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.

On November 21, 2022, Google’s Doodle of the day featured Marie Tharp, whose discovery led to the acceptance of continental drift theory. Tharp’s impressive career as an oceanographic cartographer was on full display that day as more than a hundred thousand internet users swarmed to her Wikipedia biography. Thankfully, the biography was robust—touting her contributions to her field and the barriers she overcame as a woman geologist in the ’40s and ’50s. Not all women on Wikipedia are as lucky. Only 19% of the biographies on the site are even about women. When they do have a page, bias mirroring gender inequities in STEM and journalism can creep up in the content. Today, Marie Tharp’s biography is comprehensive and an excellent summary of her contributions to science. But just 6 years ago, it told a very different story.

If you read Tharp’s Wikipedia article in 2017, it might escape you that the Library of Congress considers her one of the four greatest cartographers of the 20th century. The page focused more on the work of her colleague Bruce Heezen than it did on her, painting him as the more experienced scientist, rather than her collaborator. At the time, women weren’t allowed on board research vessels, so Tharp relied on Heezen’s sonar data to create her maps of the seafloor. This earlier version of Tharp’s biography contextualized her discovery of an oceanic rift valley in terms of what Heezen thought about it. He was skeptical, calling her theory “girl talk” and even going so far as to erase her work. Once he was convinced she was right, Heezen took credit for Tharp’s discovery for more than 10 years until her contribution was finally acknowledged. The 2017 version of Tharp’s Wikipedia biography hinted at the injustice, noting that her name was mysteriously missing from publications, but it didn’t explain why. A reader might assume Heezen simply did more of the work.

It was a group effort through Wiki Education’s programs, spanning years, that corrected the narrative.

First, in 2017 an undergraduate student completing a Wikipedia assignment in a Wiki Education-supported course added the barriers that Tharp overcame in pursuing geology, namely that only 4% of all earth sciences doctorates at the time were obtained by women. The student also noted the Library of Congress’ honoring of Tharp’s legacy.

Then, in 2018 a geoscience graduate student trained as a Wiki Scientist came along and detailed how Tharp’s discovery of a rift valley supported the theory of continental drift, which was new and controversial at the time. By adding this point, the Wiki Scientist focused the biography more on Tharp’s findings than on Heezen’s skepticism. They also added the reason Heezen finally came around—a male colleague confirmed Tharp’s work. Perhaps most poignantly, the Wiki Scientist replaced the page’s photograph with one of Tharp herself, rather than one of Heezen “showing” her a map of her own creation.

In 2019, another undergraduate student in a Wiki Education-supported geology course gave more context about Tharp’s map of the ocean floor in the introductory section, adding that it specifically charted the ocean’s topography and multi-dimensional geographical landscape. The student found a preliminary manuscript sketch that Tharp and Heezen made and included that too. The student added an award that Tharp received in 2001 and also updated the section about Tharp’s early life, noting that joining her father in his field work as a soil surveyor sparked her initial interest in cartography. Considering that narratives about women scientists (on Wikipedia and off) are more likely than a man’s to focus on their personal life over their career accomplishments, including the origin of Tharp’s passion for science is a great addition to the information about her upbringing.

Where before, the biography passively mentioned that Tharp’s name wasn’t included in publications of her work, this student made the language more active, noting that it was Heezen who took the credit for Tharp’s discovery in 1956 and that the discovery was not attributed to her for more than a decade. There are plenty of historical instances where discoveries made by women were credited to men at first: from the existence of dark matter to the invention of wireless communication and the first computer language compiler tools. Women scientists are still less likely to be credited for their work than men. Given the persistent barriers women face to being recognized, it’s important to accurately document the contributions from women scientists and Wikipedia is a great place to tell the real story in real time.

When we don’t tell the full story of women scientists’ achievements, we miss the opportunity to positively influence future generations of scientists. Instead, young people may be exposed to pervasive negative stereotypes suggesting that they don’t belong in STEM, which change the way they talk about their dreams and negatively affect confidence and test performance. Sustained over time, this undermining of confidence can lead to women abandoning careers that don’t align with expectations of their gender, race, or class.

