Wikipedia:Columbia March 2016

This is the event page for the Wikipedia editing presentation and event at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health for Rachel Shelton's "Dissemination and Implementation Science" class.

Event details

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Columbia University

Before class

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  1. Create a Wikipedia account
  2. While logged into your Wikipedia account, visit the course dashboard to enroll in the course. This permits identification of your Wikipedia edits. You will be asked for your name - this is so that your instructor can associate your name with your Wikipedia account, and will not be public information.
  3. Choose your topic
  4. Find a scholarly source of information on that topic
  5. For your topic, read your scholarly source and find a Wikipedia article which covers that concept or related information. Deep familiarity of the information is not required, especially for the Wikipedia article.
  6. Expect that during the event, participants will take information from the academic article and add it to the Wikipedia article while citing the original source. This is how Wikipedia publishing is done!

Agenda

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"Editing Wikipedia articles on medicine", a classroom handout
1-1:30 - Welcome, and presentation on Wikipedia
1:30-1:45 - Discussion and demos
1:45-3 - Wikipedia editathon!
3-3:15 - wrap up, and review the work of others
3:15-3:30 - goodbye, and options for next steps
3:30-3:50 - real goodbye

The event will start with a presentation which gives the Wikipedia community perspective on the following:

  1. To what extent does Wikipedia matter in health communication?
  2. How does one edit Wikipedia?
  3. What is Wikipedia's quality control system?

Following the presentation, anyone may ask any question about Wikipedia to get answers or demonstrations. Following this, it will be time for a Wikipedia "editathon", which is an event in which a group of people edit together. Desktop view, not mobile access, is preferred for this exercise, but come regardless. At the editathon, this is the goal:

  1. Come to the event with some published source of good information
  2. Identify a Wikipedia article where you think information from that source should go
  3. In your own words, take information from your source and add it to the Wikipedia article
  4. Cite your source. See referencing for beginners or better, learn at the event

Hopefully everyone at the event will add at least 1-3 sentences in the time we have. After making additions, since Wikipedia is public, participants will review the accuracy and quality of classmate's edits. As we leave, participants will be invited to check back on Wikipedia after some time (3-7 days) to see if there is any online community response to anyone's contributions.

Goals

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  • All participants will gain the ability to describe the nature of health information on Wikipedia, and have more insight into health information on the Internet
  • Participants will get experience translating information from academic journals into layman health information
  • The information submitted to Wikipedia will be read by the public. Wikipedia readers will be better informed based on this event's contributions.

After some months, the class will get a report on the number of pageviews to the Wikipedia articles which the class edited. At any time after the event anyone may visit the tracking dashboard to check readership, a measurement of content added, and other statistics.

Tools and support

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Contact

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For local Wikipedia support contact user:bluerasberry, lrasberry consumer.org.