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[[File:Christmas card 2021.png|alt=Season's Greetings card|center|frame|Season's Greetings card, made with Commons files: <ref>File:Holly branch, coloured woodcut.Mattioli 1568 Wellcome L0022932.jpg</ref><ref>File:Anders Askevold - Study of four Reindeers - NG.M.01280b - National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design.jpg</ref>]]
== Welcome ==
== Welcome ==
Season’s greetings! Welcome to Wikimedia UK’s Winter Newsletter 2021. As we come to the end of another strange and rather difficult year for many, we are very grateful for the continued support of our donors, members and volunteers. You and our partners have made it possible for us to continue delivering creative and inclusive projects and programmes that open up knowledge, and enable more people to benefit from the Wikimedia projects. During a year of mostly remote working, we have welcomed three new members of staff as well as new Wikimedians in Residence at the British Library, National Institute for Health Research and the University of the Arts London. We took part in the Big Give Christmas challenge for the first time, and were delighted to achieve our fundraising target. We developed a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Framework and Action Plan, and have also drafted our new organisational strategy for 2022 - 2025, with input from our community. Thank you for all your support, and I hope you enjoy reading our final newsletter of 2021. The staff team and I are sending you our warmest wishes for a safe festive season.
Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2022 newsletter! LCR has contacted members and the mailing list has been contacted with a request that anyone who is able to offer their home to refugees fleeing from Ukraine. So far we’ve had seven people agree to host refugees. Contacted the Ukrainian chapter. There’s a meta page with offers for help and LCR has posted.


Lucy Crompton-Reid
Lucy Crompton-Reid
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''Chief Executive''
''Chief Executive''


== UK chapter focus ==
== UK chapter update ==
Due to take place in early 2022, we’re running another course of '''Train the Trainer'''. Volunteer trainers play a key role in the delivery of Wikimedia UK programmes, helping us to achieve our strategic objectives by delivering Wikimedia project training to new and existing editors across the country.  Demand for training often outstrips staff capacity to fulfil, and we’re conscious that our existing networks do not always allow us to reach all the communities with whom we’d like to work. In the past, we’ve offered our main Train the Trainer programme as a 3-4 day in-person training course, and it has often focussed on training design and pedagogy. This time however, we’re taking a slightly different approach, which we hope will offer more flexibility to our volunteer trainers, and which we have developed in response to feedback from the community, and from partner organisations. The aim of this round of training will be to equip Volunteer Trainers with the skills, experience and resources to deliver a standard ‘Introduction to Wikipedia’, such that would take place at an online editathon or wiki workshop.
The internship booklet is ready, have got printed copies and it’s on commons.


== Events and projects you can join ==
== Events and projects you can join ==
[[File:Connected Heritage flyer 2021 - second round of webinars.png|alt=Connected Heritage flyer 2021 - second round of webinars|thumb|Connected Heritage flyer 2021 dates]]
The '''Connected Heritage''' project had an excellent turn out in 2021 and will be continuing into 2022. Over 100 participants took part in the free hour long webinars, tailored specifically to those working in the heritage sector. There was also a follow up session for 12 participants who wanted further training. The webinars covered open knowledge, the digital skills gap, digital preservation and how Wikimedia UK is addressing those issues. Participants were provided with access to resources and materials to take back to their organisations, and the opportunity to follow up with the project and engage in partnership. In 2022 there will be more webinars on the 18th January, 2nd February, 17th February and 4th March, and an International Women’s Day Potluck Wikithon on Friday 11th March.
'''WikiForHumanRights''' will return from 15th April through to 14th June 2022. This year’s focus is on the Right to a Healthy Environment. The environmental crisis is getting more complex. Humanity needs to make thousands of big and small decisions to address it. As the UN Environmental Program described it, we need to make “Peace with Nature” and protect the human rights of the most vulnerable. Wikipedia and other platforms need to fill the knowledge gaps at the intersection of sustainability and human rights in every context and language. The world needs access to reliable information about the link between environmental sustainability and human rights. We encourage individuals or organisations interested in the campaign to organise activities around the intersecting themes of human rights and the environment.
'''#1Lib1Ref''' is back for 2022! Abbreviated from 1 Librarian for 1 Reference, 1Lib1Ref calls on librarians around the world, and anyone who has a passion for free knowledge, to add missing references to articles on Wikipedia. #1Lib1Ref runs every January 15th to February 5th and every May 15th to June 5th.[[File:1Lib1Ref Campaign Video.webm|thumb|1Lib1Ref Campaign Video|left]]


