(S3 E5) Wikimedia Champions at the University of Leeds

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[00:00:25] Nick Sheppard: Hello and welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast. For those that don't know me, my name's Nick Sheppard. I'm Open Research Advisor here at the University of Leeds. I'm very excited today to be joined by three colleagues, so this is a bit, um, unusual for me, I'm used to speaking to colleagues one-on-one. So we've got three colleagues joining me today, so I'll let them introduce themselves in a moment. We've got Dr. Chris Hassall. Hira Khan and Beth Soans. So I'll let them introduce themselves and then we'll get to talking about Wikimedia. So in the last episode we talked to a Wikimedian in Residence, uh, that was Martin Poulter, and today we're talking to these colleagues with whom I've been working on a pilot project around Wikimedia. So I'll let them introduce themselves and we'll take it from there. So over to you Chris

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[00:01:32] Nick Sheppard: Okay, thank you. And Hira?

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[00:01:50] Nick Sheppard: Thank you. And Beth.

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[00:02:22] Nick Sheppard: Okay, great, thanks. So for a bit of context, I mean I suppose that's it's a bit too late to apologise to you, Beth and Hira of the rush we placed on you and Chris as well. So it was all a little bit rushed wasn't it, in terms of the deadlines we were trying to work to with this project last year?

But what we were trying to do was to work with Chris and with PGRs in the Faculty of Biological Sciences, um, on this pilot project to Wikimedia. So we'll talk a bit, you know, what you've done as as we go, but I suppose the first question I might ask you is, prior to this project, had you much experience of actually editing Wikipedia yourselves?

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[00:03:33] Nick Sheppard: And Beth had you much experience of had Wikipedia?

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[00:04:19] Nick Sheppard: Mm-hmm. What about you, Chris, had you edited Wikipedia in the past or...?

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[00:04:30] Hira Khan: I'm positive now!

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[00:05:08] Nick Sheppard: Mm-hmm, and, uh, we've already alluded, I think, to some of the other Wikimedia projects beyond Wikipedia, 'cause everybody, I think, knows about Wikipedia, but were you aware of the other platforms Hira first, perhaps Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata?

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[00:05:35] Nick Sheppard: And Beth, did you have any awareness of those?

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[00:05:39] Nick Sheppard: No, not, not at all. And as I say, I mean, I'm a bit more familiar now with Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, but there's a load of other ones that I'm still not that familiar with. Uh, did you have much awareness of those platforms Chris?

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[00:06:17] Nick Sheppard: And that was one of the things, wasn't it, that we focused on in the project Hira. I mean, maybe we can talk about that as we go. I'll hand over to you now Chris, and perhaps you had a question to put to Hira and Beth?

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[00:06:43] Hira Khan: Yep. So, um, I think, so in terms of the skills, I think communication is a really, really big one. I think, uh, I don't know about you Beth, but for me there's no real focus on, um, the skills in communication, especially communication towards community, um, communicating with people from, um...who do not come from the same scientific background. So you can talk in simple languages, but you're still articulating something that is quite complex science.

Um, and I think it's really important part of research to understand why your science is relevant and one of the ways that you can actually navigate through this and measure this is to see the impact and the interest that you get from the community. But if you don't have the skills to be able to communicate that, then you end up creating a disjoint between what we're actually conducting in research and what the community is aware of.

And I think COVID 19 and vaccination isthe most recent and the most prominent example I can give. Um, so yeah, I think I've definitely learned the importance in how to communicate scientific, um, complex science in a very simple terms.

Um, and then the other one is maybe a little bit irrelevant, but time management. I think this, um, this project, this pilot project took a little bit more time than I anticipated. Obviously not a problem, but I think that with my other extracurricular activities, I think I was able to manage my, uh, my experiments, um, and this project and my other projects a lot better, so being able to be more efficient with my timings and stuff, so, yeah.

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[00:08:21] Bethan Soanes: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like, um, expanding a little bit on what Hira said, I thought it provided a great opportunity to combat science miscommunication, and developing those skills was so important. The research that I do is involved in, you know, how crops respond to the climate, and so with all of the kind of climate denial going on, being able to communicate that research in a really accessible way is so important. So I think I sort of developed skills that I've maybe already scratched the surface of through this project. Um, I found that through kind of perusing articles that might need expansion or rejigging improve my comprehension and synthesis.

