Page:Wikipedia and Academic Libraries.djvu/25

 region, including about women-led initiatives, biographies of activists, and women leaders.

Librarians worked closely with the instructors to help ensure the assignments met the learning objectives and to facilitate students’ needs in searching of information, source evaluation, and citation. Librarians delivered training sessions on Wikipedia editing for both courses. Even though all students had previously used Wikipedia for personal or academic purposes, none of them knew about the Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The training session covered information about the history, purpose, and mission of the platform, with a focus on the rules and regulations for editing and creating articles. It was important to help students understand the collaborative culture and philosophy of the platform, so they could feel connected to the Wikipedia community while bringing their perspectives into the construction of knowledge.

Students were given freedom in selecting topics, individuals, or events to cover in their assignments. Several students wrote Wikipedia pages about outstanding women they had known in their communities. One student wrote about one of the first female members of parliament in her country and the contribution of that woman to fighting gender inequality. This was especially important since gender inequality in the higher echelons of power is high in the region (IWPR Central Asia, 2020). Another student created a page about one of the feminist activists in Kyrgyzstan whose popularity increased after she had organized the earlier-mentioned “controversial” Feminnale art exhibition. The page included her achievements as a feminist, a writer of children’s books, and a researcher.

Several pages were created to acknowledge women’s accomplishments that were quite remarkable and important in their communities. For example, a well-known Village Girl project aiming to empower young girls in rural areas evolved from a small community project into a big countrywide initiative (“Village Girl Project,” 2019). A Wikipedia page gathered information about that project and its activities and included information about the young woman activist who initiated the initiative.