Abstract: In its first 30 years the world wide web has revolutionized the information environment. However, its impact has been negative as well as positive, through corporate misuse of personal data and due to its potential for enabling the spread of disinformation. As a large-scale collaborative platform funded through charitable donations, with a mission to provide universal free access to knowledge as a public good, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world. This paper explores the role of Wikipedia in the information ecosystem where it occupies a unique role as a bridge between informal discussion and scholarly publication. We explore how it relates to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, through structured data on Wikidata for instance, and openly licensed media on Wikimedia Commons. We consider the potential benefits for universities in the areas of information literacy and research impact, and investigate the extent to which universities in the UK and their libraries are engaging strategically with Wikimedia, if at all.
Category Archives: oa.wikimedia
Wikimedia and universities: contributing to the global commons in the Age of Disinformation
Abstract: In its first 30 years the world wide web has revolutionized the information environment. However, its impact has been negative as well as positive, through corporate misuse of personal data and due to its potential for enabling the spread of disinformation. As a large-scale collaborative platform funded through charitable donations, with a mission to provide universal free access to knowledge as a public good, Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world. This paper explores the role of Wikipedia in the information ecosystem where it occupies a unique role as a bridge between informal discussion and scholarly publication. We explore how it relates to the broader Wikimedia ecosystem, through structured data on Wikidata for instance, and openly licensed media on Wikimedia Commons. We consider the potential benefits for universities in the areas of information literacy and research impact, and investigate the extent to which universities in the UK and their libraries are engaging strategically with Wikimedia, if at all.
DPLA cultural artifacts coming to Wikipedia through new collaboration with Wikimedia Foundation | DPLA
“In an effort to make artifacts from cultural heritage institutions more accessible to all, Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), the national aggregator of digital heritage collections, and the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia and other free knowledge projects, are collaborating to incorporate DPLA’s cultural artifacts into Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Funded by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, this collaboration will expand the availability of artifacts such as books, maps, government documents, photos, and more from U.S. cultural heritage institutions across the web. …”
Wikimedia in Universities
“You are being invited to participate in a survey titled ‘Wikimedia in Universities’. This survey is being done by Nick Sheppard from the University of Leeds.
We are also interested in how other organisations are using Wikimedia e.g. Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) The purpose of this survey is to gain insight into the use of the Wikimedia suite of tools in universities and GLAM organisations and will take you approximately 10 minutes to complete. You may choose not to participate. If you decide to participate you may withdraw at any time. If you decide not to participate or if you withdraw, you will not be penalised….”
Job Application for Senior Program Manager, GLAM and Culture at Wikimedia Foundation
“The Wikimedia Foundation is seeking a Senior Program Manager, GLAM and Culture, to advance the Wikimedia movement’s vision of every human being able to freely share in the sum of all knowledge; as well as its strategic direction, which states that by 2030, Wikimedia will become the essential infrastructure of the ecosystem of free knowledge, and anyone who shares our vision will be able to join us….”
Wikimedia Foundation petitions the European Court of Human Rights to lift the block of Wikipedia in Turkey – Wikimedia Foundation
“At the Wikimedia Foundation, we believe that free access to knowledge and freedom of expression are fundamental human rights. We believe that when people have good information, they can make better decisions. Free access to information creates economic opportunity and empowers people to build sustainable livelihoods. Knowledge makes our societies more informed, more connected, and more equitable.
Over the past two years, we have seen governments censor Wikipedia, including in Turkey and most recently in China, denying these rights to millions of people around the world.
Today, we proceed to the European Court of Human Rights, an international court which hears cases of human rights violations within the Council of Europe, to ask the Court to lift the more than two-year block of Wikipedia in Turkey. We are taking this action as part of our continued commitment to knowledge and freedom of expression as fundamental rights for every person….”
Job Application for Research Scientist at Wikimedia Foundation
“As a research scientist at the Wikimedia Foundation, you will work with researchers, software engineers, designers, and volunteers to design, test and evaluate new technologies. You will produce empirical insights to inform the organization’s and the movement’s efforts towards our strategic direction—to become the platform that serves open knowledge to the world and to empower all people to access and contribute to free knowledge. You will turn research questions into publicly shared, reproducible knowledge and work with a team that is strongly committed to principles of transparency, privacy and collaboration. You will use and develop free and open source technology and collaborate with researchers in the industry and academia….”
