Pursuant to prior discussions about the need for a research
policy on Wikipedia, WikiProject Research is drafting a
policy regarding the recruitment of Wikipedia users to
participate in studies.
At this time, we have a proposed policy, and an accompanying
group that would facilitate recruitment of subjects in much
the same way that the Bot Approvals Group approves bots.
The policy proposal can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research
The Subject Recruitment Approvals Group mentioned in the proposal
is being described at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group
Before we move forward with seeking approval from the Wikipedia
community, we would like additional input about the proposal,
and would welcome additional help improving it.
Also, please consider participating in WikiProject Research at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Research
--
Bryan Song
GroupLens Research
University of Minnesota
Hi!
I am doing a PhD on online civic participation project
(e-participation). Within my research, I have carried out a user
survey, where I asked how many people ever edited/created a page on a
Wiki. Now I would like to compare the results with the overall rate of
wiki editing/creation on country level.
I've found some country-level statistics on Wikipedia Statistics (e.g.
3,000 editors of Wikipedia articles in Italy) but data for UK and
France are not available since Wikipedia provides statistics by
languages, not by countries. I'm thus looking for statistics on UK and
France (but am also interested in alternative ways of measuring wiki
editing/creation in Sweden and Italy).
I would be grateful for any tips!
Sunny regards, Alina
--
Alina ÖSTLING
PhD Candidate
European University Institute
www.eui.eu
This is more on the experimental side of "research" but I just
finished a prototype realtime visualization of tweets that reference
Wikipedia:
http://wikitweets.herokuapp.com/
wikitweets is a NodeJS [1] application that listens to the Twitter
Streaming API [2] for tweets that contain Wikipedia URLs, and then
looks up the relevant Wikipedia article using the API to ultimately
stream the information to the browser using SocketIO [3]. The most
amazing thing for me is seeing the application run comfortably (so
far) as a single process on Heroku with no attached database needed.
If you are curious the code is on GitHub [4].
The key to wikistream working at all is that Twitter allows you to
search and filter the stream using the original (unshorted) URL. So
for example a Tweet with the text:
Question of the Day: What’s the greatest seafaring movie ever?
Some suggestions: http://bit.ly/IqsE1e (But anything on water'll work)
#QOD [5]
Is discoverable with a search query like:
Question of the Day wikipedia.org [6]
Note "wikipedia.org" doesn't exist in the text of the original tweet
at all, since it has been shortened by bit.ly -- but it is still
searchable because Twitter appear to be unshortening and indexing
URLs. Anyhow, I thought I'd share here since this also relied heavily
on the various language Wikipedia APIs.
//Ed
[1] http://nodejs.org
[2] https://dev.twitter.com/docs/streaming-api/methods
[3] http://socket.io
[4] https://github.com/edsu/wikitweets
[5] https://twitter.com/#!/EWeitzman/status/195520487357558784
[6] https://twitter.com/#!/search/realtime/Question%20of%20the%20Day%20wikipedi…
Cross-posting a thread from wikidata-l as it's probably of interest to many on this list.
Dario
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Dario Taraborelli <dario(a)wikimedia.org>
> Date: May 31, 2012 8:39:39 AM GMT+02:00
> To: "Discussion list for the Wikidata project." <wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Wikidata-l] Who to talk to about integrating WolrCat Library Records in Wikidata
>
> Max et al,
>
> I'm glad your brought up this opportunity for wikidata to work with OCLC. An issue that I haven't seen adequately discussed on the list yet is how citation/source data is expected to be represented in wikidata.
>
> There is a great opportunity for wikidata to help fix one of the biggest structured data problems that have afflicted Wikipedia, i.e. the lack of dedicated support for citations, which are currently represented via templates (in the best scenario) or raw links (in the most common scenario). Having citation support built into wikidata with the ability to represent sources themselves as entities, and associate them with the appropriate unique identifiers when available (ISBN, DOI, PMID, ArXiV IDs etc) would allow us to fix many of the outstanding limitations of the current lack of support for citations in Wikipedia.
