When it comes to experts’ understanding of climate science and the public’s understanding, there are some well-documented differences. American Physical Society members have been closing the gaps with impactful work on Wikipedia. With 18 billion page views per month, Wikipedia content has a proven track record for affecting collective behavior across a wide range of sectors. 

Since 2019, the American Physical Society (APS) has empowered 110 members—from a high school student to a Nobel Prize laureate—to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of physics and physicists. These scientists practice their science communication on a worldwide stage, write biographies of historically excluded physicists, leverage Wikidata—the open data repository behind Wikipedia—and are now correcting content gaps related to climate mitigation.

Dr. Allie Lau, the APS Public Engagement Sr. Programs Manager, has been instrumental in advancing the work.

“APS was excited about a Wikipedia training course focused on energy and climate science as this is an area of importance to the Society and its members,” Dr. Lau shared. 

The virtual courses, seven of them so far including the latest climate-focused iteration, present an opportunity for APS members to connect across disciplines and countries like never before. 

“APS recognizes the serious consequences of climate change and urges physicists to contribute to interdisciplinary climate research collaborations and efforts to design solutions to mitigate the human impact on climate,” Dr. Lau added. “The Society is committed to actions that will reduce greenhouse gas concentration and advocates for research and development of carbon-neutral and carbon-free energy technologies.”

Facilitating this chance for physicists to contribute accurate energy research to the public dialogue has been meaningful for the Society. As their Chief External Affairs Officer, Francis Slakey explains, “The Wiki Scientists course is a great tool for achieving our mission of diffusing the knowledge of physics for the benefit of humanity and amplifying the voice for science.” 

Correcting well-documented knowledge gaps

By adding up-to-date climate research to Wikipedia, APS Wiki Scientists supported by Wiki Education are helping correct the following gaps in public understanding: 

People misunderstand climate science and mitigation. 

The public often cites recycling and limiting trash pollution as the actions they think are most impactful for addressing climate change, whereas climate scientists focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions on a much larger scale and across all sectors of society. 

Advances in renewable energy production, like solar* and wind, are some such mitigation strategies that physicists improved on Wikipedia as Wiki Scientists. Morgaine Mandigo-Stoba, one of these physicists, expanded the Wikipedia page about thin-film solar cells, which covers a variety of established and developing thin-film photovoltaic technologies for an audience of 5,000 readers every month. She wrote about what these types of solar cells are made out of; how they work; how they’re produced and the costs of production; their advantages over first-generation silicon solar cells (including being cheaper and safer to produce); recent advancements in how efficient they are for electricity production; their durability and lifetime; how widely used they are in new utility development; and their potential role in meeting international renewable energy goals. She even included a diagram of her own design to illustrate a solar cell I-V curve. 

“Adding good data visualizations was really important to me in terms of making this page accessible to a wide audience,” Mandigo-Stoba shared. “Of course, I hope that this exposure can lead to people making more informed energy choices. One thing we talked about in the course is that people can feel a lot of anxiety around taking action against climate change and one way to alleviate that is to simply expose them to possible solutions. I hope that this page can help alleviate some of that worry that people have about finding the ‘perfect’ energy solution and help them feel empowered to explore new green energy technology.”

Another physicist improved the Wikipedia page on wind power, adding the physics at work in the power transfer from wind into energy. This page receives even more readers per month: close to 30,000! 

As Mandigo-Stoba explains, the exercise of writing a Wikipedia page is one of science translation. “Taking a topic that at its core is very technical and making it useful and interesting to a broad audience like this is a really fun challenge,” she shared.

People don’t connect the effects of climate change to their daily lives.

Many researchers have long assumed that the public doesn’t feel the urgency around mitigating climate change that scientists do. But according to new research, 61% of Americans say global climate change is affecting their local community and 70% are alarmed, concerned, or cautious. However, many still struggle to explain the connection between their lived experiences and the science behind global warming. Fewer understand how they can help. 

That’s why adding regional-specific climate information to Wikipedia pages like climate change in Illinois, as one Wiki Scientist did, is so impactful. This page now explains that, because of climate change, Illinois is likely to experience more frequent flooding, harmful algae blooms on Lake Michigan, and higher temperatures that may harm humans and agriculture. The page also illustrates local mitigation efforts, including strategies to reduce the effects of heat islands, as well as information about the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act–a job retraining program for workers impacted by the transition to renewables.

