Submissions/Digital Arabic Content: Current Status, Challenges and opportunities

This is an accepted submission for Wikimania 2013.

Submission no.: 4002
Subject no.: C6

Title of the submission: Digital Arabic Content: Current Status, Challenges and Opportunities

Type of submission: presentation

Author of the submission: Dr. Edward Jaser

Country of origin: Jordan

Affiliation: Princess Sumaya University for Technology

E-mail address: e.jasergmail.com

Username: e.jaser and ejaser

Personal homepage or blog: http://psut.academia.edu/EdwardJaser

Abstract

Digital Arabic Content has been described as poor, neglected and not focused. There have been many efforts recently to measure this content quantitatively and qualitatively. Also many efforts have been aiming at improving these statistics. In this presentation I will present a study of the current status of the digital Arabic content and content indicators. I will also address initiatives to enrich the Arabic content on the Internet, challenges and obstacles that encounter the development of the Arabic content as well as current opportunities in the industry of the digital content.

Detailed proposal

Recently, the topic of Digital Arabic Content (DAC) has been witnessing energetic activities both at criticizing the statistics of DAC and at improving these statistics. Many researchers has been posting conflicting statistics about DAC, some put it at 1% of internet while others put at 3 to 4%. Most of them, however, agree that DAC is poor in quality and most of it is replicated on different websites. Also many initiatives have been targeting improving this content. This also has created controversy as some initiatives are attempting to create a closed version of Wikipedia (e.g. TAGPedia) or control the topic to be posted. Some initiatives are only focusing on translating existing Wikipedia articles from other languages to Arabic (e.g. King Abdullah Initiative for Arabic Content). During an event I organized in Amman in March 2012 an interesting group of experts and activist engaged in comprehensive discussions on (1) the status of the Arabic content and proposal to scientifically measure it both quantitatively and qualitatively; (2) the main challenges facing DAC and (3) opportunities that are available to SMEs in this area. I aim from this presentation to present the outcome and recommendation from the mentioned workshop as well as studies aiming at objectively analysing DAC and discuss the obstacles that facing its development. I will also provide a map of where are the main initiatives (and their scope) that are working to improve DAC and what opportunities are there to motivate active participation.

Track: Analysis and Public Engagement

Length of presentation/talk: 45 Minutes

Language of presentation/talk: English

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes if I had a scholarship

Slides or further information (optional)

Special requests: N/A

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Dyolf (talk) 22:44, 15 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Zack (talk) 12:26, 17 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
আমীর ঈ. অহরোনি (talk) 20:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
--Frank Schulenburg (talk) 17:43, 2 April 2013 (UTC) [reply]
--Mohamed Ouda (talk) 12:01, 8 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
--Netha Hussain (talk) 19:05, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Ijon (talk) 22:56, 15 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Your name here!