>
> A central, canonical repository for all sources used as citations across WIkimedia projects (including WikiData itself) would allow us to:
>
> • simplify the maintenance of citations in WIkimedia projects
> • avoid the proliferation of templates in Wikipedia articles and allow citations to be referred to by unique keys
> • expose citation data in both human and machine-readable format (enabling the possibility to export records in various formats like RIS, bibtex, EndNote or format them using CSL [1])
> • support collaboration around sources – this is one of the most exciting (and promising) recent trends in collaboration in Wikipedia
> • measure usage of sources across languages and projects (in particular measuring the use of open access/libre materials)
> • allow editors to annotate the relation between sources or between sources and factual statements using citation typing ontologies such as CiTO [2]
>
> Some of these goals are the same the WikiCite project is trying to achieve [3] but there are different communities, projects and organizations out there that would benefit for a source repository hosted in Wikidata: just to name a few, acawiki, the altmetrics project, OKFN's open blbliography project.
>
> Citation data could be seeded from data parsed from Wikipedia itself as well as open bibliographic databases such as WorldCat (for monographs) or the CC-BY licensed Mendeley catalogue (for scholarly papers) (licensing issues are important but IMO not insurmountable).
>
> Hope to see a good discussion on this topic at the Wikidata summit/hackathon in the next couple of days.
>
> Dario
>
> [1] http://citationstyles.org/
> [2] http://imageweb.zoo.ox.ac.uk/pub/2008/publications/Shotton_ISMB_BioOntology…
> [3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikicite
>
>
> On May 29, 2012, at 7:40 PM, Denny Vrandečić wrote:
>
>> Hi Max,
>>
>> thank you for the pointer! I am very excited about the idea of working together with a project like OCLC! We had a discussion on IRC in the office hour, and I just want to point to the answers there, as soon as the logs are up.
>>
>> Let us make an appointment for Wikimania, and if you have follow ups, let us know!
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Denny
>>
>>
>>
>> 2012/5/25 Klein,Max <kleinm(a)oclc.org>
>> Hello Wikidata Wizards,
>>
>>
>>
>> Phoebe Ayers from the Board recommended I talk to you. My name is Max Klein and I am the Wikipedian in Residence for OCLC. OCLC owns Worldcat.org the world’s largest holder of Library data at 264 million bibliographic records about books, journals and other library items. We would really like to partner with you as Wikidata is being built, in incorporating our data into your project.
>>
>>
>>
>> What we can offer:
>>
>> · WorldCat.org metadata http://www.worldcat.org/ .
>>
>> o Typically, for any work we have most of the following: title, authors, publisher, formats, summaries, editions, subjects, languages, intended audience, all associated ISBNs, length, and abstract.
>>
>> · APIs to this data http://oclc.org/developer/
>>
>> o And some other cool APIs like xISBN which returns all the ISBNs of all the editions of book on the input of any single one.
>>
>> · Library finding tools
>>
>> o When viewing a record on our site, we show you the closest library which has that work, and links to reserve it for pick-up.
>>
>> · The Virtual International Authority File (VIAF) http://viaf.org/, which is an Authoritative Disambiguation file
>>
>> o That means that we have certified data on disambiguation of Authors
>>
>> · WorldCat Identities, an Analytics site http://www.worldcat.org/identities/
>>
>> o It gives you for Author metadata and analytics: Alternative names, significant dates, publication timelines, genres, roles, related authors, and tag clouds of associated subjects.
>>
>>
>>
>> What’s in it for us:
>>
>> · We are a not-for-profit member cooperative. Our mission is “Connecting people to knowledge through library cooperation.”
>>
>> · Since I work at the research group, for now this is just a research project.
>>
>> o If at some point this goes live - and you want to - we’d like to integrate the “find it at a library near me” feature, that means click-throughs for us.
>>
>>
>>
>> The ideas:
>>
>> There are a lot of possibilities, and I’d like to hear your input. These are the first few that I’ve can come up with.
