cdn.media.ccc.de/.../wikidatacon2019-7-eng-Education_panel_hd.mp4

(Shani) Good morning, everyone,

and welcome to the Wikidata
and Education panel.

We're just happy anyone is here
because there are four amazing sessions

happening all at the same time
so thank you for showing up.

- (audience 1) We're happy you're here.
- (Shani) Yes, we are also happy and we--

Yes, yes, yes.

I mean, really all the sessions
are really good

so this is for the people at home,
if you're watching something else,

please come watch us later or vice versa
because there's a lot of awesomeness

in this conference.

So good morning again
and just to be clear

on what to expect from this session,
we're going to have

a really quick introduction
of these amazing people

that are assembled here today.

We're going to do an introduction
of around three minutes each,

and then we're simply
going to have a chat.

We're going to discuss education
and Wikidata

and what could be done together
and hopefully we can then

open the floor to questions
but do feel free to basically interrupt us

if you have something burning
and you really want to know

the answer to.

So without further ado,

let's meet our panelists.

And the first is João.

(João) So, hi, everyone.

Is it working?

Yup, okay, so my name is João Peschanski,
username Joaolpe.

I'm a member of the user group,
Wiki Movimento Brasil

and the user group,
Wikipedia and Education.

And I'm a university professor,

particularly in the Department
of Social Communications

where I teach Computational
Journalism Media studies.

- And I have two slides, I'm not sure--
- (Shani) Tell me when to switch.

Okay, yeah, you can switch.

So I will just mention two projects
that to some extent,

give a background of what I'm--
what my understanding of the connection

of Wikidata and educations are.

So the first project is the idea

of using Wikidata as an instrument
for Wikipedia, both and mostly to create

more meaningfulness and efficiency
in the process of working with my students

so this was a project done twice.

In which my students created
true structure narratives

based on Wikidata, entries
for Wikipedia in Portuguese on elections.

There were around 400 entries created
and the idea is to have my students

not feel the idea that editing Wikipedia,

particularly tables, is boring.

So it provides a gigantic structured draft
based on Wikidata.

So it provides more efficiency
and effectiveness for the students.

If you could go to the second one.

And we can talk later if you're interested
I provide a lot of links.

And so the second case
is one that I'm running right now.

So in Brazil, there were four
distinct investigations

of human rights crimes committed
during the military dictatorship,

two by the government,
one by intellectuals,

one by family members of killed
and disappeared people in Brazil.

And as they were completely autonomous

and diverse, data that
they collected was conflicting.

So we are using Wikidata
as a way of dealing

with conflicted information,
disagreeing data, knowledge diversity.

And having my students work
as curators of the information,

in which we don't impose one
over the other but we try to understand

the context and methodology
of the information that was created

and there is, of course, actual results

and there is a dashboard you can check,

but I would just point on this one,
a recent Wikidata live training

that we had with Denny Vrandecic
on disagreeing data

and knowledge diversity
that has actually informed the way

we are working the methodology
around this particular project.

- And I thank you.
- (Shani) Thank you so much.

Next is Ewan.

(Ewan) Yes, so, hi, my name is Ewan.

I work as the Wikimedian in Residence
at the University of Edinburgh.

It's a partnership between Wikimedia UK

and the University of Edinburgh
looking at ways

in which we can benefit from
and contribute to the Wikimedia projects.

We're working with about ten
different course programs at the moment.

And we're on the verge of publishing
our first booklet of case studies

of how Wikimedia is being used
in education in the U.K.

In particular, we've been working with
Data Science for Design Masters students

for about three years now.

And the course leaders on that course
approached myself

after me and Navina Evans, who's behind
Histropedia, around a workshop

at Repository Fringe conference
focused on Wikidata,

and they were really interested
in teaching data science

through working with real world data sets.

And so what they do is
they host a data fair

every year in October where people
from around Edinburgh,

around Scotland, different institutions
come and pitch a data set

to the students
on the Masters program there

to work with intensively over
a seven-week period.

It's a three minute
sort of speed dating exercise

where a data set is pitched
and the students organize themselves

into groups of three and they then...

analyze the data set, work with it
and they want to tell engaging visual--

visualizations with those data sets.

So of the 15 data sets
that were pitched by places

like The National Library of Scotland,
National Records of Scotland,

I pitched this data set which is
The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft database

which is one
of the University of Edinburgh's own

and it was in a Microsoft access database.

And it basically has all the records
of witch trials in Scotland

from 1563 to 1736,
stored in a static access database

and we just pitched to the students
what could they do

if they turn that into linked open data.

And we did that over two years
and that leveraged some money

to hire a Women in STEM student,

become an intern for three months
and she had a background in GIS.

So we asked her to look
at all the place names mentioned

in the data set so that she could then
plot all of these witch trials,

all of these accused witches on a map
which now exists on this website

which was live as of a month ago.

