During the Science Advice to Governments conference, Kim Nicholas and I had a great idea.
“There doesn’t seem to be one place where you can find what science advice is, what systems different countries implement and a list of those country’s science advisors,” Kim said (I paraphrase).
While this information exists, (see a comprehensive report prepared ahead of the conference) it is buried deep in PDF paragraphs.
“Why don’t we create a wikipedia page to make it more accessible?” I replied.
Like all good Gen-Yers, we initially put our feelers out on Twitter and found a few enthusiastic volunteers who shared our keenness to make this data open. Our first step was to create a google doc with all countries, agencies and metadata. Step 2 was to distill this into a wikipedia entry.
The “Science Advice” wikipedia page is very new and still needs a lot of updating and fleshing out. To do this, we’ve decided to host a wikibomb on October 24 – and we want you to join!
Q: What is a wikibomb?
A wikibomb is an online open event to add or improve wikipedia pages about a certain topic or theme. It’s an act to improve a common good i.e. knowledge. Wikipedia pages can be updated at any time, but organizing a wikibomb just helps to concentrate focus around the topic for a particular period of time. Volunteers can spend 20 mins to 3 hours editing the pages…it all depends how much time you have and how interested you are!
Read about a wikibomb organized by the Australian Academy of Science to increase the profile of female scientists in Australia.
Q: Who can join a wikibomb?
Anyone! That’s the beauty of wikipedia…it’s an open resource that anyone can edit.
Q: OK, so I’m interested in joining the Science Advice wikibomb on 24 October…how do I do it?
1: Read the Science Advice to Governments report and our Google Doc
2: Go to the Science Advice Wikipedia page
3: Edit the page by clicking the “edit” tab in the top right corner (next to the search button). If you don’t know how to edit a wikipedia page, read this helpful guide.
4: Add content and click save!
5. Repeat