“When I came across this page for the first time, it was in bad shape,” says APS member Maggie Geppert who tackled the updates. “It was a series of long quotes from a single source from 2016, which is not appropriate for a Wikipedia page. I originally thought about simply going back to the original source and rephrasing the quotes. In that sense, my original goal was to make the page better by just bringing it to some baseline standards. However, a topic like climate change really does need current information, and a single seven-year-old article as a source is not nearly enough. I decided to update the information and expand it from projected effects to current actions people in Illinois are taking to mitigate climate change. People need to know that there is political will in the United States to fight climate change. This is not an impossible task. It’s really, really big and really, really hard, but there are people who are willing to take action now. I chose to edit the Climate Change in Illinois page because it’s about where I live. My students will be able to read it and relate to the places and climate conditions it describes.”

Contributing up-to-date information on this topic in particular counteracts much of the popular mis-narratives circulating about climate science. Wikipedia is nicknamed the “last best place on the internet”, after all.

“When it comes to climate change, there is a lot of misinformation on social media,” Geppert added. “Wikipedia stands as a beacon of truth in an area riddled with lies and misrepresentations.”

People struggle to see where they might pursue climate-related work or they may even distrust scientists.

A Wikipedia biography recognizes a scientist’s contributions in real time. It surfaces her expertise to journalists and panel organizers, humanizes her beyond her CV or university profile, and shows young people interested in STEM what career paths are possible for them. It also does the important work of boosting a scientist’s credibility, changing stereotypes about who gets to be a scientist, and fostering trust in scientific research. This visibility is especially important for climate scientists, who–like other scientists in politicized fields–often encounter pushback in the public sector about how they know what they know.

Wiki Scientists in our courses are putting faces to climate work by writing biographies of scientists. The biographies for Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Katharine Hayhoe are much more comprehensive now. And Kate Marvel even has a new photo! Thousands of Wikipedia readers are being exposed to the scientific contributions of these scientists and others like them, every day.

Wiki Education kicked off our 8th APS Wiki Scientists course last week, and participating members will celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month by adding or expanding Wikipedia biographies of Hispanic and Latinx physicists. We’re thrilled at the commitment APS has made toward their mission of providing a welcome and supportive professional home for an active, engaged, and diverse membership, and we look forward to the ongoing work from their dedicated members.

The work lives on.

These are just some of the many examples of helping close the gap between expert and public understanding of climate science.

“Once you get over the fear of editing something which potentially will be read by many people, editing Wikipedia is not that difficult,” one APS Wiki Scientist shared. “Improvements can be made at all levels, from fixing grammar/readability to adding new content. And the benefit is that you are making real contributions to pages that are read by many, helping them make informed perspectives.”

For Geppert, the Wiki Scientists experience was also a new way to interact with her APS membership. “This class was an opportunity for me to mix with physicists in all different places around the world at many different stages in their career,” she added. “It was a lot of fun.”

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* Links will direct you to Wiki Education’s Dashboard tool, which highlights the parts of Wikipedia articles that scientists in our program are responsible for writing. You also have the option in that window to navigate to the actual Wikipedia article, where you will see the same content. This tool is available to all of Wiki Education’s partners.

Wiki Education is looking to expand its impact on the public’s access to high-quality climate science. If you’re interested in getting involved, visit partner.wikiedu.org to start building your own Wikipedia Initiative with our support.

What if your power in this fight lies not in what you can do as an individual but in your ability to be part of a collective? You can’t solve the climate crisis alone, but it’s even more true that we can’t solve it without you. – Mary Annaïse Heglar

When people first learned about Wikipedia in 2001, they couldn’t fathom its eventual success. Building a massive online encyclopedia that relies on individual contributions to share knowledge? This is a lost cause! 22 years later, Wikipedia has proven that we can imagine a better world and collectively work to create it. Small contributions from people all over the globe working together and on their own to make something influential for the good of humankind. This sounds a lot like what we need to do in order to mitigate climate change.

Wikipedia gets billions of visitors every month and actually affects peoples’ behavior, so representing topics well on the site has a wide-reaching impact. That’s why it’s vital that Wikipedia represents the latest in climate science and solutions.

