Grants:Project/WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography/recruiting aquatic editors

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Project Grants

recruiting aquatic editors

summaryCreate recruitment videos for aquatic experts and pilot a program connecting aquatic experts with undergraduate students improving aquatic pages.

targetEnglish Wikipedia

amount$9,200 USD

grantee• Jayzlimno

contact• jayzlimno@gmail.com

this project needs...

volunteer

created on20:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Friendly space expectations

Project idea

What is the problem you're trying to solve?

What problem are you trying to solve by doing this project? This problem should be small enough that you expect it to be completely or mostly resolved by the end of this project. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Topical pages on Wikipedia suffer from poor readability and omission of information rather than misinformation. Accordingly, most English-language Wikipedia articles related to aquatic science topics are difficult to read, poorly organized, and/or missing information. Indeed, >70% of articles assessed by WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography (WP L&O) have only a rough collection of information, lack relevant citations, and/or are deficient in key elements such as diagrams or information boxes. Aquatic Wikipedia pages are often the first hit of a search engine query, and given that people who are curious about science topics use Wikipedia to learn more about natural phenomena they observe, there is an open need to increase the availability and readability of aquatic-related information on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia’s information content comes from contributions of many editors who make large, but very few edits. This indicates that recruitment of a diverse set of editors who will make contributions to many different topics is likely the best way to increase the amount of open-access aquatic information that can be distributed globally. However, several major barriers hinder our ability to recruit this new diverse editor base, which includes a lack of awareness of the importance of Wikipedia for disseminating aquatic information, lack of incentives to edit, or intimidation by the mechanics of editing Wikipedia.

Figure 1. Editing aquatic Wikipedia articles benefits both readers of the aquatic articles and the editors of those articles. Readers have increased access to high-quality aquatic information and editors improve their scientific communication skills while also building a community of peers.

What is your solution to this problem?

For the problem you identified in the previous section, briefly describe your how you would like to address this problem. We recognize that there are many ways to solve a problem. We’d like to understand why you chose this particular solution, and why you think it is worth pursuing. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

Our solution to the problem of difficulty in recruiting aquatic editors is two fold. First, we propose to create short recruitment and instructional training videos for aquatic scientists, educators, and their students. These videos will reduce the barriers to editing Wikipedia by introducing potential new editors to the importance and benefits of editing Wikipedia (Figure 1), how to edit Wikipedia for aquatic science-related articles, and how to incorporate Wikipedia editing in courses on aquatic sciences topics. These videos will be hosted on Wikimedia and YouTube, and we will promote them via the WP L&O project page, social media campaigns, and Wikipedia editing workshops at regional, national, and international scientific meetings. Furthermore, these videos will be linked to aquatic science society websites such as the Association for the Science of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) teaching resources page.

Second, we propose to foster a natural synergy among our target populations--scientists, educators, and motivated learners--that will increase quality aquatic-related information on Wikipedia. To accomplish this we will connect aquatic scientists from WP L&O, of which we currently have 58 listed participants, to instructors and students working on aquatic-related Wikipedia editing projects using the Wiki Education dashboard and associated tools. The WP L&O member scientists will facilitate finding reputable content and reviewers for the articles edited by students. The students on the other hand will provide a majority of the effort adding text, references, and overall improvements to the aquatic articles. The proposed model of facilitated support and review is designed to train students to distill primary resources, improve writing skills, and enhance engagement with classroom material, all while improving the aquatic information available on Wikipedia. We propose to pilot this in 20 undergraduate classrooms.

Our proposed pilot program will function similarly to a scientific journal, where a subject matter editor (our proposed coordinator) finds reviewers (professional aquatic scientists from WP L&O) to help improve content that was contributed by the authors (students participating in our pilot program). Through training workshops and various “editathons” with WP L&O, we noticed that while there is great enthusiasm for improving Wikipedia pages, professional aquatic scientists have limited time and little incentive to contribute significant amounts of content to aquatic Wikipedia pages. Assigning students the task of improving aquatic Wikipedia pages ensures that content will be added, and connects the students to the professional aquatic scientists ensures that the content added is reputable. Volunteer peer-review is a service that aquatic scientists already provide for scientific publications, and our recruitment videos will explain the importance of extending this review service for Wikipedia content. Furthermore, crowd-sourcing content review orchestrated by our coordinator relieves pressure on the course instructors to be subject matter experts for all aquatic topics. This opens up opportunities for incorporating Wikipedia editing in the classroom to instructors who may be intimidated by the thought of reviewing content across a wide range of aquatic topics.

