Wikiversity

The History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia/Tender

< The History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia
Low resolution copy of the final proposal from UCNISS to the Australian Paralympic Committee, for the production of a text called, The History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia. Design by Sunshine Connelly for UCNISS.
Wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paralympics, Iran vs South Africa. An example of an image on Wikimedia Commons, The repository that feeds Wikipedia. It is difficult to find images of Australian athletes or events - something this project will address

Background

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The Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) has sought costed proposals from suitably qualified individuals or organisations to document the History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia in a format which meets the needs of the APC for online and possible print publication.

This Wikiversity page has been developed to present an open, collaborating response to the APC request for proposals and the requirement to create a well-researched and referenced multi-media document that can be published online.

We aim to offer a compelling case to be entrusted to share the story of:

  • The development of Paralympic sport and, where the two intersect, the wider story of sport for people with a disability in Australia.
  • Australia's participation in the thirteen summer and ten winter Paralympic Games (to the end of 2010).
  • The foundation and growth of the Australian Paralympic Committee.
  • Key individuals in the growth of the Paralympic movement in Australia.

We recognise that there is an enormous amount of material available to inform this story. Our approach to the project is to unfold the story with our project team and other experts as required. Our commitment to a wiki format should deliver a triangulated story of the Paralympic Movement in Australia that ensures a community-enriched account of a remarkable culture. We anticipate that during the course of the project we will be able to explore some important themes that cross Paralympic history in Australia: the interplay between sport and rehabilitation; the growth of the APC and its place within the Australian sport system; and the impact of the Paralympic movement on wider perceptions within the community of the role and “status” of people with a disability.

If successful in our bid we would like to start work on the project on 2 May 2011 and deliver content continuously up to 31 December 2012.

Proposal

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The National Library of Australia and other key Australian cultural organisations have a working relationship with the Wikimedia Commons project. In 2010 the State Library of Queensland Donated its collection of historic images to Wikimedia Commons.
 
An example of a printed and hard cover bound book from PediaPress. This book is user generated out of Wikipedia articles. This is the same quality that the History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia book will be

This is an open proposal to the Australian Paralympic Committee (APC) from the University of Canberra's National Institute of Sport Studies (UCNISS) to produce a text called: A History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia, and to establish a repository of media and digitised primary resources such as video and audio recordings, images and scanned documents, to compliment the text. This proposal aims to:

  • Produce an initial text and multi media repository.
  • Develop a participatory community around the text and repository.
  • Ensure long term maintenance and integration of the content with Australian Paralympic information networks.

We propose to establish the text and media repository on the popular web based collaborative writing platforms provided by the Wikimedia Foundation. The Wikimedia Foundation has established editor communities, robust technology and sound operating principles. Their Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons are 'sister' projects to the more popular Wikipedia. We believe these projects offer a range of benefits that offer cost effectiveness for APC's objectives, namely:

  1. Online collaborative editing platforms with celebrated accessibility standards, especially for people relying on screen readers.
  2. International technical management, with robust policies and procedures to ensure 24/7/365 reliability with very high national and international visibility.
  3. Reliable online media storage, management and delivery that maintains strict copyright diligence, and uses open standard formats and archive policies to ensure long term access and reusability.
  4. The PediaPress print on demand service, delivering quality printed and bound books directly from the online text, based on the latest up to date version, or on customised individual needs, at significantly low cost to the APC and end users.
  5. A proven volunteer base, especially within the Wikimedia Commons project, who help maintain the integrity of the media and text, such as it being free of spam and vandalism, along with comprehensive content categorisation and linkages, with stringent copy editing and review processes available in the "featured content" nomination process.
  6. Seamless integration with the Wikipedia project, helping to improving the accuracy and quality of all the Wikipedia articles related to the Australian Paralympic community, athletes, Games, history and organisation.
  7. Support for establishing a community of volunteer editors of Australian Paralympic content in the wiki platforms, helping to maintain accuracy and relevance of the text and repository beyond the time frame of this project.

