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Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Wiki Education/Join the Open Data Movement (Summer 2019)

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Course name
Join the Open Data Movement
Institution
Wiki Education
Instructor
Will Kent
Wikipedia Expert
Ian (Wiki Ed)
Subject
wikidata
Course dates
2019-07-09 00:00:00 UTC – 2019-08-30 23:59:59 UTC
Approximate number of student editors
10


Join the open data movement. This course will introduce you to principles in linked data, fundamentals for Wikidata, and ways to engage with Wikidata resources.

Timeline

Week 1

Course meetings
Tuesday, 16 July 2019
In class - Introduction to the Wikidata Beginners Course

Welcome to your Wikidata course Dashboard. What you're looking at right now is the Timeline for this course. It acts as a syllabus that will guide you through everything you need to know for this course, including links to training modules, assignments, and milestones we will reach during this course.

The Dashboard, as detailed in our orientation module, will track your work, house your trainings, and act as an all-purpose resource for resources, recording links, and information about assignments.

Ian, a Wikidata Expert, will be working with us in this course to help us out over the next six weeks. You can reach him through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Training:

  • Introduction to Linked Data Module
  • Introduction to Wikidata Module
Milestones

This week, everyone should have a Wikidata account. If you don't please contact Will (will wikiedu.org) or Ian (ian wikiedu.org)

In class - Get started on Wikidata

Account creation should happen before the first session. If there are any questions about account creation, you can ask them during the first session. Ideally the linked data training will happen before the first sesison as well.

First session: Introductions. What is your background and what are you looking to get out of this course? What drew you to this course? What's one thing you feel confident about regarding Wikidata and what's one thing you dont' feel so confident about?

Wikidata - how does it relate to other Wikimedia projects? Did you know every article on Wikipedia has a Wikidata item? 

Exciting aspects of Wikidata: linked, openly licensed data. You can use, reuse, remix, and combine Wikidata with other datasets. Wikidata is language-agnostic. Being open, it is also designed to play well/behave with other systems. It also means that other systems should behave with Wikidata.

Different elements of Wikidata: items, properties, qualifiers, ranks, references, labels, descriptions, etc. Assign the Wiki-way module and have the participants lightly edit some items - add references, update property-values.

Assignment - Chooose some items to evaluate

Please select a few items to evaluate. Consider what's included and what is missing. Are there references? What properties were you surprised to see? How would you represent this model differently?

To assign yourself an item, first make sure you're logged in to the Dashboard. Next go to the "Students" tab of the Dashboard. Click on "add an article" next to your name and make sure you specify the dropdown menu to say "Wikidata" instead of "Wikipedia." Copy/past the Wikidata URL and click "assign."

You can do this with as many items as you like!

Week 2

Course meetings
Tuesday, 23 July 2019
In class - Choose items to evaluate

Now that you have spent some time with an item, you may start to notice some patterns. This week we will explore some variables that will help us understand data quality. Remember: since every item is unique, data quality will depend on what that exact item is. Understanding both *how* to describe something is as important as describing *where* that item belongs.

Walk through: Property usage information, where items fall within a class, and how to propose a proerty. Discuss emergent ontologies and parallel schemas (the bane and beauty of Wikidata). Introduce Recoin.

We will also start to discuss the Wikidata community and how to best interact with other Wikidata editors.

Training: Evaluating Wikidata

Training: Wikidata Community

Assignment - Evaluating Wikidata

Please evaluate the data of an item you have selected. Why did you select that particular item? Why did you choose to focus on the statements, properties, or values that you selected?

What are some ways we can improve data quality on Wikidata?

 

Week 3

Course meetings
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
In class - Editing items

Now that you understand parts of the Wikidata community and how to evaluate quality of Wikidata items, feel free to start editing items.

In class - Adding to Wikidata and Querying

How do you know what to add to Wikidata?

How can you harness all of this information?

Example queries.

Assign querying module.

Assignment - Modify a query

Wikidata is full of information. One of the most powerful ways to understand this information is through queries. Note: you do not need to learn SPARQL for this assignment. For this assignment, take a look at some example queries. Consider how you could adapt a query to have it reveal insights about something important to you or your job. I can make recommendations if you need them. Spend some time modifying a query - switch out items or properties. Add new variables and try to out multiple visualizaitons. If you're feeling adventerous, feel free to write a query from scratch.

