Ambassadors

Wikimedia UK education projects

Annual Conference — Campus Ambassadors – Student Societies — Schools — Committee — VLE

Wikimedia UK is currently seeking to train and support individuals who will serve as local representatives of the Wikimedia community within educational institutions or community groups.

Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors can be current or former students, library or other university staff members, educators, or Wikimedians geographically close to an education institution -- the main qualification is that you must enjoy teaching people and spreading your passion for free knowledge.

Campus Ambassadors

Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors are volunteers who provide face-to-face support to university students on how to edit Wikipedia, work with academics to incorporate Wikipedia assignments into classrooms, help recruit new Wikipedia contributors on campus, and participate in real life activities in support of free knowledge. Campus Ambassadors are part of the UK Wikipedia Ambassador Programme being coordinated by Wikimedia UK and are required to attend a training in order to make them more familiar with doing Wikipedia outreach on campus. The estimated time commitment when supporting a course is approximately 3-5 hours a week, with some variations throughout the semester. Ambassadors not attached to Wikipedia teaching assignments should expect to coordinate or participate in recruiting events and outreach, depending on personal availability.

The Campus Ambassador programme is well-established in the United States and elsewhere, and we are currently seeking individuals whom we can train and support to work similarly in UK. See below for upcoming training opportunities.

Training opportunities

Online training

Feel free to explore the online training course for Ambassadors but keep in mind that this is designed primarily for people in the United States and Canada. A UK version of this online training course is one of the things we hope to develop over 2014/15.

Previous training sessions

Campus Ambassador training workshops were held on:

• Wednesday 6 August 2014 as part of the Wikimania pre-conference events at the Barbican in London.
• Friday 12 September 2014 at University College London.
• Friday 31 October 2014 as part of EduWiki Conference 2014 at Edinburgh First (University of Edinburgh).

Community Ambassadors

This is a similar programme for those working outside formal education. The idea is to help marginalised groups (such as speakers of a foreign language) to contribute to, and benefit from, the Wikimedia projects. We are seeking enthusiastic individuals who understand Wikimedia's mission and have the ability to teach, mentor and lead others. We aim to involve such people in training events that will help them involve their community.

List of Wikimedia UK Campus Ambassadors

One our long-term goals is to have a campus ambassadors for every Higher Education Institution across the UK. Please add your name to this list if you are a campus ambassador in the UK, indicating the institution/s with which you are affiliated:

• Raya Sharbain - UCL
• Mira Vogel - UCL
• Nada ALBUNNI - University of Southampton
• User:MartinPoulter - University of Bristol: I am involved in WikiProject Psychology and I like to know about any education activity in the area of Experimental Psychology. I give feedback to students where I can, but due to my work commitments, I cannot pledge to do so for all students or to be monitoring the wiki at any particular time.
• Victuallers aka Roger Bamkin - several East Mids universities
• Add yourself here if interested

See also

• Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors - global Facebook group
• Wikipedia Campus Ambassadors - UK information page on Wikipedia
• Education brochures and handouts (UK version here)

Workshop resources

• UK Campus Ambassadors etherpad
• Ambassadors online training - orientation for new Wikipedia Ambassadors helping with class assignments
• Campus Ambassadors Workshop - Toni Sant's 2014 slides