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Figure 1 The Edinburgh edit-a-thon, February 2015. (McAndrew, 2019).

The Edinburgh Seven

The very first University of Edinburgh Wikipedia editing event, or edit-a-thon, took place in February 2015, with the aim of increasing female involvement in Wikipedia editing. Melissa Highton was interested to see how colleagues would take to these editing events, what their impact could be, and whether they could support teaching and learning.

The theme was “Women in Science and Scottish History” (Women, Science and Scottish History editathon series, 2015), and the event ran over four days, with visiting Wikimedian-in-Residence, Dr. Ally Crockford from the National Library of Scotland and Dr. Sara Thomas from Museums and Galleries Scotland. They facilitated the training of new editors to create Wikipedia pages about “the Edinburgh Seven.” Led by Sophia Jex-Blake, the Edinburgh Seven were the first group of matriculated undergraduate female students at any British university when they began studying medicine in 1869. This theme was apposite in that it allowed participants to consider both the culture of the University, then and now, and the culture of Wikipedia—in terms of women “breaking into an area where they weren’t welcome” (Highton, 2015). Beyond this, participants had to consider how to tell this story for a global audience; how best to honor the struggle of the Edinburgh