User talk:Aschmidt-WP-de
Hello, Aschmidt! I've got the letter on May 17:
Dear Andrey Dumchev, The Wikimania 2013 program committee regrets to inform you that your Wikimania submission 'Wikiversity is begging for update ' has not been selected. We highly value your participation on the Wikimedia projects, and encourage your continued dedication and participation.
Sincerely, Simon Shek Programme committee
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That's a pitty, because I've got no reasons why submission was rejected. I have no idea why they disliked my topic, may be they have more valuable talks. Every company put much effort on promoting on educational level. Just take Google apps for educators, Prezi and many others. They do it because if student had been taught with Google (Moodle, Wiki) tools - they will bring it through all their life. I have the feeling that Programme committee does not count Wikiversity as an entrance to Wiki projects. May be it happen because they do not understand the great importance of Wikiversity or, may be, because having Google as a sponsor of event.
The only one Wikiversity submission was accepted [1]
If you have a tools for improving Wikiversity, I'll take an effort to write to you what I wanted to say on Wikimania.
Thanks for writing about my submission in the Colloquium! --Andrey Dumchev (talk) 04:41, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
- You're welcome. As far as I know the reason why there is no better multimedia support in Wikimedia projects is that the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation has decided not to allow the use of proprietary codecs on Wikimedia platforms. Also, plugins for including videos from other platforms are not allowed. As most professors upload their videos to YouTube, you cannot include them in Wikiversity pages. This probably has nothing to do with Google paying for Wikimania or, indeed, for Wikimedia in general, it is just a decision against proprietary content and codecs in Wikimedia. I agree with you that pupils and students should get used to free content and free software in the first place. This is why I don't like it when iPads given away for free by Apple are used in schools. But this is another matter. As for Wikiversity, we have already added a Moodle installation free for testing on Wikimedia Labs that can use all Wikimedia content and BigBlueButton for video conferencing. There also is a Wikimedia etherpad which has not been used that much so far. So, we can offer some additional features. See [2][3] for details. German Wikiversity users will meet in July in order to discuss some more changes to the platform. Wikiversity's aim is to create and provide Open educational resources. We have to provide an attractive environment for that. Therefore, I'd be quite interested in your ideas about how to develop Wikiversity. Please use my talk page for more details, or just send me a wikimail. – Thanks!--Aschmidt-WP-de (talk) 11:28, 30 May 2013 (UTC)