Project goals

What are your goals for this project? Your goals should describe the top two or three benefits that will come out of your project. These should be benefits to the Wikimedia projects or Wikimedia communities. They should not be benefits to you individually. Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

• Goal 1: Create recruitment and instructional training videos for aquatic scientists, educators, and their students to reduce barriers to editing Wikipedia specifically for the aquatic sciences.

• Goal 2: Pilot a program that links professional aquatic scientists with students who are improving Wikipedia pages related to the aquatic sciences. The scientists will act as resource guides and reviewers of content created by the students.

Project impact

How will you know if you have met your goals?

For each of your goals, we’d like you to answer the following questions:

1. During your project, what will you do to achieve this goal? (These are your outputs.)
2. Once your project is over, how will it continue to positively impact the Wikimedia community or projects? (These are your outcomes.)

For each of your answers, think about how you will capture this information. Will you capture it with a survey? With a story? Will you measure it with a number? Remember, if you plan to measure a number, you will need to set a numeric target in your proposal (i.e. 45 people, 10 articles, 100 scanned documents). Remember to review the tutorial for tips on how to answer this question.

• Goal 1: We will evaluate the utility of our video tutorials through a combination of video viewership, Wikipedia article tracking tools, and enrollment in WP L&O. Specifically, we hope to have at least 5,000 video views with over 50% of these views coming from outside of the United States, recruit at least 30 new PhD-level aquatic scientists to as editors and classroom ambassadors, and add 50,000 words to aquatic, English-language Wikipedia pages outside of the pilot classroom program.

• Goal 2: Using Wiki Education dashboard tools, we will track edits made by students in our proposed pilot program to gauge the impact. These tools track the number of edits, views, references added, and structural completeness score of each article edited. Our goal is to pilot this program in 20 classrooms, which could potentially recruit around 400 new editors for aquatic-related articles. With this pilot program, we expect to improve at least 200 aquatic-related English Wikipedia articles over the course of a year. We already have commitments from 10 instructors to participate in this pilot program.
• We anticipate sustained, positive impacts on the Wikimedia community even after the project is over because the instructional and recruitment videos will continue to be hosted online and shared at scientific conferences, workshops, and in undergraduate classroom settings. We anticipate the pilot program will encourage other instructors to incorporate Wikipedia editing in the classroom for aquatic sciences. We will also continue to recruit more aquatic scientists to WP L&O through continued outreach on Twitter and workshops at scientific meetings.
• We plan to survey project participants to assess project outcomes. Our group already has experience implementing survey methods for participants of this Wikiproject. During past “editathons,” we surveyed participants to obtain data to assess our instructional materials, participants’ experience editing pages, and interest in future Wikipedia contributions post-editathon. We already have established Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for performing participant surveys.

Do you have any goals around participation or content?

Are any of your goals related to increasing participation within the Wikimedia movement, or increasing/improving the content on Wikimedia projects? If so, we ask that you look through these three metrics, and include any that are relevant to your project. Please set a numeric target against the metrics, if applicable.

Because we aim to reach a diverse global audience with the Wikipedia pages we edit, it is essential that we teach and train a diverse team of new editors. To achieve this, we will recruit faculty participants who work at a range of institution types in higher education, including land- and sea-grant universities, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs), tribal colleges and universities (TCUs), and community colleges to participate in WP L&O trainings with the goal of having them lead classroom Wikipedia-editing activities in their own institutions.

Recruitment of potential educators will be through social media (WP L&O Twitter), targeted outreach (e.g., email communications to departments and faculty at these institutions), and through presentations and workshops at professional societies in the aquatic sciences and related disciplines, including the Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO), Society for Freshwater Science (SFS), Ecological Society of America (ESA), Global Lake Ecological Observatory Network (GLEON), and Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS). The WikiProject L&O team includes several new faculty and instructors working at a diverse range of institutions that will participate in the pilot of this program (see list of committed instructors in the participants section).

