Women in German Studies 2017
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On 22 June 2017, Martin Poulter delivered a two and a half hour training workshop in Wikipedia editing to fourteen academics and graduate students. The session was on the first day of an open conference about Women In German Studies (WIGS). We discussed Wikipedia's use as a platform for informing a wide audience, went through the mechanics of editing and communicating with each other, and briefly discussed Wikisource as a way of sharing primary texts and original translations of those primary texts.
WIGS was established in 1988 to bring together female Germanists in Great Britain and Ireland and to support them in all aspects of their professional life. Follow their blog at womeningermanstudies.wordpress.com. My especial thanks to Henrike Lähnemann, Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics, and Cyd Sturgess, the WIGS Postgraduate Representative.
Of the 14 attendees, a couple did not have laptop computers: they observed hands-on editing over a neighbour's shoulder.
Evaluation
13 forms collected
Please rate the quality of the following.
1= Not satisfying/ useful. 5= Very satisfying/useful.
- The workshop in general
4 5 5 4 4 5 5 4 4 5 3 5 5 Mean: 4.5
- Content
4 5 5 4 4 5 5 4 4 5 [blank] 4 5 Mean: 4.5
- Trainers
4 5 5 4 5 5 5 4 4 5 [blank] 5 5 Mean: 4.7
- Materials available
3 5 4 [blank] 4 5 5 4 4 5 [blank] 5 5 Mean: 4.5
- Your confidence to edit Wikipedia
3 5 4 3 4 4 4 3 5 4 [blank] 5 4 Mean: 3.7
- Your understanding of Wikipedia
2 5 4 3 3 5 4 4 5 4 [blank] 5 4 Mean: 3.7
How likely are you to continue editing?
3 4 5 5 4 3 5 3 4 5 2 5 4 Mean: 4.0
- Comments
- This does not depend on the quality of the workshop
Please write three words/expressions which describe this workshop for you
One comment by someone who "would prefer [their] comments not to be used in future Wikimedia UK publicity" is marked with a +.
- New information; good visual examples; missing handout
- new knowledge; new way for visibility; basic information
- informative; fun; interactive
- interesting; helpful; friendly
- informative; important; inspiring
- useful; interesting; informative
- helpful +
- fun; interactive; interesting
- interesting; sth I have been wanting to learn about; useful
- inspiring; interesting; giving basic informations
- inspiring; useful; informative
- [2 blank]
Tell us at least one thing that would have improved this workshop for you
- less audience interaction/ questions to the audience
- a hand-out or more information in advance
- I should have got people to the front earlier
- More time to practice the skills we had learned
- My battery life :(
- how using wWikipedia edits is useful to for academia
- Some notes/ instructions to follow when starting out as an editor, after the session.
- [6 blank]
- Thank you! I really enjoyed this session and it made me much more aware of what Wikipedia does!
- An interesting and informative workshop that gave a good insight into the primary tools you need to edit & create content!
- If time had allowed, it would have been very interesting to discuss how to pass on the information to students.
- Get to the practical side earlier might be useful.
- It would have been helpful to use the group better - e.g. identify in advance who has experience and make them share their knowledge.
- Dataprotection! Why ask for email addresses etc. to share with the US?! Questions unanswered/ unclear: when is an article online? What exactly is a sandbox? More information on copyright & problems/ criticism about Wikipedia/ open source.
- MLP note: I'm always happy to have this discussion, and we've discussed all these things at previous events, but I don't think these questions were asked in the session. There was a long discussion of copyright in the session: arguably too long, going by some of the other feedback.
- [7 blank]