Wiki Courses

APS partners with Wiki Education to offer two types of training courses, one on Wikipedia editing and one on Wikidata.

Wikidata Courses

Wikipedia course at Maastricht University FPN Historical Book Review
Credit: Romaine, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Fourth session of FPN Historical Book Review on 10 May 2017, Maastricht University College

APS and Wiki Education (WikiEdu) facilitate courses on learning to contribute to Wikidata, the structured, open data repository that makes Wikipedia machine-readable. Wikidata often provides the initial search responses generated by Google, Alexa, and other search engines and digital voice assistants.

  • Course mission: Course participants help ensure that the general public has quick access to high quality scientific information.
  • Course objective: Participants will learn how to apply their scientific expertise to Wikidata’s manual curation as well as use Wikidata as a discovery tool to find gaps related to their studies that they can fill in.

Wikipedia Editing Courses

Sara Mörtsell (WMSE), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Sara Mörtsell (WMSE), CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Room full of women wikipedia writers

APS, using courses provided by Wiki Education (WikiEdu), educates physicists in creating and editing Wikipedia entries. As of February 2022, less than twenty percent of the biographies on Wikipedia were about women, and the statistics for underrepresented groups were no better. Many of our Wikipedia courses focus on elevating the visibility of women and other historically marginalized groups in the physics community. Through these courses, participants can become effective science communicators, reach a global audience, and build public trust in science.

  • Course mission: Many of these courses focus on elevating the visibility of women and other historically marginalized groups in the physics community. Courses have also focused on contributing entries on specific topics in physics, such as quantum information.
  • Course objectives: These courses teach participants new ways to break barriers for underrepresented groups in the sciences. Trainings from Wikipedia experts assist participants in creating entries that uplift marginalized populations in physics. The collaborative nature of this course also immerses participants in the world behind Wikipedia.
  • Recent course: APS’s most recent Wikipedia editing course, Highlighting Women and Minorities in STEM on Wikipedia, took place in March 2022. The course trained participants in the fundamentals of Wikipedia editing to  contribute articles on notable physicists from marginalized groups in the discipline.

Wikipedia Editing Resources

For past course participants in need of a refresher or physicists looking to learn about Wikipedia editing:

WikiEdu Blog

The WikiEdu Blog provides additional information about the success of the Wikipedia editing courses and participants' work in raising awareness of underrepresented individuals in physics and communicating trustworthy and accurate science with the general public.

Contact and More Information

To learn more about the courses with WikiEdu, including financial assistance available, or if you are interested in sponsoring students in the course, please contact public-engagement@aps.org.

You can also find more information through the Wiki Scientist Program.

Mailing List

Join our mailing list to be alerted when there is an upcoming Wiki training course or an edit-a-thon event.

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Participants find the courses to be both informative and transformative in their approach to science communication, teaching, and career exploration:

“Going forward, I aim to incorporate this into my teaching; I presently ask students to research a woman physicist for one assignment, and I plan to expand on this idea by having students find sources on a notable woman in physics who does not yet have a Wikipedia page. I now have the resources to guide them on selecting a subject and on researching.”
–Andrew Seredinski, physics faculty member, Wentworth Institute of Technology
“I consider that what I learned about how this kind of text must be written (use of neutral tone, how to find and use of reliable sources, etc.) could be a starting point to pursue a career as a scientific communicator.”
–Isabel Yajaira Rojas Martinez, graduate student, National Autonomous University of Mexico
“The technical writing and publishing skills gained from this experience have significantly improved my abilities as a science communicator…I have also garnered a deeper appreciation for adequate accreditation in scientific literature, especially as it pertains to historically underrepresented groups.”
–William Munizzi, graduate student, Arizona State University