DATE: November 23, 2016
VENUE: Science Building, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4
Through the first university level partnership with Wikipedia’s Education Program in Ireland, students taking the module, IS20010: Advanced Information Skills for Problem Solving, celebrated the Decade of Centenaries by collaboratively authoring biographies for individuals who experienced the momentous events of the centenary period. During the module, students learn a variety of information and digital literacy skills to help them locate and evaluate information for inclusion in biographies. Wikimedia Ireland liaises with our class, offering training in tone and structure of Wikipedia content, as well as technological guidance to master the wiki setting. Students may publish their work in Wikipedia.
Work culminated in an Editathon event, in which students showcased their contributions and Wikipedia Ireland offered mini-tutorials around Wikipedia authoring. The Editathon offered an exciting opportunity for UCD students and staff to participate actively in celebrating centenary events and for this participation to be documented for future generations. Editathon participants could further record their views on their learning, contributions, and overall experience of the event via a video booth and via Twitter.
The Editathon has helped our relationship with Wikipedia, establishing UCD as a leader in working with Wikipedia’s Education Program and offering a basis for annual Editathons.
Associate Professor, School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin
ABOUT:
Dr. Crystal Fulton is an Associate Professor in the School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin. Her research focuses on the interactions among people, information, and communication in a range of life contexts. In particular, her work extends beyond issues of information acquisition to explore how information is used, shared or hidden, and created in both digital and non-digital environments. Exploring these issues in the context of hobbyists, including genealogists, urban explorers, and gamblers, she continues to examine the social impact of information on individuals, groups, and communities. Recently, she co-authored the monograph, Digital Detectives (Chandos, 2016), which explores the development and leverage of digital competencies around online information seeking, evaluation, and use in the university environment. Her work has had a direct impact on her students’ learning, in particular, the consideration of contexts that enable students to excel at learning and engage them in constructing learning to meet their individual needs.
Projector Coordinator, Wikimedia Community Ireland
ABOUT:
Rebecca is the Project Coordinator for Wikimedia Community Ireland, which is the officially recognised affiliate group of the Wikimedia Foundation in Ireland. She oversees the recruitment of volunteers to maintain, develop and expand existing partnerships, develop and deliver a range of activities, such as Wikipedia editing events, media donations, and conferences. Rebecca also is a PhD candidate with the Media & Memory Research Initiative in the School of Arts and New Media, University of Hull. Her research focuses on the possible collaboration between cultural institutions and the public through collective, knowledge building projects. In particular, her research looks at Wikipedia as an outlet for this collaboration, with an emphasis on how this work could be understood as citizen curation, much like citizen science and citizen journalism.
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