Wikimedian in Residence – Page 12 – Supporting the University of Edinburgh's commitments to digital skills, information literacy, and sharing knowledge openly

Stall in main Library for promoting Art+Feminism editathon

I went on holiday to Skye at the end of March so forgive my tardiness in relating how March’s Art & Feminism Wikipedia editathons went.

March saw Wikipedia editathon events for Women’s History Month which coincided with a number of other International Women’s Day events in Edinburgh & around the world as part of Wikipedia’s Women in Red project on Saturday 5th March and International Women’s Day on the 8^th of March.

WikiProject Women in Red’s objective is to turn “redlinks” into blue ones within the project scope. The project scope includes women -real and fictional- their biographies and their works, broadly construed. From their webpage:

“Did you know that only 16.08% of the English Wikipedia’s biographies are about women? Not impressed? “Content gender gap” is a form of systemic bias, and Women in Red addresses it in a positive way. We do this by hosting edit-a-thons on various topics, and socializing the scope and objective via social media. We invite you to participate whenever you wish. There is no requirement to participate in everything we do, or to even sign up. If the objective and scope of our project interest you, please join in the discussion on our talkpage or jump in and create articles. You might like to start by participating in this April’s editathon on Women Writers. We warmly welcome you.”

However, the focus of Wikiproject Women in Red for March was Women in Art as part of a worldwide series of events themed on Art & Feminism. Happily, out of the 45 female artists featured in the National Galleries of Scotland’s Modern Scottish Women exhibition (which is on until June and well worth a visit) almost all are now recognised with a Wikipedia article (which certainly wasn’t the case when the exhibition opened in January) through the efforts of Sara Thomas and the Wiki editors who attended the three editathons we staged on this theme. The final six articles were worked on by our editors in the library and remotely on International Women’s Day itself with just one still awaiting completion.*

As mentioned earlier, if you would like to learn more about working with Wikipedia and find out how easy it is to edit using the new Visual Editor interface (which makes it more akin to utilising Microsoft Word or WordPress blogs these days) then I am running training sessions at the Main Library and the Edinburgh College of Art on 26^th and 28^th April (bookable through Event Booking).

You can also keep up with the residency at the Wikipedia Project Page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_Edinburgh

Or via Twitter: @emcandre

Sara Thomas – Wikimedian at Museums & Galleries Scotland leading the Art & Feminism event at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

Art & Feminism Editathon at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery – 5th March 2016

Editors hard at work for the Art & Feminism editathon at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery on 5th March 2016

Content created

6 new articles created:

8 articles improved:

International Women’s Day Editathon at the University Library – 8th March 2016

Wiki editors hard at work for the International Women’s Day editathon on 8th March 2016.

Outcomes

Articles created

Articles improved

Other outcomes

Two new users trained in how to edit Wikipedia. Only one red-linked women artist remains from the 45 artists identified in the ongoing collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland for the exhibition ‘Modern Scottish Women’: Ivy Gardner Proudfoot. Increased links with other Art+Feminism editathon organisers including the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Wikimedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University, Kelly Doyle.

The report on the successful editathon at the University of Pittsburgh, 4 months in the planning resulting in collaborations with Google Women and a full house of 80 participants, is included here: Report on Art & Feminism editathon at Pitt.

Spy Week 2016: Women in Espionage (Fact & Fiction) editathon

By Ewan McAndrew

On April 12, 2016

In Uncategorized

Spy Week

Our latest Wikipedia editathon event is for Spy Week 2016 in collaboration with Penny Fielding, (Grierson Professor of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh), Marco Polvara, Alice Kelly, Eugenia Twomey and our liaison librarians, Shenxiao Tong and Angela Nicholson).

Edinburgh Spy Week is organised by the University of Edinburgh, the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, the National Library of Scotland, the Edinburgh Filmhouse, and Blackwell’s Bookshop.