This proposal aims to deliver a comprehensive historical text, embedding multi media after producing and uploading it to a high quality media repository, situated on the most successful collaborative production and management platforms to date, and leveraging their communities and processes to assure reliability and long term sustainability. Furthermore, this project will reach out and support members of the Australian Paralympic community through information, training and support, to help them become contributors to Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikipedia, thereby enabling them to play an ongoing and important role in maintaining a high quality online profile for everything Australian Paralympic.

We note the diversity of materials the APC has collected and produced. Our text will link to these and ensure the visibility of these materials. There will be explicit mention of these materials on the wiki to ensure their visibility.

Project Structure and Management

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Paralympic Games 1972 in Heidelberg. Graphics by Schwarz. First Day of Issue / Erstausgabetag: 18. Juli 1972. This stamp is in the public domain in Germany because it was released by Deutsche Bundespost on behalf of the Federal Minister of Post and Telecommunication and thus is an official work according to German copyright law (§ 5 Abs. 1 UrhG).

We are proposing an inclusive approach in this project. At the time of the submission of the tender (25 March 2011) the following roles are allocated in this project:

Project Managers

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We have identified two distinct project management roles and nominate two individuals to fulfill these roles throughout the life of the project. Both Project Managers will assure the ongoing viability and stability of the project.

Director of UCNISS will be responsible for:
  • Oversight of project timelines, meetings, events, production, communications and reporting
  • Networking and promotion of the project
  • Quality assurance of the whole project and primary point of contact for the APC
Learning Commons Coordinator with UCNISS will be responsible for:
  • Representing the project to Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and the Wikimedia Foundation community outreach programs.

Sport Historians

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Sport historians will be responsible for primary research, gathering resources, reviewing for accuracy and consistency, structuring and writing content, referencing, linking and editing. They will be supported by the Librarians and Copy Writers. We extend an open invitation to any sport historian to join this group.

UCNISS is developing a keen interest in Australian sport history and has a number of PhD projects underway at present. This open proposal seeks to build upon the ethnographic research experience of Keith Lyons and the historical research credentials of proposed contributors that include:

Each of these contributors is a highly regarded sport historian with excellent local, national and international contexts. Greg is a member of staff at the Australian Institute of Sport and has been a librarian at the Australian Sports Commission since 1983. Bruce is completing a PhD on the life of E S Marks. Robin is undertaking a PhD in the history of Australian Rowing. Since 2007 Robin has been an interviewer for the National Library of Australia’s Sport Oral History project, which has involved him in interviews with Australia’s first Paralympians. All three are members of the Australian Capital Territory Chapter of the Australian Society of Sports History.

Robin has significant historical research experience most recently applied in his project, Sport in Prisoner of War Camps. He has researched the History of Rugby in New Zealand. He has supervised postgraduate research in sport history, and has taught the history of sport at University of Ulster. Robin has written about the Special Olympics and is the author of a study of a Maori leader Taua of Kareponia (Te Maru Publications 1993). Robin is an external examiner of sport history PhDs.

Wayne will work with Keith Lyons to coordinate the work of the sport historians and will take a lead role in gathering data for the project. Wayne will use his extensive experience of social media to ensure that the project has a strong user focus. He will have an important day-to-day role in content delivery.

To ensure that our work meets international benchmark standards we have secured the services of Nigel Thomas (Staffordshire University) as the senior editorial consultant for the project. Nigel is the co-author (with Andy Smith) of Disability, sport and society: an introduction (2009).

Librarians

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Librarians will support the Sport Historians in sourcing material, checking for and negotiating copyright, digitisation and formatting to open standards, uploading media and ensuring appropriate meta data, linking and categorisation is included. They are supported by the Copy Writers. We propose:

  • John Vandenberg

John is the President of Wikimedia Australia and will assist in managing the collection of APC media on Wikimedia Commons. John presently manages the State Library of Queensland project where several thousand images where loaded to Wikimedia Commons and are presently being categorised and integrated into Wikipedia. John also created extension software to Media Wiki, that can automate many processes we will need to undertake in the initial preparation of content and its uploading.

Pat is University of Canberra's Faculty of Health Liaison Librarian. Pat's brief is to assist with research work, helping us find primary and secondary resources across Australia's library data bases, including the National Library, Archive and others.

