Hello all, 

Recently, we've announced two new board members and released our annual plan. We've also announced our sponsorship of WikiConference USA 2015, launched our Wikipedia Visiting Scholars, and a Summer Research Fellowship with Andrew Lih. We are also preparing for a new initiative, the Wikipedia Year of Science. Finally, we've rolled out a new Dashboard tool for course management. 

With so much going on, we thought we'd share some details to keep everyone in the loop. 

* Sue Gardener and Shadi Bartsch-Zimmer were elected to the Wiki Education Foundation board. As most of you will know, Sue Gardner was the executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF) from 2007 to 2014. Dr. Bartsch-Zimmer, of the University of Chicago, is the Inaugural Director of the University’s Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge. We're very excited to have them both. (Read more here). 

* The Wiki Ed Annual Plan (available here) covers the first year of our work, and looks ahead to what we’ll set out to achieve in our next fiscal year (July 1 through June 30). Our biggest goals include scaling the impact of our classroom program, improving content quality and the experience of our students, and deepening connections between academia and Wikipedia through research opportunities such as our Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program. (Read more here).

* We're very excited to be a sponsor of WikiConference USA 2015. The event is co-organized by the National Archives and Records Administration, Wikimedia D.C., and Wikimedia NYC. It will take place at the National Archives Building in Washington, D.C., from October 9–11, 2015. Presentation proposals and scholarship applications are open! Find out more at wikiconferenceusa.org. 

* Early last month, we announced we'd be administering the Wikipedia Visiting Scholars program in the US and Canada. The Visiting Scholar position offers Wikipedia editors access to journals, special collections, and other research tools. Scholars’ use of these materials increases visibility for collections, advancing the library’s mission of expanding community engagement. (Read more here).

* We're hosting our inaugural Summer Research Fellow, Andrew Lih (User:Fuzheado). Andrew is working on strategies and selecting case studies for ways to connect university libraries, museums, and archives to instructors, students, and/or the community of Wikipedia editors as part of the Year of Science. (Read more here).

* We've launched a new course management tool, the Dashboard. The Dashboard fully handles the course setup and assignment design process, and gives an even better picture of what student editors are doing throughout the term. (Read more here).

* Finally, we're preparing a 2016 initiative aimed at improving science coverage on Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Year of Science. We're seeking out volunteers, instructors, academic associations and others who are interested in a focused, sustained campaign to improve Wikipedia's science content while giving students an opportunity to improve science communications skills. (Read more here).

We've been very busy here at Wiki Ed - and on top of all this, we've also been supporting a record number of courses. I'll share more details on student work and instructor satisfaction in the next few days. And as always, if you're interested in following Wiki Ed's work, you can find frequent updates on our blog. 

Cheers,