The week begins with Dame Stella Rimington in Conversation with Prof Penny Fielding Date and time: Monday 11 April, 5.30pm-7pm Venue: 50 George Square Lecture Theatre
What roles have women played in spy fiction, and how do they compare to the realities of women’s role in the history of espionage? Dame Stella Rimington, the first female director general of MI5 and author of the acclaimed Liz Carlisle spy fiction series, will discuss the questions in conversation with Professor Penny Fielding, Grierson Chair of English at the University of Edinburgh.

The week concludes with: Writing Spy Lives (A Panel Discussion with Jeremy Duns and Ben MacIntyre) Date and time: Friday 15 April, 5.30pm-7pm Venue: Project Room, 50 George Square
How to write the biography of a spy – a subject who, by profession, must often conceal a true identity and fabricate fake ones in the line of duty? What challenges and opportunities are there for biographers seeking to uncover the story of the lives of spies involved in secret, and politically sensitive, international affairs? These and other questions raised by writing spy lives will be explored by spy novelist and biographer Jeremy Duns (Dead Drop: The True Story of Oleg Penkovsky and the Cold War’s Most Dangerous Operation (2013)), and historian, journalist and biographer Ben MacIntyre (Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal (2014)).

For the full programme of Spy Week guest speakers and activities please click here: http://www.spyweek.llc.ed.ac.uk/
Most events (aside from the films) are free, but ticketed via Eventbrite (see the event pages on the above website).

Women in Espionage

Wikipedia editathon for Spy Week 2016: Women in Espionage and Spy Fiction

For this particular event, the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services and Wikimedia UK are organising an editathon focused on Women in Espionage to celebrate Spy Week 2016 on 13-14 April 2016 near the other Spy Week venues in Teaching Studio LG.07, David Hume Tower Building, George Square, Edinburgh.Click here for Google Maps.

You can attend on one day or both days. Full training will be provided both days so new editors are very welcome to attend. If you have had Wikipedia training before, feel free to either start editing immediately on arrival or arriving a little later to skip the training portion of the afternoon. If you’d like to take part in the virtual event hosted by Women in Red. You can sign up here to participate.

This Wikimedia event forms part of Spy Week 2016 as a day of celebration which helps people learn about the achievements of women in espionage, inspiring others and creating new role models for young and old alike. Did you know that approximately only 16% of the biographies on Wikipedia relate to notable women? The aim of our editathon is to add to and improve the coverage of individuals, events and resources related to women in espionage.

Helpful updates could be as simple as: Making sure reference links are still appropriate and functional; Adding new inline citations/references; Adding a photo; Adding an infobox; Adding data to more fields in an existing infobox; Creating headings; Adding categories; etc.

The following is a small sample of topics and women to work on, with thanks to Megalibrarygirl for getting the ball rolling.

Chief Operator Grace Banker receiving the Distinguished Service Medal

Hitlist of target articles to create or improve:

Eileen Burgoyne, Cold War Spy, [1], [2], [3], [4]
Jessie Jordan, Dundee hairdresser accused of being a German spy during WW2, http://www.heraldscotland.com, Google News, The Biographical Dictionary of Scottish Women, STV News, Rhodri Jeffreys-Jones, “Jessie Jordan: A Rejected Scot who Spied for Germany and Hastened America’s Flight from Neutrality,” The Historian, 76/4 (Winter 2014). Pp. 766-83. (Article available through DiscoverEd or hardcopy format).
Rozanne Colchester – Bletchley code-breaker & postwar MI6 agent. Women spies in the second world war: “It was horrible and wonderful. Like a love affair”
Liz Carlyle (literary character) – fictional character created by Dame Stella Rimington.

Noor Inayat Khan

Noor Inayat Khan

Lilian Rolfe

Come along to learn about how Wikipedia works and contribute a greater understanding of the role of women in espionage!

In addendum – update 13th April 2016

After day one of our Spy Week Wikipedia editathon, here are a lists of the pages that were worked on today, 13^th April.

