# Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project/Chapter 9

CHAPTER 9
ENGAGING STUDENT EMPLOYEE EXPERTISE TO IMPROVE WIKIPEDIA EDIT-A-THONS
Brittany Paloma Fiedler, Maggie Bukowski, Chelsea Heinbach, Eduardo Martinez-Flores, and Rosan Mitola
1 University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Abstract
Since 2007, the University Libraries at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has had a student employee peer learning program composed of six to seven undergraduate students. The Mason Undergraduate Peer Research Coaches, known as peer coaches, work within the instruction and outreach department co-teaching library instruction sessions and connecting with students through cocurricular outreach activities. When three librarians decided to plan their first Wikipedia edit-a-thon in 2017, the peer coaches became their collaborators. Since then, the peer coaches have developed lists of resources, identified notable individuals, evaluated Wikipedia pages, and worked with students during the event at orientation, citation, information, creation, and translation stations. They have also engaged in extra projects like creating playlists, designing swag, developing a trivia game, and pop-up tabling. Because of the ​collaboration with the peer coaches, the edit-a-thons have developed and grown far beyond initial expectations. In this chapter, we will share the background and institutional context for our university and Wikipedia program; detail the collaborative efforts of library faculty, staff, and peer coaches at each stage; and share reflections and recommendations from the peer coaches themselves.
Keywords
Information literacy, Open pedagogy, Peer learning, Student employees, Student workers, Wikipedia, Wikipedia edit-a-thons
Introduction
   The most rewarding thing about being involved with these amazing events is getting to help students learn a new skill. Editing Wikipedia pages is a good way for students to expand their interest in technology. I have a sense of fulfillment after teaching how to edit, ﬁnd information, and publish changes that will serve a potentially large number of people.
   —Vinicius Passos, Mason Undergraduate Peer Research Coach
Since spring 2018, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) University Libraries has hosted two Wikipedia edit-a-thons each year. These are organized by a planning team of three librarians, one staff member, and seven Mason Undergraduate Peer Research Coaches (known as peer coaches). The planning team is a large group with different backgrounds, ideas, strengths, and areas of expertise. At each edit-a-thon, participants are greeted and registered by a peer coach before they go to the Orientation Station to create an account and learn basic editing. Once participants feel confident, they choose whether to visit the Citation Station to add references, the Information Station to write text and add references, the Translation Station to translate Wikipedia pages between different languages, or the Creation Station to make new pages. Each station has a mix of peer coaches and library faculty and staff offering help and guidance. ​The events feature musical playlists, a Wikipedia trivia game, and prizes—all designed and created by peer coaches. They are also responsible for selecting all the source materials and generating lists of Wikipedia pages that participants use (bit.ly/unlvwikipedia). e scope of the events has grown because the peer coaches’ roles have expanded. This chapter will provide an overview of UNLV’s institutional context, outline how library faculty and staff collaborate with peer coaches at each stage, and share thoughts from the peer coaches themselves.
Institutional Context
UNLV is a public, doctoral-granting research institution with just over 30,000 students enrolled (UNLV, n.d.-b). It is currently ranked the second most ethnically diverse university in the United States for undergraduate students (MacNeil, 2020) with 61 percent of students identifying as racial or ethnic minorities (UNLV, n.d.-a). Although the university doesn’t track LGBTQ+ identities, Nevada is ranked third for the highest percentage of LGBTQ+ people in the United States (UCLA School of Law Williams Institute, 2019). In order to increase representation on Wikipedia and to empower and excite UNLV’s students, each edit-a-thon focuses on members of different underrepresented groups.
Since 2007 the University Libraries has been home to the Mason Undergraduate Peer Research Coaches, a peer learning program composed of six to seven undergraduate students who work in the library twenty hours or less a week for hourly pay (Rinto et al., 2017). Peer learning can lead to improved classroom experiences for students who may prefer to ask a peer for assistance and can also result in more student-centered library programs when peer leaders are encouraged to share their own thoughts, ideas, and suggestions (Rinto et al., 2017). The peer coaches contribute to the teaching and outreach efforts of the Educational Initiatives department by co-teaching library instruction sessions alongside library faculty and staff and connecting with students through cocurricular learning activities.
​In fall 2017, three librarians planned their first Wikipedia edit-athon, and the peer coaches became partners in organizing, designing, and working the event. Over the past seven edit-a-thons, a total of 183 editors have added over 22,500 words to Wikipedia on articles about women and nonbinary artists of color and notable members of the LGBTQ+, Latinx, and Indigenous communities.