We have the chance to change the story–not only for pioneers like Tharp, but for scientists working now. 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. Considering women and people of color are chosen less often for speaking opportunities, are contacted less often by journalists, and aren’t recognized for their work in equal measure to white male peers, exposure on Wikipedia can help turn the tides.

We’re proud to see that the work of students and scientists in our programs lives on, and this process worked exactly as Wikipedia was designed to: building upon itself over time as contributors uncovered more of the real story. Together, we’re helping correct the narrative of women’s place in the advancement of STEM, and there’s one thing we know for sure: a woman’s place is in Wikipedia.

I grew up in a country where abortion was neither legal nor uncommon. While I never found myself in need of access to an abortion, I had friends and acquaintances who did. Whether a person was able to find a doctor willing to perform the procedure, or whether they tried to source an abortifacient from a pharmacist or someone who knew about herb, they did so with only the minimum of knowledge. In those pre-internet days, information was hard to come by, and accurate information harder still. These days things are different, there’s a wealth of information available online, but people have a hard time deciding what to trust.

This summer, I worked with a Wiki Scholars course sponsored by the Society of Family Planning (SFP). Like the three previous iterations of the course, the participants worked on a range of articles related to reproductive health, including topics like Abortion in North Carolina, Abortion in Wisconsin, ectopic pregnancy and healthcare and the LGBT community.

Ideally, there should never be need for self-induced abortion, but as long as demand for abortion doesn’t match the availability of abortion performed under the supervision of a medical provider, it’s important for Wikipedia to have the best information possible. While people should never be coming to Wikipedia for medical advice, the fact that they do means that we need to have the best information possible in Wikipedia’s medical articles. A participant in this SFP class improved the self-induced abortion article, as have participants in previous groups.

Aid Access is an organization which provides access to medical abortion by mail in the United States. Their Wikipedia article was created by a participant in this class. Other people worked on the medical abortion (also known as medicinal abortion) article, an article that has also seen improvements from previous groups. Approximately 40% of all abortions in the United States use medication to cause abortion, and experts have expected that number to increase since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, readers looking for more information about telehealth options for abortion care have better information thanks to these new Wikipedia editors.

Regardless of how things proceed in the coming years in the US, people will continue to see pregnancy terminations in places where the option of doing it safely is either not available or not affordable. And even where access to safe, affordable abortion services do exist, access to accurate information allows them to make better decisions for themselves. I am proud to have had the opportunity to support these remarkable Wiki Scholars, many of whom were working in hospitals while the COVID-19 pandemic rages.

To see a current list of course offerings, visit learn.wikiedu.org. To sponsor a similar initiative to increase access to crucial information, visit partner.wikiedu.org.

Wikipedia is one of the most popular online resources for anyone to get information that they’re interested in learning. During election years, voters will use Wikipedia to read about different candidates that are running for federal-level positions such as the President of the United States of America. Within each of these pages there exist links to different topics that are relevant to science. With this understanding, a group of researchers and myself participated in a Wikipedia training program offered through Wiki Education and funded by the National Science Policy Network (NSPN). The goal of this training was to provide our group with the knowledge to edit Wikipedia pages that are based either directly on science or science policy-related topics.

With my expertise in nuclear science and nuclear policy, I wanted to make a difference by improving Wikipedia pages related to nuclear policy. After a few weeks of training through the course, we were assigned to begin making improvements on a page that we were interested in, beginning in an on-Wikipedia draft space called the “sandbox”. The sandbox is an excellent tool because it allows people to practice editing a Wikipedia page without making edits to the main pages directly. I chose to edit the page that discussed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

This page was important to me because the CTBT is a cornerstone treaty that has been signed and ratified by most states across the world. The US has not ratified the treaty, despite the CTBT organization’s ability to monitor and verify whether a nuclear explosion occurred. This motivated me to improve the quality of the monitoring and verification sections for the Wikipedia page. One area that needed improvement for the page included finding and adding more citations for the section, as suggested by a warning banner above the section.