Jessie Jordan
Magda Fontanges (working from French Wikipedia)
Sigrid Green
Rozanne Colchester
Luisa Zeni (translating from Italian Wikipedia)
Liz Caryle (literary character)
Lisa de Baissac
Eileen Burgoyne

And that’s not counting the efforts of Spy Week Wiki Editors across the world contributing through the Wikiproject Women in Red – Spy Week virtual editathon.

One more day to go in Edinburgh’s Spy Week editathon but Women in Red’s virtual editathon will continue on for the full week!!

Wikimedia UK at OER16 Conference 19-20th April 2016

By Ewan McAndrew

On April 12, 2016

In Uncategorized

The 7th Open Educational Resources Conference, OER16: Open Culture, will be held on the 19th-20th April 2016 at the University of Edinburgh.

The vision for the conference is to focus on the value proposition of embedding open culture in the context of institutional strategies for learning, teaching and research. The conference will be chaired by Melissa Highton, Director of Learning, Teaching and Web Services at the University of Edinburgh, and Lorna Campbell, OER Liaison at the University of Edinburgh and EDINA Digital Education Manager.

And there will be a strong Wikimedia UK presence at the event.

Jason Evans by Robin Owain (WMUK) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Jason Evans is the current Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Wales. He is also a professional genealogist with a wealth of experience in researching all aspects of Welsh family and local history. This residency will contribute towards the NLW’s aim of providing ‘Information for All’ and in turn will draw people back to the services and collections of the Library. Information about previous, ongoing, or future Wikipedia-National Library of Wales collaborations are updated regularly on the National Library of Wales project page.

Jason has worked closely with the Library to release over 15,000 images into the public domain via Wikimedia Commons and has held dozens of public events at the Library and through out Wales. Working closely with other cultural partners in Wales the aim has been encourage and facilitate increased open access across the sector by affecting policy change. Jason has also set-up and run a number of successful Wikimedia projects with the Library’s dedicated volunteer team. The residency is increasingly focusing on Wikipedia in the education sector and he has made steps towards embedding a Wikipedia based projects into the Welsh curriculum for 16-18 year olds and has proposed a series of talks for sixth form students about using Wikipedia responsibly. He has also helped several universities to use Wikipedia as vehicle for outreach and gender equality projects.

Martin Poulter by Ziko (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Martin Poulter

From April 2015 to March 2016, Martin Poulter was the Wikimedian In Residence at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford. The project page is at Wikipedia:GLAM/Bodleian. From June 2013 to April 2014, Martin was the Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador running a project to explore overlaps between Jisc , Wikimedia, and academia in general. A certified Lead Trainer for Wikimedia UK in Membership Development and a trained Campus Ambassador as part of the Wikipedia Education Program, on English Wikipedia Martin has more than eleven thousand edits, mainly in the area of psychology. Martin also has hundreds of edits on Wikibooks, a thousand on Wikisource, and thousands of edits cataloguing scientific images on Commons.

In addition, Martin invented the EduWiki Conference (based on an original drink with Fabian Tompsett) and the Wikipedia Science Conference.

Sara Thomas By Lirazelf (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Sara Thomas

Sara Thomas is the Wikimedian in Residence for Museums Galleries Scotland, the national development body for the Scottish museums sector. She’s also an event manager and social/digital media trainer with experience in both the private and third sectors. Since January 2015 in this part time role she’s worked with around 80 cultural institutions to provide training, facilitate content upload and generally advocate for the use of open knowledge in a museums context. She’s trained 280 new users of Wikipedia, run 16 editathons, 20 training sessions and spoken at 25 seminars, workshops and conferences, taking in museums, libraries, and universities. A backstage pass event at Glasgow Museums brought some of the lesser-seen elements of Kelvingrove Museum, Kelvin Hall and the Riverside Museum to the Commons; an editathon dedicated to rent strike organiser and activist Mary Barbour contributed to the campaign for greater recognition of her work; and a recent series of editathons with the National Galleries of Scotland created biographies of key Scottish female artists missing from Wikipedia.