So it was directly useful to my research, um, and also directly useful to my role as a scientific communicator. Um, I found that the easiest way to consolidate maybe complicated scientific concepts was through diagrams and schematics, which I'd had some hand at developing for research articles and for my thesis, but not really for kind of a public facing medium. Um, so I found it interesting to see how my approach to generating those figures changed as I went through the project. Um, I find now that when friends and family ask me what I'm doing, I can explain it in a way that they actually understand, which wasn't true before this project. Um, and I can see that while it's nice in a kind of personal aspect, it's also so important going forward cause kind of research that we are doing in one way or another, it's, it's directly relevant to the public good, and if we misrepresent that research, it has quite severe ramifications down the line. So yeah, definitely science communication.

I also found that I was...I sort of developed a little bit, um, some, some coding skills and just sort of, um, better at searching through, uh, the available literature to find a wider group of researchers to represent in articles that I developed, which wasn't really something I thought about before shamefully, but now I, now I do. And I think that's really important.

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How did you find that process of communicating science, but with the, the editorial community of Wikipedia always looking over your shoulder?

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[00:12:15] Bethan Soanes: Yeah, I was also impressed by the, uh, the rigor of the Wikipedia community. Um, I'm still in the process of uploading and, um, publishing edits, and I found that when I was, like I said, looking for articles that I felt maybe were missing something or not communicating a technical aspect very well, I would sort of comment this in the edit section and I would quite often get replies being like disagreeing or agreeing or whatever it was.

Um, I feel like it was a bit of a learning curve, finding the best way to successfully um, edit an article. And I think I'm still kind of going through that process now as I continue to, to edit articles. Cause I think this is something I'm gonna continue to do throughout my scientific career. I think it's so important. I think that will get a little bit easier with time, cos whilst you're also trying to communicate that scientific concept, well you're also trying to communicate to the community why you think it needs to be changed. Yeah. Not sure if that answered the question.

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[00:13:22] Hira Khan: I think something else though, I just did not, something that I really appreciated was how beneficial and how universally is, um, to convey science or convey any kind of knowledge through diagrams and imagery, um, and how important visuals are. Um, and I think...I did not, I just did not realize this before my, um, before I started this project. Um, and I also, like, for instance, the, one of the images that we are creating, um, we're creating a, a flow diagram of how, um, you get from the sample all the way down to a protein structure. And, um, you can just edit the labels and then you can add Japanese words, equivalent Japanese words to it, but it doesn't require as much work and is just, um, it's a mix of really accessible all over the world. Um, and this is something that I thought was, you know, it's, it's a really great, great way to do that.

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[00:14:25] Nick Sheppard: I just wanted to come in on that because it's an area that I'm really interested in, in my role in the Library. Um, and the fact that, you know, we are dealing with open access research papers where they're openly licensed and they've got all sorts of images within them, um, that are embedded within the, within the papers. Um, and for a long time I've been trying to encourage colleagues to actually upload those to Wikimedia Commons under that open license when they can be discovered as you found Chris, to actually find them online, but also be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles. So that was one of the things that I was really excited to work with you on Hira, you know, in that particular example where you had the experience and the knowledge and the um, uh, specialism to actually look at, uh, an image and to work with colleagues here at the university, develop that image and then upload that to Wiki, Wikimedia Commons. Yeah, so I think that's a really, really positive outcome of the project. Sorry, Chris, back to you.

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Um, maybe I can go on to the, the, the next area that I wanted to ask you two about though, which is...you've, you've highlighted two areas that you've edited on Wikipedia, the cryo-electron microscope work, and then this idea about, you know, climate change and, and the work that you do, Beth. Um, I was wondering, are there any areas of biology that you think need a little bit of extra attention on Wikipedia? Is anything you've come across during your reading?

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[00:16:24] Chris Hassall: Yeah. Beth first? Sure.

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And then to understand that wider issue, I think it wouldn't, it wouldn't be unusual for them to want to like deep dive a little bit, um, and understand these things better. Um, . And when I was doing that, I felt like the information dropped significantly in accessibility. Um, so for example, um, I was looking at, um, genetic modification articles and, uh, food security articles and coming across ideas like gene splicing and, and things like that.

