Supporting Use of Wikipedia in the UK Higher Education and Library Sectors

Accredited Wikimedia Trainer

Yesterday I received a certificate which confirms that I am now an accredited Wikipedia trainer, after participating in the Training the Trainer workshop held in Cardiff on 1-2 February 2014. I am now a “Full Wikimedia Trainer” which, according to the Training the Trainers/Accreditation page, means that I am “Able to write and or deliver, Wikimedia training modules to a high standard“.

This level of accreditation covers support for ‘institutions’ which covers:

• Bringing in contributors with specific professional expertise, often via events in their own workplace. This is a broad category, covering librarians, scientists, JISC programme managers and others.
• Experienced Wikimedians with the necessary background knowledge of institutions and academic bodies
• ‘Institutions’ covers specialist experience of working in or with GLAMS, schools, commercial companies or other specific institutions
• Trainers will have specialist experience of specific strands of various ‘Institutions’
• This accreditation will normally be in addition to ‘Technical’ training
• Separate strands of ‘Institutions’ will probably evolve over time.

and ‘Wikimedia UK member development’ which covers:

• Bringing in contributors with specific professional expertise, often via events in their own workplace. This is a broad category, covering librarians, scientists, JISC programme managers and others.
• Experienced Wikimedians with the necessary background knowledge of institutions and academic bodies
• ‘Institutions’ covers specialist experience of working in or with GLAMS, schools, commercial companies or other specific institutions
• Trainers will have specialist experience of specific strands of various ‘Institutions’
• This accreditation will normally be in addition to ‘Technical’ training
• Separate strands of ‘Institutions’ will probably evolve over time.

As summarised below I am pleased that I will be able to make use of my Wikipedia knowledge and expertise in promoting its use within the higher education and library sectors over the next few months.

Forthcoming Events

Wikipedia Sessions at LILAC 2014

The LILAC 2014 conference takes place at Sheffield Hallam University next week, from 23-25 April. I will be running a session on Getting to Grips with Wikipedia: a Practical Session which will help the information literacy librarians attending the session to register for a Wikipedia account and learn about basic Wikimedia markup by creating or modifying their user profile. After this I am supporting a session on Improving the Information Literacy Entry on Wikipedia: LILAC’s First Edit-a-thon!

Talk on Wikipedia at the CILIP Wales 2014 Conference

Since I feel that librarians have an important role in encouraging use of Wikipedia and supporting users who wish to create and update Wikipedia content and not simply consume it I am pleased to have been invited to give a plenary talk on “Editing Wikipedia: Why You Should and How You Can Support Your Users” at the CILIP Cymru Wales Conference 2014 on “Making a Difference: Libraries and their Communities”.

Wikipedia Session at the Cetis 2014 Conference

Further downstream on 17-18 June 2014 at the Cetis 2014 Conference: Building the Digital Institution I will be facilitating a session on Open Knowledge: Wikipedia and Beyond. I’m particularly looking forward to this session as it will be my first tie at a Cetis conference as a Cetis employee. I’m also looking forward to work with my colleague Simon Grant for the first time. As described in the abstract for our session

The session presenters’ view of the challenges includes a skewed demographic of editors, and a culture that can too easily descend into edit wars, and conflict between “inclusionists” and “deletionists”. Can we envisage changes to make Wikipedia better, or that could seed a better alternative? Could aspiring editors be required to learn and prove their understanding of the governance principles before being allowed to edit? Can consensus process be trained? And would different approaches such as those taken by GitHub, the P2P Foundation, etc. help to improve the culture?

The session will raise awareness of the key issues with Wikipedia, and prepare participants for more effective use of Wikipedia as consumer and author, and perhaps even as reformer.

I hope these sessions will be of interest. Let me know if you’re planning on attending.

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