In the last two months of the project Sara will be working with Groam House Museum in Rosemarkie, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow Women’s Library and Govan’s Hidden Histories to bring Scotland’s rich cultural heritage to a wider audience.

Lucy Crompton-Reid

Lucy Crompton-Reid

Lucy Crompton-Reid joined Wikimedia UK as the new Chief Executive in October 2015, and is working with the staff team, board of trustees and wider Wikimedia community to develop a new strategy and business plan for the charity and to help shape the work of the programmes team. She will also be driving forward the organisation’s advocacy, communications and fundraising activities, and engaging new strategic partners. Lucy has worked in the cultural, voluntary and public sectors for nearly two decades, with past experience including senior roles at Arts Council England, British Refugee Council and the House of Lords. Most recently, she was Chief Executive of the national literature charity Apples and Snakes, England’s leading organisation for performance poetry and spoken word. Throughout her career, Lucy has had a particular focus on widening participation, and brings a strong commitment to access, learning and public engagement in her new role at Wikimedia UK.

Me in Mallaig after walking the West Highland Way and riding the Harry Potter train.

Ewan McAndrew (yours truly)

An MA graduate in English & Modern History from the University of Glasgow, Ewan McAndrew went on to study Software Development at Glasgow Caledonian University before moving abroad to teach English. Ewan has taught in Japan, South Korea & Singapore which, in turn, has allowed him to travel throughout Asia, Australia, North America & South America.

A PGDE English & Media teacher for the last few years, Ewan has taught in various parts of Scotland and worked increasingly with heritage institutions, most recently with the Glasgow School of Art’s Archives team on their WW1 ‘Roll of Honour’ project.

Ewan is the current Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh. Previous editathons have been on the ‘History of Medicine’ for Innovative Learning Week 2016, ‘Art & Feminism’ (with the National Galleries of Scotland & Sara Thomas), ‘Women in Art & Science’ for International Women’s Day 2016 and ‘Women in Espionage: Fact & Fiction’ for Spy Week 2016 in partnership with the English Literature and History departments at the University of Edinburgh.

Wikimedia at OER16

Sara Thomas, Lucy Crompton-Reid and Martin Poulter will all be presenting sessions at OER16.

The programme for OER16 (with details of these sessions) can be found here: OER16 website.

In addition, the following sessions will also be available to OER delegates.

1) Wikipedia Training 1.20-2pm 19/04/2016

Editing Wikipedia has never been easier with the new WYSIWYG Visual Editor interface which makes editing Wikipedia as easy as blogging or utilising MS Word. A 2014 Yougov survey found that around two thirds of the British public trust Wikipedia more than traditional news outlets including the BBC, ITV, the Guardian and the Times.

One of the most visited websites worldwide, and now one of the most trusted, Wikipedia is a resource used by most university students. Increasingly, many instructors around the world have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool in their university classrooms as well.

Indeed, as the drive for scholarly research to become ever more Open Access gathers pace, Wikipedia will increasingly become the digital gateway to this research.

Full training will be given – just bring a laptop or tablet with you and start editing!

2) Wikipedia Editathon 2-3pm 19/04/2016 – Women in Art, Science & Espionage

Did you know that only 16% of biographies on Wikipedia relate to notable females?

Once training is completed, why not join us for an editathon to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of Women in Art, Science & Espionage to put these skills into practice & help redress the balance?

Contributing to Wikipedia during an editathon can be about creating an entirely new page on Wikipedia (250 words minimum backed up by at least 3 references) or as simple as adding a citation or an image to an existing article or even just fixing a typo. Full training will be given at 1.20-2pm so feel free to join us for the editathon afterwards from 2-3pm or drop in to ask us questions about Wikipedia & its sister projects.

Just bring a laptop or tablet with you and start editing!

3) Ask a Wikimedian: Drop-in clinic 1.20-2pm 20/04/2016

OER16 has a number of Wikimedians attending in Ewan McAndrew (Wikimedian in Residence for University of Edinburgh), Sara Thomas (Wikimedian in Residence for Museums & Galleries Scotland), Martin Poulter (Wikimedian in Residence for the Bodleian Library, Oxford University) and Jason Evans (Wikimedian in Residence for the National Library of Wales).

