08-10, 16:15–16:55 (Poland), Warsaw (20+24)(interpretation)
Language: English
Impact Visualizer is Wiki Education's new data visualization and exploration tool. It is designed to analyze a set of articles (a topic area), and show data about how that set of articles has evolved over time. In this session, we will show off some of the interesting things we've learned with this tool, provide examples of research questions that it can answer, and invite participants to ask their own topic-focused questions that could be explored with it.
Impact Visualizer is a data visualization tool that Wiki Education began building in 2023. It has now reached 'alpha' status — live at https://impact.wikiedu.org. We built this tool as a way to show off the impact of Wiki Education's programs on specific content topics and to provide dashboards to funders to track Wikipedia's coverage of an entire subject area. As we've begun using it for our own programs, we've become very excited about its potential for answering a wide variety of content-focused questions across the Wikipedia community. From analyzing WikiProjects' content areas, to tracking content gaps and initiatives to fill them, to looking that the impact of individual education program courses, editathons, and other events, the Impact Visualizer can be used to compile and present how a set of articles evolves over time, and what portions of that evolution are driven by a specific set of users (for example, program participants).
Similar to what we've done with Programs & Events Dashboard (based on Wiki Education Dashboard), we plan to release a version of the Impact Visualizer that is open for use by other Wikimedians. We hope to have this ready for use in time for Wikimania.
In this session, we will demonstrate how the Impact Visualizer works with a series of example article sets that highlight the kinds of research and data exploration it's good for. One example from Wiki Education's Student Program dramatically highlights a well-known effect: contributions by new editors in a topic area spur additional contributions from other editors. Another example — looking at biographies of women physicists — shows how effective the Wikipedia community has been at focusing on the gender gap in science coverage. We'll also examine several WikiProjects, as well as the impact a single highly-productive Wikipedia editor can make over a long time period.
During the last segment of our session, we will invite attendees to brainstorm with us about potentials applications of this tool and research or data exploration questions that could be answered with it.
Session recording: https://www.youtube.com/live/QKPni-4S5yw?feature=shared&t=25038
Many of our big collaborative efforts stretch far beyond a single article or event, and aim to 'move the needle' on an entire topic area or content gap. We've never had good data tools for understanding how much impact we're making on those big, diffuse efforts. Impact Visualizer is an exciting step in the direction of understanding how our large-scale collaborative efforts affect broad topic areas over time.
What is the experience level needed for the audience for your session?* –Everyone can participate in this session
How do you plan to deliver this session?* –Onsite in Katowice
What other themes or topics does your session fit into? Please choose from the list of tags below. –Collaboration, Campaigns, Product development, Storytelling
Sage Ross — User:Ragesoss & User:Sage (Wiki Ed) — has been editing Wikipedia since 2005. As a volunteer, he has written featured articles, reported for and edited The Signpost, run Wikipedia assignments in college courses, and uploaded hundreds of original photos and videos to Commons. He was part of WMF's Public Policy Initiative team in 2010, and has been building technology for Wiki Education for more than 10 years.