Thanks to a new $410,000 strategic partnership grant from the WITH Foundation, Wiki Education will build upon our ongoing work to improve and expand Wikipedia’s coverage of healthcare for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, filling in gaps for the benefit of all. This initiative and the work of the disability experts, advocates, and students it will bring to Wikipedia will help ensure more of this missing information is available – and that it’s presented in a more representative, equitable, and accurate way. 

“WITH Foundation is deeply gratified to expand our partnership with Wiki Education. Ensuring accurate healthcare information about adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities is paramount. Through our continued support of this effort, we are confident that this initiative will continue to empower individuals, families, and professionals with the knowledge they need to foster a more inclusive society and comprehensive healthcare for adults with I/DD.” – Ryan Easterly, Executive Director, WITH Foundation.

Over the next two years, Wiki Education will run a series of Wiki Scientists courses that will support more than 50 experts in intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) healthcare, including adults with lived experience of I/DD. 

Through our Wikipedia Student Program, we’ll also support postsecondary faculty in disability-related fields as they incorporate Wikipedia assignments into their pedagogy. By engaging faculty scholars, we’ll connect their own expertise to the project and the research efforts of their students as they enhance Wikipedia articles on I/DD as part of their academic coursework.

Guided by Wiki Education’s curriculum, resources, and staff support, participants across both the Wiki Scientists courses and the Wikipedia Student Program will tackle gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage of disabilities and disability healthcare information. They’ll work to transform existing articles from short, underdeveloped “stubs” to more thorough and representative content, as well as to create new articles for disabilities and disability healthcare topics still missing on Wikipedia.

How to Get Involved

Learn how to contribute your expertise

Interested in bringing your own expertise or lived experience to these efforts to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of disabilities and disability healthcare? We invite you to register for our upcoming Wiki Scientists courses! Learn more and register today by visiting learn.wikiedu.org.

Incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into your course

Are you a postsecondary instructor in the U.S. or Canada teaching in a disability or disability healthcare field? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to get started with our free resources, digital tools, and staff support to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into your courses.

Join our Speaker Series event (tomorrow!)

En“abling” Change: How Wiki Education is tackling disability on Wikipedia
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern
Register for Zoom link

Panelists:

• Diana Boling, Xavier University School of Nursing
• Ryan Easterly, WITH Foundation
• Skylar Covich, Braille Institute of America
• Terri Hlava, Arizona State University School of Social Transformation

This edition of the Wiki Education Speaker Series will be moderated by Helaine Blumenthal, Senior Program Manager. We invite you to bring questions for our panelists!

Motivated by her lifelong interest and focus on reproductive health and justice, course participant Paula A. Hillard, MD valued the unique learning opportunity to bring her knowledge to the public through the open-access encyclopedia.

“I loved the encouragement and support in my ventures into editing Wikipedia,” said Hillard, a pediatric and adolescent gynecology specialist at Stanford Children’s Health and professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. “In the medical field in particular, many Wikipedia articles need updating. As a physician, I know that many individuals use Wikipedia as one of their online sources of medical information, so the articles must be medically accurate as well as inclusive.”

While previously unfamiliar with the WITH Foundation, Hillard immediately connected with the goals of the organization and eagerly jumped into editing.

“When I read what the [WITH] acronym stands for, ‘Working for Inclusive and Transformative Healthcare’, I was hooked, and wanted the chance to help further that mission,” explained Hillard.  

Fellow course participant Juanita Panlener discovered the learning opportunity through her organization’s ongoing collaboration with the WITH Foundation. As the manager of the National Resource Center of the Spina Bifida Association, Panlener provides information about living with Spina Bifida to family members, individuals, social professionals, and more.

“Once I realized the value of learning how to be a responsible contributor to Wikipedia, and once I realized that we could play a part in updating content about Spina Bifida and topics related to Spina Bifida, I was in!” Panlener emphasized. 