And we're now pitching to the students

a further project of now that
the information is on Wikidata,

can we do some network analysis
of seeing who the main influencers were

and link it up that much better
and have a really rich understanding

of this period of history.

Okay, that's me.

(Shani) And next--
Thank you so much, Ewan.

- Next is Debora.
- (Debora) Hi, thank you.

Thank you, guys all for being here.

I have been a Wikipedia author for forever

and I'm a professor
for Computer Science here in Berlin

at a local engineering college.

I've been teaching a course called
Semantic Modeling since about ten years.

And in the past three recent years,
I've started using Wikidata

as one of the examples
for what we're actually doing.

Do you want to go onto the next one,
please, Shani, thank you.

What we're doing is this project called,
University Degrees.

Now the students start off
with the background

that they've learned
all the traditional stuff

about RDF and OWL and using Protege
and it hurts and it's stupid

and I hate this.

So after we've been through
the fire of that,

then we graduate to Wikidata.

And we decided to model
this microscopic part of the universe

called University Degrees
because we're a university

and we know all about university degrees.

And because there is a database
available in Germany called Anabin

that has all of the data, theoretically,
in it on degrees that are granted.

I use it as a member
of the admissions committee

for our Masters program
to see if a Bachelors degree program

is accredited or not.

And so the idea was,

"Well, we'll just dump Anabin
into Wikidata."

Then we learned that reality
is much, much worse than this actually is.

So what they end up doing
is choosing a country,

they researched
the university structure there,

usually just pick one or two universities
and then try to model the degrees

that are granted.

We got a property accepted called Grants

that a university grants this degree
and the idea is we can see

what degrees are granted by a university
and when we go to a person

that we can model which degree
they actually have.

Now we've ended up with a lot of problems
and I have some modeling problems

I can't model in Wikidata.

If anybody have some great ideas,
I'd love to talk to you about it

because we have the issue
of double degrees

and double majors.

And there's all sorts of monsters
running around Wikidata called

things like Bachelor of Medicine,
Bachelor of Surgery.

And I just can't imagine putting together
all the possible combinations

of double degrees into Wikidata,
that would just kill me.

There are also degrees
that have more than one

participating university.

We found one that has
five participating universities

for the first year
and three different ones

for the second year.

And then there's the question
of Honors degrees

which is different
in all different countries

and so it turns out to have
lots of wonderful modeling issues

that I have no idea
how we're going to go on with this.

And the next slide.

The last one just to give you an idea,
we collect stuff.

So in our Wiki project, we have a table
and you're welcome to--

if you find something weird,
to put it in there.

We have all these Bachelors degrees
that we found floating around Wikidata,

Masters degrees,
there's this wonderful one over here

under Other, a Masters degree
in Icelandic Medieval Studies.

I think the five people
who've graduated from that

- are probably all on Wikidata, right?
- (laughter)

So anyway, my interest is from more
of a Computer Science point of view,

what is an ontology,
what is classification systems,

how do we go about doing this?

And we thought university degrees
would be easy and they're not.

(Shani) Thank you so much, Debora.

And next is Akbar Ali.

(Akbar) Thank you, Shani

My name is Akbar Ali from Dubai,
United Arab Emirates.

I'm working as a Social Science teacher
in a United Arab Emirates school.

Since 2015, I use Wikidata
and try to introduce Wikidata

in the school basic level education,
especially in high school standard

as part of that.

Yeah, we introduced Wikidata
among these high school students,

especially to collect data at first,
especially personal data

of the great personalities.

And we [carry out] assignments
to students to collect the data

from the Wikidata,
that was the [inaudible] direction part.

And then same [inaudible]
we did Wikidata info books.

Students prepare info books
by modeling Wikidata

that was developed [inaudible].

Then the extra activity
was we had the students

from different countries like Pakistan,
Afghanistan and European countries also.

And a lot of students
are from different languages,

so we conducted the translation
of labels and the descriptions.

And from the classroom itself
we're using the device students edited

some descriptions and labels.

At the same time, we had four classrooms
around 28 students

were in each classroom,
so totally we had 112 participation

from four classes.

And we also encountered
a teacher training program

for teachers who were trying
to introduce Wikidata

into their subject.

At the same time, we have some challenges

And many students do not have the devices

that we are going to tackle
my next academic year

by using a lot of devices.

And the internet connectivity
is another issue,

some of the students or sometimes
we feel the lack of internet connectivity,

and that is especially when we try
these activities in the [inaudible]

so there's internet connectivity issues
[inaudible].

And actually Wikidata or Wikipedia,
it's just not the part of a curriculum

but next academic year
we are trying to introduce,

as a curriculum tool, Wikidata.

That is one of the future plans
and we also would like to teach

the students some
of the basic SPARQL query.

And same [inaudible]
we also try to form the Wiki clubs

in schools, that is one
of our future plans.

Yeah, that's it.

(Shani) Thank you so much.

