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Presentation by Brian Kelly, UKOLN on 25 October 2012
for an Open Access Week event at the University of Exeter
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Session facilitated by Brian Kelly and Simon Grant, Cetis at the
Cetis 2014 conference: Building the Digital Institution
Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond
Event hashtag:
#cetis14

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Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond
Brian Kelly
Innovation Advocate
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: ukwebfocus@gmail.com
Twitter: @briankelly
Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/
Slides and further information available at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
events/cetis-2014-open-knowledge-wikipedia-and-beyond/
Event hashtag: #cetis14
Simon Grant
Cetis
University of Bolton
Bolton, UK
Contact Details
Email: asimong@gmail.com
Twitter: @asimong
Blog: http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/asimong/
Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/

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About the Facilitators (1)
Brian Kelly:
• Innovation Advocate, Cetis, University of Bolton
Involvement in Wikipedia and Wikimedia UK:
• Created first article in 2004
• Wikipedia training / edit-a-thons since 2013
• Accredited Wikipedia trainer
• Member of Wikimedia UK
• Recent talks & workshops on:
 Wikipedia in UK HE at EduWiki Serbia 2014
 Wikipedia for librarians, Cilip Wales
 Wikipedia for researchers, SpotOn 2013
Introduction
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4.
About the Facilitators (2)
Simon Grant:
• Senior Researcher and Learning Technology
Advisor, Cetis, University of Bolton (0.5)
• http://www.simongrant.org/home.html
Involvement, not in Wikipedia, but “beyond”:
• E-portfolio-related since 1995 – book 2009
• Standardization (& Cetis) since 2002
• Skills (and values) since 2004
• InLOC (skill etc. frameworks) 2011 – 2013
• Extensive experience of consensus working in
many contexts
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Introduction

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About the Session
Wikipedia is great resource for open education, but what challenges need to be
faced to make it into an even more valuable educational resource? It remains the
most significant encyclopaedic reference based in user generated content which seeks
to develop an “open commons” based on consensus approaches and use of
Wikipedia’s “Five pillars” principles which includes content being provided from a
neutral point of view.
Participants with no experience of Wikipedia editing will be invited to create a
Wikipedia user profile, and to understand the basics of creating and editing Wikipedia
content. Experienced Wikipedia editors will have the option of sharing a lightning talk
on what they consider to be its most significant challenges.
The session presenters’ view of the challenges includes a skewed demographic of
editors, and a culture that can too easily descend into edit wars, and conflict between
“inclusionists” and “deletionists”. Can we envisage changes to make Wikipedia
better, or that could seed a better alternative? Could aspiring editors be required to
learn and prove their understanding of the governance principles before being
allowed to edit? Can consensus process be trained? And would different
approaches such as those taken by GitHub, the P2P Foundation, etc. help to improve
the culture?
The session will raise awareness of the key issues with Wikipedia, and prepare
participants for more effective use of Wikipedia as consumer and author, and perhaps
even as reformer. 5

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About You
In brief:
• Give your name, institution and area of
work
• Summarise what you’d like to gain from
the session
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Anyone interested in giving a brief talk today?
Introduction

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Draft Timetable Subject to change
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Time Session
Wikipedia: Opportunities and Challenges
13.30 Introduction
13.40 About you
14.00 Opportunities provided by Wikipedia
14.30 Identifying and addressing the challenges
15.00 Coffee break
Beyond Wikipedia
15.45 Introduction
16.00 Open knowledge & open governance
16.45 Review
17.00 Session finishes
Introduction

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About You
Who:
• Has a Wikipedia account?
• Created a user profile?
• Updated an article?
• Created an article? 8
UseofWikipedia

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A Wikipedia Account in 30 Seconds
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Click here from any Wikipedia page
Creating a Wikipedia account:
• It can be done in 30 seconds
Feel free to create an account and
profile this during this session
UseofWikipedia

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Create a User Profile (in a minute)
Nancy Graham’s user profile
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Msnancygraham
User: msnancygraham
Use search box as a quick
way to find user profiles

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Create a User Profile
Nancy Graham’s user profile
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Msnancygraham
User: msnancygraham

