1. Wikipedia Editing:
Training the Trainer
Brian Kelly
Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: ukwebfocus@gmail.com
Twitter: @briankelly
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
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Slides and further information available at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
events/lilac-2014-information-literacy-wikipedia-edit-a-thon/
Slides prepared as a contingency
for an Wikipedia edit-a-thon session
to be held at LILAC 2014

2. Abstract
Abstract
You know about editing Wikipedia articles, including the
technical aspects and the Wikipedia culture.
This session will describe approaches for developing
and delivering a Wikipedia training session for new
Wikipedia users.
The session will provide a case study based on the
approaches taken for the Wikipedia workshop sessions
at the LILAC 2014 conference.
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3. Topics
Approaches to the following aspects:
• Registration
• Creating a Wikipedia profile
• Editing existing articles
• Creating new articles
• What can go wrong?
• Conforming with Wikipedia principles
• Running a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
• Useful resources
• Question time and discussion
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The Wikipedia Editing
session
The Wikipedia
Edit-a-thon session

4. Case Study 1
Based on one-hour workshop at
• Wikipedia Editing Workshop at SpotOn 2013
conference
• Abstract and resources available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/
spoton-2013-wikipedia-editing-workshop/
• Report at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2013/11/
11/facilitating-a-wikipedia-editing-session-the-solo13-
experience/
• Storify summary at
http://storify.com/briankelly/wikipedia-editing-
workshop-at-spoton-2013
Formed the basis of the session at the LILAC 2014
conference
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BasicEditing

5. About the SpotOn Session
Aims:
To ensure that science researchers (with own devices)
created a Wikipedia account & user profile and could discuss
use of Wikipedia for scientific researchers in an hour
Numbers: About 15-20 researchers/science communicators
Concerns and Solutions:
Room not conducive to collaboration!
Chairs moved into circles before session started.
Would the WiFi work (firewalls, bandwidth, …)?
Screenshots and discussions planned.
Would session aims be achievable in time?
Try it and see!
Would participants find the session useful?
Realtime evaluation by encouraging use of Twitter
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BasicEditing

6. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session:
• About the session including Why
Wikipedia is important; About the
facilitators & participants: 4 slides
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BasicEditing
Some had edited articles;
some had created an account
in advance but others hadn‟t

7. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session:
• About the session
• Creating an account: 1 slide.
Now login and do it! (not needed for
some, so some moved on to next
part, creating or editing user profile
based on existing profiles)
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BasicEditing

8. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session:
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile: 4 slides
Now create a profile using plain text
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BasicEditing

9. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Wikimedia syntax
(formatting, headings and
links): 1 slide
Now improve your profile; feel
free to reuse ideas for profiles
we‟ve shown. Slide left on
screen during exercise.
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BasicEditing

10. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Wikimedia syntax
(formatting, headings and links)
• Next steps (adding metadata and
finding pages to be improved): 4 slides
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BasicEditing

11. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Basic Wikimedia syntax (formatting,
headings and links)
• Next steps (adding metadata and
finding pages to be improved)
• Further information (relevant to
context): 5 slides
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BasicEditing

12. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Basic Wikimedia syntax
(formatting, headings and links)
• Next steps (adding metadata and finding
pages to be improved)
• Further information (relevant to context)
• Creating new articles and Wikipedia
principles: 5 slides
By now participants should have created
content. Can now discuss the theory.
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BasicEditing

13. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Wikimedia syntax (formatting, headings
and links)
• Next steps (adding metadata and finding
pages to be improved)
• Further information (relevant to context)
• Creating new articles and Wikipedia
principles
• About the Wikimedia Foundation and
other Wikimedia projects: 4 slides
Slides prepared in case of technical
problems or if time and interest
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BasicEditing

14. Structure of Workshop
Structure of hour-long session
• About the session
• Creating an account
• Creating a user profile
• Wikimedia syntax (formatting, headings
and links)
• Next steps (adding metadata and finding
pages to be improved)
• Further information (relevant to context)
• Creating new articles and Wikipedia
principles
• About the Wikimedia Foundation and
other Wikimedia projects
• Important but confusions syntax
(references) and conclusions: 2 slides
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BasicEditing