=== Annual General Meeting ===
The 2022 '''Annual General Meeting''' will be held online on the 9th July. This year we are separating the formal AGM from the community aspects, with a community day taking place later in the year. The formal AGM will include the usual reports from the board, a trustee election, and a vote on resolutions. Without the community talks the day will be much shorter, but will have plenty of opportunity for discussion and questions about the chapter’s 2021/22 activities and strategy.


=== Celtic Knot ===
The '''Celtic Knot''' Wikimedia Language Conference will return in July 2022 over the 1st and 2nd. The conference aims to bring people together to share their experiences of working on information distribution in minority and minoritized languages on the Wikimedia projects. Our aim is to help people learn how to direct the flow of information across language barriers and support their communities. As in previous years we will have a strong focus on Wikidata and its potential to support languages. The Celtic Knot is a place where people working on growing and maintaining their communities (on Wikipedia, but also Wikisource or Wikidata) can meet, learn from each other, and support each other on topics like community growth, technical tools, or collaboration with partners. Driven by the vision of Wikimedia UK, together with local partners and fellow Wikimedia chapters, the conference carries the experience of five annual editions, including two online events. In each of the first five years, the conference has spotlighed a language or language family, and the participants can learn more about the cultural context as well as the state of the Wikimedia projects in these languages. For the 2022 edition, Wikimedia UK, with the support of Wikimedia Deutschland, proposes a broader approach, with an emphasis on skills development for a diverse group of participants.


=== Our new climate actitvities ===
We are excited to announce that '''WikiForHumanRights: Right to a Healthy Environment''' is back for 2022. This year, our aim is to ensure that everyone has access to neutral, unbiased and fact-based information on the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Taking part in the competition fits with the growing number of climate and environment based projects Wikimedia UK is taking on. Open access to climate information and data will play an increasingly important role in our shared ability to understand this crisis and act collectively. Running from April 15th through to June 14th 2022, this campaign aims to encourage our supporters, members and volunteers interested in the campaign to organise activities around the theme of environmental sustainability and climate knowledge.


The WikiForHumanRights campaign falls in line with '''Wikimedia UK’s new strategic focus on climate'''. We will be launching projects and programmes that support our editors, communities and partner organisations that relate to climate change and environmental sustainability. A few of our current projects include:


 
* We have been working with '''Climate Policy Radar''', an open data climate startup to improve Wikidata's ability to support environmental policy work.
 
* In 2021, we ran a 24-hour '''COP26 editathon''' with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. 52 editors took part, creating 363 edits and resulting in over 150 thousand views worldwide.
 
* We are working with our partners, '''Natural Resources Wales and Llen Natur''' to feed localised data directly onto Wikipedia based on the threat of climate change to local communities.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
''Natasha to add a short survey here - I’m thinking the chapter focus could be a thank you to Lead trainers this year.''


