Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria: A Demographic Analysis of Participants

The Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria (WCCTN) Project led by User: Omorodion1, User: Bukky658 and User: Tesleemah, was born out of the Organizer Lab (beta) course put together by the Wikimedia Foundation. The project goals include mobilizing and sensitizing Nigerian undergraduate students on the science of climate change so they can take the necessary climate action for a sustainable environment. The project also aim to build a sustainable open climate community in Nigerian universities, as well as generate local expert knowledge around climate and environmental sustainability on Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. The project, which is the first of its kind in Nigeria, is currently being piloted in six Nigerian Universities. The universities include the University of Ilorin, Summit University Offa, Federal University Kashere, University of Port Harcourt, University of Ibadan, and the University of Benin. To ensure successful implementation of the project, the project core organizers worked closely with the different university fan club leaders (user:Nosakhare Okuons, user:Royalesignature, user:John Joy, user: Ibjaja055, user: Ugwulebo, and user: James Moore) to carry out a range of activities, including panel discussion, training and capacity building of participants, edit-a-thon, data-a-thon and write-a-thon.

The participants of the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project come from a variety of backgrounds and have different levels of experience editing Wikimedia projects. The initial registration data collected from 429 participants using Google Forms revealed the following demographic characteristics as presented in Figures 1 – 4:

Demographic Characteristics of Participants

Figure 1: Distribution of Participants According to Institution

Figure 2: Gender Distribution of Participants

The gender distribution of participants for the project were almost evenly split, with 51% male and 49% female. The data in figure 2 shows that both male and female were adequately represented in the project. The implication of this is that, through this project, the organizers are able to help address the systemic bias within the Wikimedia movement, especially as it relates to the gender gap.

Figure 3: Age of Participants

The age distribution of the participants in the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project is shown in Figure 3. The majority of the participants are in the 21-25 age bracket (52%), followed by the 26-30 age bracket (22%). Only 6% of the participants are 36 years and above. This implies that the majority of the project participants are below 30 years old. This is likely because the project targeted undergraduate students in Nigerian universities.  

Figure 4: Occupation of Participants

Data in figure 4 shows that 76% of the participants are students, followed by climate experts (4%) and environmental enthusiasts (4%). Interestingly, 16% of the participants are neither students nor environmental enthusiasts. This category of participants included unemployed youth and working-class persons in a non-climate related field. The diversity of participants is a strength of the project, as it will allow for a variety of perspectives and experiences to be represented in the project’s output.

Wikimedia Related Experience 

The Wiki Climate Campus Tour Project participants have a wide range of Wikimedia experience, as shown in Figures 5-8:

Figure 5: Wikimedia User Account

As expected, the majority of the participants in the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project already had an existing Wikimedia user account. According to Figure 5, 81% of the participants had an existing account before joining the campaign, while 19% did not. This is a testament to the experience level of the participants, as well as the popularity of Wikimedia projects in Nigeria.

Figure 6. Willingness to Remain active in the community after the project

Figure 6 shows that 99% of the participants in the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project are willing to remain active in the Wikimedia community after the project ends. This is a very encouraging sign, as it suggests that the project has been successful in engaging and motivating the participants.

Figure 7: Preferred Platform for Online training

Figure 7 shows that the participants in the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project prefer Google Meet (52%) and Zoom (38%) for virtual training, with Microsoft Teams being the least preferred platform (10%). The choice of these platforms is likely related to the ease of use and familiarity of the participants with these platforms.

Figure 8: Familiarity with Wikimedia Projects

Of the three Wikimedia projects that will be directly impacted by the Wiki Climate Campus Tour Nigeria project (Wikipedia, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons), 82% of the participants are familiar with Wikipedia, while 37% and 36% are familiar with Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, respectively. This means that most of the participants are already familiar with Wikipedia, but less familiar with Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons. The implication of this is that more training will be needed on Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, as these projects are less familiar to the participants. However, it is still important to provide training on Wikipedia, being the most popular Wikimedia project and one that most people will be interacting with.

Conclusion

The data analyzed demonstrates the diversity of the project participants in terms of their demographic characteristics and familiarity with Wikimedia projects. This diversity is important because it shows that climate change is a problem that affects people of all backgrounds. The data also reinforces the belief that climate change can be addressed through collective effort. Wikimedia projects, being collaborative projects, offer a pathway to combating the climate crisis by providing access to free, open, accurate, and reliable information for planning and decision-making.