Page:Wikipedia and Academic Libraries.djvu/23

 Wikipedia as a Work in Progress and Its Potential in the Classroom

Why Wikipedia?

Wikipedia is based on the idea of openness and collaboration. Its Five Pillars align perfectly with what the team was looking for: an “online encyclopedia” with a “neutral point of view” providing “free content that anyone can use, edit and distribute,” encouraging contributors to “treat each other with respect and civility” without imposing “ rm rules” (Wikipedia: Five pillars, n.d.). The Five Pillars inspired the team to continue their work with open resources in other courses taught by the same instructors. In the 2019 fall semester, two courses, Introduction to Gender Studies and State and Society, provided students with the opportunity to become Wikipedia editors and to contribute to raising awareness on gender issues in the country. While one of the courses focused on gender issues, the second course included topics of gender roles in society. Gender-related topics became an intersection of team members’ personal interests. Wikipedia, as an online open platform promoting a “neutral point of view,” seemed the right tool for classes aiming to explore gender justice, still a sensitive topic in Kyrgyzstan (Rysbekova, 2020).

Working with Wikipedia, the team also learned about some gaps that could be addressed on the platform, such as the lack of global coverage and geographic and language underrepresentation. Gender imbalance in Wikipedia has been continuously studied in recent years. Graells-Garrido et al. (2015) argued that multiple groups are underrepresented in Wikipedia and one of these groups is women. Women only constitute 16 percent of the Wikipedia editors, which affects the generated content. Research indicated that, out of 1,445,021 biographies, only 15 percent were about women. The researchers also found that the significant gender disparity in the number of editors had influenced not only the content but also the narratives and attitudes expressed in those pages.

The literature has suggested that gender bias goes beyond a lack of representation. Lam et al. (2011) found that coverage of topics of