== Our work in partnership ==
== Our work in partnership ==
[[File:National Institute for Health Research.png|thumb|National Institute for Health Research logo with <ref>File:Bird illustration by Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis et Des Rolliers by Jacques Barraband, digitally enhanced by rawpixel-com 32.jpg</ref><ref>File:Haeckel Discomedusae 8 cleanup.jpg</ref>|link=Special:FilePath/National_Institute_for_Health_Research.png]]
We’ve helped the '''National Institute of Health Research''' recruit a new Wikimedian in Residence. The initial proposal was for a six month placement with the potential to extend. The residents will help the Institute share health information to a larger audience, train staff in editing the Wikimedia projects, and scope out what information the Institute has.
We ran an editathon in partnership with the '''University of Leeds for Black History Month''', citing African scholars on Wikipedia. The aim was to increase the representation of African scholars and sources across the Wikimedia projects, with a suite of resources available to the students and staff who attended. 269 citations from African scholars were added to Wikipedia, with 26 articles created, and 116 articles edited.
Dr Martin Poulter, Wikimedian in Residence at the Khalili Collections, and Dr Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordinator here at Wikimedia UK, hosted a series of online '''Wikidata workshops'''. There was a workshop for beginners, a more advanced workshop, a workshop for the Education sector, and one for the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) sector. Wikidata is much easier to understand and has more interesting and varied content than most databases, so it is a good place to start when considering how knowledge can be represented by computers. It can create interactive educational visualisations on all sorts of topics and adding to Wikidata is already used as a platform for educational assignments. It can give a new lease of life to research outputs by joining them up with other information sources in a connected web.
'''The Devil's Porridge Museum ran the Miracle Worker Research Project''', working with remote volunteers to uncover the untold histories of munitions workers at HM Factory Gretna during WW1. They’ve since been making efforts to get the research on Wikipedia, with edithathons in September, October, and November, and the project is set to develop in the New Year.
We led a session for the '''School Library Association (SLA)''' to give school librarians a deeper understanding of Wikipedia’s mechanisms and how it strives to improve, so that they can give informed advice to students on how to approach Wikipedia.
To quote Wikipedia on the subject, '''The Red Book of Hergest''' is a large vellum manuscript written shortly after 1382, which ranks as one of the most important mediaeval manuscripts written in the Welsh language. It preserves a collection of Welsh prose and poetry, notably the tales of the Mabinogion and Gogynfeirdd poetry. We’ve been working with Jesus College Oxford to upload a substantial number of photographs of the manuscript to Wikimedia Commons. You can see the Commons category here.
The Wikimedian in Residence at the '''British Library''', Dr Lucy Hinnie, who is also a project lead for Connected Heritage, has had her residency extended at the library. She has been running Wikimedia workshops for library volunteers, and worked on a number of fascinating projects such as the Agents of Enslavement data project, the Indigenous collections, the India Office Records, a Bengali Wikisource collaboration, and the relabelling of historic materials in line with modern thought and vocabulary.
Our Wikimedian in Residence at the '''Science Museum Group''', has also had their residency extended. They continue to collaborate with the Wellcome Collection to get the Science Museum’s vast collection of high quality images on Wikimedia Commons. The resident is utilising and training the museum’s volunteer network.
== Further and Higher Education ==
Our Scotland Programme Coordinator, Dr Sara Thomas, has been working with '''Edinburgh College''' on their first ever Wikipedia in the Classroom project. A cohort of around 40 students from the Art & Ethics course worked to create Wikipedia articles on underrepresented artists, learning about open licensing, underrepresentation in the canon, and how this applies to their own practice and reflection.
The '''Decolonising Wikipedia Network''' is relaunching, supporting students and staff at '''University of the Arts London (UAL)''' to edit Wikipedia through the lenses of anti-racism and decolonisation. This includes (but is not limited to) increasing the visibility and credibility of under-represented and marginalised figures and topics connected to our subject disciplines on Wikipedia. We’ve helped expand the network from the comms department to the arts department. We hope to see the network continue to grow, and add to their incredible successes such as the over 7000 words they have added to Wikipedia articles.
'''The University of Sussex''' has a module for students to take part in, called the 'Education for Development: Aid, Policy and the Global Agenda' module. The students have been working with articles such as education in Indonesia, and will hopefully be taking their text live in the new year.
Occasionally our staff give guest lectures at universities. Dr Sara Thomas returned to '''The University of Glasgow''' to lecture on Wikipedia and Information Management, to undergrad students in Digital media and information studies, and another lecture for the postgrad students in Information management and preservation.
'''The University of Edinburgh’s''' Wikimedian in Residence, Ewan McAndrew, continues to do fantastic work. Over the residency Ewan has recruited a number of interns from the student body, most recently the intent at the Library and University Collections, Joshua Jackson. Together they wrote a report of the library and university’s engagement with Wikimedia, which can be found on Commons and offers excellent insight into the value of Wikimedia in higher education. Ewan also liaises with the professors at the university to introduce Wikimedia components into their courses, such as the Reproductive Biomedicine BSc sixth year students workshop, and on the Digital Education MSc course.