>>
>> · Making infoboxes for each book or author that contains all their metadata.
>>
>> o Ready to incorporate into all language projects.
>>
>> · Using authority files to disambiguate or link works to their creators.
>>
>> o Solving DABs
>>
>> · Using our analytics (e.g. author timelines) as Wikidata data types to transclude.
>>
>> o Curating articles with easy to include dynamic analytics
>>
>> · Populating or creating works/author pages with their algorithmically-derived history and details.
>>
>> o Extremely experimental semantic work.
>>
>>
>>
>> I’m roaring and ready to get this collaboration going. I know Wikidata is at an early stage, and we are willing to accommodate you.
>>
>> Send me any feedback or ideas,
>>
>>
>>
>> Max Klein
>>
>> Wikipedia in Residence
>>
>> kleinm(a)oclc.org
>>
>> +17074787023
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikidata-l mailing list
>> Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Project director Wikidata
>> Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstr. 2 | 10963 Berlin
>> Tel. +49-30-219 158 26-0 | http://wikimedia.de
>>
>> Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Wikidata-l mailing list
>> Wikidata-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikidata-l
>
The new Wikimedia Research Newsletter is out:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2012-05-28
In this issue:
1 Discourse on Wikipedia sometimes irrational and manipulative, but
still emancipating, democratic and productive
2 Different language Wikipedias: automatic detection of inconsistencies
3 Finding deeper meanings from the words used in Wikipedia articles
4 How leaders emerge in the Wikipedia community
5 Identifying software needs from Wikipedia translation discussions
6 New algorithm provides better revert detection
7 Briefly
8 References
••• 13 publications were covered in this issue •••
Thanks to Piotr Konieczny, Jodi Schneider and Angelika Adam for their
contributions
There's more:
* Follow us on https://twitter.com/#!/WikiResearch or
https://identi.ca/wikiresearch
* Receive this newsletter by mail:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter
* Subscribe to the RSS feed:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/c/research-2/wikimedia-research-newsletter/feed/
* Download the full 45-page PDF of Volume 1 (2011) and a dataset of
all references covered in it: http://blog.wikimedia.org/?p=10655
Tilman Bayer and Dario Taraborelli
--
Tilman Bayer
Senior Operations Analyst (Movement Communications)
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
I thought this might be of interest particularly in light of the
recent conversations
here about academics vs wikipedians. - Joe
Abstract
Since access to research funding is difficult, particularly for young
researchers, we consider a change in approach: "We are the funding
opportunity!" I'll develop this idea further in the comments that
follow. This is an "open letter" to circulate to research mailing
lists which I hope will bring in new interest in the Free Technology
Guild.
Keywords: research funding, postgraduate training
A critique of the way research is funded
Considering the historical technologies for doing science, it makes
sense that public funding for research is administered via a
competitive, hierarchical model. Science is too big for everyone to
get together in one room and discuss. However, contemporary
communication technologies and open practices seem to promise
something different: a sustained public conversation about research.
The new way of doing things would "redeem" the intellectual capital
currently lost in rejected research proposals, and would provide
postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers with additional learning
opportunities through a system of peer support.
JISC recently ran an experiment moving in this direction (the "JISC
Elevator"), but the actual incentive structure ended up being similar
to other grant funding schemes, with 6 of 26 proposals funded
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/blog/crowd/). It strikes me that if we saw the
same numbers in a classroom setting (6 pass, 20 fail), we would find
that pretty appalling. Of course, people have the opportunity to
re-apply with changes in response to another call, but the overheads
in that approach are quite high. What if instead of a winners-take-all
competitive model, we took a more collaborative and learning-oriented
approach to funding research, with "applicants" working together, in
consultation with funders -- until their ideas were ready? In the end,
it's not so much about increasing the acceptance rate, but increasing
the throughput of good ideas! Open peer review couldn't "save" the
most flawed proposals; nevertheless, it could help expose and
understand the flaws -- allowing contributors to learn from their
mistakes and move on.
