Submissions:2018/Making HerStory OurStory-Building a Wikipedia Presence on Campus

This submission has been accepted for WikiConference North America 2018.

Title

Making HerStory Our Story-Building a Wikipedia Presence on Campus

Theme (optional)

Relationship Building & Support, Inclusion & Diversity

Academic Peer Review option

Yes

Type of submission

Presentation

Author

Samantha Dodd

E-mail address

samantha.dodduta.edu

Wikimedia username

Doddsam09

Affiliation(s) (optional)

University of Texas at Arlington

Abstract

In an effort to provide increased access to library materials and to provide students with the necessary skills to evaluate and contribute to the digital information landscape, staff at UT Arlington libraries designed and implemented a program to incorporate Wikipedia into classrooms and events on campus.

Staff began by participating the Wikipedia + Libraries Better Together[1] program and building an in house training regimen to learn to edit and engage with the Wikipedia community. The libraries developed outreach activities on campus to gauge the interest of faculty relating Wikipedia. During Open Access week, the libraries hosted a Wikimedian-in-residence who walked attendees through his 11 Years as a Wikipedian. Following his presentation, a panel of faculty from across the Dallas-Fort Worth area discussed using Wikipedia based assignments in the classroom, and how their projects affected student learning. Faculty from campus engaged in a discussion over the merits, problems, and opportunities Wikipedia offers students. Four faculty members from the Women’s and Gender Studies program agreed to participate in a pilot program incorporating a Wikipedia based assignments into their spring courses. The libraries provided the resources, training material, and support for the students during the semester and hosted an edit-a-thon called HerStory-Incorporating Her back into History.[2]

HerStory offered students, staff and the community the opportunity to contribute content to overlooked and marginalized groups on Wikipedia. With over 60 editors contributing to HerStory, the edit-a-thon shattered expectations.[3] With 3 articles created, 74 edited, 63 editors added 12.7K words resulting in 3.15M article views to date. As Wikipedia offers libraries a way to serve 21st-century information needs, UT Arlington Libraries is continuing to build off of the success of HerStory, harnessing Wikipedia to improve access to knowledge, teach digital literacy, and to empower our students.

Length of presentation

15-30 min. for presentations

Special requests

require projector and screen

Preferred room size

small-medium

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?

No

If you will be incorporating a slidedeck during your presentation, do you agree to upload it to Commons before your session, with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, including suitable attribution in the slidedeck for any images used?

Yes

Will you attend WikiConference North America if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

Interested attendees

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2. Mosterbur (talk) 15:24, 13 August 2018 (UTC)Mosterbur
3. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 20:45, 13 August 2018 (UTC)
4. Samantha (Wiki Education) (talk) 17:07, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
5. Mozucat (talk) 01:40, 22 August 2018 (UTC)
6. Norwegianblue (talk) 20:36, 26 August 2018 (UTC)