== Blog highlights ==
=== Women's History Month ===
'''Connected Heritage'''
We again did a series of interviews for '''Women’s History Month''', showcasing the people and initiatives that are closing the gender gap on wiki projects. There were four interviews, with Helen Close from WES, Hope Miyoba from the Science Museum Group, Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, along with three students who are involved in the gender gap projects, and finally Monisha Shah, Wikimedia UK’s Chair. We were so proud of the work these initiatives have achieved, and encourage you to watch the full series on our YouTube.


The launch of our Connected Heritage project and the three month achievements of the project are live on our blog, with more information on how heritage professionals can take part in a webinar.
We also ran a number of events throughout March for Women’s History Month with the help of collaborating organisations:


'''Wikimedia UK returns to the office, but trials a new way of working'''
We ran a Wiki Workshop with the '''British Library's Eccles Centre''' and the University of Leeds to make Black women in 20th century theatre more visible on wiki projects. We wanted to expand and amplify knowledge produced by and about Black women, and about gender, feminism and the arts on Wikipedia. At this Wiki editing workshop, participants received training on creating and editing wiki pages in order to communicate the central role played by Black women in British theatre making between 1900 and 1950, women like Una Marson and Pauline Henriques. They were also invited to explore resources that can enable better citation justice for women of colour knowledge producers and greater access to archive collections documenting Black British histories. It’s really crucial for us to continue having an intersectional approach to our gender gap work, with women of colour well represented in the activities.


Our Chief Executive, Lucy Crompton-Reid, lays out our new way of hybrid working. For the time being we are restricting the number of people in the office at any one time to a maximum of six. Alongside this, we are consulting with all staff individually to determine what their working pattern might look like within this hybrid model. For anyone trying to reach us, email is probably still the best route. Since writing this blog post, the risk of the Omicron variant has further restricted our staff from travelling into the office.
This is also shown in our collaborations with the '''David Livingston Museum'''. The David Livingstone Birthplace is the only independent museum in Scotland that is dedicated to preserving the legacy of David Livingstone and examining his work within the complex and painful realities of slavery, colonialism and Nineteenth Century European attitudes towards African people and community groups. Our Scotland Programme Coordinator was glad to join staff and volunteers at the museum for a hybrid editathon focussing on the women connected to David Livingstone, and continuing work on articles that we'd worked on at our last event. The in-person event was based in the new museum, and our worklist was drawn up by museum staff, using their subject knowledge, as well as resources from the museum and elsewhere. The editathon saw 1.44k words added to Wikipedia, and 14 references added.


'''Ada Lovelace day 24 hour global editathon'''
As part of the National Lottery funded Digital Skills for Heritage initiative, we run webinars to showcase what Wiki-based platforms and the digital skills gained through contributing to them for the GLAM heritage sector. To round up the second series of these webinars, the '''Connected Heritage''' team hosted a potluck for International Women’s Day.  Participants learnt Wikipedia basics and made their first edits. In addition, the event allowed them to see how a Wikithon is run, and how it could work for their organisation and how you can best support the growth of open knowledge. Ideally, participants brought an idea of a topic or theme they wanted to work on. As the date is close to International Women's Day, we encouraged them to bring projects relating to women.


On the 12th October, an international 24 hour editing marathon started in New Zealand to improve the coverage of women in Wikipedia. The relay of volunteering editing reached the UK at 2pm, with an event hosted at the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester as both an in-person and an online event. This blog detailed the editathon for anyone interested in getting involved.
We did a workshop with '''Protests and Suffragettes and Women’s History Scotland''' to celebrate International Women's Day and the theme of #BreakTheBias, adding and improving entries for Scottish Suffragettes on Wikipedia. ​​We’ve collaborated with Protests and Suffragettes for quite some time. They’re a creative project led by a team of artists, activists, and local historians working to recover and re-voice the histories of women activists in Glasgow, and across Scotland. They create ‘artWalks, and public art and creative interventions in the public realm, while conducting archival research and recording oral histories. They work with Wikipedia as knowledge activists. Women’s History Scotland is a new partner for us, they’ve been working with P&S and this is the first in a series of events we’ll be doing with them.  The event saw 4.36K Words Added to 16 Wikipedia articles, and 92 References Added.


