This post was written by Stevie Benton, Wikimedia UK’s head of external relations
This weekend saw the latest in the series of Wikimania fringe events. This time, the focus was on the future of education – what role do the Wikimedia projects play in the education world?
The two-day event was attended by around 30 people from a variety of backgrounds, including teachers, academics and Wikimedians. The group explored several topics, including the Wikipedia Education Program and visions of the where the group would like the relationship between Wikipedia and education in one year, five years and ten years.
We were fortunate to be joined by Floor Koudijs from the Wikimedia Foundation and by LiAnna Davis and Jami Mathewson from the Wiki Education Foundation who all shared with us some excellent insight into how the Wikipedia Education Program works and its reach.
One thing that struck me as particularly interesting is the potential that the WEP has to address the gender gap on Wikipedia. Current estimates are that around 9-12% of Wikipedia editors are female. However, that percentages soars to 61% (and higher in some cases) when examining the WEP.
Digital literacy was a recurring theme throughout the two days of the event. If some way can be researched and implemented to encourage the development of these skills through the use and editing of Wikimedia projects, there’s the potential to deliver great impact.
The second day of the conference was spent with short presentations on various topics before breaking into groups to plan sessions for a pre-Wikimania education event to take place alongside the Hackathon at the Barbican on 6-7 August. Plans for those sessions were developing well and more information will be available soon.
More more details of the event, you can see the etherpad notes here. For more information about other upcoming fringe events, and the conference itself (including details of how to book your tickets) visit the main Wikimania website.
The opportunity came about as the result of the work that Wikimedia UK is doing with Demos in attempting to crowdsource a submission to the Commission on the theme of digital scrutiny. (If you haven’t participated yet, please get involved here, it’s open to everyone. Simply click the edit button and get stuck in.)
The session brought together people from the Commission with technology experts and activists to examine how digital technologies can encourage participation in the democratic process.
Something that was reinforced very quickly was the important distinction between between government – the collection of elected representatives that write and enact legislation – and Parliament, in this case the body as a whole, including the infrastructure and systems, and which was our main focus.
A number of themes emerged from the workshop but there were two that left the deepest impression upon me.
Firstly, that for digital democracy to work there needs to be a level of trust on the part of parliament – citizens must be trusted to make meaningful contributions to the debate and this means opening things up and encouraging participation.
Secondly, that when we break down the phrase “digital democracy” we realise that the digital part is actually pretty easy. There are plenty of tools that exist that could be successfully utilised to support democratic engagement, and building new ones if they were required wouldn’t be too difficult (relatively speaking, of course). It’s the democracy bit that’s difficult.
My own take on this is that we need to move away from the widespread feeling that democracy comes down to making a mark on a ballot paper every few years. For democracy to be effective, participation needs to shift away from the ballot box and into the every day processes that form a functioning and mature democracy. But those taking part need to be assured that their contribution is are meaningful and valued, even if their views don’t always win out.
There is a long way to go here before we get close to realising the potential that digital technologies offer to democracy. But the Commission is very serious about pushing forward change and opening up the democratic process to wider engagement through the use of digital. They should be applauded for this and, as citizens, we should be prepared to contribute our efforts towards making this successful.
For further reading, I recommend this excellent blog post by James Smith of the Open Data Institute. James was in the same working group as myself and his contributions to the debate were particularly insightful.
This blog post was written by John Cummings, Wikimania support at Wikimedia UK
Last weekend the Wikimania Fringe Free Culture event took place at the Barbican Centre with 20 people attending from a range of cultural organisations, Wikimedia chapters, open knowledge projects and members of the public.
Navino Evans demonstrating Histropedia
Saturday
A series of talks on topics related to open knowledge took place, presented by a wide range of speakers:
Further notes on talks are available on the event Etherpad here.
Sunday
Sunday was used as a space for discussion of open projects, sharing knowledge and planning future work. The day included a tour of Conservatory at the Barbican Centre by the events Manager. Further photos of the event are available here.
