Planning a multi-institution Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for agriculture: Fulfilling the land grant mission while contributing to the world’s understanding of agriculture

Abstract

Many people, including farmers and ranchers, turn to Google when exploring a given topic. Due to the search engine’s ranking algorithms, Wikipedia articles are often at the top of the results list. Wanting to enhance the quality as well as the quantity of Wikipedia articles for agriculture topics, librarians at several U.S. land-grant universities recently collaborated to plan two different synchronous multi-institution virtual Wikipedia edit-a-thons. The openness of Wikipedia, including its free, multilingual content, its use of version control, and its low barrier to entry for novice editors, makes it the perfect venue for such an effort. In this paper, we will discuss the objectives of the edit-a-thons which include: to facilitate inter-institutional as well as intra-departmental collaboration between campus units and librarians; to enhance the media literacy and research skills of participants; and, most importantly, to increase access to quality agricultural knowledge for the public good. Challenges and triumphs of the event will be discussed, as will future directions and goals.