Eight Months of APS Wikipedia Initiative

Rosta Farzan & Robert Kraut

Human Computer Interaction Institute

Carnegie Mellon University

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Outline

History of the APS Wikipedia Initiative

Evidence that the Initiative has been

successful

– Got psychologists & students involved

– Improved many psychology articles

Some problems

Some solutions

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Wikipedia is the number one source for general public

Google search for most psychological concepts

returns the link to Wikipedia article within the

first few results

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Google searches

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Yet many Wikipedia articles on psychology were impoverished or out of date

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APS call to fix the problem

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APSWI initiative participation has been growing ~12% per month

1,438 psychologists and their students have joined and contributed to 1,284 (~18%) of psychology articles in Wikipedia

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How to evaluate success

Comparison of initiative members vs. others

who are editing psychology articles

Comparison of psychology articles vs. other

scientific disciplines

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Initiative editors work harder

2,066 new non-initiative editors since Sep 1,

2011 edited psychology articles

720 initiative editors

– Add more content

– Add better content (i.e. longer lived)

APSWI editors Non-APSWI

editors

Words per editor 395 296

% high quality contributions 73.8% 60.3%

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APSWI newcomers did high quality work

In 74% of articles, over 50% of work survived

Better survival than edits in Wikiproject: Psychology,

Sociology or Neuroscience

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35 faculty engaged their classes in writing Wikipedia articles

35 classes with 676 students joined the initiative in

Fall 2011 and Spring 2012

Students edited 601 articles adding 173,185 words

Edits are as good as non-classroom participation

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Students found Wikipedia assignment effective in their learning

Topic of the article

they edited

Norms and culture of

Wikipedia community

Technical aspects of

Wikipedia

Motivational benefits come from authentic writing experiences seen by thousands

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Initiative has been successful on many measures

Still lots of challenges

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Wikipedia editing can be hard

Need to learn

– Domain Technology

– Culture

Students received the most feedback from their

professor, and less from other students or

Wikipedia community

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Feedback from other Wikipedians can be helpful

But established Wikipedia editors can be hostile

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Reverting content

I have been working on my project over vacation and I tried to put up all of my edits on the wikipedia website. I have been trying to get the website to work for over three hours and I asked a friend who is good with computers to help me. Neither one of us can make the project work. When we go into the history it shows that everything I am trying to post is getting reverted or removed by other people. I do not know what to do. If you can please email me back so I know what to do. Thank you for your help.

When I try to post my edits to the wikipedia page they dont go on at all it just tells me that it is rejected. I also am unable to enter my references. Nothing will work for me. I followed the step by step directions on how to edit that you sent us the link for and it still wont work. Thank you for your understanding. I have been working really hard on this project and I dont want my difficulties with Wikipedia to affect my grade. If you have any other suggestions please let me know. Thank you.

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Email: Deleted articles and urgent request for help

… a user has flagged an article for deletion of one of

my students, without much specific content about the

reasons for deletion, but more of vague and general

rants about her “bitterness”, “frustration”, and

“annoyance”. She has gone on to make personal

attacks on me and to make broad and overly

negative comments about the students’ work. My

students are understandably upset by this, and I feel

bad about exposing them to this kind of thing. …

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Nasty or unhelpful feedback

• Harassed students about

• General notability guidelines

• Using primary (i.e. peer-reviewed) sources

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Solutions

Students mentoring each other

Wikipedia Ambassador program, but no they

typically don’t have domain expertise

We invited 14 students from Fall 2011 who

presented high level of success to mentor students

in Spring 2012 classes

6 students agreed to participate and actively

participated

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Mentors and students communications

Hi Moriah, Here is the Wikipedia page on uploading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Uploading_images It looks like you were successful in uploading a few images to your sandbox. Are you still having trouble? Also, please remember to use only images that are fair use or free license.

Hi Alyssa, I am having some troubles uploading pictures to my wikipedia page or even my sandbox. Any tips? Thanks for your help, Moriah

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APSWI Portal

Support psychologists to find psychology articles in

need of work

Support faculty who use Wikipedia in classroom

Support students by providing tutorials and

information about activities of their classmates

Stop by our Wikipedia booth (102) to learn more

Demo sessions:

Friday: 12:00-12:30 and 4:00-4:30

Saturday: 1:00-1:30 and 4:00-4:30