This lunchtime session will allow you to ask questions about their experiences & seek advice, be it on working with Wikipedia or its sister projects.

4) Wikisource Demonstration: 2pm-2.25pm 20/04/2016

Martin Poulter (Wikimedian in Residence for the Bodleian Library, Oxford University) will demonstrate how to get the best out of Wikisource. Wikisource is a multilingual project, started in November 2003, to archive a collection of free and open content texts. It is not only a superior format for storing classics, laws, and other free works as hypertext, but it also serves as a base for translating these texts. At the beginning, source texts in all languages (except Hebrew) were all on one wiki. However, Wikisource now has several editions in many individual languages.

NB: Please bring a laptop of tablet with you to allow you to navigate around Wikisource.

5) Wikipedia Editing Training: 2.25-2.50pm 20/04/2016

Indeed, as the drive for scholarly research to become ever more Open Access gathers pace, Wikipedia will increasingly become the digital gateway to this research.

This will be a truncated training session from the one offered on 19^th April but will introduce you to the basics of utilising the new Visual editor interface – just bring a laptop or tablet with you and start editing!

Hopefully see you there and you can meet the gang!

Teaching with Wikipedia (some recent homegrown examples)

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 18, 2016

In Uncategorized

A little while ago, I came across the reasons to use Wikipedia, (well worth a read) and have been reflecting on how Wikipedia and its sister projects can be best utilised as a teaching tool.

Simply working with Wikipedia as a teaching assignment is much more straightforward using the new Visual Editor WYSIWYG interface (What You See Is What You Get) which makes editing Wikipedia as easy as using Microsoft Word or WordPress blogging. Students can be taught how to edit in as little as 45mins-60mins and thereafter can work individually or collectively to research & write, with academic rigour, brand new Wikipedia articles.

By way of example, Anouk Lang, English Literature Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, has applied this in getting her students to create a new page on a literary text, Conversations in Bloomsbury, a 1981 memoir that depicts writer Mulk Raj Anand’s life in London during the heyday of the Bloomsbury Group, and his relationships with the group’s members.

The collaborative process engaged her students, and some students in particular who had perhaps been more reticent (or less confident) in participating in more traditional assignments, in researching the topic & in applying the digital literacy skills required to achieve the page’s creation. The net result is not an essay or report that could potentially be filed away & forgotten but instead something that adds to the sum of human knowledge & is discoverable by other readers & editors all over the world so that they, in turn, can add more to it.

Conversations in Bloomsbury

Which all fits in with achieving, quite nicely, with achieving the University’s mission and Wikimedia’s mission.

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

Similarly, Dr. Chris Harlow at the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Reproductive Health, has run Wikipedia research sessions with his Reproductive Medicine Honours students where, within the space of an afternoon’s session, they were able to navigate the open access journals to find enough good quality, reliable published sources to create a new article on a term that previously did not exist on Wikipedia: neuroangiogenesis. In doing so, the students created a page that significantly added to the discourse, and the visibility of the discourse, on a number of other related pages: Angiogenesis, Alzheimer’s disease and Endometriosis.

Neuroangiogenesis

The two links below are booklets which have a number of good places to begin teaching with Wikipedia including how to design your assignment as well as alternative assignment ideas such as translating an article into different languages (now even easier with a Wikipedia tool that allows both articles to be onscreen), illustrating an article (with photos, infographics, videos etc.), copy-editing articles to improve critical thinking skills on how good writing is achieved in your particular discipline and so on.

The second booklet explores a number of case studies of approaches taken implementing Wikimedia assignments within a university. However, it is important to note that these are just starting points and that, as this is a new & developing discipline, that newer models can be designed to better suit your purposes.

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

Myself and Martin Poulter, former Wikimedia Ambassador at JISC and the current Wikimedian in Residence at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, will also be attending the OER16 Conference in Edinburgh on 19-20 April if you want to learn more about the education projects he has been involved in.

