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Submissions/Service, Sororities, and the Gender Gap

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Info

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Submission no. 2117 - C4
Title of the submission
  • Service, Sororities, and the Gender Gap
Type of submission (lecture, panel, tutorial/workshop, roundtable discussion, lightning talk, poster, birds of a feather discussion)
  • Lecture
Author of the submission
  • Kelly Doyle
Language of presentation
  • English
E-mail address
  • kdoyle9@gmail.com
Username
Country of origin
  • U.S.A
Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)
  • Board Member, WMDC
  • Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University
Personal homepage or blog
Abstract (up to 300 words to describe your proposal)

How can we, as a movement, gain more editors? How can we get more women to contribute to Wikipedia? How can we close the gender gap and increase content on WIkimedia projects about women? In my time as the Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University Libraries, I’ve had the opportunity to work within academia to find new and innovative ways to answer some of these questions. One way we can work together towards solving some of these problems is through various service models. The service model I propose is one in which credit or community service is given to the volunteer in return for their participation in a Wikimedia project. The specific model I’ve found to have measurable impact is with sorority women on college campuses in the United States. Four universities within the U.S. have now agreed to give sorority students the required community service credit for editing Wikipedia articles about women. This is a great success for the students, the university, and our movement as the students gain necessary service credit, the university gains a cohort of young writers who are socially minded, and the Wikimedia community gains new editors who are interested in adding content about women. I believe that this sorority service model can be replicated with the support of Wikimedians. However, this model could easily be replicated in many different ways beyond this specific model to increase participation in Wikimedia projects. I seek to explore these topics and possibilities within this presentation after detailing my findings and measures of success.  

What will attendees take away from this session?
  • An understanding of Wikipedia's place in academia in the US
  • How a service model works and how it can be replicated
  • How sorority students and service models can be used to solve gender gap issues on Wikipedia
  • The preliminary findings of this work/project
  • The opportunity for other service models to solve various problems that face our community
Theme of presentation
  • Education
For workshops and discussions, what level is the intended audience?
  • All levels
Length of session (if other than 25 minutes, specify how long)
  • 25 minutes
Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?
  • Yes
Slides or further information (optional)
Special requests
Is this Submission a Draft or Final?
Info

This is a Completed submission for Wikimania 2017 ready to be reviewed by a member of the Programme Committee.

Interested attendees

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  1. Rosiestep (talk) 16:53, 11 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  2. Gamaliel (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  3. Katietalk 21:34, 14 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  4. Rhododendrites (talk) 16:17, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  5. Textaural (talk) 02:48, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]