Page 50 – WMUK

Revitalising Wikipedia coverage of women scientists

This post was written by Edward Hands, Wikimedia UK volunteer Wikipedia trainer.

Could “Reanimating Ice-cold Rats” and “Resuscitating Hamsters” inspire Wikipedia editors to revitalise our coverage of pioneering women scientists?

This was one of many questions asked at a recent editathon and Wikipedia training session that I attended. Organised jointly with the Medical Research Council and the Royal Society, the event at the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR), Mill Hill, London had a full house (and a waiting list), 20 women and 3 men.

The event included a lunchtime talk and panel Q&A led by Professor Dame Athene Donald FRS, highlighting the many subtle and unconscious biases that make it harder for women to get to senior positions in science. Importantly, the Q&A drew attention to what we can all do to address these biases, such as encouraging more women to edit Wikipedia, and increasing our coverage of notable women in science.

The occasion was 25 July, Rosalind Franklin (of DNA fame)’s birthday, with cake cutting at 5pm (DNA spirals around the sides and her famous “photograph 51” on top) and NIMR goodie bags to reward attendees for their contributions.

All taking place against the backdrop of surely the best view from any London library. Expert support and access to a wide range of paper and online resources was provided by NIMR librarians Frank Norman and Patti Biggs, and Phoebe Harkins from the Wellcome Library.

New articles were started on the day for seven NIMR women: Brigid Balfour, Florence Durham, Mary Lobban, Marjorie Mussett, Delphine Parrott, Elizabeth Press and Audrey Smith.

And our first Did You Know (three more DYKs are in the review process) appeared on the Wikipedia home page on 1 August, garnering 1,770 page views:

“Did You Know that cryobiologist Audrey Smith’s scientific papers include “A Simple Method for Reanimating Ice-cold Rats and Mice” and “Resuscitation of Hamsters after Supercooling or Partial Crystallization?”

We could have mentioned how her accidental discovery of the first practical cryoprotectant molecule, glycerol, enabled the freezing of human red blood cells, but bringing small animals back from the dead is the better hook for a wider audience.

NIMR women biographies expanded most on the day included: Hilda Bruce, Rosalind Pitt-Rivers, Brigitte Askonas, Bridget Ogilvie, Rosa Beddington, Rosalind Franklin and Anne McLaren.

We’ve had excellent press coverage in The Guardian, Times Higher Education, Cambridge News, Athene Donald’s blog, as well as MRC and The Royal Society. Twitter activity (hashtag: #WISWIKI) and retweeting on the day itself helped too.

Our new editors will get credit for these DYKs on their talk pages, and can watch their articles grow, hopefully encouraging them to become regular contributors. They all agreed that they would do at least one edit a month, so we will be sure to give them a gentle nudge in early September.

EduWiki Conference 2013 – Call for proposals

This post was written by Dr Toni Sant, Education Organiser

Wikimedia UK’s second annual EduWiki conference will take place in Cardiff on 1 and 2 November 2013.

A recent white paper from TurnItIn, the online plagiarism-prevention service used widely across higher education in the UK, demonstrates in a very clear way the need for, and importance of, the conference.

TurnItIn claims that “Wikipedia has an outsized presence as a content source for student writing”. [1] The study is based on an analysis of over 112 million content matches from 28 million student papers submitted to TurnItIn between July 2011 and June 2012. 11% of these content matches are from Wikipedia. Interestingly, the same report is quick to explain that Wikipedia has academic merit in terms of educational value. The paper states that there is a need to “educate students that the true value of Wikipedia is to provide a curated summary on a topic, and that they should follow the sources and citations at the bottom of Wikipedia entries to verify the accuracy of the information and to uncover primary source material” [2].

The charity is now inviting proposals for papers, presentation, provocations and/or posters, especially ones addressing the issues highlighted by the TurnItIn white paper. Proposals for panels and round table discussions from groups of three or four participants are also welcome. Indicative topics include, but are not limited to:

* Wikipedia belongs in education, including Higher Education

* Wikipedia’s academic merit and educational value

* Examples of using Wikipedia in the high school, college or university classroom

* Ways to deter university students from plagiarizing Wikipedia

* Going beyond Wikipedia by engaging with any of the other major Wikimedia projects: Wikibooks, Wikispecies, Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikisource, Wikiversity, Wikidata, and Wikimedia Commons, among others.

Please email your proposal (including an abstract of up to 200 words) to education@wikimedia.org.uk by Monday 26 August 2013. All proposals should also include a brief biography of around 50 words.

