Improving medical Wikipedia pages as an expert and a consumer
“It feels really powerful to have a forum to reach this many people and to provide them with potentially helpful information. I certainly don’t reach this many people during direct patient care or through publications in medical journals.” Everyone uses Wikipedia. Even our doctors.¹ So doesn’t it make sense to invite medical professionals into … 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
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
Make sure every woman in science has a Wikipedia bio
When young women see women in STEM succeed and thrive, they feel empowered to follow their passions into those careers as well. The gender imbalance of STEM fields is not only a daunting, self-reinforcing cycle, but also a barrier to new scientific discovery (diversity and inclusion make a difference!). It’s something that must be corrected … Continued
Experimenting with Wikipedia as a woman in STEM
Chelsea Sutcliffe is a post-doctoral research fellow in earth sciences at the University of Toronto. She completed our recent professional development course in order to improve Wikipedia’s representation of women in STEM. Here she shares her biggest take-aways. Late last year an email was sent around to the members of an academic organization I am affiliated with, … Continued
A Senior Adventure with Wikipedia
JoAnne Growney recently learned Wikipedia editing in one of our professional development courses, where she created and expanded Wikipedia biographies about women mathematicians. Here she shares why she pushed to overcome the challenges facing new Wikipedia editors. From my beginning, I have been a fan of encyclopedias. I grew up on a farm and when … Continued
How to counterbalance the inequalities women encounter in STEM
Youngah (Karen) Kwon is a graduate student at Columbia University and a member of the American Chemical Society who recently completed our Wikipedia professional development course. With a background in physical chemistry and material science, Karen expanded Wikipedia articles on women who have made major contributions to the sciences. Read her reflections about the experience below. … Continued
Wikipedia as a tool for public engagement with science
Helen Siaw is a PhD candidate and research assistant at Emory University Department of Chemistry. She is interested in using Wikipedia as a tool for science education and public outreach. She creates and updates Wikipedia articles related to current biophysical chemistry or general chemistry research. Helen recently completed Wiki Education’s professional development course as a member … Continued
Chemist takes it upon herself to write biographies of women scientists on Wikipedia
Dr. Claire Jarvis is a Postdoctoral Scientist at Emory University with a PhD in organic chemistry. She recently participated in our professional development course that trains scholars, scientists, and other professionals how to edit Wikipedia. Here, she shares thoughts about her experience. The oversight was egregious. I checked again in case a simple spelling error … Continued
Ensuring Wikipedia represents the accomplishments of women scientists
In 2012, Dr. Jennifer Doudna helped make one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in biology — the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system, which changed editing genomes from science fiction to science. Before Dr. Laura Hoopes started working to improve it as part of Wiki Education’s professional development program, Dr. Doudna’s Wikipedia biography looked pretty substantial. With over 1400 … Continued