Tour of the Barbican Centre Conservatory
Future Wikimania events
There are a number of future Wikimania events, culminating in Wikimania on the 8–10 August at the Barbican Centre.
Tickets for Wikimania are available here, early bird tickets are available until July 1st, all fringe events are free to attend.
£55: Three-day ticket to Wikimania and hackathon
£45: Three-day ticket to Wikimania
£30: One-day ticket to Wikimania
Volunteering
There are many opportunities to get involved in Wikimania; we will need volunteers in the run-up to the conference and to help with the smooth running of Wikimania itself. For most tasks you don’t need to be a Wikipedia editor and you don’t need any experience – just a willingness to help! For more information see Your Wikimania Needs You!To register to volunteer at Wikimania please sign up here, for questions contact hera@wikimanialondon.org.
Some of the participants and trainers at the editathon
This post was written by Doug Taylor, Wikimedia UK volunteer
It all started in January when Dave Robertson, who works at Barclays Technology, emailed Jimmy Wales with an idea to get his colleagues at Barclays editing Wikipedia. Not just that, but he wanted to get more women involved in editing – and it would be a global event involving Barclays sites word-wide.
Jimbo was encouraging, even as he was warning of the dangers of editing on topics where a conflict of interest could occur. He introduced Dave to Jon Davies, CEO of Wikimedia UK, who asked me if I’d be interested in helping them out. I have no connection with Barclays and the ideas ticked all the boxes for me: finding new editors; engaging more women; a global reach; and plenty of scope for training.
So a few phone calls later I paid a visit the technology centre at Knutsford to meet Dave, Sarah Firth, Carol Morris, and the rest of the folks who were putting their efforts into the project. I soon grasped that Barclays has a staff development programme that encourages their staff to broaden their perspective, take on new skills and develop abilities like collaboration and research. The concept of global Wikipedia editathon ticked all those boxes for them as well, so we set to work in creating a structure for a large event that would span the globe on Thursday12 June.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the rapid response to my enquiry to WMF legal for permission to use Wikimedia trademarks for the internal publicity. Kudos to Andrei Voinigescu for giving me a positive reply within 10 hours!
I was keen to get editors registered and it turns out that’s a good idea from Barclays side as well. They were concerned with the possibility of somebody anonymously editing from the Barclays site and causing problems on Wikipedia with a consequent bad press for them. Having everyone who would take part register an account gave us some assurance that we could correlate edits with any problems that might occur.
I was also determined to make sure that editors would not go into the day “cold” so I proposed a series of sessions leading up to the editathon where we could spread the message about Wikipedia, teach the basics of editing and try to mitigate the steep learning curve of polices, conventions and conflicts that acts as such a huge barrier to becoming a Wikipedia editor. The first result was a launch day where I gave a presentation to interested staff at Knutsford and a video was made to advertise the event. This was followed by an in-person training session where I took about a dozen staff through a training session on basic editing.
It soon became apparent that the idea had taken off and a lot of interest was growing in Singapore, India, Lithuania and the USA and I wanted to encourage as many sites as possible to become self-sufficient, so finding active Wikimedians locally was sensible. Jon Davies knew a contact in India, Pranav Curumsey, and I put Arun and the Barclays team in India in contact with him. It took a little bit longer for the States, but Asaf Bartov at WMF suggested the NYC Chapter, and Newyorkbrad put me in contact with Richard Knipfel, who was able to liaise with Miles Dolphin at Barclays in NY.
Barclays uses WebEx for conferencing, and it was suggested I might like to use it to do training sessions for the far-flung new editors. I miss the feedback I would get from face-to-face training, but it seemed an interesting challenge. So sitting at home at 9 am in the morning. I connected via video and audio links to about sixty potential editors from Singapore and India and shared my browser with them. An hour later, I was reasonably confident that I’d managed to get across the main points of basic editing. Later that same day I repeated the exercise for around 40 participants from Lithuania and the East coast of the USA. By the time of the editathon, I’d done eight of those sessions covering ‘basic editing’, ‘more advanced topics’, and ‘what to write on Wikipedia’.