And lastly, we also need
to meet me, kind of.

So hi, everyone, I'm Shani Evenstein.

I'm from Israel, I work
at the Tel Aviv University,

I'm an educator and a researcher,
actually my PhD is about Wikidata,

specifically as a learning platform.

I've been an open knowledge advocate
for a long time now

and just recently became
part of the Board of Trustees.

The only reason I have to mention it

is just to say that everything I say here

is not in my hat as a trustee
or a representation of the WMF,

but rather of me as a volunteer
and an educator and a researcher.

And I want to tell you a bit
about my experience.

So I've been teaching Wikidata,

I would say since--

2014 would be the first year
that I started to introduce it

to my courses.

But I would--before delving
into my courses,

I would say that
there are two major models

of incorporating Wikidata
into the academic curriculum

or the educational curriculum.

One is an alternative assessment.

That is when different lecturers decide

to give their students an assignment

on Wikidata, using Wikidata--
previously it was Wikipedia, right?

Like everything we now experience
with Wikidata is like what we had

about ten years ago with Wikipedia.

So we're going through, in a way,
the same process now

of introducing Wikidata
as a learning platform

to the educational world in a way.

And just like with Wikipedia,
there are two models

that are maybe more but two major ones
that I could at least recognize

and I work with both.

So the first is instead of the students
being tested or writing a paper,

they do something
on Wikipedia or Wikidata,

that's the first model.

And in that sense, I've been supporting
a variety of lecturers

around Israel in various universities
around Israel,

starting in 2017.

So it took some time, right.

It's almost five years since Wikidata
was formed for academia

to start actually engaging with it.

In Israel, at least.

In academic courses, as an assignment
or as something that we--

We've actually mentioned it
a bit before in courses.

about not really having the students
write anything, right.

And the first ones to interact
were people from Computer Sciences,

from Digital Humanities,
that sort of fields

because it was a natural way
of giving the students a project

that they can actually apply
that is related to what they study.

This coming semester,
I'm going to support two such activities,

one in an international
digital culture studies,

in a digital discourse course.

And we're going to have
a Wikidata workshop

and that's going to be part
of the students' assessment.

And also something that
I'm actually very much excited about,

at the Bar Ilan University
Computer Science Department

on a course on Semantic Web.

They have--and that is going
to be in collaboration

with the Israel Antiquities Authority.

And the thing is, the lecturer
that teaches this course

wanted the students to have a project
that actually means something.

So she thought Wikidata
would be a good option.

So this is what we're--
this is going to be how we start, right.

On the right, these are the cards
that we get from

the Israel Antiquities Services.

These are Word files, by the way,
Word files, okay.

Nothing is--Word files,
I'll say it again.

Nothing is digitized.

And what we want to do
is have the students

work on these, model these.

Now because it's a Semantic Web course,

they have been grappling
with how to model things

and they've been using what Debora
has been doing basically

using Protege and using OWL
and using very basic RDF

way of thought in terms of doing it.

And the trick is going to be
how we can then take it

and map it into Wikidata
which is a real live--

with a flexible ontology kind of project.

So that's coming up this semester.

And I would say the second model
is one where Wikidata assignments

is the main assessment.

That is happening, as far as I know,
today only with my courses

at Tel Aviv University.

But as some of you know,
I have opened elective courses

at Tel Aviv University
where my students basically

contribute to Wikipedia.

The first course was in 2013
and then a second course opened in 2015

for the whole campus, so basically
every undergraduate student

at Tel Aviv University
can take such a course.

And why I'm mentioning it
is because last year

I completely transformed
a curriculum of that course

to basically feature Wikidata
in an academic course

for the first time.

And this is a course called
from Web 2 to Web 3,

from Wikipedia to Wikidata.

And these are my--this is the first class

that graduated from that course.

And in this course, of course
Wikidata was--the assignment

was the main thing.

Like using Wikidata
and learning about Wikidata

was the main thing of the course.

It's not just an assignment in a course
that deals with something else.

So these are the two different models,
this is what I've been doing,

and now that you know all of us,
I'm hoping that you can see

only from the introduction
how, in a way, diverse it is.

How you can do it in very different ways--

there's just not just one way
of doing it or dealing with it.

But there are some things
that I think are in common

to all of us and some specific,
I would say, challenges

or issues that we all deal with.

So I thought it would be interesting
to have a discussion

with the panelists now
and see how they have come to be

in a place where they even incorporate
Wikidata into the curriculum

because that's not happening
out of the blue, right.

We have to actually work for it to happen.

And there has been work
being done for years and years,

for me to open that course, for instance.

I had to--it started
with one session in a course

and then a year later, two sessions
and three sessions,

and I wasn't satisfied and I wanted
more and more and more

until I was able to convince
the university to actually do it.

But I'm quite sure
that all of these panelists

have their own challenges
in terms of persuading

the academic institutions where they're at
to actually even go for it.

