Introduction[edit | edit source]

Add a line, or two or three, on why the Initiative is needed.

Volunteers needed[edit | edit source]

At least 2 committed volunteers (aside from provisional steward) are needed for the project to be viable on a basic slow-moving level, but 3 or more is much healthier.

Time commitment is flexible, but to make it worthwhile, expect to spend at least 2 hours every week, for 3 months, to keep the project taking practical steps.

The following roles are needed. There may be overlap in practice, especially if there are less than 4 people.

  • Provisional steward: (Chriswaterguy). Initial contacting of influential contributors and service learning partners, to recruit volunteers/interns. After a steward is recruited, remains a key support person for the project, especially for the steward.
  • Steward: (add link to user page). Continues the work of the provisional steward, and solicits #Suggested pages, content and participation. Supports and guides the other volunteers.
  • Content volunteer(s): identify and solicit permission for #Content sources.
  • Porting volunteer(s): works on #Porting suitable content into wiki pages. This process involves some basic copyediting to turn content into wiki pages. More than one porting volunteer would be ideal.
    • Note: If you need to convert HTML to Mediawiki, use the wiked box. Paste in the content, click the red [w] button ("wikify"), then you can cut the modified text for use on the relevant Appropedia page.
    • Remember to always attribute, and respect copyright (CC-BY, CC-BY-SA and public domain content is suitable for use, or where explicit permission has been granted to release under these terms).
  • (If possible): PR volunteer, to blog, engage bloggers and media in the potential of a "Public health Wiki".

Target launch date[edit | edit source]

(Does it depend on an upcoming conference, or the availability of volunteers?)

Specific action requests[edit | edit source]

(Examples below.)

  1. Site notices asking for input and participation...
  2. Tell potential volunteers and interns about the program
  3. Tell us about partners and projects we should be aware of by clicking (add link).
  4. Apply for a three month stint as the "Public health Content Steward" (or another volunteer?).

Partners[edit | edit source]

Potential: London school of tropical medicine (Joe Raftery can make contact?); Steve McCrosky (potential steward?), Robert Worthington, Johns Hopkins SPH,

Confirmed:

Active (already at work):

OLPC Health Straight Talk: " The Kasiisi Project in Uganda is interested in getting health content on their laptops. We have a potential partner, StraightTalk - https://www.straight-talk.or.ug/ - which has children's health information in PDF format."

Suggested pages[edit | edit source]

Think about what kinds of pages would be useful. List these, and add examples of each. Invite others to add to the list.

Content sources[edit | edit source]

  • Hesperian - summarize.
  • k4health content

Look for content:

  • Give preference to HTML format as conversion is much simpler.
    • If you find content in PDF which is very high quality and is open licensed, contact Chriswaterguy 18:40, 25 September 2010 (UTC) (who has some contacts who may help).Reply[reply]
    • If PDF content has very simple formatting (e.g. just a few headers) then this is also possible - just export to text and manually format in the wiki.
  • Check Appropedia:Porting.
  • Identify open licensed or public domain information source, with search engines.
  • Identify sources, esp blogs, that would suitable for creating wiki content. (Less news commentary or personal narratives, and more design principles and practices, and/or reporting on technologies, new and in the field.)
    • Ask for suggestions through social media (FB, Twitter) and directly from those in the field. Filter the suggestions (check for yourself).
    • Make contact and ask if they'd be interested in using an open license, so that their good work could have a wider impact through Appropedia. Mention the license, and the attribution they'd receive, but be brief (leave details for later). Better to send 10 two line emails than one longer email.
  • Actively contact:
    • Academics - who might wish to participate through service learning
    • Content creators re open licensing
  • Pass on the sources to porting volunteer(s)/intern(s), or document them on a wiki page.

Porting[edit | edit source]

Info for porting volunteers:

  1. convert the content, using wikEd (for web pages) or the PDF or Word porting tools. See Appropedia:Porting formatted content to MediaWiki and Appropedia:Porting PDF files to MediaWiki.
  2. tweak the formatting, add attribution templates
  3. add Category:Public health, and or sharper categories, and/or {{catneeded}}

Copyright sources[edit | edit source]

How do we deal with quality information which is under copyright, such as Where There Is No Doctor and other works published by Hesperian? Where there are no equivalent sources under an open license one option is to make topic and how-to pages that summarize the material in different words, and link to the original. The pages might evolve from there, but it's a great starting point. This would be an excellent exercise for students wanting to understand the material.

Navigation[edit | edit source]

Steward:

  • Create and refine Portal:Public health
  • Are navigation templates of use, e.g. for particular subtopics? Esp where several pages make a logical unit, e.g. all the components of a particular technology or project. Volunteers and steward can discuss this.

Publicity[edit | edit source]

Outreach[edit | edit source]

Blogging, other social media

(later task for content volunteer):

  • Actively contact via email (be friendly, but brief and to the point):
    • NGOs, who might find the content useful, and tell their network, and even make their own content available.
    • Experts, especially bloggers with expertise on the field, as they are already making their knowledge available at no cost and might agree to an open license.
    • Academics, university departments and campus-based organizations, highlighting our request for service learning partners.
  • Ping Chriswaterguy to share highlighted pages, blog posts and news via microblogging, our FB page and
  • Other social networks - through your own account and other networks that we haven't used yet.

Blogger(s)[edit | edit source]

Can you make a single post, or once per month, on the project or the content? (It can be a very short post, so it's not a big commitment.) Add link to user page and/or blog site. (Steward and/or volunteers can also blog):

Links to key pages[edit | edit source]

Links that are helpful in explaining the project and demonstrating its importance. Incl blog posts about the project and relevant tags on the Appropedia blog.

Noteworthy pages[edit | edit source]

Use these to show our progress. May vary from "rough but informative stubs" in the early stages to "highly informative and well laid out" as the project advances. Eventually move or copy them to Appropedia:Highlighted pages.

Rough but informative stubs:

Good basic pages:

Highlighted pages - highly informative and well laid out:

Also check the category/categories:


Talking points[edit | edit source]

Highlighted pages, partnerships, blog posts.

(Make a note whenever a post, tweet, etc, is done on a particular talking point so that we can make sure that each point gets covered over time. )

Relevant events[edit | edit source]

Can we provide a paper/speaker/poster/leaflets?

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