This weekend, Samantha Erickson and I will join Shane Gero at the Society for Marine Mammalogy’s (SMM) annual conference for a workshop about how to use Wikipedia as a tool for teaching, outreach, and open access science. Run in conjunction with the SMM Education Committee, the workshop will demonstrate how Wikipedia can be used as … Continued
In the summer of 2014, I found myself thinking about Wikipedia’s gender gap. I wanted to see more women contribute to Wikipedia and more articles important to women. Roughly 10% of the Wikipedia volunteers who compile “the sum of all human knowledge” are women. This representation gap reflects what’s missing in Wikipedia, but also what’s … Continued
I’m delighted to announce Wiki Ed’s partnership with the Linguistic Society of America (LSA). Together, we’ll improve information about linguistics on Wikipedia. Wikipedia’s coverage of linguistic topics is ripe for improvement. Currently, only 12 of the 4,668 highest-quality articles on the English Wikipedia relate to language or linguistics. Many linguists, theorists and theories simply aren’t … Continued
This week, Wikipedia Content Expert Ian Ramjohn and I will visit various campuses in Michigan to present our upcoming Wikipedia Year of Science to science instructors. Writing a Wikipedia article for a classroom assignment is a great way for students to learn the ins and outs of a topic. In a science learning environment, students research … Continued
At the end of 2014, Wiki Ed started an educational partnership with the National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA). The goal of our initiative was to get more women’s studies courses, as well as female students, involved in writing Wikipedia content as an assignment. Some estimates place Wikipedia’s contributors at 90% male. The high percentage of … Continued
Last week, Outreach Manager Samantha Erickson and I joined instructors at the University of San Francisco for a faculty luncheon. We discussed how to bring Wikipedia into a classroom and the many benefits of the assignment. Dr. Jonathan Hunt, an instructor in the Rhetoric and Language department, told us that the online training seemed like … Continued
Back in April, Wiki Ed launched a partnership with the Midwest Political Science Association. Together, we set our sights on improving Wikipedia’s political science coverage. As we approach an election year, it’s hard to overstate the importance of Wikipedia as a resource for information about issues and candidates. We heard from many instructors in the … Continued
I’m excited to announce that Wiki Ed has signed a partnership agreement with another academic association—the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB). Plant scientists and their students will add important research to Wikipedia, making information available to people outside of the discipline. ASPB’s mission to advance the scientific study of plants aligns with our goal … Continued
Wiki Ed has been eager to show off the course design and monitoring tools that we launched last month. We had our first chance to do so in late July, when Outreach Manager Samantha Erickson and I attended the American Society for Plant Biologists (ASPB)’s annual conference in Minneapolis. ASPB is recommending Wikipedia assignments to … Continued