Preparing for the Edit-a-Thon
It is important to have the entire planning team (which includes three librarians, one staff member, and six to seven peer coaches) together when picking a theme, date, and time to ensure everyone is interested in the topic and that there is enough employee coverage. Over time, library faculty and staff learned that it is hard to sustain excitement for doing the many hours of preliminary work necessary for the edit-athon if peer coaches are not able to actually attend. Choosing a theme related to social justice, anti-racist work, and gender equality also increases enthusiasm among all participants.
After a theme and date have been selected, the planning team meets and assigns roles to each member. Usually library faculty and staff communicate with teaching faculty and campus partners, present to classrooms and student organizations, create promotional materials, secure a budget, and coordinate room reservations and technology. Meanwhile, peer coaches research to make a comprehensive list of Wikipedia pages to be created or edited. First, they search the library catalog and pull materials that might encompass the theme. en they explore the books and identify potential names. Each person’s Wikipedia page is categorized into how much work is required to improve it and added to a list in a shared spreadsheet. Organizing the list this way helps to connect edit-a-thon participants with pages that match their editing proficiency.
Usually the peer coaches can complete this work independently, but they occasionally need guidance. Echoing research on peer-assisted learning, the peer coaches usually seek help from one another (Rinto et al., 2017). If the same questions are repeatedly asked and discussed, ​they loop in library faculty and staff. After a couple of event planning cycles, library faculty and staff discovered that the peer coaches wanted additional group discussions and more opportunities to ask questions, so they built in extra time for this during meetings. For example, during the planning for the Indigenous edit-a-thon, peer coaches identified materials in the collection that were outdated. Library faculty and staff noticed the materials perpetuated the themes of racism, sexism, and colonialism that the team wanted to eradicate from Wikipedia, so they discussed with the peer coaches what to look for in a text to determine whether it was an appropriate source for the event. This led to a broader conversation about why problematic materials are a part of library collections in the first place. Searching for materials reinforces skills the peer coaches already have while discussing and evaluating sources contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the collection. The entire process improves their information literacy expertise, supporting their dual roles as students and employees.
During one event planning meeting, the peer coaches and library faculty and staff had different scopes in mind for the edit-a-thon about Indigenous people. Originally, library faculty and staff thought the event would focus on Indigenous people from what is now the United States, but the peer coaches wanted to include Indigenous people throughout the world. After a discussion about scope, the team expanded the theme to include Indigenous people from all of North and South America. This led to the peer coaches discovering that many robust Wikipedia pages existed on Indigenous people in Spanish that were short or nonexistent in English. As a result, since many of the peer coaches speak Spanish, they developed lists of pages that could be translated and learned about Wikipedia’s processes for translation (Wikipedia contributors, 2020). These discoveries greatly increased excitement for the event, and the peer coaches came up with the idea for adding a Translation Station to the edit-a-thon. This is just one of many examples of how their ideas and suggestions improve the events.
After a few edit-a-thons, library faculty and staff recognized it would be beneficial to develop a formal curriculum for editing Wikipedia. Since peer coaches regularly co-teach instruction sessions, they ​were involved in developing and creating the training. When peer coaches first start working in the Libraries, they go through a comprehensive training program that involves discussions of pedagogy, conducting teaching observations, teaching mock lessons, and finally being assessed when they co-teach. Because of these experiences, senior peer coaches were particularly well-positioned to create a curriculum for Wikipedia edit-a-thon training that included lesson plans, learning activities, and assessment. Two peer coaches worked with a librarian to develop an outline of the training program and then worked by themselves on each lesson plan.
An ongoing challenge of peer coach collaborations is working with their complicated schedules. The peer coaches who created the training could not teach their lesson plans because of scheduling conflicts, so the librarian had to deliver them. Managing student schedules often requires flexibility. While creative problem-solving can help to an extent, honesty, communication, and time are also important factors on how well these kinds of collaborations work.
Along with codeveloping the training program, peer coaches have asked for or been assigned other supplementary projects. These tasks are not event essentials but are instead designed to either utilize their existing strengths or to provide an opportunity for growth. These projects include developing a playlist, designing and making buttons, creating a Wikipedia trivia game, and pop-up tabling. Doing the same kind of work for two similar events each year is monotonous, so offering these other activities keeps team members engaged. It’s important to remember that these new ideas require time, energy, and project management, and they don’t always work out as planned. Established edit-a-thons could add one or two supplementary projects, but new programs should focus on the essentials.
