Chemist Maggie Tam had never edited Wikipedia before taking one of our recent 500 Wiki Women Scientists courses — in fact, she didn’t even know you could.

“I used to think that each Wikipedia article was written by a single author,” Maggie admits. “I didn’t realize that anyone can edit and make changes to articles. Before the class, I never clicked on the History page, or the Talk page of articles. It is very heartwarming to find out the extent of community collaborative involvement in the articles.”

Maggie is now part of that community. As a volunteer, she’s the Communications Committee Co-Chair for Females in Mass Spectrometry, a nonprofit community that supports women in the field of mass spectrometry. In an effort to help improve Wikipedia’s coverage of the topic, she connected with 500 Women Scientists, an organization that partnered with Wiki Education to offer this course, led by Wiki Education’s Will Kent and Ian Ramjohn. Maggie signed up.

“I imagined the class to be similar to learning to drive, that there would be studying about rules, a road experience in a car with an instructor and dual brakes, and finally a road test,” Maggie explains. “I was skeptical to hear that we could begin to edit in the real Wikipedia (not just the sandbox) after the first week of training, which would be equivalent to driving on the road! As a matter of fact, it is astonishingly easy to start editing and creating an article, especially with visual editing. The course covered a good number of Wikipedia policies and resources to give us confidence. In the driving analogy, Will Kent and Ian Ramjohn are the dual brakes, who helped troubleshoot issues. There is a continuous road test in the form of reviews and edits from the Wikipedia community.”

She started by creating an article on chemist Hilary R. Bollan. Next, using Professor Hannes Röst’s list of mass spectrometrists, she created the articles for two “red links”, or missing articles, Catherine E. Costello and Jennifer Van Eyk. Then she made edits to the existing articles on Ying Ge and Vicki Wysocki.

The outcomes were great for representation of women chemists on Wikipedia — and for Maggie, who says she liked the class setting.

“I enjoyed the comradeship,” she says. “Once a week, I get to spend my lunch hour with other women scientists from different parts of the world, all working towards creating biographies to improve representation on Wikipedia.”

Now that the class is over, Maggie intends to keep working on adding more women scientists to Wikipedia, and engaging others in the Females in Mass Spectrometry group with an edit-a-thon using the 500 Women Scientists and Wiki Education resources. She wants Wikipedia’s coverage of women scientists to reflect the reality of the women already in the field — and inspire the next generation of scientists.

“There is a song in Girl Guides called ‘Yes She Can’,” Maggie says. “When I ask girls in my Girl Guides Brownies unit to research on women role models, they often start with online resources — Wikipedia being one of them. These little girls will learn more about the amazing pioneering work of women scientists when more articles exist in Wikipedia.”

Interested in hosting a course like the 500 Women Scientists course Maggie took? Visit partner.wikiedu.org.

“So often, we hear that girls in science need more role models and inspiration. We’re asked, ‘Where are the women in science?’, as if we’re not already here.”

– Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam and Dr. Jess Wade, Nature

500 Women Wiki Scientists is a project between Wiki Education and 500 Women Scientists to increase visibility of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and Medicine (STEMM) through Wikipedia’s vast reach. Since May 2020, we’ve partnered to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women and other historically excluded scientists. 500 Women Scientists has given 75 members—predominantly early career scientists—the opportunity to work with Wiki Education’s Wikipedia experts to learn how to join the Wikipedia community and ensure the encyclopedia reflects the most accurate and equitable representation of STEMM.

In three Wiki Scientists courses to date (with a fourth one starting this week), scientists affiliated with 500 Women Scientists have collaborated with each other and Wiki Education’s team to add and expand STEMM biographies on Wikipedia. Over 6 weeks, they’ve learned how to use Wikimedia projects as tools in their work to preserve and share knowledge with the public. By embedding Wikipedia know-how within their institution, 500 Women Scientists has developed a network of Wikipedians to continue this important work both through their own editing and through coordinating Wikipedia-editing events.

This is the story of how this group has become an integral part of the Wikipedia movement, and how other organizations can make that happen for their faculty, staff, or members.

There are two key components to this ongoing project:

1.  we expand public knowledge of notable scientists who have been historically excluded from the narrative;

2. scientists learn how to edit Wikipedia, later applying their learning outcomes to teach others.

1) The public benefits from more inclusive information about scientists

The US Department of Education says that women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees and 62.6% of master’s degrees. But only 31% of degrees and certificates in STEMM fields go to women.

This gap has an uneasy, well-known counterpart on Wikipedia. Roughly 83.7% of the volunteers writing Wikipedia are men. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Wikipedia’s biographies of women are often lacking in quality (sometimes highlighting a woman’s work through her husband’s career), and some are missing altogether, as only 19% of biographies on Wikipedia are of women. Wiki Education and 500 Women Scientists celebrate the idea that access to knowledge is a game-changer. We believe the same holds true for young future scientists. The gap in Wikipedia’s coverage of women reflects worrisome stereotypes of women in science, especially when we know that women already “do groundbreaking work and pave the way for more like them to join the ranks of the scientific workforce,” as Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam of 500 Women Scientists puts it.

That’s where the 500 Women Wiki Scientists come in. The participants in our courses have added more than 373,000 words to Wikipedia, primarily to biographies, and they’ve created 92 brand new articles. This is a feat for any group, but especially first-time editors who are new to Wikipedia’s technical and procedural nuances. They’re able to do this work because the publications about these scientists’ work already exist—notice they’ve added 1,400 references—but nobody else has taken the initiative to add it in to Wikipedia.

Participants’ hard work has reached over 7 million people curious to learn more about these scientists. Now, anyone with access to the internet can learn about Jean Langenheim, a plant ecologist and pioneer for women in the field. Perhaps they’ll read about Angela Christiano, a molecular geneticist whose research shows promise for treating hair loss, or Mercedes Concepcion, a Filipino social scientist whose outstanding work in population studies in Asia has earned her the nickname “Mother of Asian Demography.”

Thanks to the 500 Women Wiki Scientists, there are dozens of other stories like this now waiting for the world to discover them. We’re excited to continue this partnership, sharing stories that better represent the existing diversity among scientists, especially to encourage even more diversity in the coming generations. As Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam and Dr. Jess Wade have said, “If we can inspire enough editors to take to Wikipedia and fill in the gaps forged by gender bias, we will improve our scientific record, celebrate the outstanding science done by scientists from underrepresented groups and, maybe, inspire a new generation of girls in science who can find stories of girls just like them who grew up to do and discover incredible things.”

2) Wiki Scientists courses teach scientists how to edit Wikipedia, and alumni pass their new skills to other newcomers

Over 6 weeks, Wiki Education’s team of Wikipedia experts facilitates collaborative group sessions among 500 Women Scientists’ members to immerse them in Wikipedia’s technical, procedural, and cultural practices. Wiki Education helps these scholars incorporate published information about notable and underrepresented scientists from their field of study to Wikipedia.

Upon course completion, participants receive a shareable, electronic certificate issued by 500 Women Scientists and Wiki Education, designating them as 500 Women Wiki Scientists. At this stage, they have developed the technical skills and Wikipedia know-how to disseminate their knowledge to the public and facilitate Wikipedia-editing activities among their peers.

We’re proud of our Wiki Scientists course curriculum and the ability to bring “newbies” into the community in a relatively short period, and we’re especially thrilled with how much participants enjoy the whole experience. One participant said, “I was hoping to create two new Wikipedia pages – which was a huge stretch for me, since I had very limited editing experience before this program. I ended up creating three pages and participated in two additional edit-a-thons during the program. I plan on continuing to edit and make contributions. The course set me up to succeed.” When asked how they would describe the benefit of learning how to edit Wikipedia to someone else, another participant said, “Having the tools to contribute and improve one of the most visited sources of information is pretty empowering. Especially if you have a niche you’re excited to work on/learn more about. Editing Wikipedia is also a good exercise to become a better writer.”

And, of course, we love seeing that all post-course survey respondents reported satisfaction and that they would recommend this course to a colleague.

To date, we have trained 55 members of 500 Women Scientists how to edit Wikipedia, and we’re starting a new course this week, which will bring 20 new scientists into the community. The new cohort will join their peers in moderating virtual events to bring more scientists to Wikipedia. Check out their ongoing impact as they train others how to add biographies of historically excluded scientists to Wikipedia.

How organizations can partner with Wiki Education around a training course

Amplify reliable information to the public

Our team works personally with organizations like 500 Women Scientists to set up Wikipedia and Wikidata training courses that align with their mission and expand the public’s access to high quality knowledge. In conversations with one of 500 Women Scientists’ executive leaders, Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam, we identified what Wiki Education could help their members achieve, and we built the first course to ensure it would be an excellent learning experience for 500 Women Scientists’ participating members and would contribute to the public scholarship about women in STEMM.

Give your team the skills they need to train others

500 Women Scientists has been active for a few years in running Wikipedia edit-a-thons, events where trained Wikipedia editors guide interested newcomers through the early stages of contributing content to Wikipedia. Though they originally held events in regional “pods,” the COVID-19 pandemic shifted their events into a virtual space. These events proved engaging for members and have long had a high turn-out, but we determined that a more in-depth Wiki Scientists course would provide a deeper learning experience for anyone who prefers structured assignments and milestones as a part of their learning process. That way, 500 Women Scientists could expand their pool of members who were competent in Wikipedia editing and confident enough to train others, thus passing on their new skills to other members.

Help make open knowledge more inclusive and equitable

500 Women Scientists’ mission to make science more inclusive aligns with Wiki Education’s initiative to make Wikipedia more equitable. Not only do their members bring more inclusive content about scientists to the public through Wikipedia, but they represent a much more diverse group of editors than the existing community on English Wikipedia.

98% of the 500 Women Wiki Scientists alumni report their pronouns as “she/her” or “they/them,” which means this partnership is bringing more diverse voices to Wikipedia, as the existing editor base is 83.7% men. Additionally, we can compare the reported race and ethnicity of Wiki Education’s participants in the 500 Women Wiki Scientists courses to the Wikimedia Foundation’s 2021 Community Insights Report and see how much more racially diverse the 500 Women Wiki Scientists are compared to the existing Wikipedia community within the United States.

Join our movement!

Together, 500 Women Scientists and Wiki Education are working together to improve Wikipedia’s breadth, quality, and equity. We’re eager to continue this work, both with 500 Women Scientists and other partners. 500 Women Scientists has sponsored 75 seats since May 2020, creating a free, engaging learning opportunity for their members. This unique, fun professional development experience is fulfilling for scholars as they share knowledge with the world, and we can’t wait to bring more subject-matter experts into our community.

If you’re interested in beginning a conversation about buying out a customized course for members or staff of your organization, contact us at partner@wikiedu.org.

Britt Forsberg has had an extensive amount of experience with science. Currently, she coordinates training and service opportunities for the Minnesota Master Naturalist program where she prepares volunteers for service in conservation and connects them to stewardship, research, and education volunteer opportunities.

When Forsberg learned about the Wiki Scientists course through 500 Women Scientists, she was eager to take up this opportunity to increase representation of women in STEMM on Wikipedia.

Forsberg edited the page for Miriam Rothschild, who is a British natural scientist that has contributed to zoology, entomology, and botany. She selected this scientist because, she says, she wanted to acknowledge so-called ‘amateur’ scientists, whom she believes deserve equal recognition as those with traditional academic credentials.

“Even though she didn’t have the academic credentials that many people find necessary, she was incredibly knowledgeable and made huge contributions to entomology,” Forsberg said.  “I also found her previous page disappointing in the ways it called attention to her lack of educational background and her husband’s remarriage after their divorce instead of her scientific achievements.”

Forsberg says that if it had not been for the Wiki Scientists course, she would not have had the chance to properly dive into researching Rothschild. Because of her dedicated work, within a short period of time after publishing on Wikipedia, there were many views.

“I was amazed at the number of page views our articles had just in the small time we worked in the cohort so I think it’s clear that Wikipedia is a major player and that people pay attention to what is posted there.  It’s very important that Wikipedia users can see themselves somewhere in Wikipedia,” Forsberg says.

What made Forsberg’s time in the Wiki Scientists course memorable was the chance to work and connect with others towards similar goals. She hopes others in academia who are still denouncing Wikipedia as a good starting place will soon see its purpose and place in the information landscape.

“I think some people in academia can dismiss Wikipedia as a source but participating in the course would show them what a rich resource it is,” she says.

Forsberg looks forward to spreading the word and knowledge about Wiki Education’s useful services and how contributions like this impact others.

“We’re starting to look at how we can use Wikipedia in our program,” she says. “We’re trying to represent more diverse perspectives in our field and while we could manage that information, having our participants work in Wikipedia means that their information will find a much larger audience. It also solves some technical problems for us in that we don’t have to maintain a website, host server space, etc., and other Wikipedia users can help us stay on top of things like plagiarism. Everyone benefits this way; our program, our participants, and Wikipedia users across the world.” 

To take a course like Britt’s, please visit learn.wikiedu.org. Image credits: Open Media Ltd., CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Mountainairy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

As a young girl, I remember diving into a series of blue books called the “Childhood of Famous Americans” by Augusta Stevenson. Despite being in the Philippines, it amazed me that famous figures like Hellen Keller, Amelia Earhart, and Walt Disney had such humble beginnings and were once silly kids like me. Through their childhood stories, I was inspired to dream big and think that I could possibly make an impact when I got older too.

However, one thing I didn’t really think about back then was why I couldn’t find many sources to read about pioneers and inventors from close to home. As an aspiring scientist today, I feel the need for figures to look up to. I am always curious to learn about how others from the Philippines and Asia manage to make it big in research. During the sluggishness of the pandemic, I was able to help address that through Wikipedia. In a unique and modern way, Wikipedia has given me the chance to carefully look at, and shift the spotlight to, notable Filipina scientists on a massive, collaborative online platform. 

I recently finished a Wiki Education course called “500 Women Wiki Scientists”. The course taught me how to use Wikipedia’s tools to create two articles (Mercedes Concepcion and Clara Lim-Sylianco) about women with roots close to mine. By reading and writing about these amazing women, I was able to deeply reflect on my own scientific journey and appreciate where I came from and where I want to be. Their journeys were filled with huge contributions to science, outreach, and education — all areas I hope to contribute to as well. Although the course was only six weeks long, I was amazed at how a small group of 20 participants were able to create and edit 39 articles, racking up 133,000 article views. My own articles have had close to 300 views so far! In addition, the conversations we had through the course made me excited to think about the possible impact readers might have from seeing accomplished women scientists. I hope more people, especially women, realize they can do cool science too.

Nevertheless, there is still much work to be done. As of November 2020, only about 19% of Wikipedia biographies are about women, and most of the biographies are about women based in North America and Europe. Women and people of color from underrepresented regions like Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and Asia have also achieved great things, yet the current cyberspace has not fully been able to tell their stories. Most of the world’s population aren’t in North America or Europe, but a lot of the content that we see online are controlled and created in these continents. So what can we do about this lack of representation and perspectives? How do we get to the point where people from different corners of the world are given equal footing in telling their stories? These are tough questions to answer and, unfortunately, the online landscape could take several years to change. However, as part of the community that curates content for the 5th most visited website in the world, Wikipedians are wonderfully positioned to use the platform for elevating what should be visible.

Thankfully, there are initiatives like 500 Women Scientists that seek to confront these imbalances, and people like you and me can help feature talented people around the world. Additionally, Wiki Education continues to engage scientists, students, and teachers to fill in content gaps. Many Wikipedia communities also engage users to write articles about different cultures and areas. During the Wiki Scientists course, I found several other initiatives that increase visibility of underrepresented groups on Wikipedia: Wikipedia Asian Month, Wikiproject African diaspora, Art+Feminism, Wikimujeres, and one of the largest projects for women, Women in Red, are all projects anyone can join. 

I also think it’s important to shine light on other ways to expand world knowledge and make content accessible to as many audiences as possible. As we create content that is of all people, we should also think of sharing knowledge for all people. Wikipedia has some interesting avenues for that too. One example is Simple Wikipedia, a version of Wikipedia where only the 1,000 most common words in English are used to create articles. Another version is SpokenWikipedia which produces recordings of Wiki articles for auditory learners, visually-impaired users, and those who cannot read English.

Overall, my time in the Wiki Scientists course has shown me a more nuanced view of women’s visibility in the sciences and accessibility online. While editing Wikipedia articles can still be scary at times, I will still find ways to keep editing and creating content to address these issues. In a way, this is how I am making an impact in today’s modern, digital world.

Interested in taking a course like the one Alicia took? Visit learn.wikiedu.org to see current course offerings.

In the 10 years we’ve been supporting student editors through our Wikipedia Student Program, many courses have focused on improving biographies of women in science. In particular, the University of Calgary’s Glenn Dolphin has taught four geology classes focused on improving biographies of women geologists, with a fifth course planned for next term. And Colorado College’s Rebecca Barnes has taught seven courses focused in improving underrepresented scientists, many of whom are women. Saint Mary’s College’s Kathryn Haas has taught three courses improving biographies of women in STEM. Many other faculty have encouraged students to help close this gender gap as part of Wiki Education’s Communicating Science initiative.

Many of our Scholars & Scientists courses also focus on improving biographies of women in STEM. In the last year, we have collaborated with the organization 500 Women Scientists to run two courses on improving biographies of women in science. The course in spring 2020 resulted in 11 new biographies of women scientists, with dozens more expanded. We are in the middle of a second class which we expect will also add more quality biographies. A course sponsored by the American Physical Society that we also ran this spring added biographies of underrepresented physicists, many of whom were women. We’re also in the middle of a second course with APS.

If you’re inspired by Ada Lovelace Day and are interested in hosting a similar course for your organization, visit wikiedu.org/partnerships for more information.

Image: File:Ada Lovelace portrait.jpg, Science Museum Group, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

I’m a former bench scientist who transitioned into science policy, and consequently operates at the intersection between academia and policy. As an academic, I was really interested in the environments in which researchers work. To this end, I advocated for women in science by various means, including by organizing professional development activities with a local affiliate group of Association for Women in Science (AWIS), and participating in local outreach activities locally through 500 Women Scientists and others. In doing these activities, I realized how important it is for girls to have role models in science, and looked for ways in which I could show girls of different ages what a scientist looks like. 

My own PhD advisor was also one of two female faculty in the department. She has since moved on from academia, but she inspired me to be bold and stand out despite the circumstances. She also taught me that it’s really important to give back to the community, and I think that drove a lot of my advocacy for women in science. In my transition from science to policy, I maintained an interest in diversifying the research enterprise, particularly after experiencing first hand how the gender gap in science is greater at higher levels on the career ladder. 

During COVID-19, I sought ways to enrich my own professional development, and happened to see a call for applications for the 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scholars course on social media. I had never edited Wikipedia before, but I was eager to make an impact for women in science. I was really excited when I was accepted into the course. My motivation for enrolling was to learn a new skill, but also through editing pages of women in science, I could make a difference in increasing the visibility of women in science. 

The first Wikipedia article I worked on was Sandra Schmid, whom I had previously met in person and long admired from my days in the laboratory as someone who had made a significant impact in her field. She was also an advocate for improving the research system by changing mentoring and hiring practices, as well as by changing the system through improving postdoc training. In short, she was another role model for me both scientifically and professionally in research, and someone whom I felt more people should know about through Wikipedia.

Sandy’s article was an easy one to start with given I was already familiar with the topic, and I considered it notable. During the course, however, I also challenged myself to learn Wikipedia by picking another kind of article which required a lot of improvements initially (Brooke Borel), so that I would learn multiple editing skills by correcting different types of information that was either wrong or missing. 

Notably, while taking the course, I was able to engage in the #editWikipedia4BlackLives #HackForBlackLives event on June 10, in observance of the #Strike4BlackLives and #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM as part of a group of 200 people. Altogether, this group created over 50 articles, edited over 480, added over 100,000 words—and in just a few days, those articles had been collectively viewed over 500,000 times. 

By this point, I had been a few weeks into the course, and felt more confident in my edits. Inspired by this event, I was excited to try my hand at editing articles that I felt could have an impact in the community by elevating voices of People of Color in science. I chose to edit articles on Shirley Malcom, Melina Abdullah and Lori White, which taught me a lot. It was a really powerful experience to participate in this collective day of action, and I was glad to utilize Wikipedia editing skills for this purpose. 

As a scientist, I know that we always look for reputable sources, and in the past I might not have considered Wikipedia as such, partly because academics are mostly trained to use peer-reviewed journal articles of high impact as sources to cite for our work. This course gave me a new appreciation for the power of Wikipedia, ways in which it can impact different cross-cutting communities and identities around the world, as well as how we can leverage its accessibility to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in science and beyond.

In closing, I’m glad I took the course and I appreciate the chance to make a difference for women in STEM through the WikiProject Women Scientists, in particular as it relates to diversifying the research pipeline. To this end, I wanted to point out two pages, one is the WikiProject Women in Red looking to create pages for women in science that don’t yet exist, and the second is the List of African American Women in STEM Fields, both of which are useful tools to utilize for making a powerful impact in science. 

Since the course ended, I have sought to utilize these skills in my current field by editing relevant pages such as a science policy page, in order to educate the community on important issues in this area and how they can contribute. 

Interested in taking a course like the one Adriana took? Visit learn.wikiedu.org to see current course offerings. Another 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scientists course is now enrolling!

We all know Wikipedia. It’s almost impossible not to. 

For me, from a quick look-up of some fact to prove your point in an argument with friends, to double-checking a chemical structure for schoolwork, or to translate an obscure plant name I can’t think of the English name for; I’ve used Wikipedia consistently for well over a decade.

I’ve always known that Wikipedia was an online encyclopedia than anyone could edit. But I’d never even considered making an edit myself. Until one day in April, I received an email from 500 Women Scientists with the opportunity to attend a 6-week wiki-editing course. I’d already been working from home for a few weeks, with a considerably lower workload than usual, and — to be honest — not quite sure what to do with myself. So, I jumped on the opportunity to learn how to use the skills I already have — hey, I’m a scientist, I’ve been researching and writing and fact-checking for years! — to make Wikipedia a more inclusive place.

500 Women Scientists Wikipedia

About 10 women scientists gathered twice a week to learn how to edit Wikipedia with one main goal: putting more women on Wikipedia. I was saddened, but not surprised, to learn that of all the biographies on Wikipedia, only ~18% are about women. That percentage is ~16% if we only look at academic biographies, and it drops down to ~6.5% for female engineers, my own field. 

One potential reason for this is that a lot of Wikipedia editors are men. And — likely due to implicit bias — they write and edit articles about… other men. Even if the academic world is becoming more inclusive, this isn’t necessarily reflected on the online encyclopedia that everyone uses. 

And that’s a problem. Middle or high schoolers looking to learn more about notable figures in a field of interest and don’t find anyone who looks like them or comes from a similar background, might be turned off from pursuing studies in that field. So that’s where 500 Women Scientists Wikipedia comes in. By increasing representation of women in the academic biography category of Wikipedia, either by improving existing articles or writing new ones (for example through the Women in Red WikiProject, which aims to write articles for “redlinked” women), we could improve representation and therefore make Wikipedia a better and more inclusive resource.

That all sounds good, but how?

Okay, so I knew I wanted to make Wikipedia more inclusive and I knew why, but that didn’t really help me with the “how.” Again, the fact that anyone can edit, doesn’t make me feel comfortable doing so right away! Luckily, the WikiEducators (if that’s the term, the course was organized by Wiki Education, and everything related to Wikipedia seems to have “Wiki” in it!), walked us through the core policies of Wikipedia, the do’s and don’t, and helped us through our first article edits.

Here is a list of things that stuck (but you can find all that is relevant to editing Wikipedia, on — you guessed it! — Wikipedia):

• Statements on Wikipedia must be verifiable, which does not mean they are necessarily true. It just means there’s a sourceable body of work to back up the statement. This feels counterintuitive (shouldn’t we be writing “the truth”?) but it ensures there are reliable sources for everything on Wikipedia.
• Wikipedia is not a place for opinion; articles should reflect a neutral point of view. I did like that this meant according to consensus, as opposed to the journalistic rule of equal time. For example, if 90% of climate researchers are in agreement that climate change is real, that viewpoint should be reflected for 90% of the article.
• To have a biography on Wikipedia, a person must be notable. They have to meet criteria with regard to their academic achievements, prizes won, and impact to merit a presence on the online encyclopedia. In an academic culture where men are typically still more valued than women, this can be another factor for why there are so few biographies about women on Wikipedia.
• The definition of Wikipedia as an “online encyclopedia” is incredibly broad, and apparently it’s easier to define what Wikipedia is not.
• You can contribute to Wikipedia in several different ways, whether it’s writing new content, taking care of layout, correcting spelling and grammar, or making Wikipedia more aesthetically pleasing (just to name a few). 

Making the first edit

The first edit was scary! 

What if I made a mistake? What if I undid someone else’s edit and step on their toes? What if I did something that was inherently anti-Wikipedian?

Wikipedia’s mantra is “Be Bold” — make the change! The beauty of a massively open, crowd-sourced, and peer-reviewed platform is that almost everyone there is willing to help. It’s not seen as a faux-pas to make mistakes, and if you do, someone else will come along and fix it. Accidentally left in a typo? Someone will fix it. Mistakenly got a fact not quite right? Someone will fix it. Change someone’s important edits without noticing? They can come back and undo your change. And Wikipedia keeps track of all the changes in the “history” tab, making the whole editing process transparent and traceable.

Working on the second article was considerably easier. Sure, there are still some really tricky things, like adding images or editing boxes, but overall making edits on Wikipedia is really easy!

“So fix it”

Another Wikipedia Mantra is “So fix it”: if you see something wrong, make it better. 

If you see a lack of representation, write a new article. Make existing articles better (I was surprised to learn about how some articles in the outer corners of Wikipedia are not great). Increasing representation is not just about getting more women biographies on Wikipedia. Black, Indigenous and People of Color academics are more underrepresented on Wikipedia than they are in academia (thanks to the #editWikipedia4BlackLives effort on June 10th and ongoing efforts from the people involved, that will hopefully change), and Pride month brings LBGTQA+ themed “editathons” (sessions where groups of people edit pages together). Wikipedia is a group effort, and together we can all make Wikipedia better: more representative, more inclusive, and more equitable. I myself plan to edit or write one article a week!

Interested in taking a course like the one Valerie took? Visit learn.wikiedu.org to see current course offerings. Another 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scientists course is now enrolling!

As a scientist and educator Wikipedia is a resource that has always been on my radar. As a geoscience education blogger for the American Geophysical Union (AGU) at GeoEd Trek, I have explored different Wikipedia efforts and programs, such as Wikipedia edit-a-thon for women in STEM [Women’s History Month] (2015), Wikipedia turns 15 – but do academics trust this teenager? (2016), Wikipedia Year of Science 2016 (2016), and Why Wikipedia edit-a-thons are needed, and how we can help (2019). But I remained on the outside, quick to read about and comment on Wikipedia, without ever having made an edit on the site.

In the Spring 2020 semester, I was finally ready to dive in with my students through the Wikipedia Student Program and have my class edit Wikipedia pages. However, the semester shift to online learning had me pull back, with too many unknowns with students’ ability to access technology, and my own lack of confidence in my own ability to provide a positive Wikipedia experience through remote instruction. Still determined to jump in to the Wikipedia waters, I took the time this summer to build my own Wikipedia editing skills, and I’ve been extremely pleased with how many opportunities there have been for my own professional development, how quickly I’ve been able to contribute to Wikipedia biography pages, and how I’ve been able to assist others in making their first edits.

I have to credit my entry into the Wikipedia world with my participation in the 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scholars program, which provided instruction with Wikipedia experts, live mentoring via Zoom, asynchronous support via Slack, and an incredibly supportive community of newcomers to Wikipedia.

The Wiki Education program staff were incredible walking us through the steps to edit existing or to create new biography pages of women in STEM. We were asked to work on two biography pages, but I decided that it was “now or never” to take that deep dive into Wikipedia. I started by editing the page for Diana Josephson, the first female leader of NOAA. Then, I sought to create new Wikipedia pages, and finished three biographies by the end of the course – Rana Fine, Deborah Kelley, and Karen Von Damm. All three are oceanographers and AGU Fellows (as AGU Fellows, they meet the Wikipedia notability guidelines (academics)).

As I was completing the 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scholars program (you can see from the project dashboard that our 20 participants added over 38,000 words!), a one-day opportunity to add to Wikipedia was organized for June 10 on editWikipedia4BlackLives. I added content to the Wikipedia page for RADM Evelyn J. Fields (NOAA Corps), the first woman and first African American to head the NOAA Corps.

Then on June 25, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History led a “virtual micro-crowdsourcing event” for Adding Women in Science to Wikipedia. Just like the previous event, there was a Wikipedia page for the event with a suggest list of bio pages to contribute to. I made additions to the page of botanist Velva E. Rudd.

And the opportunities have continued! I recently participated in the SACNAS/500 Women Scientists Edit-A-Thon on July 12, where I contributed to the biography page of physical oceanographer Vanesa Magar Brunner. I also served as a Wikipedia “expert” in one of the breakout rooms to help others with their edits. I am far from an expert, but it was great knowing that I had learned enough in the 500 Women Scientists Wiki Scholars program to be able to help others make contributions to this effort. The dashboard for this project shows there were 140 editors that came together from across the globe, adding over 53,000 words and creating 15 new bio pages!

Before I wrap up this post, I want to jump back to the work I did as part of the 500 Women Scientist Wiki Scholar program. My intent for my first-ever Wikipedia page was to create one to recognize a woman from where I went to graduate school, University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. I never had the opportunity to be in a class or interact with Rana Fine, and as a student was only aware of a small part of the vast contributions she has made to the discipline. I also saw that her name was on the list of Wikipedia Women in Red/Geoscience AGU Fellows page (“red” because they do not have a page yet, so the hyperlink is not valid). This is where I saw the names of the other two women I created biography pages for. It has been incredibly humbling and amazing to learn about the numerous accomplishments of these female trailblazers in oceanography, and to do my part to make sure others learn about these individuals as well.

There are reasons and opportunities for editing Wikipedia pages, such as those listed in this EOS article. I feel so fortunate I had the opportunity to be selected for the 500 Women Scientist Wiki Scholar program and to be a part of a community committed to increasing and improving the representation of female scientists. Myself and my cohort still connect in our Slack channel and share our continued contributions and dates of future Edit-a-Thons. I look forward to discovering additional ways I can improve the biographies of women on Wikipedia and how I can mentor others along the way.

Interested in taking a course like the one Laura participated in? Visit learn.wikiedu.org to see current course offerings.

Header/thumbnail image courtesy of Laura Guertin, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. 

Inspired by my brilliant friend Jess Wade, I started writing Wikipedia biographies for women scientists to tackle some pretty big-picture problems surrounding equity in science. I was tired of hearing that women aren’t interested in science or lack the aptitude to pursue careers in science. But when I turned to the pages of Wikipedia to cite examples of women doing amazing science, the encyclopedia came up short. Women’s contributions to scientific advancement have been downplayed throughout history or even erased from the story altogether. Women are covered less in the media, which leads to journalists approaching us less often for interviews. They’re denied tenure and promotion at higher rates than their male colleagues and looked over for prestigious awards, all while being subject to gender and sexual harassment.

Despite it all, women continue to do groundbreaking work and pave the way for more like them to join the ranks of the scientific workforce. I firmly believe those achievements deserve to be celebrated on the pages of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has a bold vision to offer the sum of all human knowledge. But, quite frankly, we’re nowhere near that yet—especially when women make up only 18% of the biographies and ~10% of the volunteer editors on the English Wikipedia. The beauty of Wikipedia, though, is that it is intrinsically a work in progress, always growing, expanding, and adapting. When we know better, we do better. But we can only do better together. In the case of biographies, there are a variety of barriers to their inclusion. But the biggest barrier remains the simplest one: if no one takes the time to write it, it won’t exist.

Really, Wikipedia holds up a mirror to what our society values. If there aren’t enough articles about a woman scientist to cite, her Wikipedia biography cannot be written. Dr. Donna Strickland, for example, didn’t have a Wikipedia page until she won the Nobel Prize in physics, the first woman to do so in 55 years. We don’t have to wait until a woman accomplishes this exceptional achievement to recognize her for her contributions to her field.

So yes, there is inequity in STEM. Yes, there are gaps on Wikipedia. And yes, we can do better. And… we are. Let’s change the narrative. With a click of Wikipedia’s “edit” button, we have the power to shine a spotlight on the change-makers and pioneers who have transformed science for the better.  When we are asked about gender gaps — “Where are the women in science?” — we can show them we have always been here. And we are accomplishing great things.

One of our solutions? A Wikipedia biography-writing training course with Wiki Education for 500 Women Scientists members. By joining the impressive volunteer community that makes Wikipedia what it is, we help it better reflect the population that it serves: the world.

Wikipedia benefits from the diversity of interests, expertise, and lived experiences its editors bring. Not only are we helping right the wrongs women scientists have and continue to face, but we are also sharing roadmaps that young women can look to as they begin their own journeys into STEM careers. Who we champion in science matters. Validating and supporting each other’s careers and achievements is activism. It is building community. It is inspiring new generations of discoverers. And it is advancing science.

In partnership with 500 Women Scientists, Wiki Education is running a Wikipedia writing group to invite members of 500 Women Scientists into the Wikipedia community and provide support as we build these pages together.

• Timing: May 11 – June 19 (6 weeks). Meeting time will be determined by applicant availability.
• Time commitment per week: Two 1-hour meetings per week; 2 additional hours of independent work.
• Cost: free for members of 500 Women Scientists
• Goal: Create or improve two biographies of women in STEM
• No prior experience with Wikipedia necessary

We’re a group of women scientists who believe in an equitable and just scientific community. Can we add 500 new biographies of women scientists to Wikipedia? We think so! We hope you join us. If you’re interested, please consider registering by April 30th.

For our other open courses, visit learn.wikiedu.org.

As conferences and other networking events move online, our virtual course infrastructure can offer your organization a way to continue engaging your members. If you’re interested in buying out a similar, customized virtual course, contact Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson at jami@wikiedu.org. Or visit partner.wikiedu.org for more information.

Hero images by b farias and Eucalyp (the Noun Project).