Wikipedia:GLAM/Expeditions









Welcome to the project page of Expedition Wikipedia! This project is mainly conducted with Dutch partners and in the Dutch language; its main information portal can therefore be found on the Dutch Wikipedia.

This page provides a short summary of the project's activities, with highlights relevant to English speakers.

The project Expedition Wikipedia takes place in 2014. Under guidance of the Dutch Foundation for Academic Heritage (SAE), several Dutch Universities and the Tropenmuseum donate digitized materials from their collections to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. These digitized objects, mainly related to (historic) scientific expeditions, will be offered for (historical, geographical...) contextualization and for use in encyclopedic articles on Wikipedia.

A Wikipedian in Residence supports the participating institutions.

Topics

 * Notable expeditions, most of them related to the Netherlands, and relevant contextual information: scientists, culture, geography, history of science... Examples are the Siboga Expedition and the work of Felix Andries Vening Meinesz.


 * Notable historical travelogues, for instance related to Jesuit missions in the 17th Century.

Activities

 * Image donations (digitized materials from scientific expeditions will be donated and published under a free license on Wikimedia Commons)


 * Events with and for the Wikimedia community: edit-a-thons, challenges, visits and tours 'behind the scenes'...


 * Events with and for students and staff of participating universities: lectures, workshops, masterclasses...

A Wikipedian in Residence co-ordinates these activities.

Activities in English

 * Maastricht University (project infopage). At Maastricht University (NL), a bachelor research course titled On Expedition is organized from February till June 2014. In the scope of the project Expedition Wikipedia, Wikipedian in Residence Sandra Fauconnier assists participating students in contributing some of their acquired knowledge to Wikipedia.


 * Any contributor to Wikimedia projects - in any language - can also win a prize!

Why expeditions?
Science is based on mapping, analyzing and explaining the world, heaven and earth, and everything that lives and moves. Many scientific topics have a clear frame of reference today - foreign peoples and cultures, exotic species, the Moon, Buys Ballot's law, the Theory of evolution... - but were once wondrous phenomena that needed to be discovered and researched for the first time.

For many centuries, scientists, artists and adventures have ventured into the unknown. Military-economic and religious missions and journeys (e.g. by the Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the West-Indische Compagnie, the Jesuits and the Dutch Baltic sea trade) were catalysts for the first expeditions. Later, in the 19th Century, the first purely scientific expeditions were organized. Dutch researchers traveled as far as New Guinea and Indonesia; in the late 19th Century the important Dutch Siboga Expedition took place. Today, expeditions even reach into space.

These travels have resulted in rich collections of cultural heritage, managed by a variety of institutions, most notably several Dutch universities. The travelogues, drawings, maps, objects, photographs, films and sound recordings in these collections can be a valuable source and addition to many articles on the Dutch and English Wikipedia, and on other Wikimedia projects.

Project partners
The Dutch Foundation for Academic Heritage (SAE) is initiator and leader of this project.

SAE is a network in which the following Dutch Universities participate: the University of Amsterdam, the Technical University of Delft, Eindhoven University of Technology, the University of Groningen, Leiden University, Maastricht University, Radboud University Nijmegen, VU University Amsterdam, Utrecht University and Wageningen UR. The Foundation functions as a network for collection keepers working at the universities, it looks for funding to realize common national projects, and it promotes the interests of the collections within the Universities' boards.

Together, the Universities manage a large part of the Netherlands' academic heritage. This heritage is very diverse and reflects the diversity of subjects researched at the universities - it can be old microscopes, calculators, medical models, mounted animals, robots, old maps, medieval manuscripts, photographs and much more. Also, several collections deal with the histories of the universities themselves.

www.academischecollecties.nl.

The project plan for Expedition Wikipedia was written in collaboration with the Tropenmuseum.

Who?
Sandra Fauconnier (User:Spinster) works on this project as a Wikipedian in Residence (WiR), from 1 January until 31 December 2014, for 23 hours per week. Sandra is an art historian, she has edited Wikipedia since 2003, she was a board member of Wikimedia Nederland, and has been working on internet projects in the cultural sector since 2000.

Tasks
The Wikipedian in Residence co-ordinates and mediates in this project. She does not write Wikipedia articles herself.

Her day-to-day tasks consist of:


 * Organizing edit-a-thons for Wikipedians, students, staff members and other interested volunteers.
 * Organizing contests, challenges, lectures, meetings, masterclasses, backstage passes and other events related to this project
 * Introductions and advocacy of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects; talking about the customs and values of the free knowledge movement
 * Stimulating the (re)use of content from Wikimedia projects by participating institutions
 * Co-ordination of content donations of scans, photographs and other media files under free licenses to Wikimedia Commons.

For more information about the profile of a Wikipedian in Residence, consult the WiR information page on Outreach.

Contact
Questions? Remarks? Leave a message on the talk page!

You can also get in touch with the Wikipedian in Residence, Sandra, via Wikipedia email or regular email: s.fauconnier@undefineduva.nl.

Project lead is Frank Meijer: f.t.meijer@undefineduva.nl.