The vision of the Wikimedia universe is to collect “the sum of all human knowledge”. But that’s hard to do when, as the latest Wikimedia Community Insights Report shows, your core community of contributors fails to reflect the spectrum of human diversity. In particular, the report concludes that “In the United States, Black and Hispanic contributors continued … Continued
Eugene M. DeLoatch founded the School of Engineering at Morgan State University, Maryland’s only HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). He spent his career educating African American engineers. But, like many STEM figures from historically marginalized communities, DeLoatch lacked a Wikipedia article — until Kimberly Ivy created it. DeLoatch’s life story is one of championing … Continued
Marina Corrales’s career goal is to become a university librarian. She was excited when she took Dr. La’Tonya Rease Miles’s Social Innovation for Social Impact Leaders class at Santa Clara University this spring and discovered she’d be writing a Wikipedia article as part of the course. “I’ve referenced Wikipedia extensively throughout my academic career and … Continued
This spring, students at diverse colleges and universities across the United States tackled a glaring hole on Wikipedia: adding biographies of people in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to Wikipedia. This term was the first of a planned three-year project, funded by the Broadcom Foundation, aimed at engaging a diverse group of students in writing … Continued
Knowledge equity has been a cornerstone of our programs since our founding. Thanks to our efforts, content related to equity on Wikipedia has steadily improved over the years. By empowering students and other subject matter experts to add content to Wikipedia, we ensure the public’s most used reference is more equitable, accurate, and complete. Not … Continued
“Most stories about LGBTQ+ pioneers are white, cisgender men with access to certain forms of economic and cultural capital,” Dr. Christina Carney says in this summer’s issue of the Black EOE Journal. “Unfortunately, queer folx such as Marsha P. Johnson and William Dorsey Swann are often elided in the LGBTQ+ archives.” William Dorsey Swann, the first … Continued
Maria Murad decided to take Heather Sharkey’s course at the University of Pennsylvania because it involved learning how to write a Wikipedia article. “I was already working for my school newspaper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, and I wanted to explore more avenues that allowed me to create short form, accessible content on important topics,” Maria explains. … Continued
Sofía Flores Fuentes is a science communicator. She’s been a university professor, a civil servant, and an independent public engagement person. Currently, she’s working as a communicator at the Physics Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her most recent medium of science communication? Wikipedia. “Wikipedia is a great platform, if not the … Continued
One of the central components of the American Physical Society (APS)’s mission is to share physics knowledge — and, since 2020, one way the association has done this is through partnering with Wiki Education to host a series of Wiki Scientists courses. In these courses, Wiki Education staff teach APS members — physicists — how … Continued
