Interviews/Melissa Hagemann
Advisory Board interviews conducted at Wikimania: Melissa Hagemann
August 24-28, 2009
Key themes:
- Her focus is on Open Access and Open Educational Resources (OER); some projects where
Wikimedians are playing a leading role
- Has network (eIFL) that may be useful in reaching out to individuals in developing countries for the
strategy project
Full notes:
- Very interested in the growth of Wikipedia in smaller languages and in developing countries
- Focus on OER:
- Wikimedians are collaborating on OER projects. Importance of building coalitions on the ground to
advocate for public access to publicly funded educational materials.
- There are a number of national OER projects (Brazil, Poland, the Netherlands) where
Wikimedians are already playing a leading role
- Connexions platform is a popular platform and there may possibilities for collaboration between WMF
and Connexions.
- Collaboration with Wikimedia and libraries could foster work in those languages
- Potential challenge to OER from textbook publishers
- Public Library of Science (an Open Access publisher) partnered with WMF on a survey of academics’
use of Wikipedia
- Potential networks for tapping into nonusers, readers in developing countries:
- eIFL network – Electronic Information for Libraries could assist with Wikipedia Academies in
developing and transition countries.