Course participants made high-quality improvements to a variety of Wikipedia articles focused on disability healthcare, including Down syndrome, Disability sport classification, De Barsy syndrome, Evidence-based medicine, Disability treatments in the United States, Curb cut effect, and Ableism.

Curious about the editing process and motivated by the chance to dedicate time to improving Wikipedia by researching a topic aligned with her interests, Arizona State University professor Kenicia Wright joined the course with limited prior knowledge of the site.

“I was surprised by the increase in experts contributing to information on Wikipedia, the sources that are added to support the information being uploaded on different topics, and the goal/number of academic scholars contributing to Wikipedia articles on certain topics,” said Wright.

Like Wright, many participants were surprised by the course content, including the exploration of Wikipedia’s robust editing policies and guidelines in place to safeguard article quality.

“Prior to the course, I was unaware of the extensive behind-the-scenes work involved in creating Wikipedia articles,” said Rachel Lawerh, Population Student Health PhD student at the University of Ottawa. “It was fascinating to see editors collaborating on various topics, guidelines, and measures that are put in place to minimize the spread of misinformation on the platform.”

For instructor Will Kent, Scholars & Scientists Program Manager at Wiki Education, the WITH courses provided the ideal space for experts to gather and share their deep subject-area knowledge acquired from lived experience.

“An important element to these courses is the connection between people’s personal motivations to edit articles in the area of disabilities,” said Kent. “It was especially rewarding for me as an instructor to work with new editors who brought both personal and professional experiences to their writing. In addition to being meaningful to the course participants, it’s important for people writing about the community they represent to be part of that community. This really shines through in their work.”

Interested in learning how to add your own expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

Explore related articles:

• Edits close to home: ophthalmologist lends expertise to Down syndrome article
• 800K views and counting: professor improves healthcare content on Wikipedia

But it was a personal connection to the course’s focus on adult disabilities that propelled his work on Wikipedia – and led him to make substantive additions to an already well-developed, well-regarded article on the site.

“My sister has Down syndrome and I am involved in assisting with her medical care,” said Barbera. “I was interested and motivated to share what I knew through Wikipedia.”

Barbera added a new, robust section on ocular findings to the Down syndrome article, including information related to clinical signs of Down syndrome in an infant at birth, and the greater frequency of vision disorders such as congenital cataracts, strabismus, nystagmus, nasolacrimal duct obstruction, and refractive error among individuals with Down syndrome. 

“Wikipedia is one of the best examples of the realization of the original promise of the internet – constructive collaboration and dissemination of knowledge,” explained the ophthalmologist when reflecting on the power of Wikipedia to shape awareness and understanding of topics like disabilities. 

Throughout the course, Barbera also made enhancements to other eye-related articles, including Pseudostrabismus, which could lead to the incorrect diagnosis of strabismus. Pseudostrabismus, the false impression that the eyes are misaligned, generally occurs in infants and very young children, whose facial features are not yet fully developed.

“It was quite rewarding to look at the page view statistics with [our instructor] at the end of the course,” said Barbera. “It’s amazing how many views there were of the work in just a few weeks!  It helps me understand how significant the contribution can be, and I am sure others would share that sense of satisfaction.”

Praising his WITH course and its instructor, Wiki Education’s Will Kent, Barbera underscored the quality of his learning experience, the value of Kent’s encouragement and feedback, and his thanks to the WITH Foundation for supporting healthcare for those with disabilities. 

“One of the benefits of these courses is the fact that participants have an opportunity to learn from each other,” said Kent. “User Nabor Barbera led and fostered several useful conversations about disability topics, understanding the Wikipedia community, and exploring the useful (and sometimes baffling) user interface. These kinds of conversations embody the kind of drive, agency, and curiosity that make an engaged Wikipedian.”

While his course has officially ended, Barbera continues to review and edit Wikipedia articles, encouraging others to lend their own knowledge to improve the site for all.