So I would be very happy
to start the discussion

by asking you what did you have to do

to persuade your institutions
to even do it?

Let's see.

Yeah, so, I mean our institution
was hosting me to work

with course leaders
and they were very much...

mindful that the bread and butter
of what I was doing should really be

within curriculum work.

And we had a course
that was Data Science for Design,

and I just happened
to be running a workshop

where one of the course leaders
was attending.

And it percolated, struck,
and he was looking for people

to pitch data sets, and Wikidata
was an interesting data set

for him to model.

He was actually interested

in me pitching the idea
of Wikimedia's data on harassment

to the students--he was looking--
but I looked into that a bit

and we thought maybe
we could do something with

The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft data
and we approached the court,

the people behind that database
and said could we release this

as open linked open data
and see what the students

could do with it.

Because they were trying to let
the websites survive

and the data survive because
it's not really been used since 2003.

They were quite interested

- (Shani) Could be done.
- in what new insights could be done.

So it was pushing
against an open door, really

in that particular way
but there was a lot of work

that went behind that,

- the years to persuade, I would say.
- (Shani) Yeah.

(Shani) But in any case, it sounds like
you're one of the lucky ones, right.

You're a Wikimedian in Residence
at a university--woohoo!

We have to say something
about that in itself

because I think the fact
that academic institutions

are now starting to realize
that they even need this position,

- is something kind of new and you're--
- Yeah.

(Shani) You're a pioneer in that sense
and we have a bunch of others

now joining you around the world.

But it's quite amazing.

Yes, Andy's in the audience as well.

So I hope he's feeling better actually,
but yeah, he's at Coventry University

and a Wikimedian in Residence there.

- So we'd like more.
- (Shani) Yes.

Martin Poulter at Oxford University
was kind of the inspiration

for my own residency
because he was doing editathons

at the Bodleian Library on the Great War

and Ada Lovelace Day

and our director of IT, Melissa Highton
was looking at what the work

- he was doing at Oxford and thinking--
- (Shani) She was inspired.

Could it be applied
in teaching and learning?

Did it have to be libraries only?

Or did information literacy,
digital skills,

how under representations of knowledge,
did that have applications

in teaching and learning
and that's kind of--

So she ran an editathon
in Edinburgh on the Edinburgh Seven,

the first female undergraduates in Britain
who didn't have Wikipedia pages

at the time.

And she invited
Professor Allison Littlejohn,

who's now Dean of Teaching and Learning
at University of Glasgow

to come and do some research
to make sure it wasn't just a gimmick,

that it was actual genuine teaching
and learning going on

in these editing environments.

And she's produced about five or six
research papers that says

there is an actual point
to doing this in education.

(Shani) Yeah and I think you're making
an important point

about how we also need academic research,

showing that this is valuable, right.

And currently, we have zero.

I mean besides my research
that I'm working on now

and will take some time
to publish, there is zero,

zero research about education
and Wikidata.

We have tons of research about Wikidata

but not about how it could be used
as an educational platform

in that sense.

You've mentioned literacies
and we actually have a bunch of--

quite a lot of academic research
about how to utilize Wikipedia,

in that sense and how it helps
to enhance all sorts of literacies, right,

digital skills, academic skills,
critical thinking, collaborative work,

all of that.

And I think Wikidata
is taking it one step further

and we can use it
to teach people data literacy.

But we have zero research
to support that and therefore it's--

we are just at a beginning stage
in that sense.

- Yeah.
- (Shani) And so, yeah,

(Shani) And so what you're saying
just supports that.

Yeah, we're a research-based institution
so we have to set an evidence

what we're doing
and there is worthwhile academic purpose.

So yeah, we've got these research papers
on Wikipedia editing.

But yeah, more on WIkidata
would definitely help

- make the case further.
- (Shani) Yeah.

(Shani) Debora, what about you?

- (Debora) Well, I'm lucky too
- (Shani) Yes, yes, you are.

because I'm a German professor
and that means all I have is a heading.

- (Shani) You can do whatever you want.
- And I can choose what I want to teach.

And I put the heading
in the curriculum anyway

because I designed the curriculum
so that makes it a lot easier.

I was very lucky that I had
two really great students

who had been working here
at the Wikimedia Foundation,

the German Wikimedia Foundation
as student programmers,

Lucy and Charlie.

And they both did
their Bachelors thesis on Wikidata.

And I mean you may have heard of Lucy's--
that's the article placeholder.

That was her Bachelors thesis.

And so it was clear that

if it's easy enough
for some brilliant Bachelors to do,

my Masters had better
be able to do it as well.

And so that's when I started
working our way into that.

And the students really enjoyed
doing something real.

And not just something that's
get a grade and then it's gone.

They found this was it, it's scary too.

Because you make a change
and then some editor comes along

and screams at you
because you made a stupid mistake.

But it's okay.

It's a Wiki, we can turn it back
and start over again.

