Critical issues presentations/Possible strategies of increasing involvement of scientists and academics in Wikimedia projects
- Submission no. 48
- Title of the submission
Possible strategies of increasing involvement of scientists and academics in Wikimedia projects
- Author of the submission
- Kseniia Gulak
- Country of origin
Ukraine
- Topics
Outreach, Projects
- Keywords
- New users
- scientists
- academics
- scientific projects
- Abstract
Scientists and academics write articles in peer revived journals that are similar in structure to Wikipedia articles, they have access to equipment that can create diagrams and other illustrations in the field of science, and academics have great influence on younger students that attend their lectures. Thus, scientists could contribute to Wikimedia projects not only by means of writing Wikipedia articles on scientific subjects but also as the authors of illustrative materials for the articles, as juries in Wikimedia scientific competitions etc.
However, scientists often have certain negative predisposition towards Wikimedia involvement based on the beliefs that Wikipedia articles are of low quality and that the process of editing is unorganized and overall chaotic with no possible ways of filtering out vandalism or unbiased/wrong information.
The aim of this presentation is to highlight the need for active Wikipedians to reach out to scientists and academics in order to persuade them to contribute to Wikimedia. The presentation will name possible ways of dispelling negative prejudice researchers have against active involvement and will list all the other potential ways to encourage a scientist into becoming Wikimedia project editor.
- Result
Not accepted