Wikipedia:GLAM/Wellcome/5th Month 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.


 * Spoke with Dr Gianetta Rands, who is editor of the forthcoming book Psychiatry: Women's Voices about the gender gap and WikiProject Women in Red. She is interested in helping to add notable women psychiatrists and content on psychiatry to Wikipedia, and we will be staying in touch and making plans to do this.
 * Spent time learning how to run Wikidata queries using SPARQL in order to uncover what pages related to history of mental health and psychiatry might be missing, or missing parts (e.g. pictures). As a result of how difficult this was, have had discussions with John Cummings about creating a very simple "how to" guide for GLAMs, building on the |+Wikimedia+UK/1_qqjsxxnk amazing resources that Navino Evans and Ewan McAndrew have been creating to help people to use Wikidata.
 * Compiled a list of asylums and cross-matched these with Wikipedia pages to uncover missing pages.

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.


 * Addressed the British Society for the History of Science Council Meeting about the opportunities for using Wikipedia to help meet the society's goals of bringing history of science scholarship to wider audiences, raising awareness of the field, and improving diversity. We discussed how unrepresentative some of the existing content on historians of science on Wikipedia is currently, and ways to try and improve this. We highlighted how information from the society's open access journal BJHS Themes could be used to improve pages, and how the society could help to make its members aware of opportunities for making knowledge more open and accessible via Wikipedia. As well as Council members, two members of the Royal Society were present, and expressed interest in and support for the possibility of editathons to improve history of science content.
 * Discussed with Charli, a Development Support Officer in the Humanities and Social Sciences section of the Wellcome Trust, to discuss how the Wellcome can support researchers who might be interested in editing Wikipedia. Made her aware of Wikimedia UK as a place that could support researchers interested in running editathons or having training.
 * Addressed the CREST Summer School researchers (see table above), drawn from various universities, on the possibilities of using Wiki-sites to communicate research and engage with wider audiences. As a result of this, several researchers approached me about the possibilities of using Wiki in their work, and the leaders of the Summer School have requested wiki-editor training (see projects in development below for more).
 * Have been in email correspondence with John Ockerbloom from the Forward to Libraries project on how to improve how we link up people doing research with Wellcome Library resources using Wikipedia.
 * Had a session of Wikiclub (see above) for those trained at the Wellcome to build confidence and skills, and ask questions that have arisen about wiki since their first round of training. This seemed popular as an idea, but the timing was not an ideal match - many people were on leave or had existing commitments, so we will try different days and times to see what works for making this a sustainable initiative.

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


 * Developed plans with staff at the University of Kent to bring students to the Wellcome for tours and Wikipedia Editor training in October, including discussions about how to incorporate Wikipedia Editing into the formal assessment of students.
 * See meeting with the BSHS mentioned above. The society are keen to support a programme of training for historians of science (particularly those in the early stages of their careers) to teach them how to use Wikipedia, both as researchers and potentially for teaching too.

Projects/events in development

 * The organisers of the Transit to Hawai'i: behind the scenes with digital history & astronomy event requested a session on Wiki as part of their programme on digital resources for historians. This will contribute towards all three strategic goals, as we'll be adding content, advocating for open knowledge, and highlighting how the tools can be used in university history education.
 * Adrienne Mayers from the Liverpool Medical Institution Library got in touch (as a result of the CREST talk) about the possibility of hosting an editathon there, in collaboration with Professor Sally Sheard from the University of Liverpool. This will involve training librarians and historians, and adding content on medicine (particularly women in medicine, to coincide with the centenary of the Medical Women's Federation).
 * Met with Amy, a Researchers' Engagement Advisor at the Wellcome Trust, to discuss opportunities for raising researchers' awareness of Wiki as a method for engaging with the public and making their research accessible.
 * Spoke with Hannah about writing a post for Open Access Week about Wikipedia and Open Access research.
 * Made plans with CHSTM at the University of Manchester and the HoPSIG group from the Royal College of Psychiatrists to attend their conference and to offer training and editing opportunities to those who are able to stay in Manchester the day after the conference. This will involve expert editors adding history of psychiatry content.
 * Fixed dates for the NHS wiki-editor training and editathon in collaboration with researchers at the University of Warwick. More to follow soon!

Press about the residency

 * The Lancet article and podcast were circulated to the Wellcome researcher newsletter mailing list, which resulted in 3 enquiries about the residency from people interested in getting involved by contributing to the programme or information that could be used in edits.
 * CREST Summer School tweeted about the talk.