Interested in learning how to add your expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

Having attended four Wiki Scientists courses over the past year, three of which were sponsored by the WITH Foundation, McEwen remains dedicated to enhancing healthcare and disability information on Wikipedia, underscoring the crucial role Wikipedia plays in increasing equity in public health.

“Quality information is important to patients and families,” said McEwen. “Wikipedia articles are a resource patients can discuss with their health care team to improve patient outcomes.”

Noting the initial challenge of selecting an article to enhance, McEwen focused her search on finding articles missing citations or large sections of critical information. 

Ultimately, she discovered Wikipedia articles at the intersection of the course themes and her own personal interests, adding content and citations to articles including De Barsy syndrome, jellyfish dermatitis, evidence-based medicine, tetracycline, congenital rubella syndrome, Alagille syndrome, and Reye syndrome.

McEwen, who particularly enjoyed the creative process of adding content and the chance to expand her biomedical knowledge, was surprised to discover a broad network of scholars actively contributing to Wikipedia.

“I was not aware of the complexity of the behind-the-scenes at Wikipedia,” McEwen explained. “I have also been impressed with the effort to involve scientists and students in improving Wikipedia articles.”

As associate professor of both Family and Community Medicine and Pharmacy Practice at Northeast Ohio Medical University, McEwen co-leads and teaches in the evidence-based medicine thread for first year and second-year medical students. She also serves as the Curriculum Mapper for the university. McEwen credits the WITH Wiki Scientists courses with keeping her on task and on track toward her goals of improving articles amidst her extensive professional responsibilities.  

“I think [editing] is a great way for scientists, health care professionals, librarians, and students to ensure quality information is available to anyone able to access Wikipedia,” said McEwen. “Your work can be seen by a larger population than traditional academic publishing.”

To connect with McEwen on Wikipedia, find her editing under the username EBMLibrarian.

Interested in learning how to add your own expertise to Wikipedia? Explore Wiki Education’s upcoming courses for subject-area experts.

A 2015 study concluded that “Wikipedia appeared to be the most utilized online healthcare information resource” in the world. And yet, there are only about 100 articles (out of 6.6 million) that cover developmental disabilities. Thanks to a $55,000 grant from the WITH Foundation, we plan to work with a passionate group of experts to change that.

We’re thrilled to announce that the WITH Foundation has not only renewed–but generously increased–their support of our initiative to improve healthcare and disability-related articles on Wikipedia, ensuring that the world’s largest free information resource is as equitable and accurate as possible. 

“We are pleased to continue our support for this project. We appreciate the partnership with Wiki Education as they work with self-advocates and disability healthcare professionals to enhance healthcare and disability information on Wikipedia.” – Ryan Eastery, Executive Director of WITH Foundation

In three WITH-sponsored Wiki Scientists courses, we will support 45 experts, including more self-advocates (adults with lived experience of I/DD), as they expand between 30 and 40 high-value Wikipedia articles about disability healthcare. Nearly all of the existing Wikipedia articles about adult developmental disabilities are rated as a “start” or “stub” class, meaning the article has a lot of room for improvement in quality and depth of information. 

There’s plenty of work to be done, but thankfully this cohort of experts will be building upon previous iterations of these courses. The WITH Foundation funded a similar project in 2019. The highest rated Wikipedia article in this topic area, Developmental disability, was expanded by experts previously enrolled in WITH Foundation-supported Wiki Scientists courses. Three of the top Wikipedia articles on developmental disabilities have received over 170,000 pageviews to date in 2022 alone, indicating strong public demand for helpful resources on related topics.

We’ve also seen a strong demand among disability healthcare professionals, experts, and self-advocates to be part of this initiative. In 2019, we received almost twice as many applications than there were seats available for the two Wiki Scientists courses. In total, 31 experts improved 43 Wikipedia articles on developmental disabilities and related topics. All work from these courses are available on Wiki Education’s online Dashboard.

Join us!

