Training session for writing, adding articles on Wikipedia organised
MUSCAT: A training session to provide practical insight into writing and adding articles in Wikipedia was organised by the Information Technology Authority (ITA), on Monday evening.
The session introduced WikiOman contest terms and conditions, its objectives, and the evaluation criteria.
Aiming to enrich the Arabic content on the Internet, the ITA organised the session in partnership with Badr Albayan for Translation at the Cultural Club at Alqurum.
The training session, which witnessed wide participation from social media users, bloggers, and students, was conducted by Abdullah bin Hammad Almaani and Badr bin Salim Alkassabi, two Omani translators, who have wide experience in writing in the free encyclopaedia, from Badr Albayan for Translation, which is one of the Omani SMEs that provides translation and localisation services along with various services related to the fields of linguistics and communications.
Welcoming the participants at the beginning of the session, Ham- dan bin Mohammed Al’Alawi, projects specialist at ITA said, “According to the 2012 ITU report on measuring Information Society, the existing Arabic eContent does not exceed 3 per cent from the overall eContent. Moreover, the total Arabic eContent in the Free Encyclopaedia “Wikipedia” is about 0.82, which is less than 1 per cent.”
“We tend to be knowledge consumers only and the knowledge sharing and production in our Arab world is relatively poor. It is our responsibility to contribute in developing and increasing the Arabic eContent,” he added.
The training session focussed on the theoretical and practical aspects in the process of sharing free and open articles in Wikipedia. The theoretical aspect gave a brief about Wikipedia, its inception, development and uses in education and in gaining general knowledge about a certain topic. It also discussed the terms and conditions of publishing in the free encyclopaedia and how to search for a good article to write about as well as the way of selecting and differentiating between reliable and non-reliable sources and references.