And, this is where most of my edits were then kind of involved in because I found these articles lacked both depth. They often sort of skimmed these technical molecular processes, um, and would be very hard to untangle if you weren't familiar with the topic. Um, so it was sort of rejigging those articles, improving the figures, making that information flow in a sensible, logical way was something that I saw as really important. Um, even I, as someone who does work on splicing, reading that article, I couldn't really understand what it was trying to tell me.

Um, and as well as this, it was something I alluded to earlier, I think Wikipedia can be used to, um, raise the platform of different prominent people in science, and the lack of representation of minority profiles on Wiki, of female biologists, of biologists of different ethnic minorities is really important.

And the third thing, um, I think Wiki has a huge potential to drive open research and open science through Wikidata and having that data available to the public. It's becoming more and more common. Um, there are all sorts of different platforms that do this now, but the difference of Wikipedia is it's so public facing and I think that could encourage cross collaboration from people in entirely different fields doing different types of research that could provide a wider perspective. So one thing that comes to mind is if you have a genome-wide association study, which is used to identify genetic variants, um, for instance, crop species over a global distribution, responding to heat, something like that.

If that could be analyzed from the perspective of ecologist, geologists, mathematicians, people with different areas of expertise that's related to that problem, it could greatly expand the findings from that data. Um, and this aspect of wikidata was something I was completely unfamiliar with before I started working on the project, and I think it's really exciting.

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[00:20:14] Nick Sheppard: Could I just...I mean that's really interesting listening to you speak as scientists, you know, in, in that context.

And you've talked about the learning curve, engaging with the community and um, it's experiences I've also had as well. And you know, that is a big part of it, isn't it? Actually learning to liaise with the community. Um. And conflicts of interest, you know, you know, if you...especially when you associated with the university, you have to be careful around conflicts of interest, et cetera.

Um, but yeah, I suppose hearing you describe how the language is overly technical, I suppose that depends who's editing it, you know, if it is someone who is an expert, or not, you know, maybe they're getting their information from elsewhere. And actually it's a skill, isn't it? Being able to present that information in an accessible way as best...so, yeah, it's fascinating. Um, sorry, yeah, just a comment really, but I'll let you carry on.

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[00:21:03] Hira Khan: Um, yeah, I guess, I guess to touch on what you guys said, um, I think firstly, um, I think the page that Beth was talking about, the, um, the splicing, DNA variants or something like that. Basically, it's very strange when you look at the figure legends and you look at, generally, over the writing, it kind...on the surface level, it makes sense. It's like a bunch of words put together, a bunch of smart words put together, and it's like, oh, this is like, it makes, kind of make sense. But then actually when you delve deeply and you really try and think about what is written we're like, hmm, actually the figure legend might make sense, but it doesn't match the picture. Um, and I think, um, I think this is why scientists like us or people from expert, uh, experts within that field have a sense, should have a sense of responsibility in actually contributing to open access platforms like this, because that will, um, omit any kind of misunderstandings and omit any kind of, uh, misinformation.

Um, the other thing is something...an issue that I was having was, um, a diagram that I might come across, let's say in terms of how an electron microscope works, or even just the workflow on how you get a protein structure. There were really good images on certain journals, and those journals had copyright infringement, so I couldn't, we could not use those images for Wikipedia or open access.

Um, and it's almost like there's a certain gatekeeping, there's a gatekeeping of information, there's a gatekeeping of a knowledge. Um, and I'm doing another project outside of Wikipedia where we're trying to, um, understand a researchers perspective within the university on what they think about good research assessment practices, um, and how we can improve them.

And a lot of people have mentioned that there is difficulty, um, for people who are quite high up in the hierarchy. Um, people who are professors and people who are very well-established in their career to try and get them to change their processes and get them to change, um, the manner and the way that they do research because they've, it's worked for them for the last 20, 30 years.

Um, so I think if, you know, young researchers like us or even like you, Chris, where we actually push this agenda, um, on having...we are, we are responsible for open access research, we're not keep keeping our information, our knowledge, and it will push journals like the ones I'm finding difficult with...or have difficulty with, um, to get them to also not have copyright infringement as well.

Um, so I think that's one part. The second part thing is I think I've realized that, even though, let's say my structural biology pages, it might have an overarching, um, theme where it makes sense or there is adequate knowledge. However, as you delve deeper in terms of, you know, what the findings of structural biology is and how much it has helped science, for instance, you know, virus, virus studies, um, and how much we have learned about particular diseases just through structural biology, those pages are missing. And I think the, the knowledge that we are finding and publishing is not...the Wiki pages aren't evolving as fast, so we're missing a whole gap of like newfound research and newfound techniques. So I think that is something that we can potentially work on where we are matching the publications that are coming out, um, and matching the pages that are being created. So, yeah.