We are now seeking participants in these courses who can add accurate, reliable information about developmental disabilities to Wikipedia. We welcome individuals with developmental disabilities to participate, either as course participants if they are academic experts, or by recommending the course to people in their networks. In addition to working with some of our existing partners, we’d love to connect with organizations we haven’t yet collaborated with, especially healthcare and disability studies groups.

If you or your organization is interested in participating in any capacity, please email Jami Mathewson, our Director of Partnerships, at jami@wikiedu.org.

Let’s make a lasting impact

As a recent study has shown, Wikipedia articles have the power to influence hundreds of scientific articles and become highly cited in scientific literature. Researchers have also found that when groups of Wikipedia editors improve a specific content area, the pageviews of those articles and other linked ones increase by 12%. The work from our Wiki Scientists courses will remain accessible on Wikipedia going forward, impacting the public’s understanding of important healthcare and developmental disability studies topics and creating a snowball effect on the amount of healthcare resources available in the future.

My main goal in teaching, inside and outside of the classroom, has always been to enable access to knowledge, my own as well as my students’. Other goals include making the world a better place, and having fun while doing it (again for both me and my students). In this blog entry, I hope to convey that these goals are modest and feasible, although often subject to reformulation. I also hope to explain what I initially used as a subtitle, “Why Wikipedia Has a Great Future (and Probably Always Will).”

A year ago, I was a member of a summer Wiki Education Scholars & Scientists class learning about Wikipedia and disability-related healthcare (one of the parts of life during the COVID pandemic to which I looked forward). During the 2020-2021 academic year, I incorporated Wikipedia assignments  in two classes. I was co-instructor of a fall 2020 course at Chapman, Introduction to Disability Studies (crosslisted as Integrated Educational Studies, Peace Studies, and Political Science) with Dr. LouAnne Boyd from Chapman’s Fowler School of Engineering. In spring, I taught an upper-division course on Disability, Policy, and Law (crosslisted between Peace Studies and Political Science). 

I was, and remain, attracted to Wikipedia because it encourages examination of the unfamiliar, learning from mistakes.  It’s a welcome contrast to the norm in education, where common assumptions remain unexamined. That’s particularly a problem in the fields in which I study and teach. Some of those unexamined assumptions can reinforce patterns of disability injustice and structural violence from healthcare, housing, and educational policies (through which people are excluded where they can and should be included).

Partly because of myriad other expectations of my courses, other courses, and the rest of their lives, even simple student tasks like registering with Wikipedia, sometimes were not easy. Meeting over Zoom and sharing screens allowed making tasks like registering doable. 

Topic selection was also more difficult for some students than for others. One of the nice aspects of the assignment in the co-taught course was the opportunity to learn from others. For instance, I had no idea what “cognitive ergonomics” was; my colleague and my students filled me in somewhat, and other Wikipedians have taken it from there. Although I was initially reluctant to limit options, students appreciated this. I expect to nudge more next time. After registration and topic selection, my expectations were minimal. I expect that the greatest contributions will come after the course, not motivated by the grade. (In my courses, the Wikipedia assignment was worth 20% and 10% of the course grade; some students gravitated toward assignments that were structured in more familiar ways: read the texts, take an exam.)

Anything unfamiliar brings some resistance. In each class, one student simply did not do the Wikipedia assignment. I saw the benefit from having the same students in a second class: three of the 17 students in the spring class had also been in the fall class. One of the three hadn’t done the assignment in the earlier course. Several students showed some familiarity with writing for Wikipedia, from friends or from prior classes. Many students found that they knew more than they thought they knew.

Students and instructors greatly appreciate some “bright line” principles on Wikipedia like “neutral point of view” (NPOV). Wikipedia and other academic efforts to make the world a better place reinforce rather than undermine the Wikipedian search for a NPOV. Both Peace Studies and Disability Studies expose the efforts of people who champion neutrality while serving narrow interests. Upon close examination, students and scholars in all fields aspire to make the world better, although too often fall short.

