AWA Monthly Meet-up for February 2025: Creating Courses on Wikiversity

Introduction

The African Wikipedian Alliance Anglophone community held its monthly meet-up session on the 14^th of February, 2025. “In an era where open access to information is transforming global education, Wikiversity emerges as a powerful tool, an open platform enabling anyone to learn, teach, or contribute knowledge”- a warm session kickoff nugget shared by Bukola James, AWA community coordinator and moderator of the session. She began with the introduction of participants to the activities of the community, describing perks that are available for active participation and contribution under the AWA and Code for Africa umbrella. At the forefront of this training is Dr. Mariam T. Olugbodi, a lecturer in English and Linguistics from Kwara State University (KWASU), mentor, volunteer, and advocate for open knowledge. She serves as an advisor to the Wikimedia Fan Club and a member of the WikiWomen Advisory Council.

Dr. Olugbodi who recently delivered a compelling session on creating educational courses on Wikiversity with a focus on African Literature, based the rationale of creating content on Wikiversity on helping those who do not have access to any classroom privileges and people learning in emergency settings and rural areas, Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergency INEE, thereby promoting the Sustainable Development Goal 4. Here’s how it went:

Defining Wikiversity

Dr Olugbodi defined Wikiversity as not just another online learning tool. It is:

• A Wikimedia project, like Wikipedia and Wikidata.
• A community of scholars/masters and learners, promoting peer-based learning.
• A research institute of sorts, which is non-accredited, non-judgmental, and completely free.
• A repository of open educational resources (OER), where content can be downloaded, reused, and shared.

This unique structure encourages educational freedom and inclusivity, especially for educators and learners across Africa looking to engage with culturally relevant content.

COURSE CREATION: The African Literature

Dr. Olugbodi emphasized the importance of representing African narratives through structured, accessible content. Her session walked participants through a detailed step-by-step process of creating a course on African Literature, a subject rich in history, tradition, and untapped knowledge. A step-by-step guide to creating a course on Wikiversity, as highlighted, includes:

1. Creating an Account: You only need one Wikimedia login to access all its platforms.
2. Choose a Unique Topic: Use the search bar to ensure your course topic doesn’t already exist. Also, search Wikipedia to avoid directly mirroring a similar article. You can recoin or change your topic.
3. Design the course offline or make a draft: Use familiar tools like Google Docs or a Word processor to draft learning objectives and structure sections and subsections. Start creating your course by following the instructions. Also, use proper heading levels- important for auto-generated tables of content, and lastly, Track and cite reliable sources like journals and institutional repositories.
4. The next step after creating your course is to publish it on Wikiversity:
   • Copy your course from your document and paste it into a new Wikiversity page.
   • Add interwiki links to connect with related Wikipedia or Wikibooks content.
   • Include media (videos, images) uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
   • Create reference sections, assignments, and recommended reading lists.
   • Don’t forget to categorize the course appropriately for discoverability.

Q&A Interaction

Toward the end of the session, a 5-minute Q&A allowed participants to raise practical concerns and explore the creative possibilities of Wikiversity, to which Dr. Olugbodi responded with clear, actionable guidance, reinforcing confidence in participants’ ability to independently contribute courses to the platform. The Q&A showcased the session’s interactive spirit and the readiness of participants to take on the role of knowledge creators. The session was attended by xx participants who departed with unforgettable takeaways.

The Power of Representation

Courses like African Literature help fill a significant gap in the global knowledge ecosystem. They celebrate diverse voices and challenge the dominance of Eurocentric narratives. Through initiatives like these, Wikiversity becomes a hub for education and a platform for digital decolonization. The AWA community encourages student mentorship, community service volunteering, and advocacy for participatory knowledge through Wikimedia platforms. The general message is clear: everyone can contribute to knowledge equity.

Join the AWA community through this link