The second article that I chose to edit was on the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which was incredibly outdated. The NPR is a document that is ordered by a new incoming president that describes the US’s position on nuclear weapons for the administration in power since the Clinton administration. The Wikipedia page hasn’t been updated since the Obama administration published its NPR in 2010. However, the Trump administration published its NPR in 2018. The page also offered little information about the 1994 NPR and 2001 NPR, which is of little use to readers interested in nuclear policy topics. After my edits, the page now has descriptions of the four NPRs that have been published in the last 30 years.

The cohort of Wiki Scientists worked to improve a variety of  Wikipedia pages relevant to science policy, such as genetic testing, agriculture in California, and food safety in the United States. The results speak for themselves. The edits that were made through our group have had approximately 2.99 million views since the inception of the group. Thirty-eight thousand words have been added to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles. There have also been 386 references added to a variety of topics, improving the quality of the content found on this resource across disciplines.

Now that I have completed the course, I will continue staying active with the Wikipedia community and its resources. I think it’s great that there are monthly challenges and contests revolved around improving the quality of a specific group of articles. Different articles that I plan to edit in the future include penning traps and science policy of the United States. My goal is to provide quality content on topics that I think are important for the general public. I thank the Wiki Education team and NSPN for the incredible course and support.

To see our current training courses that are open for registration, visit learn.wikiedu.org. For inquiries about partnering with Wiki Education, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org or visit partner.wikiedu.org

The quality of Wikipedia’s coverage of these areas, however, is uneven. As a project written by volunteers, Wikipedia does well with subjects that a lot of people know about. It’s an old observation about Wikipedia that it is better at Pokemon and Star Wars than law or poetry. Science policy articles need attention from people with knowledge of the subject. That’s why we were so excited to partner with the National Science Policy Network (NSPN) as part of its 2020 Election Initiative.

Between September and November, we trained 15 NSPN members as Wiki Scientists, working with them on Wikipedia, through Slack, and in Zoom meetings for 12 weeks to help them contribute their knowledge to the world’s most popular reference work.

In total, participants added 38,000 words to 96 articles, including the addition of 386 references! I’m excited to share some examples of the excellent work they’ve done in that time.

• The embryo article is a good example of the sort of big scientific topic that can easily be neglected on Wikipedia. Its scope is broad and it really benefits from the work of someone who comes to it with a broad understanding of the subject and the literature. One of the NSPN Wiki Scientists made major improvements to the page, correcting an overemphasis on human embryos (for which there is a separate article), expanding the article, rewriting the lead, and adding references.
• A Wiki Scientist also made a wide range of improvements to the 1,000-views-a-day pathogen article, another broad subject covering anything that can produce disease.

• 

  We have a new biography of Adaora Adimora, the Sarah Graham Kenan Distinguished Professor of Medicine and professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. She researches the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections among minority populations.

• Water resource policy concerns one of our most fundamental resources and how it can be collected, prepared, used, and disposed of, taking into account human use and the environment. The incredibly important topic has had maintenance tags at the top of the article for several years, indicating it needed a lot of work. After this Wiki Scientists course, it is considerably improved, with new or rewritten/expanded sections, better organization, and more sources.

• 

  A new article about Jean Dickey (1945–2018), a pioneering geodesist (someone who works to measure and understand Earth’s shape, orientation, and gravitational field) and particle physicist who worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 37 years.

• Another new article on the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, which led to the U.S. National Alzheimer’s Plan to increase spending on research, care, and public engagement regarding the disease.
• A biography of Miaki Ishii, Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard.
• The Nuclear Posture Review concerns the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security strategy. Until this course, it only included coverage of the reviews conducted in 2002 and 2010. But there were two others, in 1994 and 2018. With the addition of these sections, the article helps readers gain a clearer picture of the development of national policy on one of the most serious topics imaginable.
• Several improvements to agriculture in California, converting a stub about an important topic in agriculture with little useful information into a solid article covering the use of water and environmental considerations.

