Hosting a Wikipedia editathon
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Laura Woods, Subject Librarian, and Lindsay Ince, Archivist and Records Manager, both from the University of Huddersfield. Talk at CILIP MmIT event, "The wisdom of the crowd? Crowdsourcing for information professionals", on 19/3/18 at the University of Huddersfield.
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Hosting a Wikipedia editathon
- 1. Hosting a Wikipedia editathon Laura Woods, Subject Librarian, @woodsiegirl Lindsay Ince, Assistant Archivist & Records Manager, @lindsayince University of Huddersfield
- 2. Why edit Wikipedia? • Demonstrate understanding of a research topic • Promote knowledge sharing • Good scholarly practice • verifiability • neutrality • citations
- 3. Pre-event planning People • Which audience? • Skill sharing or learning curve? Resources • Locations and logistics • Our prep – leading from the front?
- 4. What happened? March 2017: in the archives, focusing on “The History of the University of Huddersfield”
- 5. Example of expanded content
- 8. Evaluating our events Yes 50% No 50% Did you come to the event with an idea of an article/s to work on? 25% 75% Have you used Wikipedia since the event? Sent a short evaluation to all participants, 8 out of 16 responded.
- 9. Comments: What did you end up working on? Learning to add citations and think more about how Wikipedia works in practice – didn’t realise it was so complex! Working out how to edit a page Laura’s intro to Wikipedia – great and thorough overview, felt I understood the principles in editing much more clearly. Also benefitted from discussing with academics as to their current use in teaching and collaborating on specific edits Opportunity to set aside time to gain confidence in Wikipedia How interesting the topic was that I was writing about The mentoring and assistance to attendees was very good and I learnt many new things that I never imagined existed Felt enthused by how easy it is! Very useful session, thanks How easy it is to edit pages
- 10. Evaluating #1lib1ref 55% 45% Have you edited Wikipedia since the event? Sent a short evaluation to all participants, 11 out of 15 responded. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1-3 4-6 7-10 How many pages did you edit?
- 11. Comments: What stands out from the event? Aren't public libraries wonderful! But also that it was far simpler than I had expected to do basic editing such as adding citations. And aren't public libraries wonderful! how valuable & comparatively easy small edits can be. I learned that Wikipedia is a lot more rigorous than people think and also learned about how Wikipedia could be used in the classroom in an Information Literacy context. How like academic writing Wikipedia actually is The opportunity to gain hands-on practice but with support was very valuable Good to network with other librarians serving the academic sector and to learn about their plans to introduce editing of Wikipedia into learning and teaching practice.
- 12. Lessons learned Themes are useful Caffeine and snacks are essential! Experienced Wikipedians (not “experts”…) Scheduling is key
- 13. Future plans • More editathons: through Staff Development and the Research Office • Equivalent of #1lib1ref for archivists? • Embedded Wikipedia editathons in specific Schools/departments?
- 14. Further reading • Guidance for Teachers on Wiki Edu - https://wikiedu.org/for-instructors/ • Using Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool • Theories: Wikipedia and the production of knowledge • Teaching with Wikipedia - Teaching Matters blog • University of Edinburgh Wiki Teaching examples • Wikis and Wikipedia as a Teaching tool: Five Years Later • Wikipedia UK Outreach and Education Projects
- 15. Image credits • Slide 2: ‘Wikipedian Protester’ by Randall Munroe, shared under CC BY-NC 2.5 https://xkcd.com/285 • Slide 3: Optimising the Learning Curve - https://www.quora.com/What-is-optimizing-the-learning-curve-that- Ashish-Kedia-often-talks-about • Slide 9: Mini Wikipedia globe, photographed by Lane Hartwell (http://fetching.net/) on behalf of the Wikimedia Foundation. Shared under CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikipedia_mini_globe_han dheld.jpg
Editor's Notes
- Laura What is an editathon? Short events (usually half day) aimed at introducing people to editing Wikipedia, and/or improving a certain aspect (e.g. cleaning up exisiting pages, or new/expanded pages on an under-represented area)
- Laura
- Lindsay Choosing target audience and why – Academics for trickle down Assessing their knowledge – do they have logins/have they ever edited/feelings toward Wikipedia Location – library vs archive and different kinds of sources Different skills sets, experience from different angles, able to share both according to audience needs 1,2,3 Start Guide 1: Make sure they have computers (and logins) 2. A theme or idea of what to work on (guidance for referencing, or starting new articles, or stubs to work on) 3. Tea and biscuits Advertising – Push through social media, twitter. AL contacts in schools, ARM contacts in schools Made it bookable (manage numbers, generate enough ideas, space for laptops/plugs etc)
- Lindsay March 2017: in the archives, history of uni theme 2016 was 175th anniversary of the institution, had been lots of research generated and sources made use of, but not all had found its way to the public domain. Wikipedia seemed a good way to highlight and make use of this information. June 2016: in the library, no theme About 8 people came to each 1.30 - 4.00 30 mins intro Introduced the principles of Wikipedia and how to edit 2 hrs A handful of new pages drafted (most still in progress) Many references added, and “stub” pages expanded! 20-30mins Wind up of what we’d learnt and how they were going to take forward
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- Laura 3rd Feb, planned to hold in Heritage Quay but moved to Huddersfield public library due to unforeseen circumstances! 15 librarians attended, focused on adding references to articles as part of Wikipedia’s #1lib1ref campaign
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- Lindsay Planning to run regular editathons throughout the year, aimed at both staff and researchers Speaking to other archivists to determine if there is mileage in a #1lib1ref equivalent for archives – could boost discovery of collections! Would like to target academic staff to run editathons in their Schools/departments, getting students involved.
- Lindsay