We recently published a bit of a rant about many Wikipedia science entries leaving a lot to be desired. In response, we were informed that an effort to improve that situation was already brewing. In fact, we're now happy to point out that the Wiki Education Foundation has declared 2016 the Wikipedia Year of Science.
The Wiki Education Foundation is a nonprofit that helps provide teachers and college-level instructors with the tools they need to get their students engaged in projects intended to improve Wikipedia. For example, the teachers could assign a class to improve entires in a specific topic area and use materials provided by the foundation to help the students edit entries and provide proper references.
This year, thanks to support from the Simons Foundation and Google, the Wiki Education Foundation is targeting entries in the sciences. The effort has already produced new materials for instructors to use, monthly themes (February's is zoology), and a general goal to improve biographical information for female scientists.
If you'd like to get involved, there's a landing page for the effort on Wikipedia itself. This being Wikipedia, that page is still a work in progress.
reader comments
4