Copy Writers

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Copy writers support the Sport Historians in formatting text to MediaWiki text, linking, and copy editing. They support the Librarians in uploading, formatting to open standards, meta data, linking and categorisation. We propose as copy writers:

Perth, Western Australia
Wikipedia administrator
Expert in the use of Media Wikis with a Screen Reader
PhD student with UCNISS
  • UCNISS Undergraduate students
Once this project is worked into existing assessment assignments in their units

Trainers

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Trainers support the APC Liaison with work on community awareness campaigns. They go to regional centres around Australia to meet with Australian Paralympic Community members, to show them how to edit Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia. In this role they also support the Librarians and Historians in gathering media and primary resources. They monitor the Wikibooks and Commons pages relating to the project, and provide online support for anyone contributing. We propose the following trainers:

Perth, Western Australia
Wikipedia administrator
Expert in the use of Media Wikis with a Screen Reader
PhD student with UCNISS
  • Wikimedia Australia
A committee with resources for training Australian's in the use of Media Wikis

Project Reporters

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Project Reporters support the Project Managers in documenting the project, and the APC Liaison in setting up the forum and publishing updates to it. They prepare press releases for mainstream media, and participate in research work. They also monitor social media and public relations generally. Our proposals for project reporters are:

Director of UCNISS, and sport blogger
Learning Commons Coordinator with UCNISS
PhD student with UCNISS

Project Advisor

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We recognise that the project needs a high level of quality assurance particularly in relation to access to the information we present. In addition to Graham Pearce's role we have identified Michele Fleming as a key member of our team. Michele is the Dean of Students and Director of the Student Equity and Support Unit at the University of Canberra Disability Service. Michele has responsibility for elite athletes at the University of Canberra. At present she is the second investigator on an ALTC research grant that aims to develop an online tool for the Higher Education sector on the Disability Standards for Education. Michelle is working to ensure that all of the University's web content meets accessibility requirements. The University of Canberra Library has considerable experience of the support for diverse learning needs and through Pat Tandy will advise the Project team about accessibility better practice.

APC Liaison

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We will work closely with the APC and nominated APC liaison personnel throughout this project.

Software and Systems to be Used

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The high standard of print on demand products available through Wikibooks. Readers can create custom books, including and omitting sections, using always the latest information included on the wiki. More information, including previews of the format, are available on the PediaPress website. A video by PediaPress, explaining the user experience for printing and ordering a book, is available on Youtube
On the training ground for the military convalescent Aardenburg in Doorn, 1954. The annual sports festival for disabled veterans. This is an embedded video from Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Commons accepts video, audio, images, graphics and PDF, keeping them in open standard formats, meta data tagged, integrated with other projects, and licensed with free to reuse copyright.

We propose using the production, publishing and content management services offered by the Wikimedia Foundation, to ensure media is formatted to open standard formats, and to use Creative Commons licensing to manage copyright. These systems and software ensure long term accessibility of the production, and the technical and legal flexibility should the APC need to move content to another platform, or commission derivatives, or to keep locally stored backups. The Wikimedia Foundation hosts the services Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons, both 'sister' projects to Wikipedia, which are all mediated collaborative approaches to content authoring and management, using established and robust platforms that do not require extensive involvement from APC's own IT experts. The Wikimedia Foundation keeps the technical infrastructure running across all projects, attracting significant donations each year, while the respective project's very large volunteer base manage the content and community governance.

Wikibooks

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Wikibooks focuses on the production of texts following the book structure. Like all Wikimedia Foundation projects, it is a successful and well managed collaboration space, freely available to APC interests. Wikibooks includes the feature for readers to print and order a book version of the content, significantly cheaper and less resource intensive than APC might find through a conventional print run. An advantage of this is that it is possible to print and bind just segments of the whole project (for example, "organisational history"), which could enable individual tailoring of the physical book to specific audiences. We believe that the Wikijunior feature of Wikibooks will provide an enormous opportunity to extend the reach of the APC History project. We believe we can produce a high quality text from Wikibooks and do so on demand with updated text and media content.

