research – Jackie Koerner

Reflections on Wikimania 2018

Looking out over the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

A couple weeks ago, I started an adventure I never imagined I would. I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to attend Wikimania 2018. Last month I posted my reflection on Learning Days at Wikimania 2018, so if you haven’t read that, start there and then come back to read my reflection on Wikimania 2018.

To begin Wikimania 2018, the planning committee organized an opening party at Two Oceans Aquarium. I was so excited! I love ocean life, so this made the night amazing from the start. While there I got to meet some new wiki friends and end the night with my oldest of wiki friends. I love that no matter how long it has been since we have seen each other, we start back up like it was no time at all. This community is really what makes all wiki things go – from creation to connection.

African penguin on Boulders Beach. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

While at Wikimania, there was so much to learn from everyone who came. I realized at Wikimania 2017 how open people were with their knowledge, a stark change from the academic conferences I had attended. This only expanded when I attended the Wikimedia Diversity Conference. There I learned so much from broader parts of the world and truly understood in sharp relief how Western-centric our focus is. This experience and observations I made during Learning Days convinced me to make a commitment. I chose during Wikimania 2018 to listen and not take space where other people’s voices should be heard. I am glad I did, because I learned so much from communities and people I had not otherwise met at other Wikimedia events.

The people I met told me stories about what they are doing in their community, what they have accomplished and what their challenges are. There were successes of getting information literacy on the national and college curriculum, and there were challenges of the very real and mortal risks of free speech. These are people in their own countries and communities doing amazing things. Many of the presentations echoed my strong beliefs about the needs of the free knowledge movement to focus more on empowering communities doing the work.

African penguins on Boulders Beach. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Below I’ll summarize the information from my pictures, notes and tweets that I took during the sessions as well as tidbits of information about the week:

Gaps in Global GLAM Capacity
This session was a panel of people working to collect critical information digitally before it is destroyed by age or other natural factors. They discussed the issues of building relationships and convincing people this is something that is culturally critical.

Centering Knowledge from the Margins
Whose Knowledge hosted a panel of organizers, scholars and allies to discuss knowledge and privilege. Some quotes I have from that session are:

On Wikipedia a lot of people think they’re experts in a lot of different areas, even though they’re not.

Having to create a handle that sounds like a white European man to avoid cultural oppression is not tech equity.

Online is a space we inhabit now. I want people who search for the key words ‘Native American’ to find something more than just statistics about alcoholism.

If you don’t have information about your community, you erode the sense of belonging to that community.

Many of us had to start from scratch. One hundred new editors and 100 articles may seem small, but when you consider the level of illiteracy that we are subject to, these numbers are huge.

We are coming to a conversation about tech equity with immense disparity. We are not on equal footing as the oppressor, which puts us in a disadvantage in this dialogue.

Now that we’re at the table, how are we going to disrupt the whole game?

The act of telling the truth is an act of freedom, but it’s also an act of great risk.

The process of updating and correcting knowledge about your community online often requires you to engage with your oppressor.

Looking out from the lighthouse at Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Creating Knowledge Equity and Spatial Justice on Wikipedia
The first plenary session was a presentation by researcher and data scientist, Dr. Martin Dittus. This session was recorded so do go watch his presentation. I am going to post some pictures I snapped of his slides.

Capture of Dr. Martin Dittus’ presentation

This research proves what many of us already felt. He illustrated how knowledge geography is a huge part of Wikipedia. He compared the region of the knowledge contributor to the region about which they were writing. Culture is an American export. We also feel like we can accurately assess and document any culture with authority. He also said very accurately,

In certain parts of the world it may cost more than your monthly income to go online.

What is happening online right now digitally is of great importance to those of us in the physical world.

Information geography helps us to understand how we build a narrate of the world. Our devices shape how we understand the world, and how we act there, too. The maps has become the territory: the digital is the world now.

After the plenary, I skipped out and headed to dinner with Chris and some of his colleagues. We went to Addis in Cape, an Ethiopian restaurant. This dinner was amazing. I am genuinely sorry you weren’t there. We ate it all – from delicious ciders to injera made from teff to azifa and ended the night with a coffee ceremony.