These articles are great examples of why Wikipedia training courses like this are so important. They show the impact subject-matter experts can have on science policy content in particular, and science in general, on Wikipedia. They also illustrate a need to continue this work. As is the nature of Wikipedia, while a lot of great work has been done here, these articles are not complete and can still use work. Our hope is that Wiki Scientists who go through this course will continue to improve Wikipedia, but we also need to continue to introduce scientists to the public importance of Wikipedia as a tool for communicating science and policy information. It is for that reason that we are running another course focused on science policy open to NSPN members as well as other scientists interested to share their expertise on Wikipedia.

To see our current training courses that are open for registration, visit learn.wikiedu.org. For inquiries about partnering with Wiki Education, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org.

“It feels really powerful to have a forum to reach this many people and to provide them with potentially helpful information. I certainly don’t reach this many people during direct patient care or through publications in medical journals.”

Everyone uses Wikipedia. Even our doctors.¹

So doesn’t it make sense to invite medical professionals into the Wikipedia community to help create and update that information?

That’s exactly what our Wikipedia training course in partnership with the Society of Family Planning (SFP) has accomplished.

One participant, an OB/GYN, tackled the Wikipedia page about doulas. She not only brought her professional expertise to improve the page, she also approached it as a consumer of that information. The SFP scholar was pregnant while she made her edits!

“The page combined my personal experience as a pregnant person who was planning to have a doula at birth, professional experience as an obstetrician-gynecologist who participates in childbirth and abortions on a regular basis, and a researcher who studies humanistic approaches to reproductive healthcare provision,” she shared with Wiki Education in an interview.

The open encyclopedia is only as accurate and complete as those who choose to engage in its curation and creation. And we all have interests and expertise that make us uniquely qualified to tackle certain topics. The more perspectives and angles of expertise represented on the encyclopedia, the better that information reflects the lives, experiences, and interests of the people searching for it.

Not only does improving Wikipedia do a great service for the world, but it can be a valuable personal experience as well. We’ve heard from participating scholars that the process of learning how to ‘edit’ is a great chance to revisit their own research and see it in a different light. Then there’s just the delightful experience of going down the rabbithole of academic discovery again.

“I noticed that the Wikipedia page needed some restructuring to be more inclusive of non-birth doulas and to have stronger references,” the SFP scholar said of her Wikipedia work. “In this process, I found scholarly writings that I had not been aware of before, and read many of them with great interest, since it was not only relevant professionally but also personally. Revising this page also motivated me to stop procrastinating and to work on my research on birth and abortion experiences. The literature review I did for the doula page had a lot of overlap with what I was already working on.”

While this OB/GYN typically focuses on primary research articles in her professional work, Wikipedia’s preference for secondary sources required that she do more of a broad review that included scholarly books. While perusing these relevant books on her Kindle, she noticed something.

“My Kindle linked to the Wikipedia entry ‘doula’ that I was in the process of editing! Immediately, I recognized the impact that Wikipedia has and felt the pressure to do a good job.”

We might all agree that everyone having access to accurate and complete information before making health decisions is important. But this sort of public engagement can be a daunting task, one that requires constant re-evaluation, expansion, and updating. Luckily, equipping the public with knowledge of science and medical research is a mission that can be done collectively and collaboratively.

“Needless to say, the current version of the doula page still has work that needs to be done,” the SFP scholar noted. “I’m hoping someone knowledgeable about end-of-life doulas will contribute, too. Since completion of the course, I have told many people, including my doula team, to check it out and get involved.”

So many medical professionals, academics, and experts in general have knowledge that would be a great fit for Wikipedia’s content. But many don’t have the time or technical know-how to get that information into the hands of the public where they’re looking for it. That’s where a course like this comes in handy. SFP sponsored seats for their members because they recognized the value of giving experts the dedicated time and support to do public engagement work. Ultimately, these scholars are making the world a better place by translating the latest research for a non-expert audience and making that information free.

“As medical professionals, we have acquired expertise over many years of rigorous training but have few outlets to share what we know with a large audience. Certainly our daily interactions with patients matter, yet Wikipedia creates an opportunity to disseminate what we know to many more people, and have far-reaching impact.”

The doula page receives more than 1,000 views every day. The SFP scholar rewrote the introduction, added multiple sections, and restructured existing content. Previously, the page only referenced doulas in relation to childbirth. Now the new paragraphs reflect that doulas are involved in other capacities, as well, including with miscarriage, abortion, and end-of-life care.