Printed and bound book

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PediaPress is a web based software and print-on-demand service that extends the feature set of Wikibooks and all Wikimedia Foundation projects into printed and delivered books. PediaPress enables all users to create customized books, printed, perfect bound, and delivered by post. This print and deliver option is available via the "Print/export - create a book" links in the navigation bar of Wikimedia Foundation projects. PediaPress offers a 4 minute video on Youtube that explains the process of producing a book from Wikipedia articles: Wikipedia In Print - How to create custom books with a mix of content from the free encyclopedia. This same process can be applied to a Wikibook.

There is an additional option for a printed and bound book, one that engages the services of a graphic designer, producing the original text and images into a manually designed and higher quality product. We would use the web service Lulu to publish this version, where it manages the purchase orders and distribution at next to no cost to this project. Depending on the results of market research, the costs of the production of this print option could be recovered through purchase royalties. Therefore, the cost of this production is not included in the project budget. Leigh Blackall established this production process in his work with Otago Polytechnic's textbook, Anatomy and Physiology of Animals on Lulu.com. This text is developed and maintained on Wikibooks, but a graphic designer produces a print version annually for download from Lulu with the production cost recovered through sale royalties.

Wikimedia Commons

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Wikimedia Commons is the Wikimedia Foundation's project for all multi media used on all the Wikimedia Foundation projects. The vast volunteer base offers considerable resource in catagorising and managing the multimedia that the APC would load to the project. That content would then be used widely across all Wikimedia Foundation projects, especially Wikipedia, helping to lift the profile of APC, its community and it athletes, ultimately promoting community development efforts around its projects. Wikimedia Commons manages copyright, archiving and formats, ensures open standard formats which assist in the long term archival concerns of the media. Currently the National Library of Australia and other key Australian cultural organisations have a working relationship with the Wikimedia Commons project. Recently the State Library of Queensland donated its collection of historic images to Wikimedia Commons.

Images, video and audio

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Open standard formats relate primarily to multi media used in this project. Wikimedia Commons only accepts media in open standard formats, so as to ensure the integrity of the archive against software redundancy, proprietary fee structures and digital restrictions management software. This principle helps ensure that all work created and collected in this project is also free from such concerns, thereby acquiring the same archival integrity. Multi media such as images, video, audio and PDF documents are easily embedded into the wikis, as demonstrated in this section with the embedded video of war veterans participating in games in 1954. Open standard multi media formats are increasingly recognised by main providers of Internet services, such as Google Chrome and FireFox browsers playing open standard video and audio files in their browsers without the need for plugin software and extensions. This is made possible by the HTML5 video tag released in 2010.

Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Australia

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Wikimedia Australia is a chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, the peak body that governs and administers the Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia and other projects. In their 2011-2015 Strategic Plan, the Wikimedia Foundation's priorities included support for cultural and learning institutions seeking to engage their communities in the projects. Funding is provided to the Chapters each year for outreach activities, community building activities, knowledge-creation project and partnerships with cultural and knowledge institutions. This project will actively liaise with the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Australia to ensure understanding and to seek support where it aligns with their strategic priorities.

Open Office

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Open Office is a free and open source software package equivalent to Microsoft Office. A key feature of Open Office is its ability to export documents to MediaWiki syntax, making it easier for an author who is familiar with standard word processing software like MS Word or Open Office Text, to produce documents for Wikibooks. The added value of this as a workflow for the initial historians is that they produce a document in 2 format versions, affording backup and flexibility in use.

Creative Commons

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Open copyrights are a critical consideration for APC management in that all content used in this project needs to adopt the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike copyright license, an internationally recognised copyright license that facilitates the benefits described in this proposal. This copyright license is one in which APC retains copyright, but gives rights for content to be reused, with the only restrictions being the requirement of attribution on all derived content, and the sharing back of all derivatives through use of the same copyright license. This is inline with the explicit guidelines put forward by the Australian Attorney General, adopting the recommendations of the 2010 Government 2.0 Task Force. Such licensing will ensure Australian Paralympians, the Paralympic community, and the Committee enjoy the maximum level of exposure and recognition through this work as possible. With regard to potential competitors or exploiters of APC content, this license presents a dilemma for them, in that any content they adopt and reuse from this APC project, the copyright license compels them to attribute APC and to use the same licensing arrangement on the work derived from APC source content. The Wikimedia Foundation has the resources to monitor and track such terms and conditions over copyright.