One writing that  attracted me to Peace Studies was Richard Falk’s “Code of Honor for World Order Activists” in which Falk suggests that world order activists must “totally lack humility.” Although some critics equate this with bias and being “political” (as though it is possible not to be) they are mistaken. 

The site of the Peace and Justice Studies Association includes an “about” section with  values and beliefs shared by many members. Three of them: “Critical analysis of institutions and social structures”; “Societal transformation toward justice”; and “Liberatory use of technology and media research in support of community needs.”  Wikipedia assignments exemplify “liberatory use.”

Similarly, the Society for Disability Studies notes on its website that Disability Studies is about “Challenging the view of disability as an individual deficit or defect that can be remedied solely through medical intervention or rehabilitation by ‘experts’ and other service providers.” Through Wikipedia topics and through disability studies teaching, we can talk about exemplars of that challenge, such as Australian activist Stella Young’s  2014 TED Talk,  about “Inspiration Porn”: “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much.” 

Adopting a neutral point of view involves questioning authority, rather than accepting a single (not always neutral) point of view. Thinking about how to describe peace and disability issues involves identification of alternatives. Too often, students and instructors just extrapolate from the present. We will often have evidence to question assessments of the present and the past (beyond “I’ve got a feeling”). 

Why did I initially insert “probably” in my blog entry’s subtitle? Wikipedia is emblematic of an  unended quest for knowledge. Ideas and organizations evolve and occasionally devolve. It’s possible that open source thinking (promoted through Wikipedia) won’t be part of the future. 

Though I’m a fan of Wikipedia education, I’m not using a Wikipedia assignment in Fall 2021. However, I will be thinking a lot about it, including how to use it in the classroom in Spring 2022. I won’t do a perfect job then, but expect that users of Wikipedia, my students, and I will find improving Wikipedia insightful, while also enjoyable and making the world a better place.

Image credits: Bobak Ha’Eri, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; XFLQR, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

At first glance, a Special Olympics competition looks like any other sporting event. Passion radiates from faces on the field, stretching is happening on the sidelines in preparation for an upcoming match, seas of uniform colors form as teams flock together throughout the facility, and fans cheer loudly. But what you may miss if you don’t look closely, is that life-saving health services and screenings are also taking place on-site during these competitions. Special Olympics athletes have intellectual disabilities (ID) and face greater barriers accessing and utilizing our complex health care system and suffer at disproportionate rates from chronic health conditions. They have difficulty finding providers who are trained and willing to serve them, and may struggle with or need the support of others in their day-to-day health needs. Special Olympics offer these critical health screenings to help end the health disparities and health care inequities that exist and are experienced by people with ID.

Special Olympics – with support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Golisano Foundation – has been striving to correct these inequities and promote the health and wellness of athletes and those individuals with ID. Our Inclusive Health programming includes: training health care providers and health professional students to provide higher quality care for people with ID; performing health screenings; offering health services such as prescription glasses, shoe fittings, and fluoride treatments; and referring athletes for follow-up care when necessary. While we’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made in bringing quality health care to our athletes in a positive and encouraging environment, we recognize there are so many more lives we need to touch, and additional work that needs to be done to increase awareness of the health disparities that exist in our communities around the world

When WITH Foundation and Wiki Education announced the opportunity for those in the disability and health space to come together to expand and enhance their knowledge base on disability and health, we were eager to participate. The call for participation in this program came through American Academy of Developmental Medicine & Dentistry (AADMD) on January 11th, 2020 – the exact day that Chinese media reported the first death due to COVID-19. On the first day of the Wiki Scientists course there were 0 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. The day the class ended, there were 22,086 confirmed cases in the United States. The correlation between the timeline of COVID-19 and this course is noteworthy given people with developmental disabilities are one of the most vulnerable populations to the virus. The most important risk for people with ID, however, is not the underlying condition, but the lack of access to quality health care and subsequent health inequities.