We’re thrilled to be doing just that in our latest Wiki Scientists course sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS). One of the central components of the APS mission is to share physics knowledge. Since 2019, the association has fulfilled this promise by partnering with Wiki Education to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of physics and physicists. APS has given 93 members—from a high school student to a Nobel Prize laureate—the opportunity to practice their science communication on a worldwide stage, write biographies of historically excluded physicists, and leverage Wikidata—the open data repository behind Wikipedia–for research, dissemination, and teaching. APS members in this Initiative have reached 31.1 million Wikipedia readers with their work in only three years.

“If other associations have the goals of fostering equity, inclusion, and diversity in their field, as well as increasing access to their discipline’s knowledge, Wikipedia is a great avenue to explore,” says Allie Lau, Public Engagement Programs Manager at APS.

Communicating new discoveries as they happen is one great way experts can elevate their field through Wikipedia. An APS Wiki Scientist from MIT added a recent notable demonstration of quantum supremacy to the quantum computing article, which received 1.8 million views in 2021 and 2022 after they made these changes. We’re excited to have that kind of impact come from our current course with APS, which is working on energy and climate science, especially as advances in mitigation strategies and technologies become newly available. We’re particularly thrilled to be working with the American Physical Society in this mission because they have long urged members and the surrounding academic community to research and understand the effects of human activity on the Earth’s climate, and to develop the technological solutions for the near and longer term.

Disseminating physics research through a popular open access tool like Wikipedia is important for advancing science. Research shows that journal articles cited in science-related Wikipedia articles receive a boost in citations; language in those Wikipedia articles affects future scientific literature; and traffic to knowledge institution websites (like those of academic journals) increases. Thus, this project helps fulfill the mission to share science with the public, and the work the APS Wiki Scientists do will help people make decisions informed by science.

APS members in our most recent Wiki Scientists course offer a diverse range of expertise including:

• Studio physics
• Thermoelectricity
• Extreme condition physics
• Nanophysics
• Particle physics
• History and philosophy of physics
• Technical writing for congress
• Instructional design, and more.

They will gather with our Wikipedia experts each week over Zoom. There, they will bring their expertise as physicists to address content gaps on Wikipedia related to energy and the climate. Together, they represent a cohort of scientists who are approaching climate science from many angles. We’re thrilled to see what they will do, both as individual contributors to Wikipedia and as a collective force for climate communication.

Sign up to be part of an upcoming course focused on climate solutions. Or visit partner.wikiedu.org to start building your own Wikipedia Initiative with our support.

“Wikipedia is one of the most-visited websites in the world, and the go-to resource for reference and background information,” said Christian Anderson who completed our recent Wiki Scientists course sponsored by the American Physical Society. “When STEM minorities are included in Wikipedia, their visibility immediately increases. It’s difficult to imagine a more efficient way to celebrate achievements from all kinds of folks. As a physicist (one of the majors with the fewest women) at BYU (one of the least ethnically diverse schools in America), it’s easy to think only white men do what I do; Wikipedia is a powerful counter to those sorts of historically-deterministic blinders.”

Christian Anderson is a marine biologist and theoretical physicist, who also studies Finnish in his spare time. When he realized that the English Wikipedia was missing a biography of Dr. Eugenie Lisitzin, an oceanographer who was the first Finnish woman to earn a PhD in physics, he figured he was a great person to write it.

“I’ve been strongly committed to increasing minority involvement in STEM for decades. I have also taught myself a bit of wiki editing, and I thought this was a fantastic opportunity to combine both interests. I was delighted to find a physical oceanographer (my two fields) who broke so many gender barriers in her own country, and that I happened to have rudimentary abilities in the uncommon language containing most of the secondary sources about her. But what really made me feel like this was meant to be was late in the project, I stumbled upon a list of visiting scholars to my own former department (The Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD), and learned that Lisitzin had spent a six month sabbatical on the same campus as me in 1959.”

There are a few reasons a biography might not exist on Wikipedia yet. The figure may not meet Wikipedia’s requirements for notability. There may not be enough secondary sources about them to cite. Or, (and what is very often the case), someone simply has not taken the time to write it.

The argument could definitely be made for Dr. Lisitzin’s deserving an article. But at first, Christian had some trouble tracking down enough online resources about her.

“I understand Wikipedia’s policy of referencing secondary sources to maintain standards of notability. Unfortunately, one side effect of this policy is that it causes Wikipedia to reflect societal bias against women and minorities in science,” said Christian. Luckily, he knew where else to look.