“It feels really powerful to have a forum to reach this many people and to provide them with potentially helpful information. I certainly don’t reach this many people during direct patient care or through publications in medical journals. Ultimately, I hope that it entices readers to consider having a doula support them (or their loved ones) in their major life transitions, or at minimum, helps readers see that these life transitions do not have to be experienced alone without support.”

This project is sponsored by the Society of Family Planning (SFP) with the hard work of Amanda Dennis, Jenny O’Donnell, and other staff members. SFP has sponsored 32 seats since June 2019. Participation for accepted SFP members is free. If you’re interested in buying out a customized professional development course for members or staff of your organization or institution, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org.

Thumbnail image icons by Delwar Hossain and Adrien Coquet, via the Noun Project.

What would the world look like if everyone had unfettered access to knowledge? Free knowledge resources like Wikipedia provide an opportunity to put power into the hands of everyone. The Society of Family Planning (SFP) agrees, so they’ve sponsored Wikipedia training courses for their members to help improve the quality of abortion and contraception content on Wikipedia. Two cohorts of these in-depth trainings have now taken place (each spanning 12 weeks) and participating scholars have had great success bringing their expertise and professional experience into Wikipedia.

The training course

Wiki Education’s staff of Wikipedia experts facilitated online group sessions for participating SFP members, providing them with a space to ask questions, collaborate with each other, and receive hands-on support and technical training. Participants are now equipped with the Wikipedia know-how to contribute high-quality content to some of the site’s most-read pages about family planning.

Beyond the course

Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson and Customer Success Manager Samantha Weald were thrilled to join many of these participating members, as well as SFP staff, at SFP’s annual meeting in October. Jami joined course participants Colleen Denny, Bhavik Kumar, Anne Davis, and Grace Ferguson on a panel about public scholarship through Wikipedia. The group responded to curious and enthusiastic attendees with overwhelmingly positive remarks about their experience in our course and the fulfillment they felt successfully adding to Wikipedia. The passion these scholars have for providing the public with up-to-date, accurate medical information was evident. Gaining knowledge and tools to more successfully contribute to Wikipedia is a great outcome of this course.

Successes

Among the many successes of this course, a few stand out.

Doulas play an important support role in many people’s health-related experiences, and the Wikipedia page about these professionals receives more than 1,000 views every day. The page was substantially expanded and improved by an SFP scholar, who rewrote the introduction and added multiple sections, including ones about training and certification. Previously, the page only referenced doulas in relation to childbirth. Now the new summary paragraphs reflect that doulas are involved in other capacities, as well, including with miscarriage, abortion, and end-of-life care. The SFP scholar is now responsible for more than half of the current entry.

The page for vaginal bleeding saw impressive growth, with a scholar adding more than 2,500 words. They are responsible for half of this page, which is considered of “top importance” among Wikipedia pages related to women’s health. The section on vaginal bleeding in premenopausal women is dramatically expanded, with detailed and specific information conditions that can cause vaginal bleeding. 200 people consult this page every day.

The osmotic dilators page was a short stub with some outdated citations before an SFP scholar updated it and more than doubled its content. And because they have access to the tool in their professional work, the scholar even took some photos and uploaded them, as the page previously lacked any illustrations.

Tubal ligation, the surgical procedure commonly known as having one’s “tubes tied,” is one of the most popular forms of contraception. The page on tubal ligation receives more than 550 pageviews every day. It was significantly expanded and improved by a course participant, who is now responsible for 89% of the page. That participant shared why she thinks medical professionals should be involved in Wikipedia editing in one of our previous blog posts.

Menstrual suppression is the use of hormonal management to stop or reduce menstrual bleeding. Surprisingly, Wikipedia did not have a page about this topic before an SFP scholar created it.

The page about medical abortion (or medication abortion) describes the use of pills to bring about an abortion. It is another high-impact Wikipedia page, with 450 people checking it each day. A health professional in one of the SFP courses made a wide range of improvements, including reworking the introduction, expanding content, adding references, and replacing references with up-to-date research.

