Lack of campaigns to make women’s research more visible. The contribution of women to research was not systematically communicated.
Wikipedia is used as a source of information in education. However, there is a ‘gender gap’ in Wikipedia: only 17% of Wikipedia’s biographies are about women (here) This content is a form of systemic bias, and this is what WikiProject Women in Red (WiR) addresses.
To make women´s research and societal contributions more visible in the Web.
Training students and faculties to provide them with the tools to contribute towards the inclusion of more Women (researchers, entrepreneurs, etc.) in Wikipedia.
The action is in line with the WikiProject Women in Red (WiR), whose objective is to turn red links (broken links) into blue ones (active links). The WiR project’s scope is women’s biographies and women’s works.
Human and Material Resources. Volunteers from Wikipedia Portugal.
International contacts with the Women in Red (WiR) virtual community of learning.
Basic Resources (dissemination material, computer rooms, etc.) are provided by the RPO.
The diffusion (open source) about research production and relevant societal activities of women have impact in the short and long run.
Acquiring a minimum knowledge about how to create and change an entry in WiR contributed to the dissemination of research in general.
After the project ends, the scientific community will be able to use, update and extend the new knowledge and information added about women in research and society (using Women’s Biographies and associated links).
Recruitment, career progression and retention
Lisbon School of Economics and Management (ISEG)
Higher education institution
Researchers/professors and technical and administrative staff, students
ISEG PLOTINA team in line with the international movement ‘Women in Red’ (site here) delivered a set of of workshops/hands on (the first oriented to students) in order to provide the technical skills for contributing to Wikipedia. This was followed up by further sessions with the creation of new contributions to increase visibility of notable women.
There is material available (open source) used in similar sessions around the world. Examples are: Primer for creating women’s biographies; Ten Simple Rules for Creating Women’s Biographies (e.g. Choose carefully; Do your research; Write why they are important);How To Write Women into the Encyclopedia.
A list of potential entries of women’s biographies is provided and new entries in WikiPedia will be created.
The Women in Red (WiR) is a wiki movement and can have contributions from any country and members of RPOs.
The dissemination (open source) about research production and relevant societal activities of women have impact in the long run because after the project ends, the scientific community will be able to use, update and extend the new knowledge and information added about women in research and society (using Women’s Biographies and associated links).
Increase the dissemination in social media.
The education and research communities are important as target for this action. However, the general public is also relevant.