Slides for a talk on "Wikipedia, Wikimedia UK and Higher Education: Developments in the UK" given by Brian Kelly, Cetis at the Eduwiki 2014 conference in Belgrade, Serbia on 24 March 2014. Note that due to the talk being limited to 15 minutes rather than the 45 minutes originally expected only a summary version of these slides was presented, For further information see http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/eduwiki-serbia-2014/

1. Presentation by Brian Kelly, UKOLN on 25 October 2012
for an Open Access Week event at the University of Exeter
1
Talk by Brian Kelly, Cetis on 24 March 2014 at the
Wikimedia Serbia Eduwiki conference
Wikipedia, Wikimedia UK and Higher
Education: Developments in the UK
Event hashtag:
#eduwikisr

2. Wikipedia, Wikimedia UK and Higher
Education: Developments in the UK
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/
Slides and further information available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/eduwiki-serbia-2014/
Event hashtag: #eduwikisr

3. 3 3
You are free to:
copy, share, adapt, or re-mix;
photograph, film, or broadcast;
blog, live-blog, or post video of
this presentation provided that:
You attribute the work to its author and respect the rights
and licences associated with its components.
Idea from Cameron Neylon
Slide Concept by Cameron Neylon, who has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights. This slide only CCZero.
Social Media Icons adapted with permission from originals by Christopher Ross. Original images are available under GPL at:
http://www.thisismyurl.com/free-downloads/15-free-speech-bubble-icons-for-popular-websites
Source cited!

4. Contents
About Me
• Involvement with the Web
• Open approaches
• Involvement with Wikipedia
Wikipedia and higher education: activities in the UK
• Eduwiki 2013: Two case studies
• Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador
Looking To The Future
• Wikimania 2014
• Conclusions
4
Introduction
Short talk
Short talk
Short talk
Short talk
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/

5. About Me
Brian Kelly:
• Innovation Advocate at Cetis, University of Bolton
• Formerly UK Web Focus at UKOLN, University of
Bath
• Prolific blogger (1,250+ posts since Nov 2006)
• User of various devices to support professional (and
social) activities
Involvement in Wikipedia and Wikimedia UK:
• Created first article in 2004
• Involved in Wikipedia training and Edit-a-thons since
2013
• Combining interests e.g. blog posts about Wikipedia;
use of Twitter to support Wikipedia work
Introduction
5

6. Slow Acceptance of Value of WP
Growing acceptance of value of WP in HE in UK:
2004 Created Wikipedia article (hobby). Realised
value of (a) simple content creation &
(b) crowd-sourcing content
2006-~11 Wikipedia not regarded as relevant in higher
education [lack of citations = evidence ]
2012- Wikipedia slowly becomes more accepted as
relevant in teaching & learning / research:
• EduWiki 2012 • Various edit-a-thons
WP editing sessions at:
• SpotOn 2013 (was Science Online)
• LILAC 2014 (information literacy)
6
Openness
But still a niche area, with events highlighted because of rarity value

7. Evidence of Slow Take-up
LILAC (Librarians’ Information Literacy Annual Conference):
• LILAC 2014 hosts Wikipedia sessions (for 1st time?)
• Paper in strand on “innovative approaches to
Information Literacy”
 “Wikipedia: it’s not the evil elephant in the
library reading room”, Andrew Gray and Nancy Graham
 “support and use of Wikipedia amongst educators and
librarians has been a source of controversy partly due to
the ever changing content and apparent lack of editorial
control.”
• Hands-on session on
“Improving the Information Literacy entry on
Wikipedia: LILAC’s first edit-a-thon!”
7

8. Eduwiki (UK) 2013
Eduwiki conference:
• Held in Cardiff on 1-2 Dec
2013
• Second EduWiki UK
conference
Covered:
• Welsh language issues
• Case studies from higher
education and schools
• Research perspectives
• Workshop sessions
• Broader considerations
8