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[00:25:04] Hira Khan: I think it's just, something that I realised is that just from my own community and my own family, is that they don't realize the importance of what I'm doing. They're just, oh you're doing a PhD and they don't realise like, this is actually...they think that, unless it has direct medical impact, it's irrelevant, but it's not really like that. You know, it might have impact in 20, 30 years time, and there's a, there's a chain of events that happens. Um, and I think being able to communicate that and communicate, um, why, why these things...this research is important. I think, you know, Wikipedia is a great platform to do that.

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[00:25:59] Bethan Soanes: Okay, you're fine.

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And the way...it might sound a bit grandiose, but I, I think similar to what Hira said before, that, you know, I do feel really, that the academy, that universities, have a responsibility to ensure that Wikipedia, as an outwardly facing platform is as accurate as it can be. And, you know, it's not perfect, obviously. It's, uh, as Martin said, it's the starting point. You know, it's a, it's a teaching opportunity as well, but there's this huge potential to actually get that information out to the public.

My next question really, I think you've sort of already discussed a little bit, Beth. I mean, maybe I'll put the same question to you Hira first, is the role of Wikimedia and Wikipedia, um, in terms of promoting diversity in STEM? I mean, again, uh, something I talk about with Martin quite a bit in the, the podcast I recorded with him, and the, the one that always sticks in my mind is, you know, there's more articles about the Netherlands than the whole continent of Africa, because it reflects the people they're editing it, you know, they, they are by and large, you know, perhaps white middle class people from the Global North et cetera. Uh, and we've tried to do a little bit of work around that. So we did...we worked with LUCAS, which is the Leeds University Center for African Studies for an editathon, where we were trying to cite black and African scholars on Wikipedia, for example. Um, and again, that's another case where they have the expertise that I would lack in actually knowing which scholars to cite, et cetera.

Um, I dunno if you have any further thoughts on that Hira before coming to you, Beth, as you say, you've already referred to that?

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[00:30:09] Nick Sheppard: Yeaa, you further thoughts from, from you Beth? You'd already talked about Jess Wade. Sorry to interup, but I just wanted to...I mean, I'm aware of Jess Wade as well, and just to say as well of all that, I can add links, et cetera in the show notes on the podcast. So I can link to some of the work that she's done, but in that context, I suppose, I dunno if you're aware Beth, um, of just something I saw on Twitter with Jess Wade in particular, cos as you say, she writes, I think she writes an article today, I think might in saying about a woman as a new female scientist on Wikipedia.

Um, but she has quite a lot of trolls, for want of a better word, that will actually immediately revert those, or they'll say they're not notable. Um, you know, and then you've got this systemic issue where actually female scientists aren't as well written about in the media, so there's not the actual content to cite the primary research to actually make them notable in terms of Wikipedia's guidelines. There was a really famous example, actually, I don't remember the name, I should do, but, um, of a female scientist that was taken...her profile, a new profile was taken down herpage was taken down off Wikipedia for not being notable, and the next week or so she was awarded the Nobel Prize. You know, that kind of thing. So, um, yeah, I think that's really interesting, and again, I'll try and find details for that to link in the show notes. But, uh, do you have anything further to add on what you've said already, Beth?

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But as you say, there's kind of an uphill battle there with kind of direct resilience from, uh, particular groups in the community. Um, and I think whilst continuing to, you know, fight that and use it to upload this information is really important. That's also putting kind of an undue pressure and undue work on a group of people that already have it harder in academia and in research. So I think the kind of other way that maybe we haven't touched on that Wikimedia and Wikipedia can promote diversity in STEM to maybe reduce that gap in the first place in the longer term. Just by improving accessibility to science, sort of scientific literacy is really dictated by exposure at a young age, and if you've got like parents or family members or live in an affluent area, the more likely to be exposed to scientific ideas and, and the idea of jobs in science, and then, you know, pursue that. And that kind of pipeline exists for certain groups of people more than it does for others. And so if we can have accessible, exciting, well-written, interesting scientific information available on the internet, that's gonna improve scientific literacy in these groups of people that otherwise have less exposure, I think. And then that will feed in, in the future to there being less of a gap in who's doing science and generally improve everybody's sort of scientific literacy, reduce the likelihood for them to be trolling Jess Wade on Twitter, that kind of thing. So I think just improving the accessibility of scientific information itself is promoting diversity in STEM.