These efforts would help address the Wikimedia goal to increase participation by increasing the number of active contributors to our project who through their students and classroom activities could in turn increase the proportion of Wikipedia editors from under-represented groups. In total, we expect the pilot classroom program to engage 400 students and improve at least 200 aquatic-related Wikipedia articles.

Project plan

Activities

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing? What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

Recruitment and Instructional Videos

Requested funds would be used to compensate the multimedia team for production of the instructional and recruitment videos in English. The project leads will be primarily responsible for content and storyboard development, with guidance from the multimedia team. The video production is anticipated to include a combination of animation and voice-over. We have commitments from Kika Tuff, founder of Impact Media Lab (https://www.impactmedialab.com/), and Elizabeth Herzfeldt-Kamprath (https://www.elizabethjoyproductions.com/), the multimedia specialist at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center to produce these videos if the grant is funded. We will choose one of these multimedia specialists based on budget and design if the proposed project is funded.

Pilot Program for Classrooms

The pilot program for classrooms would provide a peer mentoring network for instructors participating in the program. The coordinator of this program will lead all communications to the instructors and aquatic science content reviewers participating in the pilot program. Biweekly Zoom calls for educators participating in the classroom Wikipedia pilot program will be held to facilitate sharing of ideas and challenges among instructors and editors. Each instructor will leverage the Wiki Education team and dashboard to help set up their course pages. The coordinator will help identify which of the WP L&O articles are in most need of improvement through the WP L&O article assessment list and the students and instructors will choose pages to work on. After pages have been selected, the coordinator will match students in the program to aquatic scientists from WP L&O who are experts on the students’ article topic. The scientists will serve as a guide the students in finding reputable sources and review the content added by the students. The coordinator will also help recruit aquatic scientists to WP L&O by promoting the recruitment and instructional videos online, and will organize the list of available aquatic experts via Google forms. The coordinator will be available to facilitate conversations between instructors and the WikiProject L&O team and provide weekly updates with helpful Wikipedia teaching tips.The requested funds would be used to compensate the coordinator for their time.

We plan to survey project participants to assess project outcomes. Our group already has experience implementing survey methods for participants of this Wikiproject. During past “editathons,” we surveyed participants to obtain data to assess our instructional materials, participants’ experience editing pages, and interest in future Wikipedia contributions post-editathon. We already have established Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for performing participant surveys.

Although our proposed project is focused on improving aquatic-related Wikipedia pages, we think this model could be applied to other disciplines such as geology, psychology, or mathematics given the common educational frameworks and familiarity with subject-expert content reviews. We plan on documenting our process so that other fields and scientific societies can replicate the pilot program.

Budget

How you will use the funds you are requesting? List bullet points for each expense. (You can create a table later if needed.) Don’t forget to include a total amount, and update this amount in the Probox at the top of your page too!

Grantee	Job Description	Commitment	Person-weeks	Rate	Cost (USD)
Contractor	Create recruitment and instructional training videos in coordination with the project leads for aquatic scientists, educators, and their students to reduce barriers to editing Wikipedia specifically for the aquatic sciences.	details below	details below	details below	$3,200
Coordinator	Facilitate communication between course instructors and aquatic science experts from WP L&O. Help recruit aquatic scientists to WP L&O by promoting the recruitment and instructional videos online. Match students in the classroom pilot program to aquatic scientists from WP L&O who are experts on the students’ article topic.	10 hrs / week	20 weeks	$30 / hr	$6,000
				Total	$9,200

The instructional video will be largely animations on how to contribute to aquatic-related Wikipedia articles.

Description	Quantity	Units	Unit Price	Total price (USD)
Storyboarding and writing	34	hours	$40	$1,360
Animation	40	hours	$40	$1,600
Hard Drive & Storage	2	drives	$75	$150
Licensing (music/sound effects)	1	video	$100	$100
			subtotal	$3,200

Community engagement

How will you let others in your community know about your project? Why are you targeting a specific audience? How will you engage the community you’re aiming to serve at various points during your project? Community input and participation helps make projects successful.

In the time since WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography was established in October 2018, we have had great success in engaging our aquatic science community through diverse set of communication modes.

Our Twitter account has over 330 followers from a diverse set of institutions, and we tweet about edit-a-thons (example 1, 2), aquatic Wikipedia pages, workshops, and free information. We have also used our Twitter account to fill the role of our proposed coordinator for our pilot classroom program. We will continue to use Twitter for recruiting aquatic experts to WP L&O and other opportunities for improving aquatic-related Wikipedia pages.

