Month: February 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5iyJSdpvwg

I recently found myself chatting with a software engineer friend of mine about the Wikimedian in Residence project at the University of Edinburgh. He proclaimed two things that he felt were ‘acknowledged truths’ which everyone understood about editing Wikipedia.

“You can’t add to Wikipedia. Wikipedia already has EVERYTHING in the entire world within it so there is never any need to add anything more to it.”

Wikipedia’s Quality and Ratings scale – Screengrab from Wikipedia (CC-BY-SA)

As this graphic shows Wikipedia has a ‘Quality and Ratings‘ scale which shows the sheer quantity of English Wikipedia articles (over 5 million) but tellingly only a fraction are deemed of such high quality that they can be the ‘featured article’ (FA) on Wikipedia’s front page. Indeed as the second Pi chart shows (above right), over 50% of the articles on Wikipedia are short ‘stub’ articles (the red ‘stub class’ section).

Hence, while Wikipedia has sought in its first 15 years to achieve the ‘sum of all human knowledge‘ it is not quote there yet. Not quite.

The quantity of articles is there but the quality can certainly be improved. Which is why partnerships between Wikimedia UK and institutions like the University of Edinburgh are so important for both communities. The quantity and quality of Wikipedia’s content is improved by the process of knowledge exchange and the partner institution’s knowledge & expertise is successfully curated & disseminated throughout the world utilising a medium with unparalleled reach and influence.

Screengrab from ‘How to work successfully with Wikipedia’ WMUK GLAM Booklet 2014 (CC-BY-SA)

The second thing my software engineer chum said was:

2. “Editing in Wikipedia using the markup programming language is easy.”

This may well be true. Using the markup language is not that difficult when one considers other programming languages out there but, of course, a software engineer would feel ‘markup’ was easy to use. Other people without the same degree of programming experience may not necessarily feel the same degree of confidence.

This is why Wikipedia’s introduction of the new ‘Visual Editor‘ interface is a HUGE leap forward in allowing would-be editors from all backgrounds to edit with confidence. The new interface has taken years to develop and implement and makes editing so much easier. It is a WYSIWYG interface (What You See Is What You Get) so makes the days of considering the foibles of programming language when creating/editing Wiki articles a thing of the past. Instead, using the Visual Editor makes editing Wikipedia much more like using Microsoft Word or WordPress.

But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a short clip to introduce Visual Editor.

Modern Scottish Women editathon – National Gallery of Modern Art

Modern Scottish Women editathon

I was invited by Sara Thomas, Wikimedian in Residence at the Museums & Galleries Scotland, to attend an edit-a-thon she was hosting on Saturday 23rd January at the National Gallery of Modern Art to mark their new exhibition entitled ‘Modern Scottish Women’.

Loaded with the cold though I was, I trooped along and was rewarded with a guided tour upon arrival.

Modern Scottish Women

The exhibition of work by Scottish women artists concentrates on painters and sculptors. It covers the period from 1885, when Fra Newbery became Director of Glasgow School of Art, until 1965, the year of Anne Redpath’s death.

The editathon event page is here: Modern Scottish Women edit-a-thon

After the tour, Sara ran through the steps involved in how to edit Wikipedia and explained that it is a lot easier to work with with Wikipedia now that the ‘Visual Editor’ interface makes editing in Wikipedia as easy as using Microsoft Word or WordPress.

According to Sara’s Edit-a-thon event page:

“In a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 10% of its contributors identify as female while only 15% of the English Wikipedia’s biographies are about women. As a result, content is skewed by the lack of female participation.

The event will focus on expanding or improving Wikipedia entries for the artists exhibiting in Modern Scottish Women, and to provide an expanded context for their work and practice.”

Following the training, everyone was enthused to correct this lack of female participation on Wikipedia.

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

While I was personally keen to add information to some of my favorite artists’ Wikipedia pages (Joan Eardley, Hannah Frank) it seemed clearly more important to create a new Wiki article on Beatrice Huntingdon whose work was overlooked completely by Wikipedia.

After a couple of hours and a couple of coffees, my careful research, like my fellow Wiki editors at the edit-a-thon, had produced a brand new article on Wikipedia on Beatrice Huntingdon and corrected this sin of omission.

Overall, the National Galleries of Modern Art were terrifically welcoming hosts & were very enthusiastic to make sure the artists in their exhibition received the acknowledgement on Wikipedia that they deserved.