On the day, the preparation paid off. Harry Mitchell and Dan Haigh joined us for the event at the Barclays Technology Centre Radbooke, near Knutsford, and worked all day giving advice and encouragement to the new editors there. Around the world we had had 460 registrations of interest; around half of them showed up and edited on the day. There were 472 “saves” and 378 articles edited or created across 18 different language Wikipedias from 12 different Barclays sites. The topics edited ranged from ABBA to Zeng Jenlian.
I’d like to express my thanks to everyone who made the day a success. I’m convinced that the format works and that Wikimedia can forge links with commercial entities with the right sort of benefits for each. I’m now looking forward to a follow-up event at Barclays sometime soon.
Wikimedia UK and the Office for National Statistics have been working together to improve the public’s understanding of statistics through the improvement of and in some cases creation of Wikipedia articles which cover UK statistics. Wikipedia is a free, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia, editable by everyone, it is the largest encyclopedia ever written, available in 285 languages. It receives around 500 million unique visitors each month totalling 21 billion page views. The goal of the Wikimedia movement is for every single human being to be able freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
The Office for National Statistics Digital Publishing Division have been working with John Cummings, a Wikimedia community volunteer on a range of projects to help make statistics more accessible to a wider audience. John has been training ONS staff to improve and create Wikipedia articles that include UK statistics and educating staff about Wikimedia projects through presentations to ONS staff and statisticians from across government departments.
“Statistics are an essential part of understanding the world and the Office for National Statistics provides much of this vital information about the United Kingdom. We are very happy to work with them to make this information more available. Wikipedia is a resource everyone can contribute to and Office for National Statistics has a unique and valuable contribution to make to open knowledge through it’s statistics and the wonderful infographics that help people understand this information in different way.“
Jon Davies Chief Executive, Wikimedia UK
Andrew Clark, Head of Social Media at ONS and John have been making a number of infographics, produced by the ONS design team, available on Wikipedia through Wikimedia Commons which is made easy by the ONS’s Open Government License. The infographics are used on Wikipedia articles covering a range of subjects including Preterm birth, Lung Cancer, the Economy of the United Kingdom and Languages of the United Kingdom which receive over 400,000 views per month on Wikipedia.
“Working with Wikipedia has already helped us to extend the reach of our data and analysis beyond that of our expert users, through channelling accessible and innovative digital products. We hope that by continuing this relationship and involving our statistical community in the validation of ONS content on Wikipedia pages, we can ensure that statistics become trusted and accessible by all”
Matt Jukes Head of Digital Content, Office for National Statistics
How much did the UK spend on healthcare in 2012?
Avoidable mortality in England and Wales, 2001-2011
The number of civil servants employed in the UK in 2013 is 448,840
Contributions to the UK economy in 2011 by region
Prevalence of Limiting Long-Standing Illness or Disability, Great Britain, 2012
Sexual Identity in the UK, 2012
What barriers do people face when accessing work, transport, education and training?
Lung cancer, incidence, mortality and survival, England 1971 – 2011
About the Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is responsible for collecting and publishing statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. It also conducts the census in England and Wales every ten years.
About Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK is the local Wikimedia chapter covering the United Kingdom and supports volunteer editors of, and contributors to, Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons.
A sense that all citizens of a state have a stake, and a say, in the process of government is in some ways crucial to our sense of identity as citizens. It is something that history suggests we as a nation are both proud and protective of. People fought and died for the rights and responsibilities offered by democracy.
But there is something of a disconnect between the democratic process as it exists and the levels of public engagement with that process that democracy demands in order to be truly representative. There is more to a fully functional, healthy democracy than placing an X in a box on election day.
If the latest from the Hansard Society is any measure, democracy in the UK is in trouble. However, for quite some time there has been an expectation that the internet would welcome a new era of mass participation in the democratic process. Digital democracy is an idea which has been widely discussed, but successful implementation on any large scale remains elusive.
Some international initiatives have proved to be worthwhile, particularly when it comes to politicians and governments increasing their openness and transparency: one example being the Open Government Partnership. The challenge is finding ways to engage with large numbers of citizens in a meaningful way which gives them real power and influence over policy and legislation away from the ballot box.
