For the related residency at the University beginning in 2016 see Wikipedia:GLAM/Oxford
The Wikimedian In Residence was based in the Clarendon Building
The Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and Wikimedia UK collaborated on a project from April 2015 to March 2016. Dr Martin Poulter was employed as a Wikimedian in Residence for this period. The WIR engaged with librarians, members of the public, researchers and members of the University to improve Wikipedia articles and to make the Libraries' digitised content more publicly accessible.
The final report provides an overview of what was achieved in the one-year placement.
The WIR's goals were:
Work with staff to identify areas of Wikimedia projects that can be enriched by knowledge from the Libraries' collections
and other activities that come up (the above is just a summarised extract from the full list).
The project was an opportunity to make progress on diversity and in countering Systemic bias; including by training women editors, by encouraging improvement of Wikipedia's coverage of under-represented topics or groups, and by sharing knowledge about geographical areas or periods of history that are under-represented on Wikipedia.
There are 127 libraries and four museums in Oxford University. This placement built relationships with some of them, delivered workshops for their staff and invited them to host events or share files.
The university's IT Innovation Challenge, funded by the university's Academic IT Services, has funded an extra year's placement which has a separate project page at WP:GLAM/Oxford.
In September 2019 I wrote a PHP script that scans Wikimedia sites for external links related to the Bodleian Library and suggests replacements for dead links. This is the report, which is being used to fix broken links across many languages.
25 November 2015. Presentation for social media staff across the University. Around 50 staff in audience (mainly women but I didn't get precise figures) whom I urged to create Wikipedia accounts so as to interact with the community.
21 October 2015. "Some attempts to address bias on Wikipedia". One-hour lunchtime talk for researchers at Oxford Internet Institute (OII) 24 attendees, mainly researchers and graduate students.
Throughout the Residency, all monthly reports submitted to the Bodleian and Wikimedia UK will be posted here to allow those interested to track its progress.
In July 2012, Neil Jeffries, the research and development project manager at the Bodleian Libraries, wrote an op-ed for the Signpost describing best practice in knowledge representation for projects such as Wikidata.
