UK Wikimedian of the Year 2018
2018 Wikimedians of the Year
Gwenno Elin Griffith & Eiri Angharad!
“Gwenno & Eiri set up the Wici Caerdydd monthly meet up in Cardiff after just 2 hours of training, and have now been successfully running monthly edit-a-thons for over a year. These target Welsh speakers and are mostly attended by students and young Welsh people living in Cardiff. They have worked with Menter Iaith Cardiff to build a strong base of contributors and events are often attended by 10 or more contributors. They provide training and support to all new editors and have organized a number of special themed events including a Wiki-Health edit-a-thon and more recently, a Wici-pop edit-a-thon, aimed at improving content about Welsh language pop music, In November 2017 they secured funding from the Welsh government to help them cover costs and keep the events running and they're work has been an inspiration to others. For example there are now groups of individuals in other parts of Wales looking to replicate their success. Wici Caerdydd is a sustainable community led movement which specifically looks to improve coverage of underrepresented topics in Welsh - a minority language, and it's success is souly down to its founders and organizers Gwenno and Eiri.”
Wikimedian of the Year: Honorable Mention to Sara Thomas!
"Sara Thomas has been a fantastic advocate for open knowledge and the wikimedia foundation over the past few years and all her good efforts have now culminated in the creation of the post of Scotland Programme Coordinator where she is going to continue to lead the grow the wikimedia community in Scotland."
"Sara Thomas epitomises the very best of the Wikimedia movement; committed, compassionate, egalitarian, enthusiastic, inspiring. Moving from being the 2nd ever Wikimedian in Scotland at Museums and Galleries Scotland to securing a role supporting Scottish public libraries, her commitment and example helped inspire takeup in both the education and cultural heritage sectors. Now her efforts have resulted in becoming the new Scotland Programme Co-ordinator for Wikimedia UK, a role which she helped create through generating demand through helping increase the ever-expanding ScotWiki community."
Partnership of the Year 2018
The University of Edinburgh!
“To quote from our impact report... Edinburgh University is becoming a strong advocate of a Wikimedian in Residence within a university, spreading the message at relevant sector conferences, working with the University of Glasgow, and connecting with the Open Education team at the Université Catholique de Louvain. The resident is facilitating dialogue between the National Library of Wales and Edinburgh University’s Digital Library with a view to increasing GLAM wiki work. In autumn 2017, The Edinburgh University residency was extended for a further year (to January 2019), again from internal budgets."
“The leaders of this masters programme fully embraced the Wikipedia way when they used the translation of Wikipedia articles from English into other languages as coursework. They interacted productively with WMUK staff and volunteers, and encouraged their students to participate in the content-curation process of Wikipedia proactively, rather than to rely on the help of WMUK people to fix their articles. This course both trains students to edit Wikipedia and uses the strength of the English Wikipedia's content base to enrich other language editions of Wikipedia, and sets a good example for future classroom exercises to follow.”
“This year, the University of Edinburgh have held numerous excellent training sessions, encouraging new users to engage with Wikimedia. This year, the University’s Library and University Collections taken the decision for Gavin Willshaw, Digital Curator, to explore sharing content. As well as having Gavin and Ewan work on Wiki, they also have a student intern for the summer, and have so many staff now trained and using Wikimedia in the classroom. Ewan's residency is more broadly an inspiration and a very useful point of learning for others - I personally have been able to increase our work with Wikidata and reignite talks about academia and Wikipedia because of his resources and help.”
“The work done by the University of Edinburgh continues to lead the way in Scotland in terms of Higher Education engagement with Wikimedia, and has prompted enquiries from a number of other universities and organisations, including Napier, NHS Lothian, SWOP, and the Universities of Stirling and Teesside, showing impact within and outwith Scotland. He is inundated with requests for work outside the University - to the point that he now has to refuse. (although handily, we've got a new Scotland Programme Coordinator to take those forward now...) Ewan's presented at a number of conferences, including #OER18, and after years of hard work, there are now a number of individuals at the University who are able to lead their own Wikimedia events, showing that we're beginning to get sustainability.