Three Special Olympics staff members were part of an 18-member cohort of students who were selected to participate in a 12-week WITH Wiki Scientists course to understand how to make scholarly research and Wikipedia contributions accessible to those with disabilities. The educational backgrounds, professional experiences, and personal journeys were integrated to allow each participant to explore their areas of interest while contributing to a broader mission. Participating in this course with such a diverse group allowed us to collaborate with other disability advocates and the broader disability community. We were reminded that many of the battles we face on a daily basis are those that are not just unique to people with intellectual disabilities.

Understanding how to utilize our sandboxes (pages designed for testing edits on Wikipedia), becoming proficient at using the visual editor, and evaluating wiki articles were amongst the many components of the weekly training assignment that we completed. Throughout the course, we were challenged to contribute to two Wikipedia articles. We placed emphasis on articles that had high relevance for understanding the health needs of people with intellectual disabilities and for solutions to improving health equity.

While the course focused on the basics of making contributions to existing articles and creating new Wikipedia entries, there was also emphasis on the overall concept of inclusivity and the need to create content that people of all abilities can read and understand. To address this, Wikipedia launched a simple English version of its platform for people with different needs, children, adults with learning difficulties, and people who are trying to learn English. The caveat is that content contributors need to write and submit this content separately.

Wikipedia editors are like anyone else, and they have their own biases and interests. Wikipedia is a reflection of the people who create it, and not necessarily the experiences and contributions of the broader population. This means that articles may have a more “ableist” point of view if they were written by scholars or contributors who don’t understand the lived experiences and needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities; these articles may use terminology that makes assumptions about the abilities of people with disabilities.

What became clear throughout the course was that Wikipedia, for all its vast wisdom and knowledge, is not immune to the shortcomings that we continue to observe in the fight for equity for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. As a result of this course, the Special Olympics staff involved in this course propose a call to action for all scholars, experts, and other interested individuals to do the following:

1) Set up a Wikipedia account and learn how to create and review content.

2) Work on a simple language summary of your findings, recommendations, and guidelines every time you publish on Wikipedia content about people with intellectual and developmental disabilities

3) Review existing Wikipedia entries that are related to your areas of expertise and help create simple English versions of this content.

It has been the such a rewarding experience to meet new colleagues, collaborate with other disabilities advocates, and broaden our own horizons on issues faced by others in the disabilities community.

Lindsay Dubois, PhD
Chelsea Fosse, DMD, MPH
Jamie Valis, PhD

Interested in taking a course like the one Lindsay, Chelsea, and Jamie took? Visit learn.wikiedu.org to see current course offerings.

Header/thumbnail image by Maggie Mengel, AKSM photography, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Images of authors courtesy Jamie Valis.

Thanks to a grant from the WITH Foundation, our first WITH Wiki Scientists course helped combat these problems. We supported a group of 20 experts as they worked to add more than 11,000 words to Wikipedia about topics like spastic cerebral palsy, diagnostic overshadowing, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, special needs dentistry, the connection between sexual abuse and intellectual disability, and much more. Together, their work has been viewed more than 224,000 times, and their work will live on long beyond the course.

When we approached the WITH Foundation last year with the idea to run a Wikipedia training course for disability healthcare professionals, we hoped the course would be interesting and impactful for prospective participants. We worked with the WITH Foundation to share this opportunity with their networks and were excited to receive almost twice as many applications than there were seats available, including 14 from members of the American Academy of Developmental Medicine & Dentistry (AADMD). In our first WITH Wiki Scientists course this spring, we were able to support 9 of those members. Next month, we will present at the upcoming AADMD virtual conference to share these medical professionals’ impact to public scholarship.