“I sought help from some wonderful people. Ari Miettinen at the University of Helsinki dug Dr. Lisitzin’s 1927 dissertation out of the archives and scanned the first five pages for me, so I could find out who her advisor was. I also discovered that her future boss at the Institute of Marine Science was on her committee, explaining why she shifted from particle physics to oceanography. Researchers in the Finnish Genealogy Facebook group and at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City were able to help me find the family’s immigration records from Germany (where her father was a railway engineer) to Finland, and her only obituary in a small local newspaper. Without their help, I wouldn’t have known even where she died, much less that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1961 to allow her to become the first director of a federal science ministry when the current director took a two year sabbatical.”

It’s exactly this kind of collaboration, crowd-sourcing, and passionate follow-through that makes Wikipedia work and makes it wonderful. And having the support of our Wiki Scientists course gave Christian some added skills and confidence, even though he had been editing Wikipedia since 2014.

“I had written two articles before taking this class, but learned something new every meeting, including how to customize my personal profile, all about the wiki journal, community standards in talk pages, where to get help, and so on. Will Kent was an excellent discussion leader.

“I love Wikipedia as a source, and am always delighted when I get to contribute. After the class, I went back and improved an article I created in 2016 about Ludwig Berwald, a brilliant Jewish mathematician in Vienna who submitted his last paper for publication the morning before Nazis took him to the concentration camp where he would die. That is a powerful story, and one that deserves the best writing I can bring to it.”

“Ludwig and Lisitzin show that even with the millions of articles already available, significant and inspiring stories are still waiting to be told. I’m delighted that I now have the skills and opportunity to share them via Wikipedia.”

Sign up for an open course at learn.wikiedu.org or explore sponsoring a customized course like the American Physical Society did at partner.wikiedu.org.

Sofía Flores Fuentes is a science communicator. She’s been a university professor, a civil servant, and an independent public engagement person. Currently, she’s working as a communicator at the Physics Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Her most recent medium of science communication? Wikipedia.

“Wikipedia is a great platform, if not the best platform, to freely communicate science and information based on evidence,” Sofía says. “It reaches any corner of the world (that has internet access) so anyone can exploit the information located here. I think as science communicators we have the responsibility of knowing how to use Wikipedia.”

Sofía learned to edit Wikipedia through a recent Wiki Scientists course run by Wiki Education and sponsored by the American Physical Society (APS). A colleague had recommended the course, and she knew it was the help she needed to jumpstart her work on Wikipedia. The course focused on improving biographies of underrepresented physicists on Wikipedia, a cause near and dear to Sofía’s heart.

While the course was taught in English and focused on the English Wikipedia, Sofía took the opportunity to use her bilingualism to improve Spanish Wikipedia articles too. She expanded the article on María Ester Brandan and created the article on Myriam Mondragón Ceballos.

“The Wiki Scientists course gave me the tools to write an article. Even though the Spanish version changes a bit, I had the chance to go into the platform, learn the process and how it works in general terms,” Sofía says. “However, the most important thing I got from the course was the confidence to do it. Wikipedia seemed like a dark universe to me, that couldn’t be penetrated that easily. After this course I now feel like it is a fascinating world created and nourished by a vibrant community, and all the respect and values involved.”

Sofía found the differences in processes between the Spanish and English Wikipedia interesting, as well as the differences in discussions. She’s inspired to keep editing articles about Mexican physicists, especially women. And she hopes to have events at her institution to support others to edit as well.

“I am a science communicator who loves writing articles. But I also stand for the access to information, so I try to dedicate my professional work so people can have the possibility of learning and being informed. I also think that humanity can do great things that can benefit other people, so I believe Wikipedia is a great effort for humans to reach this goal,” Sofía says. “I’m just grateful for APS giving me the opportunity to learn. I think that a lot of people like me can make the most from your work so we can also help others.”

One of the central components of the American Physical Society (APS)’s mission is to share physics knowledge — and, since 2020, one way the association has done this is through partnering with Wiki Education to host a series of Wiki Scientists courses. In these courses, Wiki Education staff teach APS members — physicists — how to contribute to Wikipedia. Some courses have focused on improving Wikipedia’s coverage of physics topics, while others have focused on biographies of historically excluded physicists.