Participants from WP L&O have led two workshops at aquatic science meetings including the Association for the Science of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) and at the Society for Freshwater Science (SFS) meeting. We plan to host another virtual workshop in summer of 2020, which will be more focused on incorporating editing in undergraduate curriculum. At the upcoming summer 2020 workshop, we will recruit at least 10 instructors (in addition to the 10 already committed - see participants below) to be a part of our pilot classroom program.

We have raised awareness of WP L&O through three presentations at scientific meetings, and these presentations are also used to gauge interest in learning to edit Wikipedia for the aquatic sciences and/or incorporate editing in the classroom. In addition to presentations, we have produced a written and audio publication describing the importance for aquatic scientists to contribute to Wikipedia articles. We plan to produce a scientific publication describing WP L&O progress to date and future goals of the project which will include incorporation of Wikipedia editing in the classroom.

Currently, most of our Wikipedia contributions come from the edit-a-thons that we host through WP L&O (link to dashboard). Through 5 edit-a-thons, we’ve added over 50,000 words to more than 200 aquatic related articles. Although these edit-a-thons are successful, sustained contributions from professional aquatic scientists during edit-a-thons is difficult which is why we are proposing the model of student-generated content with content-expert review.

Through professional connections and outreach at international conferences, there has been interest from other aquatic scientists to expand WikiProject Limnology and Oceanography to other languages including Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, and German Wikipedias. If our proposed pilot project were successful for English Wikipedia, we would look to expand our pilot program to other languages and will re-engage those scientists with non-English language expertise.

Although our proposed project is focused on improving aquatic-related Wikipedia pages, we think this model could be applied to other disciplines such as geology, psychology, or mathematics given the common educational frameworks and familiarity with subject-expert content reviews. We plan on documenting our process so that other fields and scientific societies can replicate the pilot program.

Get involved

Participants

Please use this section to tell us more about who is working on this project. For each member of the team, please describe any project-related skills, experience, or other background you have that might help contribute to making this idea a success.

Grantees and Project Leads

Jacob Zwart - experienced Wikipedia editor; established WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; PhD in aquatic biogeochemistry

Erin Larson - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; PhD in ecology and evolutionary biology; currently an Assistant Professor at Alaska Pacific University (a minority-serving, tribally controlled institution) and using Wikipedia in the classroom (through WikiEdu: https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/courses/Alaska_Pacific_University/Climate_Change_(Spring_2020)/home)

Arial Shogren - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; PhD in stream ecology; currently an National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Michigan State University; will continue to present information about this project and facilitate Wikipedia editing workshops at scientific society meetings.

Dustin Kincaid - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; PhD in aquatic ecosystem ecology and biogeochemistry; currently a post-doctoral research associate at the University of Vermont; will continue to present information about this project and facilitate Wikipedia editing workshops at scientific society meetings

Jessica Brandt - member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography, PhD in environmental toxicology and freshwater ecosystem science; currently an Assistant Professor at University of Connecticut and incorporating Wikipedia to undergrad curriculum for Fall 2020.

Kaitlin Farrell - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; PhD in freshwater ecology; currently faculty at University of Georgia and planning to integrate Wikipedia editing into undergraduate ecology lab curricula

Kelly Hondula - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography; currently a Data Scientist at National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center; will continue to present information about this project and spread the word about Wikipedia editing.

Margaret Brisbin - experienced Wikipedia editor; member of WikiProject Limnology & Oceanography

Multimedia team

We have commitments from Kika Tuff, founder of Impact Media Lab (https://www.impactmedialab.com/), and Elizabeth Herzfeldt-Kamprath (https://www.elizabethjoyproductions.com/), the multimedia specialist at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center to produce these videos if the grant is funded.

