UCNISS/Women and children's sport research centre proposal

The Women and Children's Sport Research Centre is fundamentally about sharing knowledge and bringing people together. It is about making information freely available and getting as many people as possible to do that. It is about creating a community, both online and in person, who passionately believe in the importance of women and children's sport, and providing the community with tools to share their knowledge in order to help others.

Purpose

The purpose of this research centre would be:

To promote research into women and children's sport.
To increase general interest by the public in women and children's sport.
To document the history of women's sport in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe.
To document the history of children's sport and play in Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, Asia, Africa and Europe.
To provide researchers opportunities to explore and research women and children's sport from a variety of disciplines including history, sociology, physiology, women's health, culture, journalism, linguistics, literature, anthropology, gender studies, business and government.
To provide training to women and children's sport administrators in regards to using new tools such as social media in order to promote participation and spectatorship.
To provide women with a greater opportunity to be involved in telling the story of women's sport where they can be supported in managing issues affecting this type of research.
To recognise people's contributions to Wikipedia articles (and other Wikimedia Foundation projects) on women and children's sport.

Objectives for 2011/2012

To acquire space at the University of Canberra or the Australian Institute of Sport to host a small library of books and other resources about women's sport. The space would also be used for any visiting academics, researchers and Wikipedia women's sport contributors, University of Canberra students and staff, and Australian Institute of Sport and Australian Sport Commission staff and researchers.
Provide a database of women's sport related data that would be licensed using Creative Commons.
Create a women's sport project on Wikipedia, with A class assessment and a task force to publish this content for offline use in areas where there is less Internet availability. (A proposal for this project has been put forward at w:Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals/Women's Sport. A staging area for this has already been set up on LauraHale's user space.)
Identify public domain Australian related women and children's sport related images and texts. Make this content available for use on projects like Wikipedia.
Periodically publish a book/magazine/online compilation about women and children's sport. The periodical would rely on content created on Wikimedia Foundation projects and elsewhere. All content would be published using Creative Commons license.
Create a peer assessment process articles submitted to the periodical, that is equivalent to an academic peer review, so that contributors can claim academic recognition for their work.
Create a portal for the Research Centre on Wikiversity, where original research and writing can be conducted for the project.

Institutional assistance

The goal by the end of 2011 would be to gain the following institutional assistance so that other longer term purposes and objectives could be attained.

University of Canberra

The following assistance is requested of the University of Canberra, specifically UCNISS to start this research centre:

Space for hosting a small library and resource centre.
Financial assistance and requests for donations in acquiring materials for the library and resource centre.
Assistance in getting current UCNISS students to contribute to the project purpose.

Wikimedia Australia

The following assistance is requested of Wikimedia Australia to start this research centre:

Set up an Australian-only equivalent to Wikimedia Commons. This would be used to host material that is out of copyright in Australia, and protect it from falling into restrictive copyrights in other jurisdictions.
Host a wiki for the women's sport project that could be used to host a periodic publication, and assist in setting up an equivalent of academic peer review process for work submitted to that publication.
Assist Australian Wikipedians in getting press passes so that they can take pictures for publishing on Commons and the Australian Commons, and so that contributors can create women and children's sport for Wikinews and other Wikimedia Foundation projects, as well as the periodic publication of the research centre.
Assist in getting images, video and other Australian content related to women and children's sport released using a Creative Commons license uploaded to Commons and WikiSource.

More about the periodic publications

One of the goals of this research centre would be to publish one to three magazines/books about women and children's sport. These books would be focused around a central theme, such as a country like Samoa or a sport like netball. These books would be published in conjunction with UCNISS, the University of Canberra and Wikimedia Australia. When compiled, they would be edited by a sport academic in that field and a major industry participant. The book would then be given an ISBN number and freely distributed to public and school libraries.

The magazines/books would be subjected to a selective editorial and review process. All submissions to the publication would be included online however, with a clear indication of what has been reviewed, edited and selected for print. One of the major goals would be to include Wikipedia content and supplement this with other content. The magazines/books would seek out content such as:

Wikipedia articles around the topic area. These articles would have to be B class, A class, Good Article class or be Featured content.*
Original research about the topic.**
Interviews with people involved with the topic, such as top level athletes, sport administrators, academics, youth athletic teams.
Glossary projects similar to wikt:Appendix:Olympic sports.
Sport dictionaries.
Pictures released using an applicable Creative Commons copyright license, or in the public domain.
Book, movies, documentaries, radio programs, educational resources, and other media reviews.

*Wikipedia content would need to be high quality. Because of issues surrounding sourcing of certain topics and Wikipedia's policy of not allowing original research, it could be a problem to demand that all Wikipedia content be GA or Featured. Thus, the goal would be to have a well researched article that covers the topic as best as it could despite the lack of available sourcing. This can be done with B articles but it may not allow an article to be brought up to GA standards. To help address this issue, all Wikipedia included content would be read over by an industry professional and an academic before being published in the publication. The article would undergo a review and revisions may be required of an article.

Wikipedia content identified for inclusion in the the books/magazine would fall under the purview of a special task force run by the Women's sport wikiproject that is currently being developed. Revisions that were included as part of print projects would be clearly identified. The project would identify who external reviewers were for articles for inclusion. It would also handle how people desire to be credited. The task force would help provide contributors with access to institutional tools that may be available through UCNISS and organisations that UCNISS has connections to. This could include helping contributors get access to materials at the research centre's library, at the University of Canberra library and National Sport Information Centre.

**Space would be created on Wikiversity to help facilitate conducting original research for inclusion in this project. This content would be linked on the centre's wiki and on the Wikiproject page.

More about the library

The purpose of the library is to provide an open space learning centre with access to books, journals, government documents, brochures and other historical materials related to women's sport that is not yet made available online. It would also be a space where UC students, staff, Australian Institute of Sport staff and students, Australian Sport Commission staff and visiting scholars (and Wikipedians) could access any electronic materials that the University of Canberra has related to women's sport.

The following content would be of high importance to be included in the library:

International Olympic Committee documents that relate to women's sport.
National Olympic Committees documents that relate to the development of Olympic sport in a country.
United Nations reports that relate to women and children's sport, physical activity and play.
Documents from state and national sporting bodies that pertain to their history, funding and organisation as it pertains to women's sport.
Books specifically about women and children's sport, women's physical activity.
General sport history books that provide coverage of women's sport.
Children, teen and adult fiction that feature female athletes.
Movies, documentaries and television shows that feature women's sport.

It might be desirable to have this library on campus at the University of Canberra or to try put it on campus at the Australian Institute of Sport, as a separate space run at the women's sport centre affiliated with the University of Canberra. Both organisations have resources to help seed such a library.

Opportunities

Developing incentives and rewards for academic contributions supporting Wikipedia articles and other high use information spaces, could establish a publishing incentive model that counteracts the concerns some academics have regarding ERA lists heavily influencing research priorities and academic outputs away from community engagement initiatives - such as Wikipedia editors and free and open access publishers.

For example, some Wikipedia articles struggle to find reputable sources to support the article, often compelling the editors to source information in closed and restricted journals, or to use less reputable sources. This lack of openly accessible, reputable information is an opportunity for researchers who are able to publish in open access outlets, as their work becomes more easily cited in Wikipedia articles. Their citation ratings can be shown to increase with such exposure, impacting positively on their formal academic reputation.

Similarly, if academic recognition can be given to Wikipedia editors who successfully get an article passed featured review, the academic recognition that this project aims to give will incentivise Wikipedia editing in the academic community, leading to wider realisation of the opportunities offered by open practice and publication.