Dr Toni Sant, Wikimedia UK’s Education Organiser, said: “This is an excellent opportunity for anyone involved in using or considering Wikipedia and/or other Wikimedia projects within an academic context, as well as others involved in open education in general, to meet colleagues across the UK and beyond working on related projects. We’re hoping to receive many exciting proposals and look forward to programming as many submission as possible at the conference itself.”

Queries about the conference or any other aspect of Wikimedia UK’s Education activities can be sent directly to Toni by emailing toni.sant@wikimedia.org.uk

Further details available on the Wikimedia UK website here

Notes:
——
[1] TurnItIn White Paper. ‘The Sources in Student Writing – Higher Education’, p.10
[2] ibid. p.11

Sphingonet and Wikipedia

This post was written by Richard Nevell.

On 10 July, four trainers from Wikimedia UK travelled to Oxford to meet a group of doctoral and post-doctoral researchers. The idea of helping the group learn to edit was first floated in February this year by Luc Henry. As with many of the charity’s events, a lot of planning and preparation went on behind the scenes, and Luc put in a lot of effort and helped with follow up. Myself, Toni Sant, Daria Cybulska, and Brian Kelly delivered the training.

Sphingonet is a programme for early career researchers investigating sphingolipids, bringing together people from five different countries. The group’s funding is provided by the European Union’s Marie Curie Actions research fellowship programme. Part of Sphingonet’s work includes outreach activities, and few methods have potentially as much impact as editing Wikipedia. The new Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland was also there. It was an opportunity for her to see a training session in progress, see what worked and what didn’t, in preparation for her own activities. Hopefully we left a good impression! Brian had attended a recent editathon about Queen Victoria’s journals, and wanted to get more involved with introducing people to editing.

As this was a group of researchers, the main role of the trainers was to explain the technicalities of editing and helping people get to grips with the user, rather than how to identify a reliable source. There were challenges, such as teaching two streams, one with the visual editor and one using wikicode, but on that sunny day in Oxford with a friendly and eager group it was easy to overcome. Soon enough they were editing with ease, though question about the copyright on diagrams of chemical formulas tested the trainers’ knowledge to the limits!

Chatting with attendees on a one-to-one basis there was real enthusiasm for Wikipedia and its potential. It is second nature for people to turn to the website when quickly looking something up, and they felt it was important that such a high profile website should be high quality. Importantly, feedback suggests that people really wanted to keep editing. And with the researchers being multilingual, there’s always the chance they may edit Wikipedia in other languages. Only time will tell if they stick around, but hopefully that day in Oxford helped more people understand how Wikipedia is made, what goes into it, and what people can do to improve it.

Mike Peel resigns as a Trustee of Wikimedia UK

It is with regret that Wikimedia UK announces that Mike Peel has resigned as a trustee of the charity.

Mike’s contributions both to the charity and to the wider Wikimedia movement are widely admired and respected. He became a Wikimedian in 2005 and was instrumental in the formation of Wikimedia UK. He has served on the charity’s Board continuously since its inception in 2008 performing in the roles of Chair and Secretary at various times. His contributions are far too numerous to list here – in fact it would be easier to list those projects he hasn’t been involved in.

Mike Peel, former trustee of Wikimedia UK, said: “Wikimedia UK has come a long way over the past five years and I am very proud to have played my part in its development. Wikimedia UK has faced some serious challenges over the past year and I wish the Board the best in dealing with the challenges of the future.”

Chris Keating, Chair of Wikimedia UK, said: “Mike is one of the people without whom Wikimedia UK wouldn’t exist. His good sense, dedication and hard work have been immensely important to the Board, as has his profound belief in the Wikimedia movement’s vision and values. He has played a particularly pivotal role in the last few years as Secretary and he will be greatly missed.”

Jon Davies, Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK, said: “Mike’s belief in the mission of Wikimedia UK is breathtaking – he has done every job there is to do and completely deserves his break from the board – we look forward to continuing to work closely with him.”

Mike is looking forward to being able to put more of his energy into the Wikimedia Foundation’s Funds Dissemination Committee, and also returning to contributing to the Wikimedia projects. He will also remain active as a volunteer with Wikimedia UK on projects such as our Llwybrau Byw / Living Pathways project.

Twentieth century culture and Wikimedia UK

This post was written by Jonathan Cardy, Wikimedia UK GLAM Organiser

A cafe covered in turkeys and a ballet that the critics hailed a turkey; two very different stories from near opposite ends of the twentieth century.

As one might expect of an Internet-based encyclopaedia that has only been around since 2001, Wikipedia has some large gaps when it comes to the culture of the pre-Internet age. We are working hard to address this, and one way is via collaborations with cultural institutions, using their archives and other resources. Another is to partner with like-minded organisations who are releasing content under open licenses.

