Wikipedia:GLAM/Oxford/Month 2 report

2nd Month Report
Institution Resident's Name Residency Period Period Covered Date of Report
University of Oxford User:MartinPoulter 24 October 2016-23 October 2017 1 December-31 December 2016 5 January 2017

Projects delivered edit

Strategic Goal 1 edit

Increase the quality and quantity of coverage of subjects that are currently underrepresented on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus on cultural content

Outcomes edit

  • The bulk of the work for the Voltaire Foundation has completed, including some improvements to Wikidata entries for Voltaire's works and a couple of Histropedia timelines. Histropedia's Wikidata Query Viewer is the basis for the main deliverable, a timeline of Voltaire works categorised by type. The basic Histropedia tool was used to create a companion timeline for Voltaire's Age of Louis XIV. Both these are embedded in the Foundation web site. There is a case study describing what we did, which the Voltaire Foundation will publish first: it will go online at the start of February. There is some work remaining to be done on making sure skills have been transferred so that the Foundation staff can continue to improve Wikipedia and Wikidata.

Partnerships edit

Meetings: edit
  • The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD): keen to run an event/campaign in the Summer to get postgraduates and colleagues adding APGRD eBooks as sources in Wikipedia articles. Also have a large bibliographic database which might be suitable for Wikidata.
  • Electronic Enlightenment: had a follow-up meeting about practicalities of sharing around 10,000 records from their database with Wikidata
  • Oxford Text Archive: exploring possibilities for bulk sharing with Wikisource
  • Cult of Saints: a project that is very relevant to improving Wikipedia articles about Christian saints, but the site will not launch until after my present residency, so we will collaborate on seeking additional funding
Forthcoming: edit

To publicise the #1Lib1Ref campaign, I wrote a short item on "Getting Citations into Wikipedia" for Outline (Bodleian Libraries newsletter) and booked a room for two lunchtime drop-in sessions in January.

Forthcoming 26 January: Short presentation for communications and public engagement staff in Medicine (a pitch to gauge interest in a larger event).

Meetings relating to:

  • Early Modern Letters Online
  • Cabinet: Digital Transformation of Teaching through Objects

Activities delivered in the past month with stats: edit

Three members of the Hillforts Study group have created accounts on Commons and started uploading images in a test of the upload documentation:

Strategic Goal 2 edit

Support the development of open knowledge in the UK, by increasing the understanding and recognition of the value of open knowledge and advocating for change at an organisational, sectoral and public policy level

Outcomes edit

Partnerships edit

The following training events are scheduled for Hilary (Spring) term, hosted by Academic IT Services

  • 27 January: A train-the-trainers event for IT Services staff
  • 8 February: Wikipedia and Wikimedia for Public Engagement (lunchtime workshop)
  • 21 February: Wikidata for visualising and publicising research (2.5 hour workshop)
  • 3 March: Improving Wikipedia in your subject area (2.5 hour workshop)

Two more lunchtime workshops relating to Wikidata have been proposed for the Trinity (Summer) term, but the dates have not yet been fixed.

I've also enquired with Bodleian Staff Development about doing a general Wikimedia workshop for staff in the Bodleian.

Activities delivered in the past month with stats: edit

None to report

Strategic Goal 3 edit

To support the use of the Wikimedia projects as important tools for education and learning in the UK

Outcomes edit

The university's Academic IT Services blog hosted a guest post on "Learners as creators: student work on Wikipedia", appealing for tutors to consider Wikipedia educational assignments.

Partnerships edit

  • Ongoing partnership with the Technology Enhanced Learning group, the next step of which is that some of their staff will attend the training for trainers session in January

Activities in December edit

None to report