Electrical Engineering Works Goes To War, England, 1942. A view of women at work at rows of benches in the cartridge fuse shop at this electrical engineering works, somewhere in the Midlands. This image is one of millions uploaded to
Wikimedia Commons.
Wellcome Library and the
Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) are joining forces to host a Women Engineers Wikithon. Join us to celebrate the women engineers that deserve a more prominent place in the online historical record. You'll hear inspirational talks on some women from the history of engineering, then develop your digital skills and learn how to edit Wikipedia in order to harness the power of the web for public engagement. There’ll also be the opportunity to see some interesting archive materials and to explore the
Wellcome Collection’s Electricity: The Spark of Life exhibition.
Experienced Wikipedia editors and complete beginners are both welcome to attend - we'll provide training for anyone new to editing. If you’ve spotted an article that needs improving, bring along your queries and we’ll see what we can do to help!
How do I prepare?
Sign up for the event!
Create a Wikipedia account (look at the top right of this page for the link). You don't need to do anything else, but it'll speed things up on the day if you've already signed up for an account.
Bring a laptop (if you do not have access to a laptop, some loan-laptops will be available for the session -
email to request one).
Draft Programme
10.00 – Registration & Welcome
10.10 – Sources and the story of Hertha Ayrton – talk by Liz Bruton
10.25 – Magnificent Women in Engineering – talk by Henrietta Heald
10.45 – Wiki-editing Tutorial
12.00 – Lunch
13.45 – Electricity at Wellcome: Behind-the-Scenes
14.15 – Wiki-editing Session
16.00 – Close (Wellcome Library will remain open until 8pm and Wellcome Collection exhibits will remain open until 10pm if people would like to explore after the session finishes)
Content to Improve/Create
We'll be listing suggestions here of people/places/things you might like to edit on - feel free to contribute ideas of your own too! Improve
You can view the digitised version of The Woman Engineer on
the IET website
You can view all your contributions to Wikipedia by clicking
"Contributions" (in the top right of this page).
You can add pictures for use on Wiki-pages and beyond on
Wikimedia Commons. Your Wikipedia account will work on Commons too - as well as all the other Wiki-projects and different language versions of Wikipedia.
If you're interested in joining a community of editors passionate about women in science, take a look at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Women scientists. You can view useful resources, "to do" lists of pages that need creating, and
view metrics highlighting featured articles and articles in need of improvement.
If you're interested in joining a community of editors passionate about engineering, take a look at
Wikipedia:WikiProject Engineering. You can view useful resources and
view metrics highlighting featured articles and articles in need of improvement.
The
Pageviews tool is a great way of measuring how many people are looking at the page you created/edited. You can even export the data if you'd like it for reports, etc.