The Royal Opera House very kindly hosted an editathon for us, providing all the classic ingredients for a great editathon: WiFi, plenty of tables, an archivist with collections of press clippings and other material, and the most opulent setting and poshest sandwiches we’ve yet had for such a do. A dozen assorted ballet buffs and Wikipedians set to and created several articles on ballets from the second half of the twentieth century. Including one we’ve started on a ballet where the dancers wore masks that restricted their vision as much as their “bloated costumes” did their movement, in a performance that the critics acknowledged was loved by the audience as much as it nauseated their more refined tastes. We can only commend the fairmindedness of the Royal Opera House in archiving such scathing reviews.

The Turkey Cafe is an Art Nouveau building in Leicester, somehow only listed as Grade II by English Heritage. We have just received a number of images of it and many other architectural gems from the Partage Plus project of Europeana and the Collections Trust. Discussions are ongoing and there could be thousands more images to come from that source.

Two very contrasting projects, both involving outreach to the cultural sector, and both reminding us that the twentieth century wasn’t just about minimalism and form following function. Especially when you want art that the public will love.

Ashley Van Haeften steps down from Wikimedia UK board

Wikimedia UK announces that Ashley Van Haeften (User:Fae) has decided to stand down as a trustee of the charity with immediate effect.

Fae has made significant contributions to the Wikimedia movement and our charity since he was first elected to the board in April 2011, serving as our Chair from April 2012 to August 2012.

Wikimedia UK extends its thanks and appreciation to Fae for all of the time, effort and expertise he has contributed to the charity over the past two years. We hope that he will continue to actively participate in the activity of the chapter as a member and we wish him well for the future.

The board will discuss co-opting a replacement trustee and an announcement will follow in due course.

Notes from a Wikimedian in Residence

This post was written by John Cummings, Wikimedian in Residence for the Science Museum and Natural History Museum

I’m the Wikimedian in Residence for the Science Museum and Natural History Museum, the Science Museum invited me to work with them share their knowledge with a wider audience. I love Wikipedia and I think you should too, I love it because of how it’s made and who reads it, I know it’s not perfect but we can all work together to make it better.

How Wikipedia is made

How Wikipedia works, in the voices of a few of those who make it

Wikipedia is written entirely by volunteers, there are 100,000 regular contributors. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, you don’t even need a username, it sounds like a terrible idea but it works, it’s the biggest encyclopedia ever made and is available in 285 languages. It’s funded by donations and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco.

Museums spend a great deal of time, money and effort digitising their collections and want the same thing as Wikipedia, to educate people.

“The Science Museum Group’s mission is to make sense of the science which shapes our lives, help create a scientifically literate society and inspire the next generation”

The Science Museum Group’s Strategic Ambitions 2012 – 2022

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing

Jimmy Wales, Co Founder of Wikipedia

The National Media Museum recently released around 400 images under a Creative Commons license. By releasing their images they’re able to reach a huge worldwide audience on Wikipedia.

The Science Museum has agreed to release 50 images under a Creative Commons attribution license from it’s collection. If you would like to suggest educationally useful images from either the Science and Society Picture Library or Collections Online please email Wikimedian@nhm.ac.uk.

Who reads Wikipedia

Probably you do and most people you know. Wikimedia projects including Wikipedia receive around 21 billion page views per month, this works out at around 1/2 million views a minute.

Wikipedia is an example of open knowledge, information that can be freely accessed, shared, copied, changed and built upon, it’s these rules (called a Creative Commons license) that allows people to create educational resources together free of restrictions.

Many people in the developing world have no access to the internet apart from on their mobile phones but can’t afford the data charges, Wikipedia Zero gives completely free acces to Wikipedia 330 million people.

The wonderful work by Sugata Mitra shows that 10 year old children who could not speak English in a remote village in India can in 4 months with no instruction, just persistance and encouragement reach the same level of understanding of DNA replication in English as their peers in a rich private school in New Delhi.

Jack Andraka is 16 years old, using only open access journals, Wikipedia and a lot of searching online Jack created a pancreatic cancer detection method that is 26,000 times less expensive (costing around three cents), over 400 times more sensitive than the current diagnostic tests and 168 times faster, taking only five minutes to run.

Jack Andraka talks to Dr. Francis S. Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health about how he created his test

Wikipedia is where 500 million people are looking for information every month, we can all work together to make it as good as possible.

