Wikipedia:GLAM/Oxford/Month 5 report

Strategic Goal 1
Increase the quality and quantity of coverage of subjects that are currently underrepresented on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus on cultural content

Outcomes
With a mix of algorithmic matching and manual checking, Cory and I have connected 732 Electronic Enlightenment IDs to Wikidata identifiers. This enables us to import the identifiers, which will take place in April.

Using the import of doctoral thesis data from the Oxford Research Archive (ORA), I and an ORA staffer have added thesis links to 40 Wikipedia articles and their corresponding Wikidata nodes. I have documented this process and shared the write-up with ORA staff for them to take forward.

Partnerships
I have been discussing with David Zeitlyn&mdash;an anthropologist who works in Cameroon&mdash;about how people and organisations in Cameroon could be better represented on Wikipedia. I proposed a model based on the BBC's 100 Women idea, in which the first stage is to create and publish biographies to use as sources. He is keen to do this, though it will take time to implement. His article about a Cameroonian filmmaker has been accepted in mainspace with my help.

I gave a presentation to the university's Digital Humanities Group (~12 lead researchers) and spoke about sharing data, using Early Modern Letters Online as an example. This led to a follow-up meeting with Jacob Dahl of the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, and a request to speak at a meeting of the Quill project.

The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative has its own identifiers, for which a Wikidata community member has already created a Wikidata property. However, there are virtually no data using that property. We will explore if we can fund future work importing data into Wikidata.

A European bid by the Cultures of Knowledge project has costed in a bit of time for me to work on dissemination through Wikimedia platforms (thanks to Wikimedia UK for the endorsement).

The Identity fusion article, created by a group of anthropologists but deleted, has been restored to mainspace with my help. The group are working on another new article in their field.

John Mittelmeier is a doctoral student in Geography using Wikipedia as a platform for research into threatened species. He wanted a way to easily get page view stats into his software (I directed him to the API) and wanted data on how species taxa relate to each other (I created a set of custom Wikidata queries).

I gave a presentation in a staff meeting for digital library staff, describing WikiCite and Wikiproject Cultural Heritage: the projects to get huge amounts of data about publications and about artwork into Wikidata where they are freely remixable. This led to a couple of email queries, including from the 18th Century Poetry Archive, whom I hope to involve in a future project. The meeting presentation was also an opportunity to encourage attendance at the staff training workshop on 18th May.

Forthcoming

 * Three sessions at OER17

Activities delivered in the past month with stats:
The Wikipedia training workshop had three attendees, all involved in research projects. One expressed an interest in getting students to edit, and with another we discussed a poor-quality article in his area, and how a review on the Talk page from him and his colleagues might improve that situation.

Strategic Goal 2
Support the development of open knowledge in the UK, by increasing the understanding and recognition of the value of open knowledge and advocating for change at an organisational, sectoral and public policy level

Partnerships
I wrote a short briefing for my contact at the National Trust to help the NT build a business case for improving Wikidata and Commons representation of their properties.

Forthcoming:
I have been invited to a meeting of the university's GLAM Strategy group, which will happen on the 25th May.

Activities delivered in the past month with stats:
n/a

Strategic Goal 3
To support the use of the Wikimedia projects as important tools for education and learning in the UK

Partnerships
Lucy Tallents is an Oxford Academic working in conservation and data science who has been working on a project reporting on the uptake of open education in Oxford. We had a discussion in which I highlighted past student contributions to Wikipedia, and the educational resources created by the projects I'm working with. She will mention these in her report. I also gave some orientation to Wikidata.

The Bodleian Digital blog published a guest post about using Wikimedia platforms for public engagement, and I have also shared the post with Academic IT Services who host these kinds of event.

Wikidata queries

 * Theses imported from Oxford Research Archive, prioritising those that have been matched with person records in Wikidata
 * A couple of queries relating to cuneiform inscriptions, so show what could be possible
 * Poems from the 18th century, with their authors and languages for comparison with the (larger but English-language only) Eighteenth Century Poetry Archive

Press about the residency

 * Wikimedia for public engagement
 * I was interviewed for the Work In Progress podcast, for an episode not yet released. The interview covered both working at the Bodleian and what motivated me to contribute to Wikipedia as a volunteer.