Presentation by Brian Kelly, UKOLN on 25 October 2012 for an Open Access Week event at the University of Exeter

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Session facilitated by Brian Kelly and Simon Grant, Cetis at the Cetis 2014 conference: Building the Digital Institution

Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond

Event hashtag: #cetis14

Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond

Brian KellyInnovation AdvocateCetisUniversity of BoltonBolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: ukwebfocus@gmail.comTwitter: @briankellyBlog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/

Slides and further information available at http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/cetis-2014-open-knowledge-wikipedia-and-beyond/

Event hashtag: #cetis14

Simon GrantCetisUniversity of BoltonBolton, UK

Contact DetailsEmail: asimong@gmail.comTwitter: @asimongBlog: http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/asimong/Cetis Web site: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/

About the Facilitators (1)Brian Kelly:

• Innovation Advocate, Cetis, University of Bolton

Involvement in Wikipedia and Wikimedia UK:

• Created first article in 2004• Wikipedia training / edit-a-thons since

2013• Accredited Wikipedia trainer• Member of Wikimedia UK• Recent talks & workshops on:

Wikipedia in UK HE at EduWiki Serbia 2014

Wikipedia for librarians, Cilip Wales Wikipedia for researchers, SpotOn 2013

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About the Facilitators (2)

Simon Grant:

• Senior Researcher and Learning Technology Advisor, Cetis, University of Bolton (0.5)

• http://www.simongrant.org/home.html

Involvement, not in Wikipedia, but “beyond”:

• E-portfolio-related since 1995 – book 2009• Standardization (& Cetis) since 2002• Skills (and values) since 2004• InLOC (skill etc. frameworks) 2011 – 2013• Extensive experience of consensus working in

many contexts

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About the Session

Wikipedia is great resource for open education, but what challenges need to be faced to make it into an even more valuable educational resource? It remains the most significant encyclopaedic reference based in user generated content which seeks to develop an “open commons” based on consensus approaches and use of Wikipedia’s “Five pillars” principles which includes content being provided from a neutral point of view.

Participants with no experience of Wikipedia editing will be invited to create a Wikipedia user profile, and to understand the basics of creating and editing Wikipedia content. Experienced Wikipedia editors will have the option of sharing a lightning talk on what they consider to be its most significant challenges.

The session presenters’ view of the challenges includes a skewed demographic of editors, and a culture that can too easily descend into edit wars, and conflict between “inclusionists” and “deletionists”. Can we envisage changes to make Wikipedia better, or that could seed a better alternative? Could aspiring editors be required to learn and prove their understanding of the governance principles before being allowed to edit? Can consensus process be trained? And would different approaches such as those taken by GitHub, the P2P Foundation, etc. help to improve the culture?

The session will raise awareness of the key issues with Wikipedia, and prepare participants for more effective use of Wikipedia as consumer and author, and perhaps even as reformer.

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About You

In brief:• Give your name, institution and area

of work• Summarise what you’d like to gain

from the session

Anyone interested in giving a brief talk today?

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Draft Timetable Subject to changeTime Session

Wikipedia: Opportunities and Challenges

13.30 Introduction

13.40 About you

14.00 Opportunities provided by Wikipedia

14.30 Identifying and addressing the challenges

15.00 Coffee break

Beyond Wikipedia

15.45 Introduction

16.00 Open knowledge & open governance

16.45 Review

17.00 Session finishes

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About You

Who:• Has a Wikipedia account?• Created a user profile?• Updated an article?• Created an article?

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A Wikipedia Account in 30 SecondsClick here from any Wikipedia page

Creating a Wikipedia account:• It can be done in 30 seconds

Feel free to create an account and profile this during this session

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Create a User Profile (in a minute)

Nancy Graham’s user profile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Msnancygraham

User: msnancygraham

Use search box as a quick way to find user profiles

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Create a User Profile

Nancy Graham’s user profile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Msnancygraham

User: msnancygraham

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Today’s Goal : Create a User Profile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Lawsonstu

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About You

Who:• Has looked at the history of Wikipedia articles?• Has contributed to a talk page?• Has addressed cleanup requests?