Backup

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The systems and software above are implicitly designed and selected for backup and sustainability concerns. We are engaging in a copyright regime that facilitates legitimate copying for backup and republishing, and using open standard media formats that ensure the long term reusability of the content free of commercial limitations. Apart from these system features, the software and services offered by the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikibooks, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikipedia all running on the free and open source platform MediaWiki) provides a number of features that support backup made by users. Firstly, and most simply, all pages can be exported to Open Document Text, for use in word processors such as Open Office, Google Docs and Microsoft Word 2007. Pages also export to HTML, and of course MediaWiki text.

As to more large scale backup, The entire English Wikibooks database is periodically exported to an XML format. These openly available backups contain content, edit history and discussion threads for all pages on the project. It is not difficult to use this backup to create a locally hosted wiki with only the APC project content. If the Wikimedia Foundation ever stopped providing these backups, we can create our own via the core mediawiki function called Export. The skills for doing this are brought to the project by our librarian, John Vandenberg.

As for large scale HTML backup, there are many tools which convert a wiki into a static website, consisting of just HTML and images. The Wikimedia Foundation provides a static copy of all the Wikipedia for example. Again, John Vandenberg brings these skills and services to the project.

The Database dumps and Export features do not include the image files. John Vandenberg, our librarian on this project, has created software which obtains all images from the Wikimedia Commons server, and with just a few hours work, this software can be customised to backup only the images used within the APC project.

Wikimedia Australia, an organisation supporting this bid, can periodically copy these dumps and store them on a server in Australia as an additional backup measure should APC require it. This service is offered free of charge, until such time as traffic should require cost recovery.

Project Timeline

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Tasks May 2011 Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan2012 Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec2012
Research
Initial framework document
Online forum
Monitoring and moderating
Interviews
Source media
Final text
Linking the text
Volunteer editing community

The Project Timeline has the following phases:

Research

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  • Identify media and primary resources; gauge initial expectations, and outcome expectations in the Australian Paralympic Community; establish historical timelines; identify key people, events, organisations and social contexts.
  • Conducted by Sport Historians, Librarians and the Project Reporter

Initial Framework Document

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  • Create an initial framework document, based on research and use of existing materials, covering the history of the Paralympic Movement in Australia;
  • Prepared by the Project Managers, Project Reporter and APC Liaison

Online Forum

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  • Set up an online forum for input by people involved in the Paralympic movement in Australia;
  • Set up by the Project Reporter in consultation with the APC Liaison

Monitoring and Moderating

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Interviews

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  • Interviews with people who have played a significant role in Australian Paralympic sport
  • Conducted by the Sport Historians

Source Media

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  • Liaison with representatives of the APC to source media such as photographs, videos, audio, competition results, team lists and other materials relevant to the project;
  • Conducted by the Sport Historians, Librarians in consultation with APC Liaison

Final Text

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  • Create a final text for the period up to 2010, within a structure which includes the following elements:
    • personal stories;
    • each Paralympic Games;
    • other key Games, such as the Stoke Mandeville Games, the Commonwealth Paraplegic Games and the FESPIC Games;
    • organisational history and changes;
    • some social and historical contexts.
  • Written by the Sport Historians and Copy Writers

Linking the Text

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Volunteer Editing Community

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  • Develop and support a volunteer editing community, skilled and willing to help maintain the document in perpetuity.
  • Conducted by the Trainers

Budget

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This is an open and collaborative project. Our budget identifies our anticipated costs but we believe that we will garner enormous in kind contributions particularly in regard to the training that can occur.

Our outline budget is:

task hours budget comment
Sport historians 300 $30,000 Sourcing, reviewing, writing, referencing, editing
Librarians 100 $10,000 Copyright, digital formatting, uploading and meta data, initial online content management
Copy writing 200 $20,000
  • Wiki authoring, editing, uploading and formatting
  • Possible LETS option
Training 100 $10,000
  • Wiki skills training (both online and face to face) and ongoing online support
  • Possible LETS option
Project reporting 100 $10,000 Project progress reporting; public relations communications; social media management; research publications; graphic design
APC Liaison 100 $10,000
  • Supported by trainers and journalists
  • Representation to Wikimedia Australia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and Wiki Media Foundation; communications with APC organisation and community
  • Possible role for an APC member
Project management 200 $20,000 Planning, personnel management, documentation, contracts, liaison with APC, Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Australia, presentations,
Total 1100 $110,000 LETS is a payment system sometimes used by volunteers.