(Shani) Yeah, João, what about you?

Okay, so I guess my use of Wikidata
is dependent on my use of Wikipedia

as an educator.

So I started doing Wiki assignments
in 2014 when I was just hired

as a university professor
and that was challenging

because my school
didn't really understand,

had never done it.

So I didn't really know what to expect,
if it was going to work out.

I actually was not a Wikimedian
at the time.

I just read a book--I had a grad student

and then I said okay, that might be cool.

It was my time so I work.

The university where I work,
they required that I did

the Wikipedia assignment

as well as the expected evaluation

of my seminar.

So it was basically double grading.

And I had at the time 175 students.

It was really hard but then to some extent
they've seen they couldn't change me

so they had to adapt.

And now I transition to Wikidata,
it was easier, I guess.

Because now I'm a little bit more senior
and they let me do whatever I want

just like what you were saying
and just okay, they don't even ask anymore

what I'm doing.

And I think the whole use

of Wikipedia and Wikidata now for me

is just-- there are problems
that need to be solved

in knowledge building.

Sometimes you need Wikipedia,
sometimes you need Wikidata,

sometimes you need Wikivoyage,
Wikimedia Commons.

So we just started our project,
for instance,

on structured data on Commons.

We've uploaded from a GLAM project
a thousand files coming from

the military dictatorship,
no one knows anything about them.

And we are working with my students
to identify, to depict anything we can

on the pictures with the expectation
that if we identify there are 17 stairs

on the building which the students
were protesting the government,

we can identify the building.

So I think you go with a purpose.

That's the whole thing
of what we are doing in general.

It has value, it's meaningful.

And if you're able to convey that
to the students

and then broaden and deepen
the experience of meaningfulness

that they can acquire from data literacy
or media training,

or I don't know, history understanding
political values, democracy,

whatever you're working on as a professor,

then you've reached the purpose.

I think it's just for me it's a resource,
and it's a marvelous resource,

and I'm glad I'm part of this community
because it helps building this resource.

(Shani) So basically you either
have to become a Wikimedian in Residence

or become a university professor
to be able to do whatever you want.

But not everyone is in that position
and I think Akbar Ali

is representing another view of that
which is also important

and in a way, me as well.

I mean having one step at the door
is making it easier to implement changes

once you're already in.

But making that first step
to convince the institution

that it's even worthwhile
is very difficult.

It's very challenging.

And so I want to kind of move
between this question and the next one

and start talking about
some of the challenges

that we're all facing doing this work.

So I think you're the perfect person
to start with that

because you've already mentioned
a bit of the challenges

but maybe you can explain some more.

Okay.

Actually there was always a question

what would be the new innovative
teaching method.

That was the question realized
in the teachers' community in the UAE.

So I thought to share
about the Wikidata at first,

that will be new for them.

So I was part of the collection--
as part of the doing assignment

[inaudible] usually the students use

Google or something,
other websites like Wikipedia.

But Wikidata was a new thing for them.

So first of all, we started by collecting
the information from Wikidata.

We framed the template in the paper,
[inaudible] Wikidata template.

So it was a good thing for understanding
the structure of Wikidata for students.

And we started to collect information.

But there was one problem that
when we do the content-wise,

like when we add a content into Wikidata,

students did not create a user
[inaudible]

especially they need email ID.

So actually they are high school students

so most of them had no email ID,
so what we have them then

by using Google Spreadsheet
the data which we created

that we move to Google Spreadsheet,
then myself, I was adding

all this data into Wikidata
by using quick statements.

Actually that is one of the challenge
we need to give a chance for students

to create their own ID especially
if they are high school level students,

so they need email procedures
that is also still challenges there.

If we are overcome,
if the parents are permitting that,

we can create hundreds of students
a user ID and their contribution

will be there.

That is one of the challenges.

The second thing, I was the head
of the Department of Social Science

so I could integrate Wikidata
as part of our curriculum adaptation plan.

But at the same time,
how to run these Wikidata projects

and all other subjects,
we need to get the support

of especially the school full team.

So I think we need to give
much training and awareness

to the teachers, one of the uses
of Wikidata, how can we integrate Wikidata

as an educational tool in the curriculum.

Surely, if the teachers are convinced
and if they agree to that,

I think we can solve those problems too.

You said there are two problems,
from teacher's side

or from student's side.

(Shani) Yeah, I think you're making
a really important point

about creating awareness, right.

- Yes.
- (Shani) And I think Ewan also talked

about that.

Sometimes it's as simple as someone
sitting at the right place

at the right time at a lecture
that you're giving someplace,

and it sparks something in their mind
and they kind of get it.

And then you can expand from there.

But without that legwork
the grassroots work

that we've all been doing,
it would be impossible

to get to a residency position
or to have university professors

decide to incorporate it
into their curriculum

because it's a lot of work.

It takes work.

Even doing it just with Wikipedia
takes work as we all know.

