Why members of the Society of Family Planning are getting involved with Wikipedia
Wikipedia is the most popular internet health content, more than NIH, Web MD, Mayo Clinic, and other sources (according to a 2014 study). Doctors use it. Patients use it. Policy makers use it. Thus, the volunteers who curate Wikipedia’s content take the quality of medical articles very seriously. But keeping content accurate, complete, and … Continued
Remembering the unnamed women of history as a Wiki Scholar
Dr. Bridget Marshall is an Associate Professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and recently completed one of our Wiki Scholar courses with faculty at her institution. The Wikipedia training course is part of an initiative at UMass Lowell to build digital literacy teaching capacity and address the gender gap on campus and in Wikipedia. … Continued
How the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries ensures librarians across the state are “Wikipedia literate”
“I started to see each Wikipedia page as less of a monolith and more as a creative, patchwork monster that perhaps hundreds of people were working on.” In an inter-institutional training course with the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (referred to henceforth as “the Alliance”), librarians have had the opportunity to collaborate closely with peers … Continued
Ugandans writing their own story of family planning
Wikipedia aspires to collect and distribute the sum of human knowledge, but systemic barriers prevent the realization of this goal. Barriers to editing Wikipedia are highest in the Global South, where internet access can be sporadic or nonexistent, and people have less leisure time to contribute as unpaid labor. The entire continent of Africa (1.2 … 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
Women’s Suffrage: My Wiki Life
Eilene Lyon is a Colorado-based freelance writer specializing in historical non-fiction, and an avid genealogist. Eilene learned how to create and expand Wikipedia articles in our professional development course as a way to give back to society and ensure that accurate information is being presented in a well-written format. This is a republishing of her … Continued
Who gets to be an expert on Wikipedia?
Dr. Erin Siodmak is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the City University of New York in Women and Gender Studies and Sociology. Last fall, Dr. Siodmak learned how to help close the gender gap on Wikipedia through our online course. Here, Dr. Siodmak talks about what it means to claim the title of “expert” on … Continued
Accurately representing trans identities on Wikipedia
Sometimes making an improvement to a Wikipedia article isn’t about words added. Sometimes a seemingly simple addition to a biography article, like the uploading of a new photo, can make a world of difference. That’s what Cassius Adair of the National Women’s Studies Association found since he’s learned how to edit Wikipedia in our professional … Continued
Three Things I Learned as a Wiki Scholar
Dr. Rachel Boyle is a public historian who recently completed our professional development course and contributed to Wikipedia articles relating to women’s suffrage in the United States. This is a republishing of her reflection about the experience. Over the course of the last eleven weeks, I had the honor of joining a cohort of historians, librarians, and other scholars … Continued
Continuous Professional Development: redeveloping a new information literacy platform
Amy Dye-Reeves, is an Assistant Professor of Research and Instruction Librarian at Murray State University. Amy is the College of Arts & Humanities Liaison to the Departments of History, Psychology, Political Science and Sociology. During the Fall of 2018, Amy is teaching a Research in the Information Age course and providing a multitude of instructional … Continued