CEE/Newsletter/Newsroom/Opening the Academia - Discussion panel at Wikimania 2024
During Wikimania this August, Wikimedia Polska organised a keynote discussion panel. The panel focused on open science, open academia, and how these concepts intersect with the Wikipedia and Wikimedia communities. Kasia Makowska, Open Science Manager at WMPL, moderated the panel and summarises it below.
Panel participants were: Dariusz Jemielniak (Polish Academy of Sciences, WMF Board of Trustees), Julia Maria Koszewska (Wikimedia Polska Board of Trustees), Włodzimierz Lewoniewski (Department of Information Systems at Poznań University of Economics and Business).
The panelists opened by discussing their personal views on open science and the academic landscape. They spoke about the importance of accessibility of research materials and data. The inaccessibility of research and the high cost of publishing were highlighted as major barriers to truly open science. The publish-or-perish culture in academia was mentioned as a challenge that hinders researchers from engaging in open practices. Włodzimierz emphasized that the academic system forces scholars to choose high-impact, closed-access journals to advance their careers, even though they support open access ideologically.
The role of Wikipedia in open science was a central focus. Dariusz encouraged academics to integrate Wikipedia editing into their teaching, asking students to write Wikipedia articles as a part of their assignments. He suggested that contributing to Wikipedia could be just as valuable as writing traditional academic papers, especially if academic systems began to recognize Wikipedia contributions in evaluations, including tenure evaluations.
There was also a strong emphasis on the synergy between academia and the Wikimedia community. Julia shared a successful example from Poland, where a collaboration between academics and Wikimedia volunteers led to ethnographic fieldwork that enriched Wikipedia's content, illustrating the power of mutual benefit.
Lastly, the panelists discussed the educational value of using Wikipedia in classrooms to teach students how to contribute, review, and engage critically with sources, arguing that it could be a great learning tool for critical thinking and understanding how research is constructed and reviewed. The audience engaged in the conversation too, challenging some points from the panel about students editing Wikipedia and the burden it might pose on Wikipedia editors (see reflections from Clovermoss, Wikimedian of the Year), bringing up the Wikipedian in Residence role as a potential solution, and the Wikimedia Foundation having a seat at the table to advocate for open science in the broader world.
Overall, the discussion reflected an ongoing struggle between the ideals of open science and the realities of academia, with the panelists pushing for more collaboration between the Wikimedia community and academic institutions to make knowledge more accessible. The themes raised were aligned with what was discussed during other sessions about open science at Wikimania, such as the workshop Strengthening Wikimedia Collaborations with and for Open Science.
Personally, I really enjoyed moderating the panel. It was a bit stressful to participate in such a big event but great to hear interesting contributions from the panelists and engaged questions from the audience. I feel like I learned a lot! You can watch the session recording here.