-
(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.
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- (Shani) So we can use those.
- (audience 4) Yeah, yeah.
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- (Shani) But we have to conclude.
- (Debora) We're making Wikidata games.
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(Shani) You're all welcome to talk to us.
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Later on, thank you.
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(applause)