9. 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
• Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English
Villages, Humphrey Southall, University of
Portsmouth
9
EduWiki2013

10. Outreach work by University
of Birmingham Library
• Demonstrate information
literacy approaches to
school pupils
• Students surprised that
Wikipedia was shown
10

11. 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” )
11
Humphrey Southall at
EduWiki conference
EduWiki2013

12. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
12
Notice how Neutral Point of View principle was
addressed
EduWiki2013

13. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
13
Note activities for (a) Wikipedia familiarisation & (b) research and
learning about (c) community aspects; (d) citation; (e) creation of
article for submission
EduWiki2013

14. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Students verify NPOV; relevance of article; it is able to be edited
and it is not currently being edited 14
EduWiki2013

15. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Example of article chosen for updating by student
15
EduWiki2013

16. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Article after updating
16
EduWiki2013

17. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Students learn about researching and citations 17
EduWiki2013

18. Introducing Students to Independent Research
through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages
Student work is publicly visible (and often easily found)
18
EduWiki2013
Short talk

19. After the Presentations
19
“Partly as a result of
the Cardiff meeting we
now have a course
page within Wikipedia”

20. Education notice board now available (but does it scale?) 20

21. Tensions highlighted between student use of Wikipedia and
administrators who delete new content 21

22. Outreach work by Uni of
Birmingham Library
• Demonstrate information
literacy approaches to
school pupils
• Surprise that Wikipedia
was shown
22
Discussion:
“Live edit a Wikipedia entry – highlight
how quickly edits are corrected”
But should pages be ‘vandalised’ in order
to demonstrate how the community fixes
such vandalism?
Highlighted need to address best practices
for those who teach use of Wikipedia.

23. 23
Other Discussions
At EduWiki 2013:
• Delegates
encouraged to
use #eduwiki
Twitter
hashtag
• Tweets
archived using
Twubs
archiving tool
See http://twubs.com/eduwiki
• Identify the
community
Tools such as
Twubs can help:
• Archive
content of
interest
Wikipedia = content+
community

24. Curating Discussions
Storify used to
curate tweets:
• Inappropriate
tweets
removed
• Can provide
collective
memory
about event
• Ensures links
shared are
accessible
after event
24
Tweeting at Wikipedia events:
• Aligned with WP approaches in openness and
crowd-sourcing content
• Engage with new audiences
• Archives can be useful resource (e.g. evaluation)

25. Jisc Wikimedia
Ambassador
Funding support by
funding body:
• Jisc Wikimedia
Ambassador post
• July 2013 - March 2014
Deliverables:
• Blog (shown)
• Workshops
• Edit-a-thons
• Monthly reports
• “Infokit”
25

26. Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador post
Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador post
26
JiscWikimdiaAmbassador

27. Jisc Inform
“Ten ways educators can
use Wikipedia” article
published in Jisc Inform
(March 2014):
1. Discuss and review
2. Question the policies
3. Look beyond the
English language
4. Look under the bonnet
5. Look beyond Wikipedia
6. Create customised
books
7. Make changes
8. Share and improve
9. Ask for help
10. Take and use
27
Simple, brief summaries of
ways in which Wikipedia can
be used. May be read by policy
makers.

28. Looking Into The Future
Wikimania 2014
28
TheFuture

29. Wikimania 2014
Key themes:
• Overcoming friction: “librarians and educators are
starting to teach students how they can use Wikipedia
effectively. Like any other encyclopaedia, students are
being shown how to use the site to find the helpful
links to primary and secondary sources that are
precisely the material students should be citing in their
research”
• Knowledge is produced, not consumed: “Instead of
being passive receivers of information, students
become the creators and curators of knowledge.
Wikipedia becomes an opportunity, not a threat, to
formal education, and the educators' role becomes
facilitating a shift from simply teaching answers, to
teaching how to ask questions”
29
TheFuture
Short talk

