Wiki Education at the LD4 Conference
In May I attended the LD4 (Linked Data For…) conference in Boston, MA at Harvard Medical Center. I was lucky enough to sit on the program committee which helped plan this event. This was the second LD4 conference — a Mellon-funded initiative to increase linked data use and production in libraries. There were many engaging sessions with … Continued
Take an active role in shaping how the world understands science
Effective communication of expertise is essential in any job market. Within the sciences in particular, communicating to the general public presents real-world implications, especially in impacting the public’s health and voting decisions. Practicing writing for diverse audiences “outside of the academic silos” is valuable. Where better to practice it than on Wikipedia where the public … Continued
Wikipedia’s place in higher education
Alliana Drury is a first year undergraduate student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In the Spring 2019 term, she took an English 101: Composition 1 course, taught by Dr. Matt Vetter and Teaching Assistant Oksana Moroz, and learned to contribute to Wikipedia as a major assignment in that course. In the following essay, she reflects … Continued
Monthly Report, May 2019
Highlights We saw a surge in interest for the final Wiki Scholars course run in collaboration with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), so we decided to run an additional NARA Wiki Scholars course this summer (see below). Similarly, the Society of Family Planning (SFP) received so many applications for their summer Wiki Scientists … Continued
MIT awards instructor for utilizing Wikipedia in the science classroom
How better to have students practice science communication than by having them explain course topics to a general audience of millions? Dr. Amy Carleton, an instructor in our Student Program, has won MIT’s Teaching With Digital Technology Award this year for her approach to teaching thoughtful and impactful science communication. The student-nominated award recognizes “instructors who have effectively … Continued
Catalyzing deeper learning in the Humanities with Wiki Education
When the nature of an assignment leads to discovery, not simply to compliance, the learning becomes the students’ own. Dr. Gardner Campbell began teaching Wikipedia writing assignments at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018. Here he shares the results that he says have “far exceeded” his expectations. For over two decades, from writing projects in freshman composition … Continued
When students write women scientists into Wikipedia
What can students do to fix Wikipedia’s gender gap? Turns out they can do a lot. University and college instructors who use our resources to teach Wikipedia writing assignments have their students work on a diverse range of subjects on Wikipedia — from anthropology to zoology. Not only do students expand Wikipedia’s coverage of academic topics … Continued
Last chance to sign up for July Wikidata courses!
Like Wikipedia, Wikidata is a collaborative online community that organizes knowledge and presents it to the world for free. This global repository is important for so many reasons, chiefly among them that the data stored in Wikidata is machine readable. That means when you ask Alexa or Siri a question, it’s likely that the answer is coming … Continued
Making healthcare more accessible through translation
Kitty Quintanilla is a second year medical student at Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine. Here, she shares why she’s passionate about increasing access to free information. Have you ever had your parents ramble at you about the “when I was young, we didn’t have all these computers and the internet and … Continued
Welcome interns Amit, Khyati, and Ujjwal!
Last week we kicked off three exciting internship projects to improve the Wiki Education Dashboard. Over the next few months, Outreachy and Google Summer of Code students will join the Wiki Education technology team to build new features and tools for both Wiki Education programs and the global Wikimedia community. Amit Joki, an Information Technology … Continued