And so yeah, that's an important step,

in a way, in creating this atmosphere

or this eco-system where this is a thing
that we do in higher education.

And we're basically, as we said,
at the very beginning stages

of disseminating the idea even
that this is possible,

that this needs to happen,
that this has to happen

because that's the only good tool
that we have today

to basically teach the students
data literacy.

So I want to hear, Debora, a bit more
about your challenges

in your courses because, obviously,
starting is not the issue here

but you have some other challenges.

Right, we have other challenges
in the sense that we're interacting

with the Wikidata community
in a weird time fashion.

It's all compressed into this semester,
and it's the second half of the semester.

So when we want things changed,
we want them changed fast.

Getting the property of grants
put through took--

it didn't come through
until like a week

before the semester was over.

Luckily, everybody had their quick
statement sheets all ready to go.

We just put the number in, pushed a button

and did a lot of edits.

And then we were dead for half a year
because I only teach this class

in the summer.

So we have another one
that we had proposed this summer,

the double degree one
because there are so many

people who have double degrees
and we weren't sure

how to model it anyway
but we proposed this property

and now it's marked as,
"This seems to be dead

because nobody's interested
in it anymore."

Well, we're interested
but we're not interested

until next summer again.

So we don't have this continuous
interaction with the community.

- But it comes in fits and starts.
- (Shani) Yeah.

(Shani) So in a way, what you're saying is

just stressing the importance
of being in close relationship

with the Wikidata community
and that is true, I would say,

to incorporating any Wiki project
into the curriculum.

You have to have the support
of the community.

If the community is not behind you,
in a way, it could become messy.

So that's a good takeaway,
I would say in general.

João, what about some of your challenges?

Okay, so with Wikidata particularly,

I think one challenge that relates

what you're saying about
the lack of academic research,

it's also the lack of resources
that we can use for students.

So I think we've created
for one of the projects

that I was just shown,
you have to have [Giovanna]

[inaudible] are here at the conference
as well--Giovanna's here...

So she was my student, so--

they were all my students.

There is a process of multiplication
to some extent with

what we are doing.

But we needed resources.

And so students could actually rely on
to edit Wikidata and understand

what they need to do and to work
on structured data on Commons.

This was a challenge.

So we had to put time on that.

I think that was a major challenge
and another challenge that I see

which is again, always worrisome
is that my students

assess Wikidata assignments as boring,

which for me is really tough to digest.

They love doing Wikipedia now.

But Wikidata is just filling out
a form for them.

And I think that something
that we need to improve

if we want to use it
as an educational resource

because they are willing to do it,
they see the purpose,

it's just the actual operation is boring.

And I think that's something that
we need to improve design

for education
as an open education resource.

(Shani) Yeah, I'm going to use
what you're saying--

(audience 2) You need to see the magic.

You need to introduce the magic
of SPARQL queries

and all those kind of models
into your students.

That's why I have a feeling that

because in Kerala last year
we tried conducting

a series of workshops
for engineering college students

as a part of my user group activity.

Nearly 12 engineering colleges,
we've gone to all the colleges

and done Wikidata workshops
with hands-on editing.

And yeah, it's boring,
initially it's boring,

it's filling up a form for students.

But we switch to SPARQL queries
and we are showing

this kind of linked data models
and all the maps and all those stuffs,

yeah, then the scenario changes,
it's super interesting.

It suddenly becomes a big thing
for the Computer Science students.

And also yeah, we had some partnership

with the language departments

in some universities.

This year, I am going to talk
about Lexemes, Lexeme projects,

so that language departments

can model that language

and add a lot of data so--

Yeah, that's it,
you can make it interesting.

There's a lot of ways out there
in Wikidata, I think.

(Shani) Yeah, thank you for adding
from your experience.

I want to go back to what João was saying.

João was making
two important points, I think.

One is about awareness
that we're still lacking

and the fact that we don't have
enough resources yet

to use it well in an educational setting
and since we're--

Maybe it's a good time to open
a parenthesis and say,

"We are just five examples
from around the world."

Obviously there are a lot of other people
doing amazing work

in other places in the world
in other academic institutions

or educational settings
and we've already acknowledged

some of them.

I encourage you to also speak to Matthew,

to Jason Evans, who's here.

To Will Kent, can you say hi.

And I specifically want
to acknowledge Will, who's here

because Will is part
of Wiki Ed Foundation.

They are the education program
for the U.S. and Canada

and what they've done,
they've waited for some time

but when they do things, they do it right.

And they created
an online training for Wikidata

which is now an online module
that all of us can use.

So they're helping to create
resources in that sense

that other people can use,
I also want to acknowledge

[inaudible] who's sitting here,
who has been a guest lecturer

at a variety of institutions
around the world,

helping to eventualize, in a sense,
for Wikidata and without resources

such as his introduction to Wikidata,
it would have been more difficult

to disseminate.

