I am celebrating the first accepted Wiki entry made by students in my "Hidden Figures" class A thread

The idea for the class came from hearing about a class that teaches neuroscience through Nobel Prize winners. Almost all are men, so it paints a skewed picture of neuroscience today. I pitched an idea about a class that would feature women in neuro to my chair @AErisir

I wanted to teach Neuro, and turn the red wiki links to blue @WikiWomenInRed by having students write wikipedia entries for their final projects. UVA wikipedian @LaneRasberry, librarian Maggie Nunley , @Rosiestep and @WikiEducation were there for all my questions and concerns

The class was planned as a seminar: each Monday we talk about science, and on Wednesday we host a guest speaker whose work links to Mondays lecture. Students and I transcribe the guest lecture and Q&A in form of an interview for http://conjugate.blog , a third-party source

that is independent and can serve as a Wikipedia source. http://Conjugate.blog  features dialogues with women in art and science and is spearheaded by @ArtistEliMinaya. Our speaker roster was simply incredible and I am so grateful for their participation:

@AErisir @LabPallas @Serenadudette @kdmicheva @Melon_Lab @dr_lrwyatt @doctheagrif @GjorJulijana @DrGlasper and twitterless Hey-Kyoung Lee

These outstanding women inspired students to go above and beyond for their final assignment, and convinced a few young ones that neuroscience is a viable path. Thanks to @AErisir, the class also watched @PictureaSciFilm, which triggered difficult discussions but also

highlighted student support groups. Altogether we submitted 10 entries and our first one just got approved: @LabPallas is now in Wikipedia
We are planning for the next class already, and some main takeaways for including Wiki in your class are

have students familiarize themselves with Wiki early on. Give them wiki-related assignments early and really drill down what is an acceptable source and how to Google stuff. Key: make students understand what are citable facts and that less is morep

Partner with a wikipedian or @WikiEducation-Wikipedia has a LOT of strange rules that don't make sense to us scientists (like not being able to cite original research). Keep students focused on getting a short acceptable entry vs a long one that will spend eternity in revision

Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive-having their final (work) be judged by public made them really think about what to write and how to write it. I am very proud of what they accomplished and how involved with the class they were

Overall, participation was through the roof. Students were inquisitive and curious, and their main feedback was "i wish I asked even more questions". They made this class such a success, along with everyone I mentioned. Looking forward to the fall semester!