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And the Women in Red refers to the red link because if a subject doesn't exist in Wikipedia, the link is red until it's created. So Women in Red is refers to that, and he talks a lot about this circular aspect, the fact that we need to encourage primary writing in the media, et cetera, because that's what you need to actually cite for Wikipedia. So yeah, it's, uh, yeah, but, but it is changing, but again, very slowly. I think we're about maybe 18-19% of biographies, something like that now.

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[00:35:58] Bethan Soanes: Yeah. Giving a platform to role models. Yeah.

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[00:36:11] Chris Hassall: Yeah, I think we've covered quite a lot of this and in far greater detail than I'd anticipated, which is fantastic. Thinking about the role of Wikipedia in education more generally, I mean, my area of interest in particular is thinking about undergraduates and postgraduate students at universities, but you've already highlighted the fact that it plays a potentially really important role in almost the formative experience of science, through from primary school all the way through to the end of university and then beyond when they become members of the general public. Um, but I wonder if maybe you could pick up on what you think might be sort of the most important way in which Wikipedia can help that, that transition from, I guess, scientific naivety into becoming a scientifically informed person, taking into account some of these ideas around diversity of the voices that they're hearing?

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[00:38:25] Chris Hassall: That's really interesting, so I mean, what we would call that is active learning. Learning by doing, learning by generating, rather than passively receiving information, and I really like the idea of that building the confidence of early career researchers and students. Yeah. No, that's a really interesting point. Um, Beth?

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[00:39:44] Hira Khan: And I think the other thing is that they need to realise, they don't need to attain perfection. So much research is about perfection and, you know, having perfect data, perfect reports. Um, and I think it's just like all you just have to do is just try and all you need to do is contribute. It doesn't have to be perfect. Um, and I think it's, you know, it's a great, it's a great way to, to do that.

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[00:40:13] Chris Hassall: Yeah, and of course when they produce something on Wikipedia or Wikimedia, they have that to show to the outside world rather than

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[00:40:22] Chris Hassall: It's what we'd call something of an authentic assessment rather than just a file that will sit on a server somewhere in the university, only to be read by one marker. So yeah, really, really useful contribution to society too.

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Um, okay. Well, I'm a little conscious of time, as I say. Um, I mean, I said at the, at the beginning that speaking to my colleagues with whom I've been doing these podcasts, mine always seem to be rather longer than theirs, which is fine you know, it's interesting, but I suppose, and I already know the answer to this, but my sort of final question to you, as I have it written it down...as I say, you've already answered this, I think, but you know, how's your, or how has your view and opinion of Wikipedia or Wikimedia changed as a result of the project? As, as I say, you've already answered that, but any sort of final words on that?

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[00:42:05] Nick Sheppard: Mm-hmm. and Hira.

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[00:42:43] Nick Sheppard: Well, I mean, just on that, is it maybe a barrier of the technology? I mean, it's something I talk about with Martin. It's not that easy to use, is it? I mean, we haven't really touched on that. I think it's fair to say maybe that you both struggled a little bit. I certainly have in actually getting into grips with the tools themselves, cos it is, as Martin says, a nineties technology, you know, it's an old technology. It's not necessarily that user friendly.

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[00:43:15] Nick Sheppard: Okay, great. I mean, perhaps just finish with the same question to you, Chris. I mean, as, as you, obviously you aware of Wikipedia and Wikipedia, et cetera previously. Has it altered your view at all or just reinforced what you thought already?

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It is always been something that's on, on my to-do list to generate more student education opportunities with Wikipedia. There's so many researchers out there, as we've talked about, who are underrepresented, but from my personal discipline, biodiversity research, there's so many species out there that need documentation as well. And in an extinction crisis I think there's a real value for Wikipedia to come to the, come to the, the battle and to raise the profile of all those species that we're losing as well. Um, there's great photos, there's great information, and all these fascinating facts about these animals, plants, and there that I think could be a really exciting opportunity for students to get stuck in as well.

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[00:44:43] Bethan Soanes: I was just agreeing!

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[00:44:57] Hira Khan: No pressure!

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[00:45:04] Hira Khan: Thank you so much guys.

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