The recent publication "Does a Formal Wiki Event contribute to the Formation of a Network of Practice ? A Social Capital Perspective on the Potential for Informal Learning", inspired by editathons at the University over the years, should and hopefully will add to the evidence base surrounding Wikimedia engagement and informal learning.
Melissa Highton is emphatic about wishing to share knowledge with other partners in Higher Education; Anne-Marie Scott's work with Wikimedia has influenced her work with the Mansfield Traquair and the preservation of Phoebe Traquair's at-risk work elsewhere in the city; Lorna Campbell's work with ALT Scotland, Open Scotland and WMUK continue to bring together educational communities and help attract additional partners to engage with Wikimedia. And there are so many others.... Lucas gave us the best soundbite ever - that being a Wikimedian, for him, is about being an "activist of knowledge". I'm going to be using that in presentations for a Looooooong time.
Ewan is master of the amusing gif.
I keep on and on using their video resources to help other institutions (including the University of Stirling / Library & Archives) understand the benefits of engaging with Wikimedia. They are committed to gender gap work, holding regular Women in Red editathons, and I've just seen that they've started planning for this year's Ada Lovelace Day.
Their success is absolutely key to the development of the Wikimedia community and its work in Scotland - and I feel it's right and proper that they be recognised for that.”
& Honorable mention to WiciMôn!
“I've been very impressed to read about Aaron Morris's work with schools on the Welsh Wikipedia, creating a range of really diverse content and now integrating the use of Wikipedia in the Welsh 6th form curriculum. A great achievement!”
Positive Wikimedian of the Year 2018
Alice White!
“Alice has never been less than brilliant since she first engaged with the Wikimedia community. Her positivity, preparedness and advocacy has inspired so many since her residency began; whether it is chemistry students/staff, school pupils or even the Mayor of London. Invariably, all succumb to the logic and articulacy of her arguments and the persuasiveness of her positive vision of the future of Open Knowledge.”
& Honorable mention to Andrew Davidson
“Andrew has remotely supported every event that he hasn't been able to attend in person, and gives such warm welcomes and support to new editors. He takes the time to keep up with events, and to patiently and enthusiastically share his expertise on Wikipedia with others. Many new pages would not exist without his support to help new editors who are from communities that have not previously felt welcome to edit until - his contribution to breaking down those barriers is invaluable, and we Wikimedians in the UK are lucky to have him.”
Up & Coming Wikimedian of the Year 2018
Delphine Dallison!
“Delphine joined the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) as the Wikimedian-in-Residence in April 2018. This is a part-time role (0.6FTE) with a focus on training librarians to lead editathons with community groups to boost local Scottish content on Wikipedia. In the few months Delphine has been in post she has hit the ground running. Delphine has delivered training for librarians in Inverness, Dundee and Glasgow, presented on her project at the annual CILIPS (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals Scotland) conference and the annual SCURL (Scottish Confederations of University and Research Libraries) showcase. Delphine has also organised a meeting for the Project Steering group which chaired by Professor Peter Reid from the Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen. Delphine has developed training materials and also met and visited a number of individual library services such as Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and the Ayrshires ( to name but a few) to support staff taking citations forward. Delphine has also met with Scottish Book Trust to look at how collaborative working can take place moving forward. Delphine has also engaged with the University Libraries in Scotland with a view to promoting activity there. Over the next year Delphine will be working with public libraries, university libraries and Scottish Book Trust amongst others such as the Women's Library to promote the range of wikimedia resources and develop content for Wikipedia. Delphine's personal style, popularity within the world of libraries, enthusiasm and knowledge of the "wiki" world make her without a doubt the Wikimedian to Watch in 2018.”
“Delphine's been a volunteer for a long time now, but as a newly-appointed Wikimedian in Residence I think that she's about to come into her own. With a background in both libraries and makerspace outreach and education, she's the perfect person to take the Scottish Library and Information Council partnership forward. Every time I speak to her she's got new ideas about how to engage libraries, library staff and users, and I don't think I've ever seen her without a smile on her face.”
& Honorable mention to Nour Geres
"For organising all alone tons of dentistry related WM events and editing communities at Universities in the UK (Dundee), Canada, NY, and in Egypt”
“With the amount of projects she has in plans, I can't wait to see what else she comes up with. It's innovative and very engaging stuff too.”