APC's Selection Criteria

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Demonstrated Writing Skills and Experience

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All members of the proposed Project Team have considerable writing experience. A number of the team have substantial experience of social and open media. We are keen to share our experience in open access publishing.

Wikibooks production: Leigh Blackall has worked the Wikibooks production model on a number of occasions. He developed this approach for Otago Polytechnic with their Anatomy and Physiology of Animals textbook involving a similar budget to this proposal, and now rating first in a Google search. Subsequently he produced the Sustainable Business Wikibook with support from Otago Polytechnic, but this time including the New Zealand Ministry of Environment and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Finally, while in New Zealand, he produced the Open Educational Practices: A User Guide for Organisations Wikibook for the New Zealand Ministry of Education. Since working with UCNISS Leigh has encouraged teaching staff to adopted and further develop this model. Most notable to date has been James Neill working with University of Canberra students to develop an open textbook for their Psychology unit, Motivation and Emotion.

Sport Historians: Keith Lyons has been involved in sport history research for three decades. He was a founding member of the British Association of Sport History. He is supervising two PhD students at present at the University of Canberra. He has a particular interest in oral history and ethnography. He will coordinate the sports history input with the assistance of Wayne Goldsmith. Greg Blood, Bruce Coe, Robin McConnell and Robin Poke will contribute to the development of text. Nigel Thomas (Staffordshire University) is the editorial consultant for the project.

Online Sport Historian and MediaWiki Copy Editor: Laura Hale is an experienced online sport historian and Media Wiki editor. In the United States she set up and managed the Fan History Wiki. Laura and a team of ten administrators developed and supported an editor community of over 2500 people, creating 900,000 articles rated as 'good' out of over 1 million articles total. Currently, Laura is working on the Wikipedia article Netball. Since moving to Canberra, Laura writes the Ozzie Sport blog, documenting her work researching Australian sport fandom online.

Copy Writer for Screen Readers: Graham Pearce is a Wikipedia administrator based in Perth, Western Australia. He relies on a screen reader to read and edit Wikipedia. Graham will assist with copy writing, ensure screen reader usability, support volunteer editors online, and assist in communications with the wider Wikimedia Foundation community.

Volunteer Writers and Producers: UCNISS has a significant volunteer base in the form of students enrolled in Sport Studies Undergraduate and Post Graduate Degrees. Students are encouraged to engage in Work Integrated Learning activities. This project provides opportunities for meeting a range of learning objectives, and it will be possible to adjust student assignments to accommodate and encourage participation in this project.

Networking Skills

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The team that will support this bid have substantial experience working with networks of contacts. Whilst we have extensive links within sport, we point in particular to our connections with Wikimedia communities. We believe this will be a catalyst for drawing in a network of volunteer editors to assist with copy editing, categorisation, programing, support and peer review.

Experience in Historical Research

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Nigel Thomas is our senior editorial consultant. He has worked in various sport development roles prior to joining higher education in 1997. These include: Hammersmith and Fulham Borough Council; the British Sports Association for the Disabled; and the Youth Sport Trust. His PhD (2004) is a study on mainstreaming in disability sport. Nigel's research focuses on the history, mainstreaming and media coverage of disability sport and the Paralympic Games and has culminated in the publication of a text book co-authored with Andy Smith published by Routledge in 2009 Disability, sport and society: an introduction.

Nigel is working on a European Commission funded project aimed at encouraging sport for disabled people. In collaboration with European Observatoire of Sport and Employment (EOSE), the European Paralympic Committee (EPC) and working with 22 national partners in a year-long work package which summarises current policy and makes recommendations on future campaigns to 'promote European fundamental values by encouraging sport for persons with disabilities'.