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Is Wikipedia Relevant in HE?

The problem we’re facing:

Wikipedia in the library - the elephant in the (reading) room? Nancy Graham and Andrew Gray, LILAC 2014

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Is Wikipedia Relevant in HE?

The opportunity we have:

Wikipedia in the library - the elephant in the (reading) room? Nancy Graham and Andrew Gray, LILAC 2014

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Why Wikipedia is ImportantFrom Wikimedia UK

https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Expert_outreach

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Eduwiki (UK) 2013

Eduwiki conference:• Held in Cardiff on 1-2

Dec 2013• Second EduWiki UK

conferenceCovered:

• Case studies from higher education and schools

• Broader considerations

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Wikipedia: the Opportunities

Group discussion 1• What opportunities can Wikipedia provide:

For learners? For academics and learning support

staff? For the institution? For others?

• How should we go about ensuring that such opportunities are achieved?

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Wikipedia: the Challenges

Group discussion 2• What barriers to effective use of Wikipedia

can we expect: For learners? For academics and learning support

staff? For the institution? For others?

• How should we go about addressing these barriers?

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Wikipedia: Challenges in Editing

Group discussion 3• What challenges can we

expect in updating existing articles?

• How would we address these barriers?

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Wikipedia: our Conclusions

Group discussion 4• What conclusions regarding use of

Wikipedia in learning have we reached?

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Additional Slides

Additional slides on• Two case studies from EduWiki 2013• Wikimania 2014• Wikipedia principles

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Two Case Studies

Summary of two case studies presented at EduWiki 2013:

• Safe Use of Wikipedia in the Transition from School to University, Lisa Anderson and Nancy Graham, University of Birmingham (now Roehampton)

• Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages, Humphrey Southall, University of Portsmouth

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Outreach work by University of Birmingham Library

• Demonstrate information literacy approaches to school pupils

• Students surprised that Wikipedia was shown

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Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages

This was the assignment (see “Telling the stories of rural England with Wikipedia” )

Humphrey Southall at EduWiki conference 

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Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages

Notice how:• Neutral Point of View principle was addressed• Students introduced to concept of citations

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Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages

Example of article chosen for updating by student

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Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages

Article after updating

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Introducing Students to Independent Research through Editing Wikipedia Articles on English Villages

Students learn about researching and citations

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Wikimania 2014

Wikimania 2014 will be held in London in August 2014

Wikimania 2014, annual international conference, London 8-10 August 2014.

The Five Pillars

Fundamental principles by which the Wikimedia community operates...Wikipedia:

1. is an encyclopedia2. is written from a neutral point of view3. is free content that anyone can

edit / use/ modify / share4. editors should respect each other5. does not have any firm rules

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Key Principles for Content (1)

No original researchAll research must come from published sources e.g.

• Peer-reviewed journals • Peer-reviewed books• University-level textbooks• Magazines, journals and books published by

respected publishing houses• Mainstream newspapers

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Key Principles for Content (2)Neutral Point of ViewContent should be provided from a neutral point of view:

• If your viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with reference to commonly accepted reference texts;

• If your viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents;

• If your viewpoint is held by an extremely small minority, then — whether it's true or not, whether you can prove it or not — it doesn't belong in Wikipedia, except perhaps in some ancillary article.

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ANY QUESTIONS?

Cartoon

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Questions?

Any questions, comments, …?

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This presentation, “Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond” by Brian Kelly, Cetis is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 LicenceNote the licence covers most of the text in this presentation. Quotations may have other licence conditions. Images may have other licence conditions. Where possible links are provided to the source of images so that licence conditions can be found.

Slides and further information available athttp://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/events/cetis-2014-open-knowledge-wikipedia-and-beyond/

Licence and Additional Resources