2025:Program/Wikipedia Students at Auckland Museum

Session title: Wikipedia Students at Auckland Museum

Session type: Poster

Track: GLAM

Language: en

This session will be presented by Auckland Museum's Wikimedian in Residence (funded by Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand) and share the objectives and outcomes of the Wikipedia summer student programme hosted by Auckland Museum in Auckland, New Zealand.

Description

For the past two years, Auckland Museum, funded by the Wikimedia Foundation Alliances Fund and Knowledge Equity Fund, has hosted a cohort of 4-5 University students over their summer break to introduce them to the Wikimedia movement and train them to contribute to Wikipedia.

In 2022 a report was commissioned to explore the use of Wikipedia as a resource for teaching the Aotearoa New Zealand Histories (ANZH) curriculum which was launched in 2023. The students are tasked with producing content on Wikipedia to provide resources for this refreshed Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum, which has a focus on local histories. Diverse Auckland and New Zealand histories are underrepresented not only on Wikipedia but also in mainstream teaching of history. So, this project aims to empower young people (summer students and school students alike) to understand and see themselves represented in history at a local level.

The 10-week programme is supervised by Auckland Museum WiR and includes, introductions to Wikimedia platforms, training, lectures, Wikimedian guest speakers as well as Auckland Museum tours and guest speakers. The students' outputs for this programme are: at least 4-5 new or majorly edited articles, a research report, to host an edit-a-thon, write a blogpost for Diff and present their projects in a symposium.

The session will talk through the process of organising the programme and encouraging other GLAMs to consider supporting student Wikipedia editors to utilise their institution's resources and to encourage a younger Wikimedia userbase.

How does your session relate to the event theme, Wikimania@20 – Inclusivity. Impact. Sustainability?

The crux of the summer student programme centres around the themes of inclusivity impact and sustainability. The purpose of the programme is to create diverse, inclusive and accessible resources for teachers and school students and communities about their local histories. The impact of this project is immediate as teacher and school students are receiving resources to utilise in real time. One of the core goals of the programme is to support the Museum summer students to sustain their Wikipedia usership beyond the 10 week internship.

What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?

Everyone can participate in this session

Resources

Speakers

anjuli selvadurai

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