This is the user page for a team of researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII website)

Invitations sent in August 2012 to selected en:wiki and :ar:wiki editors

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We are a team of researchers at the University of Oxford and AU Sharjah, researching the experiences of editors of content about the Arab world on Wikipedia. We are interested in your experiences of editing Wikipedia and are organising two events that we think you would be an excellent contributor to.

First, we are hosting an online wiki focus group about contributing to Wikipedia in Arabic and to articles about the Middle East and North Africa. We are interested in what barriers you perceive to exist in Wikipedia, how articles can be made better and generally what can be done to expand and improve Arabic Wikipedia and Wikipedia articles about the Arab world. This discussion will take place on a MediaWiki hosted at our institution and be available in English and Arabic. We will allow users to create their own discussion pages in addition to our discussions.

Second, we are hosting face-to-face workshops in Cairo from 21st-22nd October 2012. If you are interested in this we should be able to pay travel and accommodation costs for up to twenty participants. This workshop will cover similar themes to the online discussion but will allow participants to meet one another and benefit from being together.

We will take care of the organization and planning and all you have to do is show up and be ready to discuss. But if you would like to help shape some of the discussion themes in advance, please let us know. We have booked time in the workshops for Wikipedian-led discussions.

More details can be found by expanding our “Frequently Asked Questions” below.

We would be delighted to welcome you to either (or both) event. Please let us know (wikiproject@oii.ox.ac.uk) if you would like the opportunity to participate and we can send you more details.

Sincerely,

Mark, Bernie, Ilhem, Ali, Ahmed, and Heather

Dr. Mark Graham, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Dr. Bernie Hogan, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Dr. Ilhem Allagui, Department of Mass Communication, American University of Sharjah; Dr. Ali Frihida, National Engineering School of Tunis; Heather Ford, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford; Ahmed Medhat, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford;