I’m pleased to announce that Wiki Education has signed a partnership with the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM).
AWM encourages women and girls to study and have active careers in mathematical fields. They promote equal opportunity and treatment of women in math.
That mission has significant overlap with our own. In Wiki Education’s effort to develop content on Wikipedia, we often focus on getting program participants to fill content gaps reflecting the demographics of Wikipedia’s editor base. With nearly 90% of editors being men, many of those gaps are in fields that relate to women.
By focusing on the gender content gap, we help Wikipedia grow in areas where content is currently lacking or underdeveloped. Biographies of women are one of those areas, and one we’re specifically focused on in our Wikipedia Year of Science initiative. This partnership will help us dedicate resources to the mission of adding women in STEM to Wikipedia, even beyond the Year of Science.
Consider, for example, that of the 22 past presidents of the Association for Women in Mathematics, only one has a Wikipedia article that has been rated as B-class, designating it as one of Wikipedia’s higher-quality articles. In fact, one past president is missing an article altogether, and sixteen are either stubs or start-class. These women have gained recognition in their careers, yet several of them have incomplete Wikipedia articles.
That’s one of the reasons AWM has decided to sponsor a Visiting Scholar who will add important content about women in math to Wikipedia. Our Visiting Scholars program matches host institutions, like AWM, with experienced Wikipedia editors. These institutions provide resources and expertise to the Scholar, who focuses on improving articles to B-class or higher.
More information about women means more information and a better encyclopedia for everyone. We’re looking forward to this partnership with the Association for Women in Mathematics!
Photo: Common Core and NAEP Alignment: The challenge of testing academic progress as instruction changes by the American Institutes for Research, CC-BY 3.0, via Vimeo.