This is where the wiki model can lend a hand. Wikipedia is the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. In just over 13 years it has grown exponentially and now boasts over 4.5 million articles in English, and more than 31 million articles in total across more than 280 languages. Behind the articles there is a vast community of people who write and edit content, share openly licensed images and – the area that’s most interesting in this context – write and enact policy.
We wondered if the community-driven ethos of Wikipedia could be replicated in a way that could make a meaningful contribution to the digital democracy landscape. (By the way, if you have an interest in this topic then Carl’s recent piece for Wired is a must-read.)
Wikipedia is by no means a democracy. It is not driven by a concept of the most popular idea, or the most popular position, being accepted, either as content or as policy. Rather, it is a consensus-driven process which is open to all. It is rare for either a Wikipedia article, or a Wikipedia policy, to truly be finished. The idea is that all contributions build on those that came before.
Demos and Wikimedia UK want to see if this open, consensus-driven process can work when applied to digital democracy. We have now jointly embarked on an ongoing attempt to take the collective know-how and experience of Wikipedia editors – Wikipedians – and attempt to crowdsource a submission to the Speaker’s call for evidence.
While I’m unsure if this has been tried before, early indications are that this can work. At the time of writing there have been more than 50 edits made to the page and its linked talk page. The call is open for anyone who would like to get involved, and I’d encourage you to do so. Simply follow this link, click the edit button and edit the copy. You can also view, and participate in, the discussion which is helping to shape the evidence, which is here.
What I find personally exciting about this is that neither Wikimedia UK nor Demos know what the finished evidence will look like. Neither organisation is trying to influence the course of the evidence, beyond encouraging as wide a body of participation as possible. It will reflect the collective, distilled wisdom of the crowd – which to me, is the essence of democracy.
This post was written by Daria Cybulska, Wikimedia UK’s Programme Manager
Earlier this year I was invited to participate in a “New Media Academy” initiative run by a City Culture Institute in Gdańsk, Poland. The Academy is an ambitious two year programme with regular events which started in May 2014, aiming to raise awareness and skills of culture sector professionals in Poland around online education and engagement.
It focuses on new media and showing the audience how they can use it creatively in their work – topics planned include using blogs, storytelling, issues around public domain and copyright considerations, and of course Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. The initiative is based on some projects already delivered by Medialab Gdańsk.
It’s the Wikipedia cooperation that I focused on in my afternoon workshop that took place on 29 May. The aim was to talk the group through possible models of cooperation with the Wikimedia movement, building up to the idea of hosting a Wikimedian in Residence. Being informed that the audience will be new to the topics, I had a somewhat tall order of explaining the idea behind openness, free licences, Wikipedia, GLAMwiki movement, and the residents.
The group was open to learning about these areas, with some real revelations along the way (“I can use the CC licensed images for free?”, “Wikipedia’s mission is similar to many cultural institutions’ aims!”, “I can see a whole history of contribution to an article?”). We worked through breaking down some of the resistance to Wikipedia (e.g. uncertainty about how incorrect content is dealt with), and looked at the positive aspiration of the project of making the sum of human knowledge available to all. During the brainstorm elements, the group was taken by the possibilities of various types of content being released and made available for use on Wikipedia. We have, however, felt that copyright considerations may be a big stumbling block in these ideas, which is why the copyright introduction session planned for 18 June was seen as a key one to attend.
One take away for me was that although many of the participants came from enthusiastic institutions who want to engage with their visitors, a focus on public engagement is yet to become an established trend in Polish cultural organisations. In many countries presenting Wikipedia as a way to reach out to wider audiences is received as a very powerful argument, and I feel in Poland institutions will progress towards such an approach.
The two-day event is open to all, but is especially suited to those who are digital artists and media creators, inventors and licensors, curators and archivists, lawyers and librarians, journalists and publishers, and anyone else interested in free culture and intellectual property.
