Wikipedia:NIOSH/Course

This is a five-week course offered by invitation to NIOSH staff and partners being held during July 2024.

NIOSH has a goal of improving Wikipedia’s coverage of OSH topics given its visibility to the public, and especially to workers. The goal of this webinar series is to identify gaps and inaccuracies in an OSH topic of your choice, and learn how to fix them through writing a short (one paragraph) addition to a Wikipedia article. Each participant will be guided through the process of choosing a topic, selecting source documents to write from, and writing an addition to a new or existing article. Instruction will also be provided on interacting with the community, contributing and using images and other media, and working with Wikidata. Scientists and communications staff are welcome to participate.

Logistics
The series will run for five weeks, starting in early July. There will be a one-hour webinar each week, and about 2–3 hours of outside work each week. The webinar times will be determined in consultation with the participants. Webinars will be through Teams.

The requirements for completion are to (1) attend all webinars (planned absences can be worked out in advance; exceptions can be made for unplanned absences due to illness or emergency), and (2) make a contribution of at least 1500 characters of prose (about three paragraphs) to a new or existing Wikipedia article.

Prior to Week 1
Assignment


 * Review the NIOSH Quick Start handout.
 * Create a Wikipedia account if you haven't already, and register on the course Dashboard. (You can wait until the first webinar if you have questions.)
 * Find two wrong or missing things on Wikipedia to share during the webinar.

Additional resources

These are optional, but are helpful if you want a more in-depth treatment of the material.


 * The Impact Of Wikipedia—a video featuring Wikipedians and their motivations for contributing

Week 1 (July 5)
Webinar topics: course logistics, clearance, editing demonstration, selecting a topic

Assignment for next week


 * Review the "How to make an edit" video, and make at least one edit correcting an error or gap you found.
 * Select two possible articles (new or existing) for your three-paragraph contribution.
 * Review the Uploading to Commons handout and video.

Additional resources

These optional training modules are useful if you want more in-depth information


 * How to Edit—guidance on using both Visual Editor and wiki markup
 * Editing Health Topics—special rules for selecting sources for medical and health articles

In addition, you may want to refer to the policies and guidelines on Verifiability, Neutral point of view, No original research, Identifying reliable sources, and Identifying reliable sources in medicine.

Week 2 (July 15)
Note that this webinar is on the Monday following the usual Friday slot.

Webinar topics: uploading and reusing media on Commons

Assignment for next week


 * Upload at least one image onto Commons and place it in an existing article.
 * Review the Reliable Sources handout, and add the citations of potential sources for your article to your sandbox.
 * You may begin drafting your three-paragraph contribution in your sandbox.

Additional resources


 * Wikipedia Policies—more information about the five pillars and core content policies
 * How to reuse Commons media files—information on how to properly attribute media reused from Commons
 * Licensing on Commons—but only if you want to see how deep the rabbit hole of copyright law goes for non-U.S.-government works!

Week 3 (July 19)
Webinar topics: core content policies, selecting reliable sources, interacting with the community (talk pages, WikiProjects, Did You Know, Good Articles and Featured Articles, WikiJournal)

Assignment for next week


 * Continue drafting your three-paragraph contribution in your sandbox.
 * Watch the Wikidata video.

Additional resources


 * Sandboxes, Talk Pages, and Watchlists—a tutorial on how to use these features
 * Directory of WikiProjects— a listing of all WikiProjects sorted by topic
 * Content assessment—explains the criteria for different quality rankings, including Good Articles and Featured Articles
 * Did you know—overview and rules

Week 4 (July 26)
Webinar topics: Introduction to Wikidata (facts/infoboxes, publications)

Assignment for next week


 * Use Scholia to check your or a colleague's publications. Optional: correct any errors you find on Wikidata.
 * Finish drafting your three-paragraph contribution in your sandbox.

Additional resources


 * Wikidata Introduction and Tours—information about the basic structure of Wikidata
 * Wikidata Query Service and its documentation—a tool to use a script to get and visualize data from Wikidata
 * QuickStatements and its documentation—a tool that does batch edits for importing data to Wikidata

Week 5 (August 2)
Webinar topics: Using Wikipedia as part of your workflow

Assignment for the future


 * Fill out the course questionnaire.
 * Go forth and keep being Wikimedians!

Previous versions of the course

 * November–December 2018
 * March–April 2019
 * October–December 2019
 * March–April 2022