15. Feedback
Approaches:
• Live tweeting encouraged
• Photos welcomed
• Storify summary of tweets
• Helped to gain feedback
and monitor timings
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Timings of tweets:
14.30-15.30 Workshop
14.30-14.58 Interests described
14.49- User profiles published
BasicEditing

16. Behind The Scenes
What we did to minimise risks:
• Asked people to create Wikipedia account in
advance (as only six new accounts can be created
from same IP address in a 24 hour period)
• Included annotated screenshots of key pages
• Support of experienced Wikipedia expert
• Focus on editing, with discussions at end and
when relevant issues raised
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BasicEditing
Questions:
• What other possible problems might be (or have
been) encountered?
• How would you respond to such problems?

17. Case Study 2
Based on plans for three hour workshop at
• Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Workshop at LILAC 2014
conference
• Abstract and resources available shortly
We don‟t know if the plans worked!
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18. Case Study 2: Plans
Options for an edit-a-thon session at LILAC 2014:
• Participants to improve existing random articles
• Create new articles based on participant‟s
personal interests
• Create new article(s) based on participant‟s
shared interests
• Edit an existing article
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What we felt:
• Wikipedia is about collaborative work
• LILAC participants will have shared interests in
information literacy
• We should seek to collaboratively edit a relevant
Wikipedia article
Edit-a-thon

19. Information Literacy Wikipedia article
The Information Literacy Wikipedia article at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_literacy
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Encouragement to
improve article
Article has a US bias
Edit-a-thon

20. Information Literacy Talk Page
Plans to inform the
community of
intentions to update
IL article to be
shared on talk page
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21. Using the Talk Page
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Existing
suggestions (in
Jan 2014):
• Info about
LILAC
conferences
• Significant
overhaul of
article

22. Using The Talk Page
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My signature
Announcing intention to add
(significant) new content /
section.
Edit-a-thon

23. Dangers of Edit Conflicts
Human protocols to minimise edit conflicts at edit-a-
thons? 23

24. Possible Options
Aim:
To update the IL
Wikipedia article with
information about UK
perspectives on IL
Approaches:
• Create new section in
article
• Inform IL community of
plans on Talk page
• Agree on sub-sections
and core text with IL
community
• Create as a draft article
• Publish at LILAC 2014
• Update (including new
sub-sections) at
Wikipedia session
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25. Monitoring the Talk Page
Set up a
Watch list for
the „Talk‟
page (rather
than Article
page
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26. Further Plans
We have described approaches for collaborative editing of an article of
shared interest
But what if some participants :
• Prefer to work on their own
• Prefer to master editing basics before editing a live article
• Don‟t have an interest in the topic
Or something goes wrong with access to the article e.g.
• Article is locked (cf. Margaret Thatcher article)
• Access to page is not available
• Community disagrees with update plans; …)
• No network access available!
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Edit-a-thon
Additional approaches taken:
• Additional related articles identified
• Links provided to pages which have been flagged for updating
• Discussion group exercises planned
What else could be done?

27. Basic Wikipedia Training (1)
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/
Basic_Wikipedia_training
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AdditionalResources

28. Basic Wikipedia Training (2)
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/
Basic_Wikipedia_training
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AdditionalResources

29. Basic Wikipedia Training (3)
Useful to ensure examples and context is relevant to participants
interests (e.g. science researchers; librarians; …) 29
AdditionalResources

30. Advanced Approaches to Training
Further areas which could be covered (in a longer session)
Content:
• References
• Templates: how to use; how to create
• WikiMedia Commons: how to upload; how to use
• …
Training environment:
• SysAdmin privileges
• Templates: templates for training courses e.g. used
in Queen Victoria Diaries edit-a-thon:
{{QueenVic}}
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AdditionalResources

31. Questions
Any questions, comments, …?

32. This presentation, “Wikipedia Editing: Training the Trainer” by Brian
Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International Licence
Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Images may
have other licence conditions. Where possible links are provided to the
source of images so that licence conditions can be found.
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Slides and further information available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/lilac-2014-information-literacy-
wikipedia-edit-a-thon/
Licence and Additional Resources