Rick Levy’s job as a scientific data manager at the Denver Botanic Gardens has him immersed in the field of biodiversity informatics. And a topic that keeps coming up in his field? Wikidata. “So many conversations at conferences and webinars mention Wikidata. I needed an introduction on how to use it, as it seemed to … Continued
In Wiki Education’s Wikipedia Student Program, college and university instructors assign their students to edit Wikipedia as part of the coursework. For most courses, this replaces a research paper or the literature review section of a longer analytical paper, related to the course topic. But for some courses, Wikipedia also becomes an object of study for … Continued
Digital Services Librarian Brandon Katzir wanted to learn how to edit Wikidata and build queries using SPARQL — so he signed up for Wiki Education’s Wikidata Institute class. “The class gave me a foundation in things like Wikidata data structures, and it also taught me how to query and use different kinds of tools in … Continued
Wikipedia’s articles about US federal laws tend to have high numbers of pageviews — despite the fact that they’re often incomplete. Like all articles, those about public policy tend to focus in on what was of particular interest to the volunteers who have contributed to it in the past, leaving other sections missing or underdeveloped. … Continued
University of Alaska Southeast freshman Gio Renegado has always known about Wikipedia. But until he took a class with Professor Jonas Lamb, he didn’t know anyone could edit it. How did he learn this? By editing it himself, as a class assignment, with support from Wiki Education. “I didn’t know that I was going to … Continued
In the spring 2020 term, College of Wooster student Emma Schell took her first college-level history class, with Professor Katie Holt. The class was about modern Latin America and it included the assignment to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of Latin American topics, through Wiki Education’s Wikipedia Student Program. “I was nervous when I learned I was … Continued
Joe Valle majored in Economics during his undergraduate experience at the University of Virginia, where he graduated in 2020. One of his last classes in college focused on coding with the programming language R, which spurred his interest in data science. With the COVID-19 pandemic making the job market grim, Joe pivoted toward pursuing his … Continued
Koneal Laguidao was shocked when he enrolled in Professor Jonas Lamb’s Writing Across Contexts course in his first term at the University of Alaska Southeast — and discovered he’d be editing Wikipedia as part of the class. “I never knew students my age were able to write for Wikipedia; let alone write for Wikipedia as … Continued
Carmen Fernández Fisac had long wanted to start contributing content to Wikipedia. “It’s a resource I’ve used countless times and I was excited to give back by adding content that could help others as well, but I always felt like I lacked the tools to do it properly,” she says. “What if instead of helping … Continued
