As students in Cairo enter their last month of Wikipedia-editing before their final exam period, we are more than happy to report that the outcomes of the Cairo Pilot so far have been truly impressive. In an earlier blog post one of us (Annie Lin) described the plans and goals of the Cairo Pilot — how and why we are working with university professors who are assigning students to edit the Arabic Wikipedia — and in a more recent blog post Annie provided mid-term updates. Now, as we near the end of the academic term in Cairo, we look back at all that the professors, students, and Wikipedia Ambassadors have accomplished, and we are amazed. Overall, the Cairo Pilot has been a huge success.

Students in Dr. Iman Ezzeldin's class work on Arabic Wikipedia articles about famous theatrical productions and playwrights.

Just to provide some examples: in one of the participating classes at Ain Shams University, a student created the Arabic Wikipedia article on the French presidential elections of 2012, and has built it into a long, substantial article, updating the content as results from the French presidential elections emerge. In the past 30 days alone, this article has received more than 4,000 unique views, demonstrating the public impact that students in the Cairo Pilot are having. In the same class, other students have added more than 100 kilobytes worth of content to an article about Egyptian events that took place in 2011.

We’ve also seen that having students translate articles is a highly effective way to improve the quality and quantity of the Arabic Wikipedia. At Cairo University, students have translated multiple Wikipedia articles about famous Latin American writers from Spanish to Arabic. At Ain Shams University, after translating two lengthy articles (on civil disobedience and the U.S. Bank Panic of 1907), students are moving on to translate yet another long article (on Cholangiocarcinoma, a type of cancer).

At the time of this writing, students in the Cairo Pilot have contributed more than 847,000 characters to the Arabic Wikipedia, which is the equivalent of approximately 565 whole pages. These numbers will increase further as students finish editing this month. We are also very excited that some students have already expressed strong interest in continuing to edit the Arabic Wikipedia even after the academic term ends.

We certainly also faced many challenges in the past months: for example, Ambassadors and students often have to cope with unreliable internet connections, the unstable political situation in Cairo occasionally disrupts schedules, and a few classes took longer to start editing Wikipedia. These challenges — as well as the successes — have given us many insights into what factors are important for the Wikipedia Education Program to be more effective, and these insights will be highly valuable as we begin working with the community to plan for future terms (more about this to come!).

Faris El-Gwely, Education Program Coordinator, Cairo
Annie Lin, Global Education Program Manager 

Having just returned from a weeklong trip to Cairo, I am happy to report that the Cairo education pilot project is off to an exciting start! As one of the newest wings of the Wikipedia Education Program, the Cairo Pilot aims to increase the quality and quantity of the Arabic Wikipedia by working with university professors who incorporate Wikipedia-editing into their classes. As described in my earlier blog post, to keep this pilot small we are involving only the top 5-15 students from a small number of classes this term (see the detailed Cairo Pilot program plan).

Cairo University students practice editing Wikipedia in a workshop led by Campus Ambassadors, March 2012.

The academic term began last month, and already the participating classes are showing great enthusiasm and promise. After participating in a faculty workshop in January — where the Cairo professors learned more about how Wikipedia works and tips around designing Wikipedia assignments from local Wikipedians and a Wikipedia Education Program faculty veteran (Rochelle Davis of Georgetown University) — the participating faculty members have incorporated innovative Wikipedia projects into their respective classes. For example, in Professor Hany Hosseiny’s mathematics class at Cairo University, students will do extensive research and write Arabic articles about famous mathematicians and mathematical concepts. Most of the students in the Cairo Pilot will do the majority of on-wiki editing in April and May, although Professor El-Toukhy’s postgraduate French students at Ain Shams University have already begun translating entire Wikipedia articles from French to Arabic (they plan to finish translating the entire 12-page-long article Civil Disobedience within the next ten days, after which they’ll move on to translating at least three other long articles). It is also worth mentioning that the vast majority of students in the pilot are women.

The Wikipedia Ambassadors in Cairo have been doing a great job explaining Wikipedia policies and editing skills to students, and the participating professors and students are very excited to play such a big role in growing Arabic free knowledge.

-Annie Lin (آني/سمر)
Wikipedia Education Program Manager

For about ten days in December, Frank Schulenburg, Moushira Elamrawy, and I met with various professors, students, and local Wikipedians in Cairo, Egypt. The initial Arabic Catalyst Project trip from October showed that there is potential in working with faculty members and students on improving the Arabic Wikipedia; this December trip made clear that there is a very high level of interest among people at universities in Cairo to do so.

The Cairo pilot project – the newest part of the Wikipedia Education Program – will begin in early 2012. Its primary goal will be to improve the quality and quantity of the Arabic Wikipedia, which is currently very small (only about 150,000 articles) even though as the fifth most common language in the world Arabic has about 400 million speakers worldwide (compare this to Japanese, which has about 130 million speakers worldwide but almost 800,000 Wikipedia articles). As part of the Cairo pilot, students from Ain Shams University and Cairo University will contribute new content to the Arabic Wikipedia or translate content from another language into Arabic on Wikipedia. The plan is to have about 4-6 classes in the pilot, and only the top 3-15 students from each of these classes will actually contribute to Wikipedia. We want to keep the pilot very small, to make sure that we’ve figured out what works and doesn’t work before we expand the project to more people and more places.

Wikipedia Education Program staff meet with Arabic Wikimedians in Cairo, Egypt, in December 2011.

We were surprised by how many instructors in Egypt were excited about participating in the project. Everybody we talked to was convinced that growing and enhancing the Arabic Wikipedia would be a good idea – in fact, many professors and students told us they felt the responsibility to make free knowledge in Arabic better. We have identified about six professors for participation in the pilot, based on their understanding of Wikipedia, their genuine interest in enhancing the Arabic Wikipedia, and the writing skills of their students. Almost all the students we met also showed genuine interest in learning more about Wikipedia and contributing to it.

We are also very happy to have the support of local Wikipedians. Essam Sharaf – a long-term Wikipedian and a student at Cairo University – connected us with professors and students, helped us maneuver the streets and campuses of Cairo, and enhanced our understanding of Egypt’s social, cultural, and political context. Frank, Moushira, and I also met with an active group of Cairo-based Arabic Wikipedians and went on a photo-walk with them, during which we took pictures of Old Cairo and then uploaded them onto Wikimedia Commons (including the panoramic photo now on this Wikipedia article). We’ve also been communicating with other members of the Arabic Wikipedia community, whom we’ve found to be extremely helpful and inspiring. We feel very fortunate that this group of enthusiastic, smart, and motivated volunteers has expressed genuine interest in becoming Wikipedia Ambassadors (who teach students how to edit Wikipedia) and laying the foundation to make the Cairo pilot a success.

-Annie Lin (آني/سمر)
Wikipedia Education Program Manager