'''2021 Palestine-Wales editathon'''
=== Connected Heritage ===
The aim of the Connected Heritage project is to help cultural and heritage organisations share their knowledge through the Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus on underrepresented knowledge. The team have been busy delivering a series of webinars, workshops, and training events. Since the start of the year the project team have been setting up partnerships with really exciting external partners. From our workshops, 52 people have worked together to improve 54 articles which have already been read more than a quarter of a million times.


Wikiproject Palestine-Wales was a month-long editathon, which took place in August 2021, between Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Levant. The event generated a total of 242 new articles. Robin Owain, Wales Programme Manager, details the event.
More than 100 organisations have been represented at our events and our potluck wikithon or International Women’s Day was fully booked well in advance. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Wikipedia and the potential for reaching new audiences. There isn’t space here to mention all the organisations we’ve worked with so far, but one highlight has been the work of interns from the Mixed Museum. They edited articles on South Asian people in Ireland and Black people in Ireland, adding important background information. Incredibly, they Wikipedia’s coverage of South Asian people in Ireland was extended back by three centuries. That was quite a gap to fill and shows how important cultural and heritage organisations are for improving Wikipedia. The museum has hired two student interns to work on their contributions to the wiki projects. The interns have so far extended the history paragraphs of the mixed Irish heritage articles by several hundred years.


'''UK based Punjabi artist opens up his archive'''
The International Museum Day 2022 Wikidata Competition is part of the Wikimedia events around the International Museum Day on 18 May 2022. Its goal is to improve Wikidata content about museums, including related objects, people and events, in all participating countries and regions.


UK based Punjabi writer and photographer, Amarjit Chandan opened up images from his archive. As of 19th June 2021, a total of 471 images have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and at least 54 distinct images (11% of the total images) are being used across languages and projects with the maximum images being used on Punjabi Wikipedia followed by English Wikipedia and Wikidata. More photos followed.
The International Museum Day 2022 Wikidata Competition will take place on the 18th May. International Museum Day is an event organised by the International Council of Museums since 1977 to raise awareness that “museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.” About 20 Wikimedia Chapters worldwide joined their forces to transfer this awareness into free accessible content of Wikipedia and its sister projects. In a joint campaign from 4th-18th May, the national Wikimedia associations and groups invite the community of Wikipedia contributors to edit, update, translate Wikipedia articles in the context or upload pictures. A Wikidata competition completes the offer around the IMD 2022 (see the project page in English).


'''Talking strategy with Wikimedia UK’s community'''
=== A landmark for the Khalili Collections ===
[[File:Khalili Collection Enamels of the World Chariot of Maharaja of Bhavnagar CROP.jpg|thumb|right|Landau carriage in the [[:w:en:Khalili Collection of Enamels of the World|Khalili Collection of Enamels of the World]]]]Since February 2020, the Khalili Collections have hosted a Wikimedian in Residence to share their context with the Wikimedia projects. Martin Poulter has been sharing images, writing articles, and helping Wikimedia and the Khalili Collections learn about Wikipedia’s gaps in the arts. The residency recently passed a remarkable milestone: images from the Collection have been viewed more than 50 million times through Wikipedia and its sister projects. The residency has also connected with the University of Edinburgh, with students adding images from the Collections to Wikipedia.


We had the pleasure of facilitating a meeting for our community to help shape the future direction of Wikimedia UK. We work on a 3 year strategic planning cycle, and we're now developing our new strategy for 2022-25. Our Chief Executive gives an overview.
=== Extending the NIHR residency ===
In our winter newsletter we were very excited to announce that we have been working with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to set up a Wikimedian in Residence project. Adam Harangozó started his residency in early December, and has been working with the organisation to identify where their research can have the most impact on Wikipedia. Initially a six-month project, it has been extended for another three months.


'''Train the Trainer'''
You can follow the work of the project on Wikipedia, and Adam recently had an interview with The Scotsman.


