Student says “more universities need to participate” in editing Wikipedia
When Jay Rowland heard he would be adding content to Wikipedia as a class assignment, he was excited for what he would learn. “I thought that it would be good to learn how to edit Wikipedia articles,” says Jay. Wikipedia is a resource that students use all the time, but often without the robust digital … Continued
Student adds history of Montreal’s Black Power movement to Wikipedia
Dr. Thomas Peace taught a course called Crises and Confederation at Huron University College in the spring. The course focused on Canadian history from 1867 to the present and explored four main themes: Indigenous peoples, language and multiculturalism, war, and gender. “In the past I have had students prepare proposals for exhibits that connect the broad themes … Continued
Celebrating Ada Lovelace Day on Wikipedia
Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day that stresses the importance of acknowledging, documenting, and celebrating the achievements of women in STEM. Women have made valuable contributions to science and mathematics throughout the ages, but aren’t remembered in history as often or as accurately as their male colleagues. Ada Lovelace, for example, did not receive the recognition … Continued
New resource helps art history students improve Wikipedia
We’ve developed a new resource for students learning how to edit Wikipedia articles about art history. Thanks to input from art history professors and experienced Wikipedia editors with a specialty in art history, this guide covers what newcomers should know when creating or expanding these articles. What are topics within art history that could be … Continued
Help ensure women like Donna Strickland are represented on Wikipedia
Donna Strickland was awarded a Nobel Prize this week for her work on chirped pulse amplification, the first woman to to win the award in Physics in 55 years. The announcement of a new Nobel Laureate usually drives readers to their biography on Wikipedia, but the first people who came looking for an article on Strickland were disappointed … Continued
Biologist takes to Wikipedia to represent women and molecular biology
Dr. Laura L. Hoopes is Professor of Biology and Molecular Biology Emerita at Pomona College in Claremont, CA. She recently completed our course that teaches scholars how to add their expertise to Wikipedia. Here, she reflects on what she learned and the impact that she made on the world’s most popular online source of information. … Continued
Welcome, Elysia Webb!
I’m thrilled to announce that we’ve hired Elysia Webb as Wiki Education’s newest Wikipedia Expert. Elysia joins existing Wikipedia Experts Ian Ramjohn and Shalor Toncray as they support newcomers to Wikipedia in making high-quality contributions as part of Wiki Education’s programmatic offerings. As a Wikipedia Expert, Elysia monitors and tracks contributions by program participants, answers … Continued
New tool identifies Wikipedia articles ripe for improvement
Wiki Education’s technology team is consistently updating the Dashboard to run more smoothly and to better suit the needs of the thousands of people who utilize it. As part of our mission to improve its open source code in a sustainable way, we engage young developers in contributing their own improvements to the Dashboard. If … Continued
Learning about gender bias in Wikipedia articles
Samantha Kao is a graduate student at Western Washington University and a member of the Association for Women in Mathematics. She recently completed our professional development course as a Wikipedia Fellow, in which she joined linguists, psychologists, and chemists in improving Wikipedia’s coverage of a diverse range of scientific and mathematical topics. Here, she shares her take-aways. … Continued
Monthly Report, August 2018
Highlights We announced our upcoming collaboration with the National Archives (NARA) to run a course to train scholars how to edit Wikipedia. We’re thrilled about working together to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women’s suffrage in the United States and related topics. David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, also published an announcement about the opportunity … Continued