Seven and their refusal to accept the stories they were told—that university education was not for women. And how to communicate their legacy and the positive strides made since; where female undergraduates now form the majority enrolled at the University of Edinburgh (University factsheet, 2020).
Participants came together at the university’s Appleton Tower and were guided each day to create, improve, and illustrate pages on Wikipedia with a focus on people and places relating to Edinburgh’s role in the history of medicine. Professor Allison Littlejohn helped evaluate what was happening during the Edinburgh edit-a-thon and her published research revealed there was formal and informal learning occurring at these editing events, contributing to the formation of networks of practice and social capital (Rehm et al., 2018). Participants considered the edit-a-thon an important part of their professional development and workplace learning of digital skills. A second paper examined the process of becoming a Wikipedia editor through quasi-ethnographic interviews with edit-a-thon participants (Hood & Littlejohn, 2018). Bringing these stories to light was seen by participants as a form of knowledge activism. Particularly, in addressing areas of underrepresentation, as there was a realization among participants that when learning becomes personal it triggers forms of agency (Littlejohn, 2019).
Balance for Better—The Edinburgh Residency
If you put your Wikimedian alongside your digital skill trainers and learning technologists, their impact can be significant.
—Melissa Highton, February 2017.
Professor Littlejohn’s research evidence from the Edinburgh Seven edit-a-thon helped cement the business case for hosting a Wikimedian-in-Residence to support staff and students across the institution as part of the university’s digital skills agenda. The residency commenced in January 2016 and was immediately positioned as a centrally available resource within the Information Services Group (ISG), a converged library and information technology service, which acts to support the work of the University’s three teaching colleges.