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Today’s Goal : Create a User Profile
http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/User:Lawsonstu
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UseofWikipedia

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About You
Who:
• Has looked at the history of Wikipedia articles?
• Has contributed to a talk page?
• Has addressed cleanup requests?
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UseofWikipedia

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Is Wikipedia Relevant in HE?
The problem we’re facing:
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Wikipedia in the library - the elephant in the (reading) room?
Nancy Graham and Andrew Gray, LILAC 2014
RelevanceofWikipedia

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Is Wikipedia Relevant in HE?
The opportunity we have:
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Wikipedia in the library - the elephant in the (reading) room?
Nancy Graham and Andrew Gray, LILAC 2014
RelevanceofWikipedia

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Why Wikipedia is Important
From Wikimedia UK
https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Expert_outreach
RelevanceofWikipedia

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Eduwiki (UK) 2013
Eduwiki conference:
• Held in Cardiff on 1-2
Dec 2013
• Second EduWiki UK
conference
Covered:
• Case studies from higher
education and schools
• Broader considerations
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Wikipedia: the Opportunities
Group discussion 1
• What opportunities can Wikipedia provide:
 For learners?
 For academics and learning support staff?
 For the institution?
 For others?
• How should we go about ensuring that such
opportunities are achieved?
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Groupdiscussion

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Wikipedia: the Challenges
Group discussion 2
• What barriers to effective use of Wikipedia can
we expect:
 For learners?
 For academics and learning support staff?
 For the institution?
 For others?
• How should we go about addressing these
barriers?
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Groupdiscussion

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Wikipedia: Challenges in Editing
Group discussion 3
• What challenges can we
expect in updating existing
articles?
• How would we address these
barriers?
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Wikipedia: our Conclusions
Group discussion 4
• What conclusions regarding use of Wikipedia in
learning have we reached?
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Groupdiscussion

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Additional Slides
Additional slides on
• Two case studies from EduWiki 2013
• Wikimania 2014
• Wikipedia principles
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Two Case Studies
Summary of two case studies presented at EduWiki 2013:
• Safe Use of Wikipedia in the Transition from School
to University, Lisa Anderson and Nancy Graham,
University of Birmingham (now Roehampton)
• Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English
Villages, Humphrey Southall, University of
Portsmouth
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EduWiki2013

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Outreach work by University
of Birmingham Library
• Demonstrate information
literacy approaches to
school pupils
• Students surprised that
Wikipedia was shown
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Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
This was the assignment (see “Telling the stories of rural
England with Wikipedia” )
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Humphrey Southall at
EduWiki conference
EduWiki2013

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Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
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Notice how:
• Neutral Point of View principle was addressed
• Students introduced to concept of citations
EduWiki2013

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Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Example of article chosen for updating by student
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EduWiki2013

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Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Article after updating
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EduWiki2013

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Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Students learn about researching and citations 29
EduWiki2013

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Wikimania 2014
Wikimania 2014 will be held in London in August 2014
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Wikimania 2014, annual international
conference, London 8-10 August 2014.

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The Five Pillars
Fundamental principles by which the Wikimedia
community operates...
Wikipedia:
1. is an encyclopedia
2. is written from a neutral point of view
3. is free content that anyone can
edit / use/ modify / share
4. editors should respect each other
5. does not have any firm rules
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FivePillars

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Key Principles for Content (1)
No original research
All research must come from published sources e.g.
• Peer-reviewed journals
• Peer-reviewed books
• University-level textbooks
• Magazines, journals and books published by
respected publishing houses
• Mainstream newspapers
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FivePillars

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Key Principles for Content (2)
Neutral Point of View
Content should be provided from a neutral point of view:
• If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be
easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly
accepted reference texts;
• If your viewpoint is held by a significant minority,
then it should be easy to name prominent
adherents;
• If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small
minority, then — whether it's true or not, whether
you can prove it or not — it doesn't belong in
Wikipedia, except perhaps in some ancillary article.
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FivePillars

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ANY QUESTIONS?
Cartoon
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Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
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This presentation, “Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond” by Brian
Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Licence
Note the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations
may have other licence conditions.
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/cetis-2014-open-knowledge-
wikipedia-and-beyond/
Licence and Additional Resources