Opal Lee is known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” A civil rights activist and community leader in Fort Worth, Texas, she had campaigned for decades to see Juneteenth become a national holiday. And, until earlier this year, she didn’t have a Wikipedia biography. She does now, in part thanks to Erica Schumann, a member of … Continued
Access to neutral, fact-based information about the laws and policies that affect people’s lives is important for a functioning society. Wikipedia — a neutral source of information without a paywall — is a natural place for Americans to turn to to learn about U.S. public policy that affects their lives. In the spring 2021 term, … Continued
Jan Davidson, a museum historian for the Cape Fear Museum in New Hanover County, North Carolina, had thought about editing Wikipedia articles, but she’d never actually clicked the edit button. The Cape Fear Museum is a Smithsonian Affiliate. As part of the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative, these Affiliates were invited to participate in a … Continued
Wikimania is the annual convening of people in the global Wikimedia community. Typically, the conference happens in person in a different country every year. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s Wikimania is happening virtually, August 14–17. Join us! Wiki Education is participating in a number of sessions: How Wiki Education Foundation promotes knowledge … Continued
The vision of the Wikimedia movement is to collect and freely share the sum of all human knowledge. All human knowledge, however, requires representation from a wide cross section of all humans, and in this area, we in the Wikimedia movement have work to do. The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that hosts Wikipedia and other … Continued
As the chief public engagement officer for the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, Doug Roberts often refers to and uses content from Wikipedia in his work. So, he says, he recognized that there is a need for Wikipedia to better represent women and other underrepresented groups. When the opportunity presented itself for Doug … Continued
The Schingoethe Center of Aurora University in Illinois has an extensive collection featuring the art of Apsáalooke artist Wendy Red Star. So it was only natural that when Schingoethe Center collections curator Laura Santoyo took one of Wiki Education’s Wiki Scholars courses on how to edit Wikipedia, she would expand Red Star’s biography. The course … Continued
Tony Pankuch works as an archivist for the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron in Ohio, where part of their work involves increasing the representation of diverse voices from the institution’s collections in their programming, exhibitions, and social media. So when Tony saw an opportunity … Continued
Image: Erik Olin Wright with teaching assistants in 2010, including João Alexandre Peschanski, far left. All rights reserved. As an undergraduate student, João Alexandre Peschanski had read several scholarly works by Dr. Erik Olin Wright, but he’d never met him. That changed in 2008, when João, who is from Brazil, was contemplating which Ph.D. program … Continued