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

A smorgasbord of Wikimedia projects to choose from: not just Wikipedia!

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 18, 2016

In Uncategorized

In visiting a lot of different people of places over the last two months, one question keeps cropping up: what is the difference between Wikimedian and Wikipedian?

Which is a fair question.

Ultimately, Wikimedia UK is the parent or umbrella body, a charitable non-profit foundation (the UK chapter of the global Wikimedia movement which has its HQ in San Francisco) which exists to support & promote Wikimedia’s projects in the UK: one of which happens to be its main open Knowledge project, Wikipedia.

From the Wikimedia Foundation’s FAQs:

“What is Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is the largest collection of free, collaborative knowledge in human history. Millions of people from around the world have written and added to Wikipedia since it was created in 2001: anyone can edit it, at any time. Wikipedia contains more than 35 million volunteer-authored articles in more than 290 languages. Every month, Wikipedia is viewed more than 15 billion times, making it one of the most popular sites in the world. The people who support it are united by the joy of knowledge, their passion and curiosity, and their awareness that we know much more together than any of us does alone.

What is the Wikimedia Foundation?

The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that supports and operates Wikipedia and the other free knowledge projects. All of our work is guided by our mission to share the sum of all knowledge with every person in the world. We keep the websites fast, secure, and available. We support the community of volunteers who contribute to the Wikimedia projects. We make free knowledge accessible wherever you are — on your phone or laptop, on a boat in the South Pacific, or in the hills of Nepal. We help bring new knowledge online, lower barriers to access, and make it easier for everyone to share what they know.”

However, while Wikipedia draws the most attention, there are numerous ways where staff & students can get involved & directly contribute their knowledge & expertise to develop Wikimedia UK’s diverse range of projects.

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

Wikisource, for instance, is a ‘free content library of source texts’ with some 300,000+ source texts which anyone can use.

Wikimedia Commons is our media repository with over 30 million freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute to and re-use.

Wikibooks, an open-content textbooks collection that anyone can edit, has been utilised by some academic institutions (notably Greg Singh, lecturer in Communications, Media & Culture at the University of Stirling) as an assessed part of their courses where students work in research groups to contribute chapters to create a brand new textbook, the Digital Media & Culture Yearbook.

Wikidata, in particular, as Wikipedia’s newest sister project offers up a wealth of possibilities as a structured database of all human knowledge which is readable by humans and machines. For example, the Histropedia website makes good use of the data Wikidata harnesses in order to create visually stimulating & dynamic timelines: be it as straightforward as a timeline of University of Edinburgh alumni or something much more bespoke: such as a timeline of descendants of Robert the Bruce, who are female, and born in Denmark.

Example timeline from Histropedia

As the residency continues, I hope to explore each of these projects a bit further (and others besides) and see if any collaborations can be achieved which mutually benefit the university and Wikimedia in adding open knowledge content to these projects. So watch this space… and if you have any questions about any of the projects then let me know.

Listen to Wikipedia

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 3, 2016

In Uncategorized

Screen Shot – Listen to Wikipedia
By Stephen Laporte (http://listen.hatnote.com/) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

During the recent History of Medicine editathons, I would often open proceedings by introducing people to a rather wonderful website…

Listen to Wikipedia

The website demonstrates all the real-time edits occurring on Wikipedia taken from Wikipedia’s ‘recent changes feed’ and puts it to music (bells for additions, strings for subtractions).

From the website’s own description:

“Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions. Pitch changes according to the size of the edit; the larger the edit, the deeper the note.

Green circles show edits from unregistered contributors, and purple circles mark edits performed by automated bots. You may see announcements for new users as they join the site, punctuated by a string swell. You can welcome him or her by clicking the blue banner and adding a note on their talk page.”

Anyway, check it out as it is a lovely way of visualising the Wiki community and all the edits occurring around the world. (NB: And it didn’t hurt that it created a zen-like pagoda garden experience for our editors while they busied themselves adding & subtracting to Wiki articles themselves.)