We had hoped to use the conference presentation to share this virtual learning opportunity with AADMD members, but the coronavirus pandemic has pushed the virtual presentation beyond the registration deadline. If you’re attending the AADMD virtual conference, please join Director of Partnerships Jami Mathewson on Thursday, June 18, 2020 7:30-8:00 PM EDT. The 30-minute session aims to achieve the following learning outcomes:

1. To understand Wikipedia as a means of public scholarship and increasing access to current academic research about developmental disabilities

2. To learn how medical professionals are making Wikipedia more inclusive for people with developmental disabilities

3. To understand how healthcare providers are applying their new Wikipedia knowledge in their daily professional lives

Whether or not you’re an AADMD member, if you’re interested in participating in our second cohort from June 15th–September 4th, please apply at wikiedu.org/with-AADMD by June 5th. We encourage adults with developmental disabilities to apply and/or spread the opportunity in your networks. Together, we can help ensure medical professionals can provide comprehensive healthcare to everyone.

As many of you know, the WITH Foundation and our grantees are working toward inclusive and transformative healthcare. A facet of this work involves making information about disability and healthcare accessible for people who are looking for it. which is why we’re sponsoring this opportunity for experts to learn how to add information to the site through Wiki Education’s Wiki Scientists courses. We’d like to invite you to consider joining the second cohort of WITH Wiki Scientists. Apply now for a seat in the June-August course!

Why Wikipedia?

Wikipedia as an avenue for fortifying public information with the most evidence-based, current research out there. Wikipedia is also a place to translate research into accessible language for a general, non-academic audience. Information can be empowering and reduce stigma. This Wiki Scientists course is a chance to invite more people into the Wiki community for disability advocacy and to give back to the information resource we all know and use.

A Wikipedia training course for experts

In February of this year, we supported the first cohort of Wiki Scientists to embark on this WITH-sponsored mission. The group included healthcare professionals and advocates,; behavioral therapists, nonprofit leaders, researchers, and academics; and disability activists. We were thrilled that people were drawn to the course across such a diverse range of fields, united by their passion for information access and health advocacy. The overwhelming interest in our first cohort just helped drive home that Wikipedia is a great way to bring these experts together for a common purpose.

The cohort of 17 wrapped up their course last week and added more than 11,000 words to Wikipedia pages related to disability, disability healthcare, and activism. These pages have already been viewed 130,000 times since the group began making improvements. Here are some highlights:

Kathleen Downes, a licensed social worker and one of our WITH Wiki Scientists, was less than impressed with the depiction of spastic cerebral palsy on Wikipedia. She uploaded a photo of herself as a child to the page and made numerous improvements to the content. “A difficult task is finding information written by disabled folks themselves,” Kathleen wrote in a blog about her course experience. “I hope that a parent whose kid was recently diagnosed will Google spastic cerebral palsy one day, find my page, and realize it’s not all doom and gloom.”

Another great example of how powerful the course can be for increasing access to well-researched information can be seen in the improvements made to Wikipedia’s page about muteness. Another Wiki Scientist added brand new sections that hadn’t existed on the page before, including more information about organic causes, psychological causes, developmental and neurological causes, and treatment. They also doubled the references cited throughout the page. Click here to see the “before” and here to see the page’s current state with the improvements.

And the page on the Civil Rights Act of 1968 didn’t cover how the Fair Housing Act applies to people with disabilities before a Wiki Scientist added a sub-section devoted to the subject. This page alone has received 26,000 pageviews since February.

How to apply

Wiki Education and the WITH Foundation believe that involving experts in adding content to Wikipedia can have a lasting impact. We encourage disability healthcare scholars, disability healthcare practitioners, and/or disability studies scholars to apply. Scholars and practitioners with disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply!  Want to be a part of the movement? Join the next course!

• Course dates: June 15 – September 4 (12 weeks). Meeting time will be determined via the registration form based on registrants’ shared availability.
• Time commitment per week: 1 hour virtual, collaborative meeting; 2 additional hours of independent work
• Cost: The full cost of enrollment in this course is covered by the WITH Foundation.
• Goal: to improve healthcare and disability-related pages on Wikipedia, the most utilized healthcare resource in the world.
• Apply here by May 29th, 2020. Applicants will be notified of acceptance status by June 8th,

Read more about the course by visiting wikiedu.org/WITH