We invited expressions of interest in our next round of Train the Trainer, due to take place in early 2022. We are delighted to say that we’ll once again be partnering with Trainer Bhav Patel.
=== Wikipedia goes to university ===
[[File:Education_Spending_Ministy_of_Finance_2021.png|thumb|Much of students’ focus is on writing text, but illustrations, such as this one shared by one of the Sussex students enhance Wikipedia’s content.]]New terms and semesters began at universities across the country earlier this year, with students picking up new modules. WMUK supports lecturers who want to use Wikipedia in the classroom. There are often conversations with lecturers to help them explore the possibilities, and excitingly this has led to the University of Sussex involving Wikipedia editing in two modules this year. Both run by Nimi Hoffmann, the first for forty first-year undergraduates module ran late last year, and the second module for about a hundred second year undergraduates started this spring. As part of their assessment, the students are writing about education and development. At the University of Derby, we were delighted that Suzanne Nelson decided to again get students editing as part of her MA Journalism course. The module simulates a work placement, and the students are busy writing and due to share their work in May.


The Wikimedian in Residence project at the University of Edinburgh is continuing strongly, and Ewan McAndrew has been supporting students from a variety of backgrounds including Translation Studies MSc, Digital Education MSc, and History of Art.
== Join us ==
== Join us ==
We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a member, donate to us online, or volunteer on some of the projects above.
We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a member, donate to us online, or volunteer on some of the projects above.


We’re also on social media if you prefer to chat there, we always appreciate new followers and sharers of our news; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.Communications and Governance Coordinator at Wikimedia UK since October 2017.
We’re also on social media if you prefer to chat there, we always appreciate new followers and sharers of our news; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also follow our [https://wikimedia.org.uk/news/ blog], which has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.

Revision as of 15:20, 29 April 2022

Welcome

Welcome to the Spring/Summer 2022 newsletter! LCR has contacted members and the mailing list has been contacted with a request that anyone who is able to offer their home to refugees fleeing from Ukraine. So far we’ve had seven people agree to host refugees. Contacted the Ukrainian chapter. There’s a meta page with offers for help and LCR has posted.

Lucy Crompton-Reid

Chief Executive

UK chapter update

The internship booklet is ready, have got printed copies and it’s on commons.

Events and projects you can join

Annual General Meeting

The 2022 Annual General Meeting will be held online on the 9th July. This year we are separating the formal AGM from the community aspects, with a community day taking place later in the year. The formal AGM will include the usual reports from the board, a trustee election, and a vote on resolutions. Without the community talks the day will be much shorter, but will have plenty of opportunity for discussion and questions about the chapter’s 2021/22 activities and strategy.

Celtic Knot

The Celtic Knot Wikimedia Language Conference will return in July 2022 over the 1st and 2nd. The conference aims to bring people together to share their experiences of working on information distribution in minority and minoritized languages on the Wikimedia projects. Our aim is to help people learn how to direct the flow of information across language barriers and support their communities. As in previous years we will have a strong focus on Wikidata and its potential to support languages. The Celtic Knot is a place where people working on growing and maintaining their communities (on Wikipedia, but also Wikisource or Wikidata) can meet, learn from each other, and support each other on topics like community growth, technical tools, or collaboration with partners. Driven by the vision of Wikimedia UK, together with local partners and fellow Wikimedia chapters, the conference carries the experience of five annual editions, including two online events. In each of the first five years, the conference has spotlighed a language or language family, and the participants can learn more about the cultural context as well as the state of the Wikimedia projects in these languages. For the 2022 edition, Wikimedia UK, with the support of Wikimedia Deutschland, proposes a broader approach, with an emphasis on skills development for a diverse group of participants.

Our new climate actitvities

We are excited to announce that WikiForHumanRights: Right to a Healthy Environment is back for 2022. This year, our aim is to ensure that everyone has access to neutral, unbiased and fact-based information on the “triple planetary crisis” of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss. Taking part in the competition fits with the growing number of climate and environment based projects Wikimedia UK is taking on. Open access to climate information and data will play an increasingly important role in our shared ability to understand this crisis and act collectively. Running from April 15th through to June 14th 2022, this campaign aims to encourage our supporters, members and volunteers interested in the campaign to organise activities around the theme of environmental sustainability and climate knowledge.