Cold or no cold, it was a successful afternoon and everyone went home feeling ‘mission accomplished’.

Vicks Inhaler

Open Knowledge meetup at National Library of Scotland

On 19th January 2016, I attended my first ‘Open Knowledge‘ meetup at the National Library of Scotland.

Link here: Open Knowledge meetup at NLS

In an informal friendly setting, with a lovely assortment of sandwiches, nibbles and drinks I was able to observe an equally lovely assortment of Open Knowledge initiatives espoused by the evening’s speakers including:

Jeremy Darot on Edinburgh Open Data Map. Utilising lots of cool data to populate OpenStreetMap. Data like planning projects, schools, GP surgeries, shops, catchment areas, air quality, green belt areas & much more besides. Phew!

Jeremy Darot

Also, the University of Edinburgh’s own Professor Richard Rodger outlined the MESH project (Mapping Edinburgh’s Social History): 60,000+ properties mapped accurately by physically walking past taking a note of every garden, wall and business with the ambition to create the most accurate city map in Edinburgh. http://www.mesh.ed.ac.uk

Then there was architect Akiko Kobayashi on fabulous @fountainbridgec project: open source house designs on Commons which can be digitally fabricated & assembled easily.

Akiko Kobayashi

Lastly, the National Library of Scotland’s own Fred Saunderson enthused about NLS’s Open Data Publication plan to publish 3-star open data (14 datasets in 2016, 8 more in 2017).

Fred Saunderson – NLS

All in all, a great night of Open Knowledge initiatives. More please!

Wikipedia at 15 – Happy Birthday!

The Oxford Internet Institute on Wikipedia’s Ongoing Search for the Sum of All Human Knowledge

Jimmy Wales cuts the cake – By Gordon Joly (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Last month marked 15 years since Wikipedia first began. A number of excellent articles came out at this time assessing Wikipedia’ impact and its relevance going forward.

I’ve picked two such articles:

The LSE’s Impact Blog on Wikipedia Amplifying Impact Of Open Access

The University of Edinburgh Library also marked the occasion by taking part in Wikipedia’s #1Lib1ref campaign.

There are apparently over 350,000 articles marked with ‘citation needed’ in the English Wikipedia so the library staff spent a little time on Wikipedia’s birthday (15th January) to see if they could help clear some of these tags by using the ‘Citation Hunt’ tool to identify the articles and then added citations using reliable sources such as journals, books and official websites.

The University of Edinburgh’s library blog on #1Lib1Ref

The Wikipedia Library explains the 1Lib1Ref campaign

In all, 32 new citations were added. A fine morning’s work.

By Halibutt (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Getting Started – What the residency involves

As this role is a fairly new and interesting-sounding job title, I thought I should intimate what this year-long residency will involve.

In short, I am to facilitate a sustainable relationship between the University and Wikimedia UK to the mutual benefit of both communities.

You’re so Venn: Where the Wikimedian in Residence sits between Wikimedia UK and the University of Edinburgh.

To do this, I will be an advocate of open knowledge and deliver training events & workshops which will further both the quantity & quality of open knowledge and the university’s commitment to digital literacy.

Areas of convergence between Wikimedia UK and the University of Edinburgh’s missions.

More practically, this will involve arranging & delivering skills-training sessions which will fit in with and, importantly enhance, the learning & teaching within the curriculum. I will also stage events outside the curriculum which will draw on the university’s, and Edinburgh’s, rich history & knowledge.

Editathons will be a large part of this, however, there are numerous ways where staff & students can get involved & directly contribute their knowledge & expertise to develop Wikimedia UK’s diverse range of projects, including: Wikipedia; Wikivoyage; Wiktionary; Wikispecies; Wikiquotes; Wikisource; Wikiversity; Wikibooks; Wikinews; Wikimedia Commons; Wikidata; Mediawiki; Wikimedia Labs and more besides. (https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Our_projects)

Not just Wikipedia: Wikimedia UK’s diverse range projects (above).

If you would like to know more about how our main open knowledge project, Wikipedia, fits in with academia then these two recent articles make very compelling reading:

Alternatively, I am based in the Learning, Teaching & Web Services Division within the Hugh Robson Link Building on George Square, Edinburgh, and am very happy to chat to you about the residency.

Contact details

Indeed, should you wish to discuss collaborating on any projects then I would be only too glad to hear from you.

Wikimedia, Open Knowledge and The University of Edinburgh