Wikidata is becoming a hub for structured data across a wide range of research fields, from cultural heritage to biomedicine. Since Wikidata is also multilingual, it has been described as the Rosetta Stone of the linked open-data age.
This course introduces participants to Wikidata and highlights how it can improve workflows in participants’ fields of research. The course builds on past workshops given for various audiences – from librarians and 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 course instructor has explored the potential for integrating Wikidata with research and curation through a number of activities, including an initiative to collect on Wikidata the metadata of scholarly references cited on Wikimedia projects.
The course will have two parts:
The first part introduces the basics of research and curation workflows on Wikidata.
The second part is more hands-on, integrating examples of curation workflows drawn from experiences shared by course participants.
Proposed level: The first part of the course assumes some familiarity with research and curation workflows. The second part requires active participation in the first part.
Limits on participation: For the first part, a mobile web-enabled device (laptop, tablet, or smartphone) is recommended but not required. The second part requires a web-enabled device (ideally a laptop).
Intended audience: Researchers and librarians from any field, curators of digital information, anyone interested in workflows, students in related fields.
