JE.II

Wikimedia for open science

September 22-23

After 20 years since its creation, the online encyclopedia Wikipedia is a well known source of information. While being now part of pop culture, the freely editable online encyclopedia is also a source of data for scholars and enterprises, and a way to disseminate scientific knowledge. Wikipedia is part of an ecosystem of projects, each devoted to a different subject like quotes, public domain texts and pictures. Among these projects, Wikidata is a structured data repository at the forefront of open science. In Wikidata, each item, being a topic, a person, an event or a concept, is connected to others, creating a vast graph linking different fields and entities.

The only ‘.org’s among the most visited sites the web – the volunteer created, nonprofit operated, ecosystem of websites has become a critical piece of knowledge infrastructure equally for every student as for every knowledge graph.

This topic will be discussed in two sessions on consecutive days. The first (Wednesday, September 22nd) will be a presentation and Q&A; while the second (Thursday, September 23rd) will be a practical workshop. Attendees at the workshop are requested to bring their own laptop and to register for a free Wikimedia user account in advance.

Wikipedia and Wikidata will be introduced, with a particular attention for the needs of scholars and inquisitive people, by showing practical examples of science communication and research projects which use them. Specific examples will be demonstrated from tools including Scholia as an automatic research profile generator for scholars (publications, employments etc) thanks to the collection of citation of scientific papers in Wikidata; and the Wikidata Query Service - how to utilise it, and how to incorporate new information within it.

As the saying goes “Wikipedia works in practice, but not in theory”. This workshop will demonstrate tools, and teach basic skills, necessary to perform key tasks of Wikipedia and Wikidata use – both as a reader/researcher, and as a contributor/editor. 

Based on the interests of attendees, the session will divide into groups and provide practical instruction in such tasks as: editing a Wikipedia article and adding footnotes and references; creating Wikidata items; and performing queries on Wikidata.