So this is just to stress
that we as a community

are at the very beginning stages
of creating actual resources

that will help other educators
do this kind of work.

That's one challenge, resources,

and I want to go back to assignments also.

João mentioned that for him
creating the right assignment

is a challenge.

And I would concur.

I agreed completely.

It has been my challenge as well,
both as an alternative assessment

and both in the model
of the whole university course

to make sure that I have assignments
that are the right size,

the right scope

and are understandable to the students
and also interesting enough

for them to actually want to engage.

And also that it's clear
how I assess their progress.

So in a way, a bit of what happened to me
using Wikipedia in the classroom

is now happening with Wikidata.

I was very ambitious at the beginning.

Even when I was coming
to support someone else's course

and I would do two sessions,

let's say, of an an intro
and then a workshop about Wikipedia.

And I would strive for the students
to write full articles

or to expand or do something
really meaningful.

As I did it more and more
throughout the years,

I found myself shrinking
the size of the assignments

and creating like mini assignments or--

Today we'd like to talk
about mini contributions, right,

so finding cool and interesting ways
for the students to contribute something

but that it's not too much is important.

And just the way I went and shrunk

over the years the Wikipedia assignments,
I find that it's really important

to do the same with Wikidata.

So giving the students something
on the one hand meaningful,

and on the other hand
with clear boundaries

that I could--like very clear steps
of what they need to do,

how they can engage
but still making it interesting enough

has been a challenge in my courses
and it's still a work in progress.

I keep experimenting.

And I think
that's the most important thing

that we're all experimenting
with this platform

and trying to look for new ways
to incorporate it

into the academic curriculum
because we understand it's important.

But I would totally agree
that it's like you said,

you need to create that awareness,
and in that sense,

I want to ask the panelists
what have worked for you?

Like what helped you do the work
that you do?

So Debora, you first.

One of the important things that I find
that helped me do the work

is making sure that we document
everything on Wiki.

That we don't have thousands
of little documents flying

all over the place.

But that we have our discussions on Wiki.

That we have our project page on Wiki.

That the students hand in
their reports on Wiki

so that the next group can look back
and see what the others did,

what helped them, what didn't help them
and that helps the next group

start at a higher level
than the group before.

(Shani) That is certainly one approach
to keep everything in one place.

I would just suggest from my experience
in knowing the work that

others are doing
that some educators choose

- to use social media
- No.

(Shani) as another means.
(chuckles)

No, stay on Wiki.

I'm actually forbidden from using Facebook

in instruction at my university.

So I would not be able to use it.

I heard there must be some Facebook group
or something, that's no go.

It has to be on Wiki so that's why
I would plead for everyone else

to be keeping their work open and on Wiki.

(Shani) Yeah and that's the beauty
of the Wikimedia movement,

there's always diversity
and once you hear someone arguing

so passionately about no use of--
only Wiki, you will find

other people as passionate,
saying that the use of social media

is the best thing that could have happened
because it's helping them

engage with students
in their own platforms

in the way that is easy for them.

Wiki is notoriously known to not being
as friendly or the user interface

is somewhat lacking.

Yeah, but in Germany, Facebook
is only used by old people.

The students are on Instagram.

(Shani) It doesn't have to be Facebook
but you get the idea.

Ewan, what about you,
what has worked for you?

Well, the sort of nature of the challenge
has changed each year.

So initially, it was about
how could we get the good information

of access database
and then model it on Wikidata.

So it was all about that
initial exchange in the first year

so there was no sort of PDF handouts
available to do that.

And then the next year it was about
how can we then enrich the data,

working with Google Spreadsheets
and the Wikidata plug-in

and things like that.

But and then the final year
was working with open refine

and so like trying to get
our heads around that

about linking their data,
adding geographical data,

then putting it on a website.

So again, it was like each year
it was different.

So it was all--always it was getting

what stories and engaging tales

could be told once we had all that data in
and we had the visualizations.

So the students were always motivated
when they had that carrot.

They weren't always really happy
with the manual labour aspect

to do this, especially when you have
to get 50 edits on Wikidata

to be able to do bulk uploading
in the first place.

That was a challenge.

But the main thing that helped
was having the Wikidata community primed

that we were going to do this.

And the fact that I had
knowledgeable people around me

that I said, "Could you be available
so that if we ever have questions--"

like Navina Evans and Martin Poulter

and Jason Evans as well,

and Simon Cobb, we just made sure
that we had good people around us

who knew the things that we needed to know

when we needed to know them.

But I agree, documentation
is super important,

but there's a number of learning hurdles
that we were trying to come up against

- in a very tight window.
- (Shani) Yeah.

(Shani) Yeah and the fact that
the tools continue to grow

and you have to know everything
and you have to--

like there is so much to learn
all the time.

You have to really keep yourself

focused on that, otherwise,
you'd be doing maybe manual work

that there is now a tool
that you don't know about

that is doing it in a much easier way.