Selected Publications by Nigel Thomas

  • Thomas, N and Smith, A. (2009) Disability, Sport and Society: A Student Introduction. London: Routledge.
  • Thomas, N (2008) Sport and Disability. In B.Houlihan (Eds.) Sport and Society. A Student Introduction. London: Sage.
  • Smith, A and Thomas, N. (2005) Including Pupils with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities in National Curriculum Physical Education: A Brief Review’. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 21 (1): 69-83.
  • Smith, A. and Thomas, N (2005) The ‘Inclusion’ of Elite Athletes with Disabilities in the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games: An Exploratory Analysis of British Newspaper Coverage. Sport, Education and Society, 10 (1).
  • Thomas.N., and Smith.A. (2003) ‘Pre-occupied with Able-bodiedness?’, An analysis of the British media coverage of the 2000 Paralympic Games, Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, 20(2):166-181.

Robin Poke has worked in all media and in sports administration. He was founder editor of SBS Radio News, a current affairs reporter with Radio Australia, was head of sport at Capital Television in Canberra then worked on a freelance basis with ABC radio and television and the Canberra Times, and with SBS Television. Robin’s involvement in sport has been through rowing and the Olympic movement. He established the national magazine, Australian Rowing, and was for many years honorary media director for the national federation. He held media liaison positions with the Australian team at the 1996, 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games and is now President of the ACT Olympic Council. Robin is presently an author, journalist and sports historian. His first book, a biography of Olympic rowing gold medallist Peter Antonie, was published in 2007, and his second, containing chapters on each of Australia’s 74 individual Olympic gold medallists, will be published in 2012. Since 2007 he has been an interviewer for the National Library of Australia’s Sport Oral History project, which has involved him in interviews with Australia’s first Paralympians. Robin is also a member of the Australian Society for Sports History.

Robin McConnell has significant historical research experience most recently applied in his project, Sport in POW camps. Previously Robin researched History of Rugby In NZ, an well as supervising postgraduate research in historical sport topics, and teaching the history of sport at University of Ulster in Belfast. Robin is also an international marker of sport history PhDs and has written two books with historical dimensions.

Laura Hale has extensive experience in terms of fandom based history. Acquiring her skills informally and self directed, her Fanhistory Philosophy gives insight to her approach, as well as the Fanhistory About page. Currently Laura is applying her data gathering and analytical skills to Australian expressions of sport fandom online, with a recent post applied to Australian paralympics. Her methods will be a valuable component for gathering data on Australian Paralympic fandom expressed online, helping to give one aspect of social context to the history writing work

An Understanding of Sport in Australia

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UCNISS offers undergraduate degrees in Sport, Coaching and Exercise Science, Sport Management, Sport Media and Bachelor of Sport Studies (Honours). Within these degrees includes study units such as The Australian Sports System, Governance and Sport, Sports and the Law, Contemporary Issues in Sport, Industrial Relations in Sport, Sport Research and Practice, Sport Sponsorship and Media, and Sport as Entertainment to name a few. All teaching in the University is research lead, and students expect course work to be contemporary and relevant. This teaching, research and assignment work gives UCNISS a strong understanding of the Sport Sector in Australia, and a valuable resource in the form of academics and students, to apply their studies on any number of specific issues or areas within that sector.

An Understanding of Sport for People with Disabilities and the Paralympic Movement

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Our Project Team has extensive knowledge of sport for people with disabilities and the Paralympic Movement. Any limitations in our understanding will be addressed through our extensive network of contacts.

An Understanding of Modern Information Technologies

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UCNISS has on its team a combined forty years or more experience in Internet media production. This experience includes working with open copyrights, open standard formats, the MediaWikis of the Wikimedia Foundation, authoring and facilitating blogs, forums and a wide range of popular social media.

Leigh Blackall has produced three large online texts, commissioned by Government Ministries in New Zealand, and countless video documentaries on a wide range of things from art festivals to research projects. The texts all used the Wikibooks platform, and the PediaPress print on demand service, and the video was all produced to open standard formats, and published across all popular media sharing sites. Lara Hale and Graham Pearce also bring many years experience editing and administering MediaWiki, with Graham holding valuable expertise in using screen reader technology. John Vandenberg's specific skill is in creating MediaWiki extension software that assists with large volume work such as meta data tagging and categorising large numbers of media files.