Debrieﬁng with All Collaborators
A week or two after each edit-a-thon, the planning team meets to debrief. This is particularly important because the team’s varied schedules often mean that the only times everyone is together is at the initial ​planning meeting and at the event itself. The debrief meeting is an opportunity to share the number of participants, the editing statistics, and any particularly inspiring anecdotes. The team reflects on what worked well and what could be improved. Sometimes the issues discussed actually came up before the event, but there wasn’t enough time or resources to pre-emptively fix them. By revisiting these, the planning team can evaluate how serious the problems ended up being and then plan appropriately for the next edit-a-thon.
The relationship-building and culture-creating necessary for this kind of collaboration do not happen overnight or even over the course of planning one event. It is ongoing work that begins each time a new peer coach or a new library faculty or staff member starts working in the department. It is also not the most efficient way to organize an outreach program. Having one person in charge who unilaterally makes decisions would be far less time-consuming. However, the edit-a-thons would not be as inclusive or continue to improve as they have without input from each member of the team.
Hearing from the Peer Coaches
Library faculty and staff learn from the peer coaches through the practice of critical reflection. Their feedback informs many aspects of how the department does its work, including the edit-a-thons. Coauthor and peer coach Eduardo recently asked seven peer coaches to reflect on their experiences in helping prepare for and facilitate these events. Four themes emerged: (1) their identities, interests, and experiences at a diverse university influence their relationship with their jobs; (2) planning edit-a-thons utilizes their strengths and increases their skills; (3) their familiarity with Wikipedia as a resource and as a community has grown; and (4) each peer coach faces unique challenges in this work. He also explicitly asked them for what advice they have for other student employees and for librarians who are interested in collaboratively planning a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. We share and summarize their reflections and responses here.
​Diversity, Identities, and Interests All the peer coaches felt the edit-a-thons are important and the focus on underrepresented groups is particularly salient because of UNLV’s student population. Many students see themselves in the identities the edita-thons have explored. For example, “I am Latinx and I really enjoyed researching and studying about ‘my people’ .It made me proud to be a member of this community” (E. Rodriguez, personal communication, July 17, 2020). On the other hand, some peer coaches preferred to learn about important people who have different identities than their own. Although none of the peer coaches are Indigenous, two identified the Indigenous edit-a-thon as their favorite because they had an opportunity to learn more about American history. They also understood the importance of approaching the research critically and with care because they did not want to make or perpetuate assumptions. The peer coaches felt that “amplifying marginalized voices is rewarding work” (B. Lopez, personal communication, July 17, 2020) because “Wikipedia is such a widely used site and it’s important to make sure that the information on it is diversified” (R. D’Amato, personal communication, July 17, 2020). The peer coaches anticipate that even at predominantly white institutions, edit-a-thons focusing on underrepresented groups would likely help students with marginalized identities feel more welcome and create learning opportunities for others. A case study showing that students who participated in an Art + Feminism edit-a-thon had increased awareness of the gender disparities of Wikipedia supports the peer coaches’ beliefs (Vetter & Sarraf, 2019).
Strengths and Prior Knowledge This project made space for peer coaches to both share their strengths and prior knowledge and improve upon their less practiced skills. For example, B. Lopez (personal communication, July 17, 2020) said, “Bringing all my identities and interests to the table has been a strength. I may not have always been aware that I was bringing them to the table, but adding my perspectives has helped contribute.” Three out of seven peer coaches cited their creativity ​as an important asset. “The librarians we work with encourage us to express our creativity freely because they create a space where our ideas are heard and often implemented, and they also give us the opportunity to lead different parts and roles of the events” (E. Martinez-Flores, personal communication, August 1, 2020). While only one peer coach explicitly mentioned being bilingual as an added skill, the monolingual library faculty and staff would like to emphasize how meaningful it is to work with a largely bilingual team because 79 percent of people in the United States only speak English (U.S. Census Bureau, 2015).
Peer coaches generally felt this work improved their skills in event planning, leadership, technology, and research. Almost every peer coach described increased confidence in teaching, specifically discussing different sources, understanding open access, and utilizing Wikipedia in the research process. “We have done a lot of teaching in this job, but the Wikipedia events have helped me grow as a teacher . . . I really do have more to o er . . . than I ever thought” (E. Martinez-Flores, personal communication, July 28, 2020). ey also felt that Wikipedia edit-a-thon instruction is more personal than their other efforts in the classroom and appreciated the opportunity to work one-on-one with other students. “Teaching should be a dialogue, not a monologue” (P. Gutierrez, personal communication, July 17, 2020).