So connecting, again,
to the community is important.

Do you have final words
on what worked for you

because we have to wrap up very soon.

(João) Okay, I guess an important aspect
of the way I've also worked

on the education program
is to connect it to a larger ecology

within the community,
within the tech development aspect

of our community trainings
through Wikidata labs,

it's part of something.

So we have Wikimedians in Residence,
we have the actual community engaging,

coming for workshops,
we set up an agenda for Wikidata live

that can actually contribute
to developing the progress

that we want to reach, we developed tools,

we do research.

So it's enriching to some extent

or it's providing a dense experience

for the growth of the community.

It's a slow process.

It's something that needs
to be engaged, rethink, rethought,

that's why this kind of conference
is so important.

We need to be in touch.

There is no right way
to basic experimenting.

No one really knows the best way
how it should be done

because no one has actually
done it before.

So we are all experimenting
and I was--just a something

since I have the mic now--
I was thinking about what Akbar Ali said.

The first time that I used Wikipedia
with high school students,

it was a complete failure.

I had been very successful
with Wikipedia assignments

with university students.

It's just with high school,
they just didn't get it

at the level that we all thought
we should lead

because it was just too hard
in the process of the critical process.

But then I think Wikidata
is actually a good resource

for high school students.

So I think that opened-- an eye-opening,
in your presentation, I think

I should go back to this experience.

(Shani) So I want to conclude the panel
by saying first of all,

thank you so much to all the panelists
and not only to them

but also to the greater,
the bigger community

of Wikimedians working in education

to help evangelize and do this work.

And I want to conclude saying
or reminding rather to us,

to our community that
this is the second Wikidata conference.

In the first Wikidata conference,
we also had an education panel.

It was the only education session
in the conference.

And two years have passed,
so much have been done,

so many cool experimenting
but we still have only one panel

in this conference for education.

This is not a criticism but rather for me
an eye-opening moment

to realize that we are still
at the very beginning stages

of showing our impact
and why this is important

to the bigger Wikimedia community
and I look at every--

each and every one of you sitting here
and listening at home

as people who can now go
and do it yourselves

and experimenting and connecting
with the community,

talking about the challenges
sharing best practices,

sharing resources is basically
the way to go

so go experiment.

Wikidata is amazing.

It's such a unique tool to teach
all sorts of things, right

from data completion
to showing, to being able to show

the gender gap
and knowledge gaps in general

in a visualized and cool way.

It is an educational tool.

So use it and hopefully
by the next Wiki Data Con,

we're going to see
a bunch of other sessions

and I would-- just to say one more thing
and I know João has to run

to the next session--about GLAM.

Use GLAM, use libraries,
work with the low-hanging fruit

which is the lecturers
who are already teaching Semantic Web

and you can use this in a way
that makes sense.

They're your best friends--
libraries, especially, will help you.

Hey.
(chuckles)

Hello--Libraries will definitely help you
in academic institutions,

usually there are libraries,
work with the libraries to help

disseminate an idea to the faculty,
to the students.

This will probably be the things
that will spark the idea

for some lecturer to try it

and we will then
conquer the world together.

- (audience 3) [inaudible]
- (Shani) Yes.

[inaudible]

but so I'm a librarian
and I wanted to know.

But one idea is for one-off lessons
instead of like semester-long

or a quarter-long because I tend to--
I try to do more data literacy

with students.

And also how to get into faculties
or your colleagues' brains

that this is great?

(Shani) João, can you give
the mic to Ewan.

We will release João who has to run
but we will take more,

five more minutes of questions.

Just really quick then.

So yeah, so it's like Martin Poulter

is running how to make
a SPARQL query workshop fun

later this afternoon.

- And I would start with that.
- (audience 3) Yeah.

Because it's like you were saying,
it's about understanding

this sort of like how they can visualize
the data story there intially

and work with simple SPARQL queries
build them up and do much more.

That could be done quite simply
in one workshop.

(audience 3) Yeah, that's how I do
my workshops.

I do them like, okay,
somebody has a question.

I'm like, okay, what are the--
all of the people who won this award

and then we do that query
and then we see all the gaps.

And so then let's fill in all these gaps.

And that's how I tend to do
these workshops,

but it's completely over their head.
(chuckles)

(Shani) Just continue, you know.

Be vigilant and continue to doing it,
continue doing the workshops

and at one point,
someone will see the light.

And visualization is probably the best way
to show impact, right.

So you're on the right direction
it sounds.

Just go for it.

(audience 4) [inaudible]
I didn't really know Wikipedia Adventure

then if you can make
a Wikidata Adventure then

- that would be super cool to introduce.
- (Shani) Well, we have Wikidata games.

- (Shani) So we can use those.
- (audience 4) Yeah, yeah.

- (Shani) But we have to conclude.
- (Debora) We're making Wikidata games.

(Shani) You're all welcome to talk to us.

Later on, thank you.

(applause)