With such an approach, funding for "research and postgraduate
training" would be fruitfully combined. This modest proposal hinges on
one simple point: transparency. Much as the taxpayer "should" have
access to research results they pay for (cf. the recent of appointment
of Jimmy Wales as a UK government advisor) and scientists "should"
have access to the journals that they publish in (cf. Winston Hide's
recent resignation as editor of Genomics), so to do we as
citizen-scientists have a moral imperative to be transparent about how
research funding is allocated, and how research is done. Not just
transparent: positively pastoral.
The Free Technology Guild: a candidate solution
Suppose someone needs to put together a team of four persons: a
programmer, a statistician, an anthropologist, and a small-scale
capitalist. This team would have the project to create a new social
media tool over the course of 3 months; the plan is to make money
through a subscription model. As an open online community for work on
technology projects, the Free Technology Guild
(http://campus.ftacademy.org/wiki/index.php/Free_Technology_Guild)
could help:
* by helping the project designer specify the input/output
requirements for the project;
* by helping the right people for the job find and join the project;
* by providing peer support and mentoring to participants throughout
the duration of the project.
Because everything is developed in the open (code, models, ethnography),
everyone wins, including downstream users, who can replicate the same
approach with any suitable changes "on demand". (And, in case things go
badly, those results can be shared too -- the broader community can help
everyone involved learn from these experiences in a constructive fashion.)
What is needed now
We are currently building the FTG on a volunteer basis, but within the
year we hope to set up a service marketplace where we and others can
contribute and charge for services related to free/open technology,
science, and software. Although we have criticised the current mode of
research funding as inefficient, we would be enthusiastic about
contributing to grant proposals that would support our work to build a
different kind of system. But without waiting for funding to arrive,
we are actively recruiting volunteers to form the foundation of the
Free Technology Guild. We seek technologists, researchers,
organizational strategists, business-persons -- and
students/interns/apprentices in these fields and others. Together, we
can bootstrap a new way to do research.
Hi everybody,
I wanted to give you the heads up that the Wikimedia Foundation is planning to endorse a petition to the White House to mandate open access to taxpayer-funded research. The petition is in line with previous open access declarations that we endorsed and is supported by a large number of organizations including Creative Commons, the Public Library of Science and the Open Knowledge Foundation. The White House will give a formal response if the petition hits 25K signatures within 30 days (by June 19).
We are aiming to publish a blog post tomorrow morning PT and we put together some FAQ explaining how the decision was made and why we want to support this important initiative that is fully aligned with our mission. We'll send an announcement shortly to various other community outlets.
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Blog/Drafts/Access2Researchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Access2Research
If you want to help please head off to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Access2Research
Best,
Dario
**Apologies for cross-posting**
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION - Wikipedia Academy 2012: Research and Free
Knowledge.
June 29 - July 1, 2012 | Berlin, Germany
The free online Encyclopedia Wikipedia answers questions of millions of
users every day. The “Wikipedia Academy 2012: Research and Free Knowledge”
provides a platform for the research community and the Wikipedia community
to connect, present, discuss and advance research on Wikipedia in
particular and on free knowledge in general. More information on:
http://wikipedia-academy.de
== Topics and programme ==
A preliminary programme schedule can be found on the WPAC2012 website:
http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Schedule
A programme preview was published here:
http://blog.wikimedia.de/2012/05/23/wikipedia-academy-2012-registration-ope…
== Registration ==
The online registration is open now. The participation fee is 60 Euro
(reduced price: 30 Euro): http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Registration
We are looking forward to your participation!
In case of further questions, contact us at academy-oc(a)wikimedia.de
Best regards,
The WPAC2012 Organising Committee
--
Angelika Adam
Projektmanagerin
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. | Obentrautstraße 72 | 10963 Berlin
Tel. (030) 219 158 260
http://www.wikimedia.de/
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch freien Zugang zu der
Gesamtheit des Wissens der Menschheit hat. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg unter
der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für
Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.