How to contribute

There’s lots of ways to be involved in open knowledge, one of the simplest is to contribute to Wikipedia. It’s easy to contribute and you can’t break it. You can get started by clicking here to edit an article or click here to upload photos you’ve taken to Wikimedia Commons so they can be used on Wikimedia projects.

“We have lived in this world where little things are done for love and big things for money. Now we have Wikipedia. Suddenly big things can be done for love.”

Clay Shirky

Canadian Copyright Collection from the British Library on Wikimedia Commons

This post was written by Andrew Gray and Philip Hatfield and was originally published on the blog of the Wikimedia Foundation here

July 1st was Canada Day, and Wikimedia UK and the British Library announced the release of 2,000 historic photographs of Canada.

Since September 2012, we’ve been working to digitise a collection of historic Canadian photographs and release them onto Wikimedia Commons and into the public domain. The collection itself was acquired between 1895 and 1924 and consists of photographs supplied to support copyright deposits by Canadian photographers between those years. This came about through an arcane piece of colonial law, known snappily as the Colonial Copyright Law, which sought to extend British copyright protection across the empire, while also ensuring the collection of published material from these same areas. In practice, the law was a failure; only a few territories ratified it and even fewer actually deposited materials. Until 1925, however, Canada did implement the law and the Ministry of Agriculture effectively administrated the collection of copyright deposits. A copy of every item was sent to Ottawa and to London, where it was archived by the British Museum and then neglected for decades.

Materials collected from Canada included printed books, sheet music, maps and, of course, photographs. While the photographs were seen as trivial and undervalued at the time, what can now be perceived through the collection is a broad and human view of Canada at a crucial point in its history; a thirty year period when the Confederation developed politically, economically and socially, while garnering an international reputation. The collection itself provides views on this changing nation, from Vancouver to Halifax, with many unknown camera workers alongside well-known figures such as Frank Micklethwaite or William Notman.

All of this combines to create a strange mix of photographic subjects. Photographs of soldiers leaving for World War I are filed alongside images of cute kittens and men wrestling bears; trains are depicted steaming across the nation while boats continue to ply the water-ways; major cities are shown rapidly growing, while new settlements make their first marks in the dirt; and Eastern European immigrants rub shoulders with the First Nations.

Since Monday marked the 146th anniversary of Canada’s Confederation, it seemed an appropriate time to note the upload of the collection to Wikimedia Commons. There are currently just over 2,000 photographs uploaded, each with a duplicate full-resolution TIFF copy, with more to come in the following weeks. All the images are in the public domain, and are freely available for use and reuse – please, enjoy!

You can see more details on the collection on Wikimedia Commons.

Philip Hatfield (Curator, Canadian Collections, British Library) and Andrew Gray (former Wikipedian in Residence, British Library) Funding for the project was given by Wikimedia UK and by the British Library Eccles Centre for American Studies.

Painting from Commons to feature in new book

A painting of “A Lane at Hamstead, Staffordshire” by English painter William Ellis is to feature in a new book after being re-discovered on Wikimedia Commons.

Andy Mabbett, who has been working as an independent Wikipedian in Residence at The New Art Gallery Walsall, found the out of copyright image and brought it to the attention of the editors of “Flora of Birmingham and the Black Country” who were very keen to use the image in their book.

This is a great example of how open content can add value to any project.

The book is being published by the local Botanical Society in collaboration with the Wildlife Trust and EcoRecord with profits being used to help preserve local habitats.

If you’re interested in buying a copy of the book please email enquiries@ecorecord.org.uk

Wikipedia to celebrate Rosalind Franklin’s birthday

An animated GIF showing the double helical structure of DNA

Wikimedia UK is working together with the Royal Society and the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) to celebrate the birthday of Rosalind Franklin, the scientist whose work laid the foundations for the discovery of the structure of DNA.

This special event on Thursday 25 July in Mill Hill, London, features an opportunity to learn how to edit Wikipedia with a focus on articles about women in science. There is also a panel discussion led by eminent female scientists including Professor Dame Athene Donald of Cambridge University and a presentation on the life and work of Rosalind Franklin.

This event is part of a series that is planned to celebrate the centenary of the Medical Research Council and all are welcome. Attendees will have access to a variety of excellent sources from, amongst others, the MRC, The Royal Society and the Wellcome Trust. We will have trainers available to take you through editing Wikipedia, and librarians able to explain more about the collection.

It’s free to take part but pre-booking is required. You can reserve your space here. For more information please contact Daria Cybulska, Wikimedia UK’s Programme Manager – daria.cybulska@wikimedia.org.uk

You can read more about the initiative here and during the event join us on Twitter using #WISWIKI