Queries are powerful because not only do they show you what is in Wikidata, but they can also show you what isn't. Consider different kinds of queries such as maitenence queries or queries that visualize information nicely.

In class - Discussion

What's a content gap?

Week 4

Course meetings
Tuesday, 6 August 2019
In class - Building toward a project

As we continue work with data models, querying, and familiarizing ourselves with Wikidata items and properties, start to think about how you could work with Wikidata at scale? What are some of the ways a collection could improve Wikidata? How do you see yourself fitting into this project? Teacher? Editor? Liaison?

Feel free to go back and review the module about the Wikidata community. Moving forward, interacting with the community will be very important to achieve what you want to do. We will shift our focus to some of the more social aspects of editing Wikidata.

Creating new properties, data models, and coordinating projects on Wikidata will require you to work with others. We will address some of these processes in our session today.

Milestones

We're all editors! Now when you see something that isn't correct on Wikidata, go in there and fix it!

Assignment - Evaluate a data model

A query is only as good as the data model.

Now that you are familiar with editing items, additing properties, and references, it's time to share that knowledge with the rest of the community. Look at some data models for common items in your area of expertise and evaluate those data models. How accurate are they? What would you add? What would you remove? Do all the properties you want to add exist?

Week 5

Course meetings
Tuesday, 13 August 2019
In class - Add to a data model/join a WikiProject

Join a WikiProject. Introduce yourself and what you are interested in working on. See if that particular WikiProject has a data model for the kinds of items that interest you. Based on our evaluation of data models last week, make some suggestions to what exists. If there is no data model, start one from scratch. Don't forget to leave a note for the rest of the WikiProject so they know what you're working on.

In class - Project Examples/WikiProjects

Join a WikiProject, propose a property, be an active Wikidata editor. Detail the ways you can be an editor. What else do you need to complete a project (or identify future projects)?

What are some of the things that excite you about Wikidata now that you are a month into this course? What are some challenges? What are some things you would like to see?

Tool orientaiton?

Week 6

Course meetings
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
Milestones

If the WikiProject of your dreams does not exist, that's okay! We can work on creating one.

Assignment - Last week
Looking ahead to bigger projects

Being part of a WikiProject is the beginning of your next steps with Wikidata. We are just scratching the surface in terms of what we can do with querying, modeling, and uploading. Working with the Wikidata community will be important for whatever you decide to do next.

How can you see implementing Wikidata in your position at work? What are some questions, comments concerns, Wikidata beyond Wikidata - AI, digital assistants, libraries, museums, galleries, archives, civic data, journalism, etc?

Where to learn more: mailing lists, shape expressions, federating more SPARQL endpoints, bots, new tools, programs, and websites that run off of Wikidata.

Conferences: WikiCite, Wikidata Con, LD4, SWIP.

Week 7

Course meetings
Tuesday, 27 August 2019
In class - Future Follow up

Interested in writing a blog post about your experience? Here are some links to previous posts - feel free to reach out and we can move the process forward.

Contact us for a follow up when you need to.

We are happy to connect you with community memebers who may be leading projects similar to what you are working on. There are conferences, meet ups, and other ways to connect with people doing similiar things to you.

Milestones

You will receive a certificate of completion for this course. We will email this certificate to you which you can connect to your LinkedIn profile. We hope your employers take note of the initative you ahve taken in completing this course.

We hope that you will continue to edit Wikidata and be active in the community. If there is anything we can do to support your editing, always feel free to reach out. Check back regularly to discover new course offerings. As interest in Wikidata grows we will continue to offer workshops and courses on all of the amazing things you can do with Wikidata.

Thanks for all of your hardwork and for participating. Stay in touch!

Ian and Will

Case Studies

Throughout this course we have mentioned several case studies and proof-of-concept regarding Wikidata and Wikibase. This is a list of case studies with brief desriptions.

  • IUPUI Faculty Members in Wikidata - Mairelys Lemus-Rojas, Jere Odell, 2018. An excellent overview of adding faculty members to Wikidata to display their academic output in Scholia, a data visualization project.
  • The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft - Andrew McEwan, 2018. A comprehensive Wikidata case study that shows the power of uploading full data sets to Wikidata. Data about witchcraft has existed, but never before has it been connected, which is yielding new insights.
Wikidata Reference

These resources will guide you to common Wikidata reference sources.

  • Wikidata Metrics - This page details the number of users on Wikidata, topics covered, and links to data dashboards for visualizations.
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