The WikiForHumanRights campaign falls in line with Wikimedia UK’s new strategic focus on climate. We will be launching projects and programmes that support our editors, communities and partner organisations that relate to climate change and environmental sustainability. A few of our current projects include:

  • We have been working with Climate Policy Radar, an open data climate startup to improve Wikidata's ability to support environmental policy work.
  • In 2021, we ran a 24-hour COP26 editathon with the International Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. 52 editors took part, creating 363 edits and resulting in over 150 thousand views worldwide.
  • We are working with our partners, Natural Resources Wales and Llen Natur to feed localised data directly onto Wikipedia based on the threat of climate change to local communities.

Our work in partnership

Women's History Month

We again did a series of interviews for Women’s History Month, showcasing the people and initiatives that are closing the gender gap on wiki projects. There were four interviews, with Helen Close from WES, Hope Miyoba from the Science Museum Group, Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence at the University of Edinburgh, along with three students who are involved in the gender gap projects, and finally Monisha Shah, Wikimedia UK’s Chair. We were so proud of the work these initiatives have achieved, and encourage you to watch the full series on our YouTube.

We also ran a number of events throughout March for Women’s History Month with the help of collaborating organisations:

We ran a Wiki Workshop with the British Library's Eccles Centre and the University of Leeds to make Black women in 20th century theatre more visible on wiki projects. We wanted to expand and amplify knowledge produced by and about Black women, and about gender, feminism and the arts on Wikipedia. At this Wiki editing workshop, participants received training on creating and editing wiki pages in order to communicate the central role played by Black women in British theatre making between 1900 and 1950, women like Una Marson and Pauline Henriques. They were also invited to explore resources that can enable better citation justice for women of colour knowledge producers and greater access to archive collections documenting Black British histories. It’s really crucial for us to continue having an intersectional approach to our gender gap work, with women of colour well represented in the activities.

This is also shown in our collaborations with the David Livingston Museum. The David Livingstone Birthplace is the only independent museum in Scotland that is dedicated to preserving the legacy of David Livingstone and examining his work within the complex and painful realities of slavery, colonialism and Nineteenth Century European attitudes towards African people and community groups. Our Scotland Programme Coordinator was glad to join staff and volunteers at the museum for a hybrid editathon focussing on the women connected to David Livingstone, and continuing work on articles that we'd worked on at our last event. The in-person event was based in the new museum, and our worklist was drawn up by museum staff, using their subject knowledge, as well as resources from the museum and elsewhere. The editathon saw 1.44k words added to Wikipedia, and 14 references added.

As part of the National Lottery funded Digital Skills for Heritage initiative, we run webinars to showcase what Wiki-based platforms and the digital skills gained through contributing to them for the GLAM heritage sector. To round up the second series of these webinars, the Connected Heritage team hosted a potluck for International Women’s Day.  Participants learnt Wikipedia basics and made their first edits. In addition, the event allowed them to see how a Wikithon is run, and how it could work for their organisation and how you can best support the growth of open knowledge. Ideally, participants brought an idea of a topic or theme they wanted to work on. As the date is close to International Women's Day, we encouraged them to bring projects relating to women.

We did a workshop with Protests and Suffragettes and Women’s History Scotland to celebrate International Women's Day and the theme of #BreakTheBias, adding and improving entries for Scottish Suffragettes on Wikipedia. ​​We’ve collaborated with Protests and Suffragettes for quite some time. They’re a creative project led by a team of artists, activists, and local historians working to recover and re-voice the histories of women activists in Glasgow, and across Scotland. They create ‘artWalks, and public art and creative interventions in the public realm, while conducting archival research and recording oral histories. They work with Wikipedia as knowledge activists. Women’s History Scotland is a new partner for us, they’ve been working with P&S and this is the first in a series of events we’ll be doing with them.  The event saw 4.36K Words Added to 16 Wikipedia articles, and 92 References Added.