Instructors

The following list of instructors are committed to pilot the program in their curriculum (Add your name and institution to this list if you want to participate as an instructor)

1. Dr. Patrick Kelly - Rhodes College
2. Dr. Jessica Brandt - University of Connecticut
3. Dr. Erin Larson - Alaska Pacific University (Tribally controlled, minority serving institution)
4. Dr. James Cotner - University of Minnesota
5. Dr. Matthew Cover - California State University, Stanislaus (Hispanic serving institution)
6. Dr. Celia Symons - University of California, Irvine
7. Dr. Ashley Bulseco - Eckerd College
8. Dr. Eric Moody - Middlebury College
9. Dr. Laura Guertin - Penn State Brandywine
10. Dr. Emily Nodine - Rollins College
11. Dr. K. David Hambright - University of Oklahoma
12. Dr. Michael Vanni - Miami University
13. Dr. Amber Rock - UNC Pembroke (minority serving institution)

We will recruit more instructors via Twitter and at ASLO/SFS meeting in June 2020, where we will be hosting our third workshop (remotely) on how to edit Wikipedia articles related to the aquatic sciences. Our previous two workshops at scientific meetings have had between 20-30 participants.

Aquatic scientist reviewers

(Add your name to this list if you want to participate as a reviewer of aquatic content generated by students for Wikipedia)

We already have 58 WP L&O participants, many who will be willing to review content generated by students and also act as a guide to reputable resources for these student editors.

1. Jacob Zwart - aquatic biogeochemistry
2. Erin Larson - aquatic disturbance ecology, community ecology
3. Dustin Kincaid - aquatic biogeochemistry, watershed science
4. Jhoana Garces - aquatic insects
5. Kinga Stryszowska-Hill - wetland ecology, GIS science
6. Abigail Lewis - freshwater ecology and biogeochemistry
7. Elvira de Eyto - freshwater ecoology, zoology, fish biology
8. Dave Hambright - freshwater ecology, plankton, harmful algae
9. Rocio Luz Fernandez - physical limnology, biogeomorphology

Classroom coordinator

Jolie Gareis - Simon Fraser University; expertise in limnology and biogeochemistry, and also really passionate about plain-language science communications and STEM education

Community notification

You are responsible for notifying relevant communities of your proposal, so that they can help you! Depending on your project, notification may be most appropriate on a Village Pump, talk page, mailing list, etc.--> Please paste links below to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions. Need notification tips?

We will notify our scientific community through Twitter (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4), WP L&O email listserv, and link to the proposal from WP L&O project page.

Endorsements

Do you think this project should be selected for a Project Grant? Please add your name and rationale for endorsing this project below! (Other constructive feedback is welcome on the discussion page).

•  Support I have informed users on social media and I am sorry not to see a support yet compared to other proposals. You deserve more attention, IMHO.--Alexmar983 (talk) 23:33, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
•  Support There is plenty of evidence for why we need stronger STEM-related pages on Wikipedia, especially ones that relate to the hydrosphere. I'd also like to call attention to the impact improved pages will have in making limnology and oceanography accessible to all. With school libraries closing and teachers having access to limited print resources, the internet is the place where K-12 teachers and students (*and even college students) turn to look for content. Improved pages elminates so many barriers and provides access to higher-quality and more complete information. -- Drlauraguertin
•  Support As a professor of college-level aquatic sciences, I have used Wikipedia as a large assignment in my course. My students derived immense value from learning how to edit Wikipedia articles, critically analyzing information sources, writing in a neutral tone, and synthesizing information. My observation has been that obscure science topics on Wikipedia are generally overlooked by the greater Wikipedia community and need work from a diverse assembly of editors. This project would support the aquatic sciences community be providing much needed resources to teachers and students. I enthusiastically support this project.
•  Support As an active scientist, aquatic science journal editor and university professor I enthusiastically support this project by revising the students revisions and improvements. Today, it is of greatest importance that the Wiki pages suffice the highest scientific standards and serve as a valuable and reliable source for many more students to come. It is of all our interest to have high quality information on our research field easily and freely available for everybody. It would be great to get the major topics and new avenues in the field covered and presented in appealing manner which will attract the interest not only of scientists but also the public. Thus, I am very supportive for this great initiative.
• It will be really helpful for new scientist and students 182.226.43.47 16:43, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
• As a university professor, I have witnessed students blindly grabbing information from the web without attention to its source or quality. This project will provide students with first-hand research experience as they track down resources, judge their reliability and bias, synthesize their content, and build upon a useful resource for everyone. I think this is a great proposal and I look forward to seeing the sciences of limnology and oceanography become more accessible to all.