This file hosts my submission to the FORCE11 Scholarly Communication Institute (FSCI) in summer 2018 (July 30 - August 3) in San Diego. It is based on an afternoon elective that was given during FSCI 2017 (see notes) and will be evolving until FSCI 2018 and possibly beyond.
Submission deadline was January 8, 2018, Pacific Time. I submitted a few hours before that.
After collecting some personal information, the submission form has the following fields.
Please give a descriptive and catchy title for your course. Try to give a sense of the kind of course, what activities it will involve, the level, and subject matter. Examples include "Practical approaches to Data Management: An exercise based class for beginners" or "The cutting edge of publishing technologies: A test drive of the latest technology for advanced users".
Integrating Wikidata with your research and curation workflows
FSCI has two types of courses. Long courses run in the morning Monday to Friday, for a total of 13-14 hours. Short courses run for two afternoon slots for a total of six hours on each of the Monday-Tuesday and/or Wednesday -Thursday. We expect most short courses to run twice.
- Long course
- Short course
Please provide a course abstract of 250-500 words. It should describe the content of the course in detail, its target audience and the kinds of activities that will be included. Examples of course abstracts for 2017 can be found at www.force.org/fsci/2017/course-abstract (note: that URL is broken now).
Wikidata is becoming a hub for structured data across a wide range of research fields, from cultural heritage to biomedicine. Since it is also multilingual, it has been described as the Rosetta stone of the linked open data age.
This course aims to introduce participants to Wikidata and to highlight how it can and does contribute to workflows in or near the participants' fields of research. Prototyped at FSCI 2017, it builds on similar workshops given in the past to various audiences — from librarians to economists to scientists and museum professionals — on how research workflows can be integrated with Wikimedia workflows.
Since the launch of Wikidata in late 2012, the potential of integrating it with research and curation workflows has been explored through a number of activities, e.g. initiatives to collect on Wikidata information about paintings, pathways, politicians, proteins or publications as well as workshops or grant proposals.
The course consists of the following parts:
- the first morning is introductory and will provide the basics in terms of research and curation-related workflows on Wikimedia projects like Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikisource and Wikidata;
- the second morning will zoom in on Wikidata and on extracting research-related information from it;
- the third morning will focus on participants contributing or otherwise curating some Wikidata content in their domains and languages of choice;
- the remainder of the course will explore how various aspects of Wikidata (e.g. Wikidata identifiers, APIs, SPARQL endpoint, multilinguality, the Wikibase software, apps and tools) can be integrated with research-related workflows, drawing on scenarios provided by course participants.
A version of this abstract can be found at https://github.com/Daniel-Mietchen/events/blob/master/FSCI-2018.md .
Please give an indication of the knowledge, experience, or interests you expect your students to have at the beginning of your course. Is this a course for beginners? For students? Faculty? Experienced researchers? People who have experience working in journals? Etc. Is there some preparatory work that will be required?
The course assumes no prerequisites other than some familiarity with research and curation workflows. It is aimed at
- researchers and librarians from any field;
- other curators of digital information;
- anyone interested in workflows;
- students of any of the above.
Do you have any technical requirements for your course? Is there any special equipment students will need? Special software they will have to install? (we ask you to keep the requirements for students to the minimum necessary). Do you need any special teaching aids?
Participants are strongly encouraged to register a Wikidata account at least one week prior to the course (otherwise, some Wikidata functionality might not be available to them) and to bring a mobile Web-enabled device (e.g. laptop, tablet, smartphone).
Besides seats, tables and power outlets for everyone in the room, a stable WiFi would be needed, and for the speaker a projector and a stable Ethernet connection. Access to an A/V system would be beneficial but is not essential.
Is this a new course or has it been run previously, either at FSCI or at another venue? Both new and existing courses are welcome at FSCI.
- No, this is a new course
- Yes, a previous version of this course was given at FSCI2017
- Yes, a previous version of this course has been given elsewhere (please give details below)
I have taught parts of a few (mainly undergrad) courses on topics like vocal communication or brain morphometry, and given dozens of workshops on the integration between research and Wikimedia workflows.
Please name others (if applicable) who will be contributing to this course
The course will make active use of Wikidata, so contributions from the Wikidata community are probable and could perhaps also be solicited if needed. Furthermore, there are some active Wikidata contributors based in San Diego, and I would welcome some interaction between them and the course participants.
FSCI will attempt to support reasonable requests for technical support. In addition, it will provide complimentary tuition (allowing you to attend other classes when you are not teaching), housing (up to five nights, single room in a shared apartment), and meals (Mon-Fri) for 1 instructor in each course. We cannot guarantee travel reimbursement, although we are seeking funding to at least partially support travel by for instructors in need with emphasis on supporting those from Mid and Low Income Economies, and hardship cases.
- I have read and understand the support FSCI can provide to instructors.
- I won't be able to teach a course without travel support.
I would be interested in providing a Wikidata component to courses offered by other instructors.