Wikipedia edit-a-thon events provide a targeted approach toward incorporating new knowledge into the online encyclopedia while also offering pathways toward new editor participation. Through the analysis of interviews with 13 edit-a-thon facilitators, however, we find motivations for running edit-a-thons extend far beyond adding content and editors. In this paper, we uncover how a range of personal and institutional values inspire these event facilitators toward fulfilling broader goals including fostering information literacy and establishing community relationships outside of Wikipedia. Along with reporting motivations, values, and goals, we also describe strategies facilitators adopt in their practice. Next, we discuss challenges faced by facilitators as they organize edit-a-thons. We situate our findings within two complementary theoretical lenses-information ecologies and public pedagogy-to guide our interpretation. Finally, we suggest new ways in which edit-a-thons, as well as similar peer production events and communities, can be understood, studied, and evaluated.CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in HCI ; • Applied computing → Collaborative learning.
Can LIS curricula dedicated to makerspaces provide an authentic learning experience for future librarians interested in makerspace-adjacent careers? This article presents a case study in which an authentic learning framework is applied to a newly developed LIS graduate-level course on makerspaces. We detail how one class project—entitled “Bibliocircuitry: Old Books, New Ideas”—challenged students to use their newly learned skills to upcycle a hardcover book into a personalized artifact. This article outlines emerging patterns and themes from an analysis of survey responses from 13 of the 15 students in the course. Findings reveal the project readily maps to authentic learning standards, encourages learning, and facilitates reflection (including the negotiation of uncertainty, overcoming debilitating perfectionism, and transformative joy). The study broadens curricular design interventions for LIS educators, highlights the need for deep learning with technologies, and offers an opportunity to narrow the preparation gap between information professionals and the technical and social competencies required in makerspaces. The implications of these findings for the field of LIS pedagogy emphasize the importance of an authentic learning project both to disrupt the absence of LIS maker curricula and to reimagine current one-shot, pressured, makerspace training.
As makerspaces continue to proliferate in academic and public libraries, researchers and educators are increasingly concerned with ensuring these STEM-rich learning environments are inclusive to historically marginalized student communities. This article offers a new framework, the Description Framework of Makerspaces, to outline the relationship between the spatial qualities of makerspaces and the user population it attracts. This study represents the first phase of a 5-year research program dedicated to analyzing the everyday life information seeking practices that students (un)intentionally make when deciding to engage with a STEM-rich learning environment such as a makerspace. Using constructivist grounded framework to analyze interview data from 17 academic makerspace leaders, we theorize 2 propositions from the main findings: (a) the act of defining a makerspace is difficult and in tension with several imaginings of a makerspace: imagined, ideal, and experienced and (b) a makerspace is significantly composed of affective features that are often unarticulated and abstract. By conceptualizing makerspaces as environments that are configured by both physical and affective characteristics, we reveal insights regarding a baseline conceptualization of the features of a conventional academic makerspace and the design decisions that makerspace leaders make and are confronted with.
Online review platforms — such as Facebook Pages, Yelp, and Google Reviews — host millions of user-generated posts. Some reviewers choose to use these platforms to share political opinions and calls for activism. One example of this phenomenon, UNC–Chapel Hill’s “Silent Sam” Confederate statue review page on Facebook, provides an opportunity to examine comments from users asserting their pro-statue and anti-statue opinions. While protestors removed the statue in August 2018, its unofficial page (and its posts) remains visible online and continues to garner new “reviews” after the monument’s physical removal. This study analyzes the engagement publicly visible on Silent Sam’s Facebook reviews. Despite the large volume of research on social network sites, the author is unaware of any studies of activist posts on online review spaces. Discovering the most prevalent claims made in pro-Confederate posts will help educators, activists, online moderators, and creators of Terms of Service agreements determine where they can (and should) respond to racist rhetoric.
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