Art+Feminism Wikipedia editathon – Saturday 5th March

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 3, 2016

In Uncategorized

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.

About our next event

Following the successful editathon held at Modern One to mark the opening of the exhibition Modern Scottish Women, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is holding a follow-up Wikipedia Edit-a-thon during Women’s History Month as part of the Art+Feminism series. This event will coincide with other International Women’s Day events happening elsewhere in Edinburgh that day and will carry on where the last Modern Scottish Women editathon left off; creating and improving articles relating to those women featured in the exhibition.

Modern Scottish Women is an exhibition of work by Scottish women artists and 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.

All you need to bring is a laptop as wifi will be provided. But you can also have a look at the notable artists listed below to see if there is someone there you may wish to work on:

Hit list of articles to be created or improved

Articles to be created

Articles to be improved

** The work of those artists marked with a double asterisk has now passed into the public domain.

Come along if you can make it, the more the merrier. New editors are very welcome and full training will be given. With Visual Editor, it really is now as easy as using MS Word or WordPress.

The event signup is here: Art&Feminism Wikipedia editathon

Hopefully see you there!

We Can Edit

Reflecting on the History of Medicine editathon – The Outcome

By Ewan McAndrew

On March 2, 2016

In Uncategorized

After 5 Wikipedia editing sessions over 3 days with some terrific guest speakers, our Wiki editors helped to upload over 500 images, created 12 brand new Wiki pages and improved 63 articles with 249 edits.

Anatomical gingerbread

I would encourage everyone to have a look over the work that was created last week (Creating an Open Body of Knowledge editathon) as there are now some astonishingly interesting additions to Wikipedia which just simply weren’t there before….

Including:

A new article on Norman Dott – the first holder of the Chair of Neurological Surgery at the University of Edinburgh.
Our digital curator’s one man ‘Citation Hunt’ crusade to plug those pesky ‘citation needed’ labels in articles.
Improved article on Robert Battey – an American physician who is known for pioneering a surgical procedure then called Battey’s Operation and now termed radical oophorectomy (or removal of a woman’s ovaries)
Noteworthy work (because she’s on a banknote) doubling (if not trebling) the article on Mary Fairfax Somerville – a Scottish science writer and polymath, at a time when women’s participation in science was discouraged. As well as editing articles on Isabel Thorne, Matilda Chaplin Ayrton and the Scottish Blood Transfusion Service.
A new ‘Controversy’ section added on the intriguing case of James Miranda Barry.
A really helpful mapping tool of the buildings to be photographed: https://mapalist.com/map/573668
Our historian of medicine worked on The Brunonian system of medicine article – a theory of medicine which regards and treats disorders as caused by defective or excessive excitation.
A brand new article on Leith Hospital – illustrated with pictures the new editor took themselves and uploaded to Wikicommons.
Articles on Frances Helen Simson (a Scottish suffragist) and The Edinburgh Royal Maternity and Simpson Maternity Hospital Pavilion. Ably added to by work on Lady Tweedale.
Work on Emily Bovell’s article and a brand new article on the New Zealand Army Nursing Service page which came into being in early 1915, when the Army Council in London accepted the New Zealand government’s offer of nurses to help in the war effort during the First World War.
Improved articles on ‘Fabry disease’ – a rare genetic lysosomal storage disease – and on ‘Alport Syndrome’ – a genetic disorder affecting around 1 in 5,000 children, characterized by glomerulonephritis, end-stage kidney disease, and hearing loss
Improvement work on Frances Hoggan – the first British woman to receive a doctorate in medicine from a university in Europe, and the first female doctor to be registered in Wales.
And much much more besides…. including work expanding on The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’s page on Chinese Wikipedia!

Burke and Hare myths debunked at the History of Medicine editathon.

