Students and professionals make Wikipedia more inclusive of women in STEM
What does it mean to have scientists of diverse identities represented in the largest, most-accessed encyclopedia worldwide? It means… scientists besides white men are historically recognized for their role in the advancement of STEM fields. correcting the stereotype of “what a scientist looks like” (did you think man with a lab coat when I said … Continued
Writing women back into tech history
Have you heard about Virginia Tucker? She was one of the first “human computers” in space engineering history. What about Katheryn Emanuel Lawson? She was one of the first female African American chemists who worked in Sandia National Laboratories. Or how about Margaret Hilda Harper? She was “one of the two physicians who described that coeliac disease in the pancreas and … Continued
Are the MacArthur ‘Genius’ grant winners represented on Wikipedia?
On Wednesday, the MacArthur ‘Genius’ grants were announced for 2019. The Wikipedian part of my brain, the part that I can’t turn off anymore, immediately wanted to update the Wikipedia article for the Fellowship with the most recent awardees, linking to the biographies that already existed and highlighting which still needed to be created. I already … Continued
Dashboard wins Coolest Tool Award
“Tools” — the various pieces of technology that work with Wikipedia but aren’t part of the core wiki software, most of them created and maintained by volunteers — are a huge part of the technology story for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This year’s Wikimania conference included the first ever “Coolest Tool Award” ceremony to … Continued
Making sure Wikipedia tells the stories of African-American suffragists
If you asked people to name an American women’s suffragist, a few names would get repeated over and over. They’d mention Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, or Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Perhaps some would be able to name a woman of color, though perhaps just Ida B. Wells. The stories of black suffragettes are often excluded … Continued
Building digital literacy capacity with UMass Lowell faculty
Women in Red at UMass Lowell is a one-year project to build digital literacy capacity in higher education and address the gender gap on campus and in Wikipedia. To kick off this project, 13 faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell will be accepted into Wiki Education’s synchronous Wiki Scholars course, meeting online once a … Continued
Me, a Wikipedian?
A few months ago, I got a text from a friend. “I think you’d be interested in this.” She’d sent me a link to an application for a course offered by Wiki Education and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to train people to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women’s suffrage in the United States. … Continued
Academia is changing its mind about Wikipedia
“Most medical students use Wikipedia, yet most medical schools do not train students to improve Wikipedia or use it critically.” So begins the research study published by MedEdPublish this spring about the use of Wikipedia in medical education. The article ultimately encourages the implementation of Wikipedia writing assignments “across all health professional schools.” Attitudes toward … Continued
Ask Alice? Not about medical content!
Would you trust a university’s advice column to provide trustworthy medical content? Probably not. And while Wikipedia policies require high-quality sources for medical articles, the guidelines aren’t always followed, and there are too few volunteers editing medical topics to keep all such articles at a high standard. That’s why the article for the medical procedure tubal … Continued
Looking ahead: our plan for 2019-2020
We love to tell the stories of the thousands of students and hundreds of professionals making meaningful contributions to Wikipedia’s content through our programs every year. Those individuals make a big difference in spreading free, reliable knowledge globally. And we’re proud to share in their successes. Rarely, though, do we talk about the behind the … Continued