Another scholar improved the page on reproductive rights, with a focus on expanding the human rights section.

Given that most people who add content to the English Wikipedia live in the Global North, content about other countries is either underdeveloped or is told from an outsider’s perspective. One SFP scholar from Uganda went about telling the story of family planning in Uganda in their own words. Read more in our blog post.

The unintended pregnancy page has also been improved. The scholar who tackled it refined the definition, improved statistical information, added up-to-date references, and contributed content about other factors associated with unintended pregnancy.

An abortion fund is a non-profit that provides assistance to low-income women who cannot afford the costs of an abortion. The abortion fund page was expanded, many parts rewritten, and many sources added or replaced by an SFP scholar.

Other scholars fixed errors, updated statistics, expanded sections, or improved citations in the pages on emergency contraception, reproductive coercion, dilation and evacuation, late termination of pregnancy, mifepristone, and the main abortion page.

This project is sponsored by the Society of Family Planning (SFP) with the hard work of Amanda Dennis, Jenny O’Donnell, and other staff members. SFP has sponsored 32 seats since June 2019. Participation for accepted SFP members is free. If you’re interested in buying out a customized professional development course for members or staff of your organization or institution, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org.

Want to read about shark genetics expert, Dení Ramírez Macías, who Ecology Project International listed among the top women scientists saving the planet? How about Anela Choy, the Hawaiian oceanographer who discovered bottle caps, trash bags, and microplastics to be contained in the stomachs of deep sea fish? There’s now a Wikipedia biography for Kathaleen Land, too, the NASA mathematician who was the “inspiration behind, catalyst for, and gateway to” the creation of the 2016 film Hidden Figures. And one for Alissa Chavez, who, at 14 years old, invented a child car seat alarm system called the “Hot Seat” to reduce deaths of children left in cars. Go check out Carolina Osorio‘s new page as well; the transit algorithmic system she invented both alleviates traffic and helps reduce city CO2 emissions.

Before this year’s Ada Lovelace Day, none of these Wikipedia biographies existed. Thanks to the group at X, now they do.

Laura Chrobak, an engineering intern, chose conservationist Christa Anderson‘s biography to create. “I truly admire her work,” Laura told Wiki Education. “And through the process of writing the Wikipedia page, I became so impressed with her professional accomplishments and history. I read one of her papers detailing climate change mitigation policy and found her argument and research to be quite compelling. Her work on deforestation and climate policy is incredibly relevant and interesting to me.”

Visibility for scientists and their work on Wikipedia asserts to the world that their contributions matter. While STEM fields are inherently collaborative and scientists tend not to receive too much individualized attention for their research, it’s still important to showcase the individuals who have made a difference for their field. Wikipedia matters for underrepresented groups in science not only because these scientists deserve recognition equal to their white male peers, but also because their Wikipedia biographies show future generations what a person in a STEM career can look like.

“As a woman in STEM I am always eager to find out more about the paths and work of women in STEM further along than myself,” Laura shared. “I hope that in starting a page about someone I find to be doing such inspiring work that others will be galvanized to learn more or contribute to a page on someone/something that inspires them as well!”

Over the course of the day, attendees created 17 new biographies and worked on more than 30 topics related to underrepresented groups in STEM. Most newly created biographies are “stubs”, which means the pages are a starting place for others on Wikipedia to add to and grow. These pages have a whole new life ahead of them; their existence invites more people to join in and highlight the achievements of these fascinating individuals.

Adding to Wikipedia, especially around people in STEM, is a natural fitting task for X, a company that values collaboration, openness to new ideas, and radical creativity to “solve some of the world’s hardest problems.” Wikipedia and Wiki Education’s shared purpose to benefit people on a worldwide scale speaks to those values. And it was clear from the 37 participants who showed up to learn more about Wikipedia, that the team at X shares that commitment to making a worldwide impact.

Wiki Education helps organizations motivate their staff to enact change aligned with their organizational mission. Wikipedia is one of the most far-reaching tools to do that. And based on your organizational goals and strategy, we’ll help identify how this work can best have a worldwide reach and a positive impact on your staff.

If you’re interested in collaborating at your organization or institution, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org.