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2015/Issue 03

Open Sesame!

The world's first photograph of a snowman, courtesy of the National Library of Wales

Welcome back from John, our new Communications Coordintor

Hello friends. We're sorry it's been a while but as you can appreciate, our communications have been on the back burner as we've not had a comms person in post for the last six months. Now I've taken over from Stevie Denton, I'll be concentrating much more on helping to promote WMUK's work, communicating our goals, supporting our amazing volunteers and showcasing the valuable work of our Wikimedians in Residence.

The Radically Open Society

As society and culture become increasingly complex, openness is becoming the new norm

One of the best things about open source software is that you know it has been peer-reviewed. Anyone can look at its code, ensure that it works and that there are no vulnerabilities or backdoors inserted by a devious company or government. The UK government’s current Investigatory Powers Bill envisages the power to serve orders on Communications Service Providers like BT and Whatsapp to provide access to their users information. If you use open source software, however, there is no company which a government can compel to modify their code.

As we create bigger and bigger stores of data, that data becomes more and more vulnerable to attack. Governments themselves need strong encryption and software which ensures the highest standards of data protection for the records they hold. It is a fundamental mistake for security services to believe that they can create vulnerabilities in software which only they can exploit.

Slowly the value of government openness is becoming clearer. A lack of openness creates a lack of public trust. Last week David Cameron moved from saying his tax affairs were a private matter to publishing his tax return within 5 days. This insistence on more government openness can only be a good thing. Just because we pride ourselves on having greater government transparency than North Korea, it doesn’t mean we couldn’t improve.

One thing I learned studying international politics and human rights is that all rights are interdependent. It is not enough to just have freedom of speech if access to that speech is unequal. To make freedom of speech work well, we need freedom of information. That’s why I’m proud to have joined Wikimedia UK, because the drive for open knowledge is an important part of making society more equal, reducing barriers to accessing services, information, software and other educational tools.

We are still at the dawn of a truly Open Society and we have a long way to go. Writing The Open Society and its Enemies in 1945, Karl Popper was mainly concerned to support the idea of Liberal Democracy against the authoritarianism of fascism and communism.

“this civilization has not yet fully recovered from the shock of its birth — the transition from the tribal or "enclosed society," with its submission to magical forces, to the 'open society' which sets free the critical powers of man.” - Karl Popper

Now that Liberal Democracy has become the dominant sociopolitical system in the world, it is not time for us to rest on our laurels. This kind of system can still produce authoritarianism and corruption, and that is why we must entrench the ideal of openness in the DNA of our public and private institutions, and show them that far from being a threat, open knowledge is a positive-sum good which can benefit everyone.

Teaching with Wikipedia

Teaching with Wikipedia

A recent survey by Yougov* found that around two thirds of the British public trust Wikipedia more than traditional news outlets including the BBC, ITV, the Guardian and the Times.

One of the most visited websites worldwide, and now one of the most trusted, Wikipedia is a resource used by most university students. Increasingly, many instructors around the world have used Wikipedia as a teaching tool in their university classrooms as well.

As the drive for scholarly research to become ever more Open Access gathers pace, Wikipedia will increasingly become the digital gateway to this research.

• *Brits trust Wikipedia more than the news – survey
• Reasons to use Wikipedia – Wikimedia Education
• Wikipedia amplifying impact of open access – LSE blogs
• Writing for Wikipedia has forced me into good scholarly habits and accessible writing – LSE Blogs

Some years ago, I read the University of Huddersfield’s Engaging the ‘Xbox Generation of Learners’ in Higher Education where they describe the concept of students ‘powering down’ or disengaging from learning because “their preferred technologies and the technological skills they have acquired are not provided for…”

Empowering learning is therefore the opposite scenario where the technologies students “use effectively outside the classroom in their personal learning and leisure are used to enhance learning in the curriculum.”

As the Wikimedian at the University of Edinburgh, my year-long residency is to further both the university’s commitment to digital literacy as well as the quantity & quality of open knowledge. More practically, this will involve delivering skills-training sessions which will fit in with and enhance, the learning & teaching within the curriculum.

Wikipedia editing sessions will be a large part of this, and we’ve just had a terrifically successful History of Medicine editathon for Innovative Learning Week which you can learn more about here: Storify - story of History of Medicine Wikipedia editathon as well as more recent editathons for Art+Feminism as part of Women’s History Month 2016.

Poster for a recent Art+Feminism Wikipedia editathon

However, the residency isn’t just about Wikipedia and there are numerous ways where staff & students can get involved & directly contribute their knowledge & expertise to develop Wikimedia UK’s diverse range of projects. More details of these projects can be found on my blog here: A smorgasbord of Wikimedia projects to choose from

Not just Wikipedia: Wikimedia UK’s diverse range projects.

Wikipedia is much more straightforward using the new Visual Editor interface which makes editing Wikipedia now as easy as using Microsoft Word. Students can be taught how to edit in up to 60mins and thereafter can research & write, with academic rigour, brand new Wikipedia articles.

Some recent examples of approaches to teaching with Wikipedia are detailed here:

1. Teaching with Wikipedia (University of Edinburgh examples)
2. How to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool
3. Wikipedia Education Program - Case Studies

If you would like to know more about how Wikipedia fits in with academia then these recent articles make very compelling reading:

1. Wikipedia 15 and education
2. Wikipedia the digital gateway to academic research

The project page for the residency with details on upcoming events is located here:

Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh

Ewan McAndrew - on Mount Fitzroy, Argentina

I will also be attending the OER16 Conference in Edinburgh on 19-20 April. Should you wish to discuss teaching with Wikimedia or collaborating on any projects then I would be only too glad to hear from you at ewan.mcandrew@ed.ac.uk

Museums Galleries Scotland residency – 11 months on

Sara Thomas, Wikimedian in Residence at Museum Galleries Scotland

Wikipedia reaches 5 million articles

Dates for the diary