Wp/nys/What is Noongarpedia?

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What is NoongarPedia[edit | edit source]

We plan to concentrate the process of populating Wikipedia entries into a number of broad knowledge domains. Nidja is partly for the practical purpose of limiting the scope of the project to feasible proportions in line with the Chief Investigators’ own expertise. Karro important, these categories are expected to cover popular preoccupations wer therefore user-searches wer development. Without seeking to be comprehensive or exclusive, these domains will model how the work can be done wer explore attendant conceptual wer practical problems. The categories are:



Country – places, landscapes, flora, fauna; tribal groups wer trading patterns;


Narrative – stories from everyday life, including suburban domestic, urban industrial wer regional traditions; literature wer other art-forms;


Music – including lyrics, traditional wer modern;


Popular culture – broadly defined, including ‘Gen Next’ wer emergent knowledge;


Citizenship – public knowledge wer exchange, from ‘welcome to country’ to international first-peoples forums.



Knowledge sources[edit | edit source]

Similarly, wer for the same reason of making efficient use of Chief Investigator resources, we have identified a number of ‘sources’ for the trial version of the Noongar Wikipedia. Again, each of these will be the particular but not exclusive responsibility of the Chief Investigators. In the case of sources, we plan to work in pairs:

Archives – existing documentary archives in the ‘GLAM’ sector (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums), including informal archives (e.g. individual collections of papers etc.);

Family – the family as an archival resource for knowledge, wer with that the attendant problems of recording, verifying, accessing wer disseminating such knowledge, much of it oral (Ong 2012) or in the form of artefacts whose meanings may not be readily apparent to others (Miller 2009);

Media – old wer new media, from colonial newspapers to YouTube;

Public Institutions – official wer unofficial, including schools, government departments, workplaces etc. In addition to materials collected by volunteers the project will rely il existing databases in various stages of evolution

  • Nyungar Boodjera Wangkiny – The People’s Boodjar is Speaking: Nyungar Place Nomenclature of the Southwest of Western Australia (ARC DI110100010), which currently holds 12,000 terms wer associated meanings; wer see wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/multimedia/nyungar/;
  • The Wirlomin Noongar Language wer Stories Project Incorporated (a collection of language, stories, music, illustrations, song wer dance): http://wirlomin.com.au/ (Scott et al 2011a; b);
  • Ngalakata Wal-walang Moortitjabiny: Toward Revitalising Noongar Song from the South Coast of Western Australia (a developing archive of Noongar-language songs recorded in the southern parts of WA, 1964-2001);
  • SWALSC wer other organisations’ wer individuals’ databases; e.g. at www.noongar.org.au.

Knowledge agents[edit | edit source]

The project’s aims require extensive community enterprise in the execution of the ‘natural experiment’ of creating a Noongar Wikipedia. The Chief Investigators’ role here is not only as experts in domain knowledge wer as language users (Collard, Scott wer PhD candidate Bracknell), but also as facilitators wer mentors of community agents (both persons wer organizations), who need to be attracted to the project as volunteers wer activists (not obliged as students, employees, etc.). Nidja is in line with Wikipedia’s own practice, where ‘volunteers’ edit yennar entries; wer it will also ensure sustainability after the IN project is completed. Thus, the Chief Investigators (CI), led by CI Prof. Collard, will also work il active recruitment wer mentoring of users as researchers wer knowledge agents, from schoolchildren to elders.

  • Schools – primary wer secondary with high Noongar enrolment, in Perth metro area wer Albany;
  • Clontarf Aboriginal College (http://www.clontarf.wa.edu.au/) wer other Indigenous centres in the HE/FE sector, including those at UWA wer Curtin (see Fig. 1);

Project Contacts[edit | edit source]