Perhaps most critical of all is that all members are deeply networked within the communities of practice, bringing significant social capital to the project.

An Openness to Input

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UCNISS is an open education and research organisation. We are advocates for open access and collaboration. We place educational content and research data and outputs on Wikiversity and a host of popular social media channels. We play an active role in encouraging and supporting all staff in adopting such open academic practices.

The project we propose here invites other tenderers to participate with us in both the proposal and implementation phase. The project itself invites input from the wider Paralympic and wiki communities, and anyone else with interest in the Paralympics in Australia. To this end, we have deliberately selected the most high profile, most popular collaborative authoring spaces, with the most open copyright licensing and digital format selections, to make that principle in practice loud and clear.

When input from third parties occurs, we have the processes in place to recognise and appreciate the input as we work towards the development of a sustained community of practitioners.

Additional Information

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Australian Government Principles on Intellectual Property

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Wikimedia Foundation Strategic Priorities

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Support letter from Wikimedia Australia

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John Vandenberg. Support letter from Wikimedia Australia. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:UCNISS/History_of_the_Paralympic_Movement_in_Australia 8 March 2011

Support letter from Graham Pearce

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Graham Pearce. Support letter from Graham Pearce. http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Talk:UCNISS/History_of_the_Paralympic_Movement_in_Australia 4 March 2011.

Full support letter from Wikimedia Australia

 
This is a copy of a signed letter sent to UCNISS

To the University of Canberra's National Institute of Sport Studies, regarding the proposal to assist the Australian Paralympic Committee develop and publish texts and media on Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons for the purpose of developing a document called, History of the Paralympic Movement in Australia.

Firstly, let us state how pleased we are to see yet another Australian cultural organisation engaging with the projects of the Wikimedia Foundation, helping to build reliable, usable, accessible and ultimately sustainable information resources for the world over, not least, Australians. Should your proposal be successful, we at Wikimedia Australia would like to extend an offer of support.

Looking at your draft proposal, we are particularly interested in the list item:

o Support in the development of an APC volunteer base to take a contribution and editing role in the project.

We think this point relates to us and what we can offer.

The purpose of Wikimedia Australia is to:

  1. organise and participate in educational and social events that promote development of Free Cultural Works and related open source software systems, in particular wikis
  2. increase public awareness, support and participation in the projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF)
  3. develop resources to assist Australians in the creation and maintenance of Free Cultural Works

Wikimedia Australia is an independent, not-for-profit organisation, whose primary aim is to promote equality of opportunity to access and participate in the collaborative creation of "Free Cultural Works", especially educational works, and works about Australia, its culture, natural environment, and Australian news and media.

At this stage, this letter is encouragement for this proposal. Should it be successful, we hope you will engage us for assistance in developing a volunteer community of APC content contributors, editors and managers. This could be in the form of funding workshops and seminars in regional Australia, printing information, and networking events.

Good luck with this proposal, and congratulations on this conceptual first step. We hope it is successful and given the opportunity to prove its worth.

John Vandenberg
President
Wikimedia Australia

Full support letter from Graham Pearce

To whom it may concern,

My name is Graham Pearce, and I am a totally blind Wikipedia editor from Perth, Western Australia. I have been editing Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects for six years, and I am an English Wikipedia administrator.

It is vital that the history of the Australian Paralympic movement be documented in a manner that is easy to access for everyone. I believe that the current proposal is the best way to achieve this aim, because Wikibooks is well-suited to the creation of structured online texts, which do not have the same space limitations as printed books. The resulting product would be freely available online around the world, thus increasing the profile of the Australian Paralympic Movement. Due to its license, it could be easily adapted by educational institutions, disability organisations, or any other interested parties, to meet their individual needs.

Both Wikibooks and Wikimedia Commons use the MediaWiki software, which is accessible to users of screen readers and screen magnifiers. Therefore the results of the proposal would be easy-to-use for people with visual impairments. It would also be possible for people with disabilities, including users of screen readers and screen magnifiers, to take part in this project on an equal footing with their non-disabled peers.

In conclusion, this proposal presents a unique opportunity to document the history of the Australian Paralympic Committee using collaborative tools, and as a screen reader user, I fully support it.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Pearce 02:35, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

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