30. Responding to the Themes
How might we respond to these themes?
• Encouraging use of advanced Wikimedia projects
And/or supporting crowd-sourcing:
• Promoting better understanding of relevance of
Wikipedia in education
• Promoting Wikipedia editing by ensuring there
are well-trained trainers
• Maximising the pool of potential contributors
Within the context of:
• An Education Strategy
• The WMUK Strategic Goals
30
TheFuture
Short talk

31. PastPlace
xx
31

32. Crowd-sourcing
Crowd-sourcing on Wikipedia
32

33. Challenges
Challenges facing Wikipedia
33
Wikipedia’s community built a system and resource unique in the history of
civilization. It proved a worthy, perhaps fatal, match for conventional ways of
building encyclopedias. But that community also constructed barriers that deter
the newcomers needed to finish the job. Perhaps it was too much to expect that a
crowd of Internet strangers would truly democratize knowledge. Today’s
Wikipedia, even with its middling quality and poor representation of the
world’s diversity, could be the best encyclopedia we will get.

34. Jisc Infokit
34
The Jisc ‘Infokit’:
“draws out some lessons from the most visibly
successful crowdsourcing projects that support
education and research, including Wikipedia”
“suggests ways in which those institutions and
projects can benefit from working with Wikipedia
and the wider Wikimedia community.”
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/crowdsourcing/

35. Training the Trainer
WMUK Training the Trainer course
35

36. Training the Trainer
WMUK Training the Trainer course
36

37. Missing Females
Context:
• “It is thought that only around one in 10
of its editors are female”
• “Many female scientists are either not
there at all on Wikipedia or just [have]
stubs” Dame Athene Donald, fellow of
the Royal Society & Experimental
Physics Professor at Cambridge
University
37
Addressing the imbalance:
• Women in Science Wikipedia Edit-a-thon,
4 March 2014
• Women's Art Practices editing event,
8 March 2014
• Women Archaeologists editing event,
8 March 2014
• Scottish Women in Contemporary Art
Edit-a-thon, 13 March 2014
• Scottish Women in Computing
Edit-a-thon, 21 March 2014

38. Accessibility Challenges (1)
Accessibility challenges
include need to improve:
• Mediawiki as an
authoring tool
• Wikipedia apps as
viewing tools
And to improve Wikipedia
content:
• Images have
meaningful alt text;
content is linearisable;
etc.
• Content meaningful to
people with disabilities
(e.g. learning
disabilities)
38
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Accessibility_of_the_Wikimedia_UK_website
See proposed Accessibility of the Wikimedia UK website project

39. Accessibility Challenges (2)
Accessibility challenges
include need for more:
• Content about
disabilities
This will be helped by:
• Edit-a-thons will
participants who have
disabilities
which needs:
• Accessible tools
• Trainers who can
support the
contributors
• Understanding of
diversity of options
held by disability
researchers
39See WikiProject Disability project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Disability

40. WMUK Education Strategy
WMUK Education Strategy
40

41. WMUK Education Strategy
WMUK Education Strategy
41

42. WMUK Strategic Goals
WMUK Strategic Goals
42
https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Strategic_goals

43. Conclusions
To summarise:
• Eduwiki (UK) 2013: examples of emerging
practices for consuming & creating WP content
• Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador: example of
recognition of value of WP from funding body
• Wikimania 2014: focus on Future of education
Need to go beyond early mainstream adopters:
• Promote examples of use of WM beyond WP
• Provide training the trainers
• Development of educational strategy
• 5 year plan for implementation of WMUK’s
Strategic Goals
43

44. ANY QUESTIONS?
Cartoon
44

45. Questions?
Any questions, comments, …?
45
Continue the discussion: blog post about this presentation linked in
from http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/eduwiki-serbia-2014/

46. This presentation, “Wikipedia, Wikimedia UK and Higher Education:
Developments in the UK” 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.
46
Slides and further information available at
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/eduwiki-serbia-2014/
Licence and Additional Resources