“In the APS Wiki Scientist courses, our members build their science communication and public engagement skills. They work on articles of notable women and historically marginalized groups in physics, increasing the visibility of these physicists. This helps expand the public perception of ‘who is a physicist’ and can promote broader participation in the discipline. They also contribute to articles on various physics topics, using their expertise to add information and supporting references. Articles with clear, accessible content help physics learners and can generate excitement for physics topics,” says Allie Lau, Public Engagement Programs Manager at APS. “Taken together, the contributions of APS members help develop Wikipedia content that accurately reflects the makeup of the physics community and the work of physicists.”

In the five courses to date, 84 APS members have added more than 109,000 words of content to 311 articles on Wikipedia. The physicists’ work has already been read more than 13 million times. For example, the nitrogen-vacancy center article edited by a participant in one of the courses has been read more than 58,000 times. From a biographies course, the new article on Qatari physicist Ilham Al-Qaradawi has been viewed more than 10,000 times. These examples showcase why these Wiki Scientist courses are helping advance APS’s mission. Participants report the courses are meaningful — and numbered among them is even a Nobel laureate!

In addition to supporting our overall partnership, Allie signed up to participate in the most recent Wikipedia course focused on improving biographies of underrepresented physicists. Since she has a background in physics education, Allie chose to expand the article on Lillian C. McDermott, a pioneer in the field.

“The course taught me the core pillars of Wikipedia editing and I learned about the neutral tone of voice to use in articles. I also learned about the guidelines for notability and verifiability,” Allie says. “Wiki Education provides our members with access to high quality training from expert Wikipedians who are also excellent teachers.”

Allie says she’d never used Wikipedia’s talk pages before taking the course. Understanding those helped Allie see the community of volunteer contributors who work tirelessly to keep Wikipedia the reliable source it is. Thanks to the course, Allie now feels comfortable participating in APS edit-a-thons and other Wikipedia events.

Overall, Allie says she enjoyed the course — and so did the members she took it with. APS routinely gets positive feedback from members who participate in the course, which leads them to keep partnering with Wiki Education to offer more courses. Up next is a Wikidata course, focused on improving the coverage of physics on the linked open data counterpart to Wikipedia.

Allie sees these Wiki Scientist courses, especially those focused on improving biographies of underrepresented physicists, to be an important part of APS’s strategy.

“A core part of the APS’s vision is to foster equity and inclusion in physics, and increase diversity in all its dimensions. When we improve the diversity of physicist biographies on Wikipedia, we are amplifying the voices and increasing the visibility of physicists from groups historically marginalized in the discipline,” Allie says. “This is important not only because it recognizes their contributions to the field, but also because it helps shift and expand the perception of who can be a physicist.”

She encourages APS’s peer academic associations who are also interested in improving representation in their discipline to consider partnering with Wiki Education to host courses.

“If other associations have the goals of fostering equity, inclusion, and diversity in their field, as well as increasing access to their discipline’s knowledge, Wikipedia is a great avenue to explore,” Allie says. “It is one of the most popular websites in the world and it is easy to contribute to.”

Interested in learning more about a Wikipedia or Wikidata course? Visit learn.wikiedu.org.

Image credit: PhysicsSphinx, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Like most people, Nick Geiser uses Wikipedia every day. As a PhD candidate in theoretical physics at the University of California, Los Angeles, Nick studies string theory and uses mathematics to solve problems in quantum gravity. Outside of research, he works with a variety of organizations to support under-represented minority groups in STEM fields.

When he first saw information about an American Physical Society (APS) Wiki Scientists course, where participants would learn to edit Wikipedia with instruction from Wiki Education, Nick was intrigued, but work and other distractions kept him from applying.

“A few months after that, I read an article about the course itself and the experiences of the Wiki Scientists who took it. I then enthusiastically signed up for the latest iteration of the course and received a scholarship from the APS to attend,” he says. “I specifically wanted to learn how to edit Wikipedia and to spend time improving the biographical pages for minority physicists.”

Nick joined other APS members in a six-week course over Zoom, led by Wiki Education’s Will Kent. As a scientific researcher, Nick says he was familiar with technical writing, but the idea of editing Wikipedia was still daunting to him.

“The weekly meetings and homework assignments were a perfect format to learn the particular skills of editing Wikipedia that I might have never learned on my own,” he says. “Frankly, Wikipedia is overwhelming, and Will broke things down so that I could learn the ropes in manageable steps.”