Wikipedia: The Resource and the Community Although all the peer coaches had experiences as Wikipedia readers, they felt their involvement taught them many things about the website. First, they developed a better understanding of Wikipedia as an important resource. Not only is it a good place to start researching almost any topic, it is also one of the first open-access information sources they have used as university students. “[This event] has expanded my appreciation of information that is offered without a pay wall . . . there can be factual and constructive information . . . free of charge” (V. Passos, personal communication, July 17, 2020). Six out of seven peer coaches discovered the lack of representation on Wikipedia ​through their research and work. They shared that while it was exciting to improve the pages of talented and notable people from underrepresented groups, it was also disappointing to discover that their contributions were previously unrecognized. Finally, the peer coaches learned about the active editing community that creates Wikipedia. “Editing Wikipedia is really great because you get to be a part of something that helps keep the whole world informed. It’s always fun to look at something you edited on the o cial page and think, ‘wow I really did that!’” (E. Martinez-Flores, personal communication, July 28, 2020).
Challenges The peer coaches felt that there were some challenges both in editing Wikipedia and in planning events. Two peer coaches noted the lack of resources in the Libraries’ collections. “the most challenging part for me has been finding sufficient information about certain people . . . It is hard in the sense that sometimes I feel that the person deserves a wiki page, but it is nearly impossible to find more information about their life or works” (D. Ramos-Candelas, personal communication, July 17, 2020). Two peer coaches felt they struggled with the actual writing of information on Wikipedia pages. One peer coach felt their greatest struggle was summarizing sources into their own words while another felt that because the topics are so sensitive they needed to be particularly careful with their word choice and tone. For events, challenges include a lack of routine during planning, the struggle of carrying over editing skills between events, and the difficulty of keeping the edit-a-thons exciting for both peer coaches and participants.
Recommendations Finally, the peer coaches have edit-a-thon advice. For student employees, they overwhelmingly suggested that they just dive in and not stress about editing Wikipedia. For librarians, they recommended involving student employees from the beginning. The peer coaches felt that librarians should not be afraid to learn alongside their student employees, but a Wikipedia editing teaching plan should be developed ​in advance. While this seems contradictory, librarians do not need to create the teaching plan from nothing. Find an existing online resource about editing and dedicate adequate time for everyone to learn together (Bukowski & Heinbach, 2020). In fact, one peer coach felt that seeing librarians also in a learning role was an important experience. “I have learned that not knowing something doesn’t take my position as an expert or as the teacher away. I appreciated navigating Wikipedia with librarians I consider experts and seeing that they were looking for answers alongside us” (B. Lopez, personal communication, July 17, 2020). Their final piece of advice is “don’t forget to ensure your students feel welcome and cared for!” (P. Gutierrez, personal communication, July 17, 2020).
Conclusion
At this point, the edit-a-thons have grown beyond expectations. The program is well-attended, instructors offer extra credit to participating students, and one instructor replaced their traditional research paper assignment with one where students create new pages for women of color artists. The team hopes to expand the program in a few ways. First, library faculty and staff want to grow partnerships with UNLV instructors by bringing Wikipedia into more classes. Additionally, the planning team would like to start a community of practice that regularly edits Wikipedia together. is would help keep skills fresh, increase confidence in Wikipedian identities, and honor the work of the peer coaches through continued use of event materials. The team would also love to involve community partners like regional colleges and nonprofit organizations. Finally, because the peer coaches have developed extensive lists of pages to edit, library faculty and staff plan to share resources through an online edit-a-thon.
There are many possibilities for the future of the team’s Wikipedia work, and all of them will include the voices, perspectives, and efforts of peer coaches. e peer coaches share their expertise in very event-specific ways such as editing Wikipedia and teaching others to ​edit. Preparing for and working the event also contributes to the peer coaches’ professional development because they are able to expand their skills in areas such as project management, leadership, research, and information literacy. It is important for academic libraries to create personally and professionally fulfilling student employment opportunities when possible. e success of the program is because of the collaboration and teamwork shared between the peer coaches and library faculty and staff. We are thankful for the time and resources that allow everyone on the team to learn, grow, and work together.
References
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Rinto, E., Watts, J., & Mitola, R. (2017). e Mason undergraduate peer research coach program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Libraries. In E. Rinto, J. Watts, & R. Mitola (Eds.), Peer-assisted learning in academic libraries (pp. 64–79). Libraries Unlimited.
UCLA School of Law Williams Institute. (2019). LGBT demographic data interactive. https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/visualization/lgbt-stats/?topic=LGBT&area=32#about-the-data.
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Vetter, M. A., & Sarraf, K. S. (2019). Assessing the art + feminism edit-a-thon for Wikipedia literacy, learning outcomes, and critical thinking. Interactive Learning Environments. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2020.1805772.
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