The fully illustrated (pics & tweets) story of the History of Medicine editathon can be found on our Storify page so please feel free to take a look: The History of Medicine editathon for ILW 2016

Happily, our editors’ efforts have now been rewarded with a nomination at the Innovative Learning Week 2016 awards. Out of nearly 300 ILW events, the award category we are shortlisted in states:

“Best Impact – Innovation doesn’t just happen in a week and these event organisers know it. They used the festival to support an idea which will have a great deal of impact outside of the classroom and for months – maybe even years! – to come.”

Our next Wikipedia editathon event will be for Women’s History Month and will coincide with a number of other International Women’s Day events in Edinburgh on Saturday 5th March. Feel free to sign up as new editors are very welcome and full training will be given. The event details are here: Art+Feminism Wikipedia Editathon for Women’s History Month

Thanks so much to everyone involved our last one for the History of Medicine for being a part of it. If you’ve still got something lurking in your sandbox, go on & be bold and publish it!

History of Medicine Wikipedia editathon 16-18th February

By Ewan McAndrew

On February 15, 2016

In Uncategorized

Following the successful editathon session on ‘Women, Science and Scottish History‘ that the University of Edinburgh ran with the assistance of the National Library of Scotland’s Wikimedian in Residence, Ally Crockford, during Innovative Learning Week in 2015, the UoE is running a brand new one for Innovative Learning Week 2016 on Tuesday 16^th February to Thursday 18^th February which Sara Thomas (WiR at Museums & Galleries Scotland) and I are hosting at room LG.07 in the David Hume Tower Building, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9JX.

I Want You For Wiki
CC-BY-SA

Feedback from attendees at last year’s editathon event:
“Fantastic week, one of the geeky best. Had a great time at the #ILW2015 #ILWeditathon, researching the #Edinburgh7”
“Shared delight in learning new things about the period & these people”
“Day 3 of #ILWeditathon and I’m getting hooked!”

The topic is on the History of Medicine on this occasion. It covers medical terms not currently covered on Wikipedia as well as historic Edinburgh locations which have played a large role in the history of medicine. It also broadens out to cover notable personages in the history of medicine such as the infamous Burke & Hare grave-robbers as well as the intriguing case of James Miranda Barry and continuing our work on those female pioneers of the medical profession such as ‘the Edinburgh 7’ whose stories continue to be under-represented on Wikipedia.

“A complete delineation of the entire anatomy engraved on copper” – Thomas Geminus CC-0

Here’s the event described in brief:

Unravel myths, discover truths and re-write the Wikipedia pages of Edinburgh’s infamous medical figures including gruesome body-snatcher William Burke and intriguing alumni Dr. James Miranda Barry. Come join us for all the fun and gain digital skills, learn how to edit Wikipedia, explore our history and harness the power of the web for public engagement.

There will be refreshments (inc. free lunch if you wish to edit in the morning and afternoon sessions), guest speakers, online materials to work with, physical materials to work with including, hopefully, the letter written in William Burke’s own blood. We’re also looking for some buildings associated with Edinburgh’s role in the history of medicine to be photographed and uploaded to Wikicommons.

You can attend one day or multiple days (or just half a day) if you so desire. Either in person or remotely joining in.

by the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. UofE Innovative Learning Week 2015 editathon UofE Innovative Learning Week 2015 editathon CC-BY-SA

University of Edinburgh Innovative Learning Week 2015 editathon CC-BY-SA

It’s open to all: new and experienced editors; UoE staff & students; members of the public. You’d be very welcome. Training will be provided in each session.

Full details on how to register for the event are on the event page here:

https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Creating_an_Open_Body_of_Knowledge_editathon_series

I have also now setup the Wikipedia Project Page for the University of Edinburgh residency with details of what it involves & what I’ll be up to including upcoming & past Wiki editathon events. The link to the Project Page is here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:University_of_Edinburgh

If you have any questions regarding the event, the residency or about collaborating on any projects then feel free to get in touch.

Hopefully see you there!

Editing Wikipedia is easy with Visual Editor

By Ewan McAndrew

On February 13, 2016

In Uncategorized

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.

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