Following those steps led Nick to improve the biography of Argentine theoretical physicist Miguel Ángel Virasoro, whose work laid the mathematical groundwork for Nick’s field. The article was a stub, meaning it was comprised of a handful of sentences but lacked detail.

“I am also Latino, so I found Virasoro as a fitting first subject for my Wikipedia journey,” Nick explains. “Through writing this article, I learned that a prominent Argentine philosopher with the same name was the father of the physicist Virasoro, but there was no reference to this connection on English language Wikipedia! I disambiguated the two Wikipedia pages and added the fact that they were father and son. I was incredibly surprised that such an important fact was missing from the two Wikipedia pages, and I was happy to have added that particular bit of information.”

Having learned to edit Wikipedia through this course, Nick plans to keep contributing content. He loves how focused he becomes when editing Wikipedia — to the detriment of his other projects, a statement many Wikipedians all over the world can identify with. In the future, he plans to both improve biographies of under-represented physicists as well as regularly editing more technical articles he’s engaging with as part of his own research.

“Improving the open-access reservoir of knowledge on Wikipedia will now be part of my regular work as an academic,” Nick says. “I think all academics, including physicists, should learn the basics of editing Wikipedia. We all write academic papers which may be read by only a few other researchers. Wikipedia articles, however, may be read by millions of people. Just a few hours of edits can tangibly improve a primary source of information for much of the globe.”

“Moreover, STEM in particular has real problems of representation, and improving the biographical articles on Wikipedia for under-represented minority scientists can help turn the tide,” he adds. “Aspiring young scientists are influenced by scientists who look like them, and the biographies of these scientists will not write themselves.”

Image credits: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Quant Mechanic, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Roxanne Hughes uses Wikipedia all the time. So when Roxanne, the director of the Center for Integrating Research and Learning at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, saw a call from the American Physical Society to take one of our Wiki Scientists courses aimed at improving biographies of underrepresented physicists on Wikipedia, she signed right up.

“I realized that Wikipedia was such a valuable place to highlight biographies of STEM women who might not be known,” she says. “I work in diversity, equity, and inclusion within STEM and Wikipedia’s efforts to give voice to scientists and engineers who have been ignored is incredibly valuable.”

In the six-week class, Roxanne met with our instructor, Will Kent, and her classmates once a week via Zoom, as well as taking our online trainings outside of class. Roxanne says she enjoyed both the trainings and the synchronous instruction.

Roxanne chose to work on Dorothy Toplitzky Blum‘s Wikipedia article. Blum was an American computer scientist and cryptanalyst.

“She worked for the National Security Agency and its predecessors from 1944 until her death in 1980,” Roxanne explains. “I find the period during WWII to be such an interesting time period for women to gain opportunities in the workforce. So her story particularly intrigued me.”

In addition to improving Blum’s biography, Roxanne is also contemplating how she can engage more with Wikipedia. In her work, she runs or oversees programs for K-12 students/teachers, undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs. She says she thinks a similar course for these age groups could have a profound impact on students and postdocs. Roxanne calls it an “empowering experience” to give credit to an underrepresented scientist on such a big platform like Wikipedia. And of course, she adds, it’s not just Wikipedia’s biographies that need expanding: physics topics themselves are important too.

“When people Google physicists or physics concepts, they will most likely be taken to a Wikipedia page,” she says. “Physicists need to be part of the communication of their science, and that happens through Wikipedia.”

To take a course like the one Roxanne took, visit learn.wikiedu.org.

Image credit: NationalMagLab, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

During his Wiki Education course, Marcano focused his attention on various astronomy pages and articles about astronomers and physicists from Latin America. Alternating between the Spanish and English versions of Wikipedia, Marcano was presented with an opportune chance at improving the quality of Spanish language articles within his research interests. 

“I started with very small edits on the page of Guillermo Haro and on the page about Pulsars. Also some minor edits to some of the English ones about my research areas,” Marcano says. “I hope to continue improving the pages about my research, especially the Spanish version ones as many lack behind their English counterparts.”

Reach and accessibility on Wikipedia are both important to Marcano, especially for people who use the platform to discover new interests. 

