The SMP are Changing Their Image Licensing

Two of our newest members have proposed an initiative to improve and increase the coverage of Wikipedia articles about people, places and the culture of Malawi. Currently, Wikipedia coverage of Malawi is limited in English and even less developed in Chichewa, and Chitumbuka.

Dr Catherine Chavula and Roger Bamkin believe that, working collectively, we can improve the Malawi coverage in what is the World’s largest online encyclopaedia and create more entries in the three main Malawian languages. In particular they want to include more prominent Malawian women as role models on young people's smart phones.

Both SMP members have expertise in this area, Catherine being a lecturer In Information Retrieval & Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde and Roger is a retired IT manager who co-created Women in Red, an initiative which has had great success in creating the dignified portrayal of over 200,000 women on the web.

They met with members of the SMP staff team earlier this month, who were enthusiastic about Roger and Catherine’s initiative. As a result, the SMP newsletter has changed its copyright notice today to allow its images to be freely re-used wherever it is legal and possible. We are making images of SMP activities (that we own) freely available under "Creative Commons 4.0 cc-by-sa". These are conditions of copyright similar to that used by the Scottish Government’s open government license. This means that anyone is free to re-use them as long as they are attributed.

Catherine, Roger and the SMP would like to see other groups adopting similar licensing. They'd be pleased to hear from other members who would like to know how to help improve Malawi’s coverage on Wikipedia. To join in, please e-mail info@scotland-malawipartnership.org.