Connected Heritage

The aim of the Connected Heritage project is to help cultural and heritage organisations share their knowledge through the Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus on underrepresented knowledge. The team have been busy delivering a series of webinars, workshops, and training events. Since the start of the year the project team have been setting up partnerships with really exciting external partners. From our workshops, 52 people have worked together to improve 54 articles which have already been read more than a quarter of a million times.

More than 100 organisations have been represented at our events and our potluck wikithon or International Women’s Day was fully booked well in advance. There is a lot of enthusiasm for Wikipedia and the potential for reaching new audiences. There isn’t space here to mention all the organisations we’ve worked with so far, but one highlight has been the work of interns from the Mixed Museum. They edited articles on South Asian people in Ireland and Black people in Ireland, adding important background information. Incredibly, they Wikipedia’s coverage of South Asian people in Ireland was extended back by three centuries. That was quite a gap to fill and shows how important cultural and heritage organisations are for improving Wikipedia. The museum has hired two student interns to work on their contributions to the wiki projects. The interns have so far extended the history paragraphs of the mixed Irish heritage articles by several hundred years.

The International Museum Day 2022 Wikidata Competition is part of the Wikimedia events around the International Museum Day on 18 May 2022. Its goal is to improve Wikidata content about museums, including related objects, people and events, in all participating countries and regions.

The International Museum Day 2022 Wikidata Competition will take place on the 18th May. International Museum Day is an event organised by the International Council of Museums since 1977 to raise awareness that “museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.” About 20 Wikimedia Chapters worldwide joined their forces to transfer this awareness into free accessible content of Wikipedia and its sister projects. In a joint campaign from 4th-18th May, the national Wikimedia associations and groups invite the community of Wikipedia contributors to edit, update, translate Wikipedia articles in the context or upload pictures. A Wikidata competition completes the offer around the IMD 2022 (see the project page in English).

A landmark for the Khalili Collections

Landau carriage in the Khalili Collection of Enamels of the World

Since February 2020, the Khalili Collections have hosted a Wikimedian in Residence to share their context with the Wikimedia projects. Martin Poulter has been sharing images, writing articles, and helping Wikimedia and the Khalili Collections learn about Wikipedia’s gaps in the arts. The residency recently passed a remarkable milestone: images from the Collection have been viewed more than 50 million times through Wikipedia and its sister projects. The residency has also connected with the University of Edinburgh, with students adding images from the Collections to Wikipedia.

Extending the NIHR residency

In our winter newsletter we were very excited to announce that we have been working with the National Institute for Health and Care Research to set up a Wikimedian in Residence project. Adam Harangozó started his residency in early December, and has been working with the organisation to identify where their research can have the most impact on Wikipedia. Initially a six-month project, it has been extended for another three months.

You can follow the work of the project on Wikipedia, and Adam recently had an interview with The Scotsman.

Wikipedia goes to university

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Much of students’ focus is on writing text, but illustrations, such as this one shared by one of the Sussex students enhance Wikipedia’s content.

New terms and semesters began at universities across the country earlier this year, with students picking up new modules. WMUK supports lecturers who want to use Wikipedia in the classroom. There are often conversations with lecturers to help them explore the possibilities, and excitingly this has led to the University of Sussex involving Wikipedia editing in two modules this year. Both run by Nimi Hoffmann, the first for forty first-year undergraduates module ran late last year, and the second module for about a hundred second year undergraduates started this spring. As part of their assessment, the students are writing about education and development. At the University of Derby, we were delighted that Suzanne Nelson decided to again get students editing as part of her MA Journalism course. The module simulates a work placement, and the students are busy writing and due to share their work in May.

The Wikimedian in Residence project at the University of Edinburgh is continuing strongly, and Ewan McAndrew has been supporting students from a variety of backgrounds including Translation Studies MSc, Digital Education MSc, and History of Art.

Join us

We’re very grateful to and proud of the network we’ve built around our chapter. You can support the governance of the charity by becoming a member, donate to us online, or volunteer on some of the projects above.

We’re also on social media if you prefer to chat there, we always appreciate new followers and sharers of our news; Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can also follow our blog, which has more details on some of the activities mentioned in the newsletter.

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