikimedia projects can help each other to develop content in Canadian Aboriginal languages and attract new contributors speaking Native languages. This cooperation has since been expanded to the wider Wikimedia movement through the Language Committee.

• Endangered Languages Project

Outreach to medical community

Meeting with Pubmed

James Heilman was involved with a telephone meeting with Pubmed regarding potential collaboration.

Medical outreach at Coventry UK

A meeting in Coventry in the UK to discuss the importance of Wikipedia in Medicine

In Aug 2012, James Heilman, was involved in organizing and spoke at a meeting regarding the significance of Wikipedia in Medicine in Coventry in the UK. Other speakers included Wikipedian, Jacob de Wolff and founder of the TRIPdatabase Jon Brassy.

Meeting with Cancer Research UK, London

In Aug 2012, James Heilman, met with members of Cancer Research UK at their London office. Discussed was the possibility of them hosting a Wikipedian in Residence as well as them releasing all their images and possibly some of their content under a compatible license.

Meeting with PloS Medicine

In Aug 2012, James Heilman, met with one of the editors of the PLoS Medicine in Coventry, England to discuss the possibility of Wikipedia and the BMJ collaborating.

Meeting with the British Medical Journal, Oxford

In Aug 2012, James Heilman, met with one of the editors of the BMJ in Oxford, England to discuss the possibility of Wikipedia and the BMJ collaborating.

School projects

School project at Cégeps

Since most students are on vacation from school during May to August, teachers and other stakeholders in education use this time period to update themselves and share the results of their researches and experiments. Antoine Letarte and Simon Villeneuve, both Cégep teachers and core members of Quebec Committee, participated in the International Scientific Conference on ICT and Education held in Montreal on May 3 and 4. They shared with several international stakeholders in education their own academic initiatives and the results of their researches and experiments with involving Wikipedia in classroom. Simon Villeneuve also presented his work at the colloque annuel de l'Association québécoise de pédagogie collégiale (AQPC) held in Gatineau from June 6 to 8. He also published an article in the local newspaper of his Cegep, L'idéphile.

• Conference of Simon Villeneuve and Antoine Letarte about using Wikipedia in classroom, at the International Scientific Conference on ICT and Education.
• Simon Villeneuve, "Centre de développement pédagogique - Wikipédia comme outil pédagogique", Idéephile, 8 juin 2012, [1]. (in French)

Training for the APOP

On two separate occasions, an online conference was developed and given by Simon Villeneuve, with the presence of Letartean for support, to teachers and professionals from the Quebec's post-secondary education system. The goal of the presentations was to explain Wikipedia and to show possible uses that can be made of it in a classroom. A combined total of 25 people attended both conferences. The conferences were publicized by the APOP and given on their online platform.

• w:fr:Utilisateur:Simon Villeneuve/Atelier en éducation (in French)

2011	2012			2013
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