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;Sphingonet and Wikipedia
;EduWiki Conference 2013 – Call for proposals


[[File:July 2013 Sphingonet training event (6).JPG|300px|thumb|right|Daria Cybulska helping people learn how to edit]]
[[File:Annie_Lin_and_Charles_Matthews_at_EduWiki_2012.JPG|250px|thumb|right|A snapshot of some EduWiki 2012 attendees]]


''This post was written by Richard Nevell.''
''This post was written by Dr Toni Sant, Education Organiser''


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.
Wikimedia UK’s [[EduWiki_Conference_2013|second annual EduWiki conference]] will take place in Cardiff on 1 and 2 November 2013.


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. Ally Crockford, 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.
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.


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!
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].


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. <span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/07/sphingonet-and-wikipedia/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>
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 [[EduWiki_Conference_2013|on the Wikimedia UK website here]]
 
Notes:
——
[1] TurnItIn White Paper. ‘[http://pages.turnitin.com/sources_in_writing_sec_2012.html The Sources in Student Writing – Higher Education]’, p.10
[2] ibid. p.11
<span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/08/eduwiki-conference-2013-call-for-proposals/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>


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Revision as of 13:46, 5 August 2013

Cymraeg | English

Cymraeg | English

Wikimedia UK

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If you'd like to see what Wikimedia UK is working on, our website is the best place for our community of volunteers, donors and members to stay up to date.

About Wikimedia UK

The Wikimedia projects are special: they are written and curated by thousands of volunteers. They are also supported by voluntary donations, through Wikimedia UK, the Wikimedia Foundation and other international chapters.

Wikimedia UK is a charity registered in England and Wales that supports and promotes Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons. Our mission is to help people and organisations create and preserve open knowledge, and to help provide easy access for all. We do this by supporting volunteer editors and contributors ('Wikimedians'), by working in partnership with cultural and educational institutions, by hosting training sessions and editing events, and by acting to advocate the benefits of open knowledge generally.

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