“I remember myself as a young boy in the Dominican Republic reading about the many exotic astrophysics objects like black holes and neutron stars and Wikipedia is undoubtedly the first stop for most people to learn about them.  It is important that the information on Wikipedia is correct and well-cited, and for this, someone has to write it and contribute to Wikipedia,” Marcano says. 

Not only does Wikipedia help curious individuals explore new subject matter, but it can also be personally gratifying for editors such as Marcano.

“The articles are living organisms. Once your edits go live you have to be fine with people viewing it and commenting on it and changing it. I have way too many articles on my watchlist and I love to see the articles change over time and the edits people make,” Marcano says. 

While taking the course, Marcano learned the Wikipedia essentials, equipping him with the tools to use Wikipedia in new opportunities going forward. 

“I really enjoyed our weekly meetings with Ian and interacting with the rest of the cohort,” Marcano says. “The course was great to learn about all the different parts and pages of Wikipedia, like the talk pages, sandboxes, the Wiki Commons, and the Wiki projects.”

Through APS, Marcano has had more opportunities to keep up with edits and actively engage with the Wiki community. 

“I participated in the ‘Women Make the World Go Round: A Pi Day Wiki Edit-a-thon’ to work on biographies of some women physicists. I still need to finish polishing some on my sandbox and I hope to participate in their next Edit-a-thon to get more biographies of underrepresented groups in science. I think that work is necessary and impactful,” Marcano says. 

As a researcher, Marcano considered a new perspective for how researchers present their findings to the public. He used this change in perspective to guide his advice for other research scientists who are looking to get involved on Wikipedia. 

“We [as researchers] sometimes get lost in the details and lost in jargon. Editing Wikipedia helps you distill your research to put it in an understandable way and see the big picture and connection to other topics,” Marcano says. 

With continued interest in editing Wikipedia and impactful contributions to the Spanish language version of the platform, Marcano’s testimonial showcases the extensive possibilities of open-knowledge. 

To take a course like the one Manuel took, visit learn.wikiedu.org.

Image of Manuel Credit: Mapichar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Hero Image Credit: USDA NRCS Texas, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“In July 2020, the American Physical Society (APS), where I am a Fellow, sent an invitation to apply for a scholarship for a project called Elevating the Visibility of Minority and Women Physicists on Wikipedia. I applied immediately, thinking that I could contribute to Wikipedia by writing the profile of a scientist who should be there but it isn’t,” Brandan says. 

Brandan’s background in experimental physics came in handy as she began editing Wikipedia. Spending most of her time during the course updating the Wikipedia page for one of her colleagues, Brandan immersed herself in a variety of documents and references on her accomplished contemporary. 

“I am an experimental physicist and it was interesting to apply my abilities to understand a human subject. I learned about her life and now I feel proud of helping to increase the visibility of a colleague I admire,” Brandan says. 

Brandan also spoke broadly about the importance of Wikipedia, and the mission of APS to elevate visibility on the platform by sponsoring instructional courses. 

“We live in a time when human society is destroying some of the dogmas we have created/accepted for millennia, and it is happening very fast. Given the role that Wikipedia has gained in today’s world, opening Wikipedia to inclusion seems essential,” Brandan says. 

Considering the societal importance of Wikipedia, Brandan recommended that her colleagues engage more actively with the platform. To Brandan, openness and curiosity seem to be missing from some of her colleagues’ imagination when it comes to Wikipedia. 

“My colleagues use Wikipedia but few understand how it works,” Brandan says. “Very few understand that they could be the authors of an item, but also, the concept of open editing and that anyone can change what the original editor has written, is difficult to understand and accept for many.”

Brandan’s positive course experience with Wiki Education gave her the fundamental skills to contribute first hand to the open knowledge movement. The collaborative work environment, as well as the supportive instructor relationship, helped Brandan put her ideas into practice. 

“It was a great course. The instructor and the rest of the team led us to the many aspects of Wikipedia philosophy and editing. For me, it was interesting to learn about the rest of the participants’ goals and strategies to attain them,” Brandan says. 

The sentiments shared by Brandan are similar to those shared by other Wiki Scholars across disciplines. However, one commonality between these groups remains – with openness and curiosity, real-world impacts are made on Wikipedia that advance visibility and promote accessibility.

“Wikipedia is universal and should offer a fair coverage of all aspects of human culture,” Brandan says.

To take a course like the one María-Ester took, visit learn.wikiedu.org. 

Hero Image Credit: Armineaghayan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons