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According to Wikipedia, Wikipedia
”is a free content, multilingual online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers through a model of open collaboration, using a wiki-based editing system. […] It is the largest and most-read reference work in history, and consistently one of the 15 most popular websites ranked by Alexa; as of 2021, Wikipedia was ranked the 13th most popular site.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia, last accessed 29/12/2021)
Even though a neutral point of view is one of Wikipedia’s five fundamental principles and everyone can become a Wikipedian, the website’s numerous systemic biases (most notably its gender and racial bias) are well documented. Most of its editors, e.g., are white Western men with a Christian background, and there are more entries on (white) men than there are on women. In this course, we are going to take at look at Wikipedia’s systemic bias problems, analyse them, and become Wikipedians in order to tackle this issue.
The course is divided into three phases: First, we are going to have introductory in-class sessions (in April and May), in which you are going to familiarize yourselves with the scholarly debates around Wikipedia’s systemic bias problem and learn how to write and edit a Wikipedia entry. This is followed by a guided self-study phase (in late May and June). During this phase, you are going to develop and work on your own research project and present your work-in-progress in short, individual online meetings. This means that you are going to choose an underrepresented person, text, event, etc. from a British or Irish context that does not yet have a Wikipedia entry (or whose entry is a stub). Then you will do research and compose your own Wikipedia entry for the English-speaking Wikipedia. Finally, in the third and final part of the course, we are going to meet for a student conference on a Saturday in July and you will outline your research project and Wikipedia article for the course in a short presentation (approx. 10min). To get the credit points for this course, you must take part in and successfully complete all three phases of the course.
Please note that this course requires a high degree of initiative as well as adequate time management. You will also need to have access to a laptop or tablet (ideally your own) that you can bring to class for the first few sessions. |