The aim of the event is to gain greater understanding of open culture projects, to build closer ties between organisations and people interested in all aspects of open culture and to plan for future collaboration.
Day one, Saturday, is open for attendees to deliver talks about their open culture activities and how they relate to other open projects, ranging from 5 minutes to 20-30 minutes. Lightning talks can be held in reserve for unforeseen gaps in the programme.
Day two, Sunday, will have a focus on building and making digital tools, planning future projects, a session on funding applications and a “wikijam”.
This blog post was written by John Cummings, Wikimania support at Wikimedia UK and Harry Mitchell, Wikimedia UK volunteer.
Wikimania 2014 is a 2000+ person conference, unconference, festival, meetup, workshop, hackathon, and party, spread over five days in August 2014, preceded and followed by fringe events. It’s the official annual event of the Wikimedia movement, where you’ll discover all kinds of projects that people are making with wikis and open content, as well as meet the community that produced the most famous wiki of all, Wikipedia!
Attending Wikimania
The main event itself is held from the 8–10 August in and around The Barbican Centre in London, UK. All are welcome, whether you’re an expert, enthusiast, beginner or just curious! Early Bird Registration is available until June 15th, Single day tickets are £30, full conference and hackday tickets are £55, click here to register.
There are also a number of fringe events that are free to attend:
There are a number of local Wikipedia meetups being organised locally, a member of the Wikimedia UK Wikimania team will be available at each one to answer questions.
Volunteering opportunities
There are many opportunities to get involved in Wikimania; we will need volunteers in the run-up to the conference and to help with the smooth running of Wikimania itself. For most tasks you don’t need to be a Wikipedia editor and you don’t need any experience – just a willingness to help! We need volunteers to:
Talk to the public about Wikipedia
Teach people to edit Wikipedia
Moderate sessions (making sure the sessions run smoothly)
Tweet about the day’s events and spread the word via other social media
Video sessions and help with any technical issues
Direct people to and around the venue and to be on-hand in the hotels
Meet and greet speakers
Assist attendees as they arrive into the UK
Talk to the media
Staff the registration desk
Other general tasks to help with the smooth-running of the conference.
For volunteering opportunities at Wikimania please sign up here, for questions contact hera@wikimanialondon.org
Scholarships are available
If you’re based in the UK, or you’re a British citizen living abroad, and you would like financial support to attend Wikimania, Wikimedia UK may be able to provide you with a scholarship to help with your registration fee, or with the costs of travel and/or accommodation. Scholarship applications are open until the 15th June. For more details, including how to apply, please see this section on the Wikimedia UK water cooler.
For questions about Wikimedia UK scholarships please contact katie.chan@wikimedia.org.uk
The event featured a teleconference with Philippe Beaudette, the director of Community Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.
This post was written by Chris McKenna of the Wikimania support team
The Wikimania 2014 fringe programme kicked off with a successful first event on the 24 and 25 of May when the Barbican centre played host to a weekend of discussion about Social Machines.
The event featured a teleconference with Philippe Beaudette, the director of Community Advocacy at the Wikimedia Foundation.
Social machines are the interaction between humans and machines that produce output that would not be possible without both of them – Wikipedia is a large example. Discussions at the largely free-form event ranged over a broad variety of topics and included the granularity of Wikimedia projects and how both the whole and several portions can each be regarded as a social machine.
Also discussed were the many emergent aspects of Wikipedia – things that have organically grown up within and around the encyclopaedia rather than being planned. Examples include WikiProjects, the Signpost internal newspaper, chapters and thematic organisations, edit counters, Wikimedian associations such as inclusionists and deletionists, the various WikiFauna like trolls, gnomes and giants and real-word meetups.
Structure to the event was provided by the teleconferences with several key people in the Wikimedia Foundation:
The thing that most sticks in my mind from the event came from Philippe’s introduction to his Community Advocacy department when he noted that they deal with around 60 threats from people to harm either themselves or others. While most of those are fortunately blatantly false, Wikipedia is responsible for directly and indirectly saving lives.
The rest of the fringe programme should be just as good, if not better, than this event so come along and get involved.