WikiJournal – Meta
“A site where authors can write their works directly online. The works then undergo independent scholarly peer review before being officially published in the journal.
Currently hosted in Wikiversity: WikiJournal User Group, with the main journals being WikiJournal of Medicine and WikiJournal of Science (Humanities journal starting up).
It provides a way of bridging the Wikipedia-Academia gap by enabling academics, scholars and professionals to contribute expert knowledge to the Wikimedia movement in the familiar academic publishing format that directly rewards scholars with cite-able publications….”
For these academic journals, Wikipedia isn’t a bug—it’s a feature – Wikimedia Foundation
“Wikimedia, especially Wikipedia, hasn’t always had the best of relationships with academia.
So you may be surprised to learn that there’s a trio of Wikimedia academic journals that are now accepting submissions: the WikiJournal of Medicine, Science, and Humanities. All are run on a traditional academic journal model, including an extensive peer review process by academic peers and the publication of a version of record that can be disseminated and cited.
The journal operates under a free copyright license, meaning here that others can take and use the text for any purpose, so long as they credit the original source and share it under a similar license. This allows volunteer Wikipedia editors to port the high-quality text into Wikipedia, bringing it to the encyclopedia’s millions of readers “for added reach and exposure,” as the journals’ about pages declare.
This process also works in reverse: some of the articles published by these journals are actually Wikipedia articles, usually submitted shortly after one or more editors have re-written them. These journals allow recognized experts in the field to vet the material.
We wanted to learn more about this innovative publishing model, so we asked several members of these journals’ editorial boards a few questions. Here’s what they had to say….”
Wikibase — Home
“Wikibase Repository is a MediaWiki extension that lets you store and manage structured, non-relational data in a central, collaboratively managed repository.
Wikibase Client is a MediaWiki extension that lets you retrieve and embed structured data from a central repository into your wiki.
Query Service that allows you to query the contents of a Wikibase installation using SPARQL
Wikibase is also a set of reusable components that provide a foundation for tasks in the same domain….
Wikibase provides an all-purpose data model that takes knowledge diversity, sources and multilingual usage seriously.
Wikibase was developed for and is used by Wikidata, the free knowledge base and Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
Wikibase uses a component based software design that allows reuse without dictating which framework you should use….”
What Open means in the face of inequity & inequality – Google Slides
“It’s not only about getting the licensing right — it’s also about overcoming linguistic barriers, put resources in place, build the technical infrastructures that are flexible enough to adapt to diverse contexts”
How do memory institutions use Wikipedia and Wikidata in their collection catalogues? – Wikimedia Blog
“Last year, the blog highlighted the amazing and powerful ways in which galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAMs) connect their cultural heritage collections with the world through Wikidata. Since then, the Wikidata community working on heritage materials has grown significantly—and the recent Wikidata Conference highlighted just how powerful and cross-disciplinary Wikidata is becoming, allowing for a number of different audiences to learn more about their data.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: 375,000 windows on art history, and that’s just the beginning – Wikimedia Blog
“Richard Knipel, the Wikimedian in residence at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, looks back at the efforts made and future plans to further support collaboration between the museum and the Wikimedia movement.”
I4OC: Initiative for Open Citations
There is fresh momentum in the scholarly publishing world to open up data on the citations that link research publications.
Six organizations today announced the establishment of the Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC): OpenCitations, the Wikimedia Foundation, PLOS, eLife, DataCite, and the Centre for Culture and Technology at Curtin University.
Initiative aims to break science’s citation paywall : Nature News & Comment
“The Initiative for Open Citations (I4OC) aims to allow anyone to access science papers’ reference lists and to build analytical services on top of that raw data. Started last year by the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco, California and five other partner organizations, I4OC announced at its official launch on 6 April that 29 organizations, including some of the world’s largest scientific publishers, have now agreed to openly release citation data.”