Last year, one of the goals we set for the Year of Science campaign was to foster the development of biographies of women scientists on Wikipedia. Throughout the year we saw great work from students and Visiting Scholars, but in this post I’d like to highlight the the results of a Year of Science “virtual … Continued
We’re excited to welcome our newest Wikipedia Visiting Scholar, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight! She is hosted by the Women Writers Project, part of Northeastern University’s Digital Scholarship Group. Rosie is a prolific content contributor (editing as User:Rosiestep) and has received extensive recognition, including being named 2016 co-Wikipedian of the Year, for her advocacy of important Wikipedia-related issues … Continued
Our Wikipedia Content Experts are experienced Wikipedians who play a vital role in the Classroom Program, providing support to students as they contribute to Wikipedia for the first time. I’m pleased to announce that Shalor Toncray has joined Wiki Education on a short-term contract to provide extra support to students as Content Expert in the … Continued
Highlights Local and remote staff connected for an all-staff meeting in San Francisco’s Presidio. Staff shared Year of Science reflections, celebrated last year’s successes, and kicked off the annual planning process for the next fiscal year. Wiki Ed staff attended the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. Director … Continued
Wikipedia suffers from systemic biases due to the shared social, cultural, and geographic characteristics of a majority of contributors. This results in the underrepresentation of subjects from outside the English-speaking world, from places where people may not have access to the Internet, where people have less time to edit Wikipedia, or where the locally produced … Continued
Highlights The spring term kicked off at the beginning of the month, with the first rush of recruitment bringing on 213 courses into our program by the end of the month. (In context, we supported 215 total in spring 2016; this spring, we’re anticipating supporting more than 100 additional courses.) Classroom Program Manager Helaine Blumenthal, … Continued
Over the past few months, we’ve been conducting research to evaluate student learning outcomes of Wikipedia-based assignments. I’m pleased to announce Mahala Stewart has joined Wiki Education as a Research Assistant to analyze and interpret survey and focus group data. She will work closely with Research Fellow Zach McDowell, who has been leading the project. … Continued
If the only ingredients in caramel are sugar and water, why does it have a taste and smell different from sugar? Why do bananas get darker as they ripen? How do caramelized onions get so sweet? Why do people have different opinions about the center of a piece of bread as opposed to its crust? … Continued
Highlights At the end of the Wikipedia Year of Science, we tallied the contributions our 287 science courses contributed: 4.93 million words added to 5,640 articles, including 622 new entries, viewed 270 million times just during their respective terms. That means we added the equivalent of 11% of the last print edition of Encyclopedia Britannica … Continued
