At the end of November, I attended the 2018 edition of WikiCite, an annual gathering of librarians, Wikimedians, and others in the open knowledge space dedicated to creating an open repository of bibliographic data. While this was the third edition of WikiCite, it was the first that anyone from Wiki Education had attended, and it was … Continued
Earlier this month, I visited Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, to delve into planning a collaboration with their School of Information Sciences around integrating Wikidata assignments into the curriculum. Wikidata is a Wikimedia project that is an open structured data repository; Wiki Education is eager to get started on improving the quality, quantity, and … Continued
Over the last several years, many of my colleagues and I have been approached by individuals asking for our advice and feedback on program plans, grant proposals, and other documents related to Wikipedia and education initiatives led by other organizations or individuals. While we’re generally happy to support these mission-aligned ideas, we are finding they’re … Continued
This spring, Wiki Education ran a pilot program called Wikipedia Fellows to train subject-matter experts in three disciplines on how to edit Wikipedia. Over a three-month structured course that included weekly meetings, nine academics in political science, sociology, and women’s studies improved Wikipedia articles in their fields of expertise. We’re excited to declare the pilot a success, … Continued
“Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge” is a new book published by the American Library Association that highlights the myriad connections between Wikimedia projects and libraries. Edited by OCLC Research’s Merrilee Proffitt, the book contains 15 chapters highlighting ways librarians and Wikimedia projects have been intertwined since Wikipedia’s founding in 2001. I was honored to contribute … Continued
In 2016, Wiki Education ran an initiative called the Year of Science, dedicated to improving science content on Wikipedia. We nailed our goals for the year-long campaign: nearly 5 million words of science content added to more than 5,700 science articles on Wikipedia by more than 6,300 students. In 2017, we had surpassed the impact of … Continued
Student editors in Wiki Education’s program who contribute to medical topics have a new resource available to them in their online training modules this fall: A how-to video specifically related to contributing medical content to Wikipedia. The video was a joint project between Osmosis, University of California San Francisco Professor Amin Azzam, and Wiki Education. Osmosis is … Continued
I’m happy to announce a new staff member at Wiki Education, Will Kent. Will’s role is unique, as we have two staff members taking leave in the next year. Will has graciously agreed to join the team as a Program Manager, providing interim coverage for the Classroom Program beginning this week, and coverage for the … Continued
Earlier this month, I had the privilege to attend the Wikimedia Diversity Conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Hosted by Wikimedia Sverige, the conference brought together around 80 participants from 43 different countries. We share one common goal: to ensure the Wikimedia projects represent the full diversity of human knowledge. Wiki Education’s work focuses primarily on the English Wikipedia, … Continued