Final report published

The six months are up and I’ve written up the final report on the project. Learn more about the goals, outcomes, challenges and recommendations in the final report.

My reflection:

It’s truly been an honor to work on this project. I had the opportunity to deepen relationships with fellow Wikipedians, with WikiEd, with academics I respect and honor, and with undergraduates. This is meaningful and inspiring. Thanks to being an IEG grantee, I was able to step into a leadership position and reflect thoughtfully on the process. The project accomplished both forecasted and unforeseen achievements. I am proud of the two learning patterns I wrote. Also thanks to this project, I had the opportunity to apply for and present at WikiConference USA. This was invigorating! I’d never met so many other Wikipedia editors and organizers in one place. That learning experience led to new connections, relationships, and understandings of the Wikipedia project, including developing a relationship with the Art+Feminism organizing team. My involvement in grappling with questions about media literacy and production, public knowledge projects, pedagogy, equality, gender, bias, pedagogy, platforms, and feminism — and taking action as a form of questioning — will be continuing and I’m more experienced to take on the next challenges that come my way. I am extremely grateful for the grants committee, and Wikipedia community, for seeing the value and importance of this project.~~~~

Learning pattern: feminists teaching with Wikipedia

I created a Wikimedia “learning pattern” on doing using Wikipedia’s gaps as feminist teaching tools. I’ll reshare it here:

Using Wikipedia’s gaps as feminist teaching tools

What problem does this solve?

University instructors who are not experienced Wikipedians may wish to engage with Wikipedia in their classrooms, but may not have the experience or time to do content editing assignments with their students. What are other ways that instructors, particularly feminist instructors, can teach with Wikipedia in a meaningful way?

What is the solution?

Instructors can marshal broader issues of concern around Wikipedia — examples include participation, harassment, and the neutrality principle — into classroom activities.

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Learning pattern: doing a close reading

I created a Wikimedia “Learning pattern” on doing close readings with academic experts. I’ll reshare it here:

Engaging non-Wikipedian academic experts to identify content gaps

What problem does this solve?

Academic subject-matter experts often don’t know where to begin on Wikipedia, nor have the time to learn. The process of learning the rules, procedures, etc, can be daunting. At the same time, academics are often very interested in contributing to the project and sharing what they know in order to improve the encyclopedia. Experts have valuable knowledge, how to better engage them in a way that doesn’t waste everyone’s time?

What is the solution?

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Debriefings with experts

In the last two weeks, I’ve held debriefing sessions with the five “expert” participants in the Gap Finding project. Each interview has lasted approximately one hour. The interviews have been guided by a series of questions that I wrote beforehand. While not every interview was identical, the questions were more or less the same across each conversation. I recorded the interviews and I will use them to guide the recommendations I make in the final report for developing a gap finding protocol.

Questions:

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December update

The goals for December were to finish student editing in the Critical Media Literacy course, attend their final presentations, and have the debrief session with the experts. The first two goals were achieved, however the debrief, and final write up and recommendations, were all pushed to January due to scheduling constraints among the participant experts.

Forty students completed the final Wikipedia editing project. They worked in groups of three students and edited 16 articles, one group created a new article. Because of the intensity of the quarter system, students completed the training and project in four weeks, rather than six or ten. They made a total of 358 edits, added 11,000 words, and since they’ve finished their contributions, their work has been viewed 147,000 times.

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Midpoint report

The successes and challenges of this project so far are chronicled in the midpoint report. I also created a Learning Pattern that provides concrete suggestions on working with academic experts in a way that will be meaningful to them, and to future editors.

October update

October has been an opportunity to reflect primarily through preparing, presenting, and getting feedback at the WikiConference USA. I also sought to deepen relationships with participants.

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September update

Here’s a repost of the project update from September. I’ll be posting a few topic specific posts in the next few days, including reflections on WikiConference USA, changing course with the brainstorming/list generating process, and what’s at stake in working with experts.

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The “bestiary of gaps” on Wikipedia

When it comes to the noble goal of creating an open, free repository of knowledge available for anyone to access, with the aim of being the “sum of all human knowledge,” there are a number of “gaps that hurt.” These gaps curtail, limit, even derail this endeavor, participants in the gap finding brainstorming session decided.

“We’ve got not just content gaps, but a bestiary of gaps,” surmised a participant.

Together, we documented six gaps:

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