State of Research in Knowledge Gaps and State of Wikimedia Research
These sessions (1, 2) presented research about all things wiki and where we should go next. There has been a lot on gaps in the past year. There are data sets online for those of you looking deeper into gaps. Check out Research on meta, get involved, and present at OpenSym.

Dassie on Table Mountain. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

After the research sessions, Chris and I decided to go to Table Mountain. There we hiked around for about 2 hours taking pictures of amazing views and adorable little Dassies.

Dassie calling their buddies. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

After the mountain trip, we went to the mall to shop for some new luggage. Between St. Louis and Cape Town, Delta destroyed my luggage, and I decided a suitcase wrapped in duct tape might look a bit shady to airport security. I am, however, very grateful that received my bag with the contents still inside. Sadly some of my friends didn’t receive their bags or the contents at all.

Besides adulting and shopping for luggage, we bought some gifts and ate dinner right on the water. Living in the Midwestern United States, the seafood I am able to eat is always frozen. Every dinner with seafood in Cape Town was delicious. I even got to try a local fish, Kingklip.

Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Rounding out a wonderful week, the following morning I attended one of my favorite plenary sessions:

The Dangers of Supremely White Data and The Coded Gaze by Joy Buolamwini Do yourself a huge favor and google her. She’s an incredible mind who is changing the world and everyone can learn great things from her. I appreciated Joy speaking to the crowd about how we all must go deeper than the studies and look at the data. We need to ask, “What data are algorithms being trained with? Who is doing this study? How does it work in real world settings?”

I absolutely love how she answered the following question from the audience, “How do you make bias easier for teams to identify?” She replied simply, “Employ diverse teams.” Yes. Yes! YES!

Bluff at Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Following the plenary session, I attended sessions focusing on the gender gap. All these sessions have video recordings, and I encourage you to go watch the videos, read more, and do something about the gender gap:
Research on gender gap in Wikipedia: What do we know so far?
Women leading the way toward gender equity
Building new bridges to close the Wikimedia gendergap
What can we learn from the Feminist movement for knowledge equity?

The first and last sessions on the list actually inspired this post from my husband.

My takeaways from the gender gap sessions are: most if not all gender gap research is completed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Women don’t respond to surveys as often as men do. Women don’t get support from their community when harassed and threatened by male editors. Words convey subtle bias. The quantity of women in leadership roles in the Wikimedia movement is larger than anticipated given the population gender distribution. I personally wonder about how the leaders are being accepted in the community in their leadership roles beyond just being referred to as leaders.

Looking out at the oceans at Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

After the gender gap sessions, I dipped into Beyond the meat grinder: building better new editor experiences through research and dialogue to support some fellow qualitative researchers. The big take away from this session was more needs to be done to support communities in their own language and culture.

After a morning full of learning and discussion, I met up with some awesome women. We were planning on attending the Wiki Women’s Lunch, but we ended up having a good chat right outside the room! I always meet the best people at wiki events.

The closing party was amazing for what I saw, as I only stayed for a small portion. I hear it was really incredible. The whole planning committee really went out of their way to make Wikimania 2018 a stellar event. I was so honored to be able to attend this Wikimania and be able to live such an experience. I hope I can meet all my new wiki friends again very soon.

Ostrich seen near Cape Point. Photo by me licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

The Big Takeaway

For those of you who are looking for my overall takeaway from this whole conference, it is listening. I am referring to the listening you do with your best self and from your soul. Listen because you want to hear that other person. Listen because you want to honor their experience. Listen because you want to understand what it is to be where they are.

If we are going to go anywhere in this world, it is together. We cannot put one before the other anymore. It is not an “eat or be eaten” world. It’s collaborative, for “two heads are better than one” really is true. To create something truly representative of the world, we need to work together. This may mean one person talks less in order to serve the goal of equity. In the same vein, it is cultural appropriation of the worst kind to take a piece of a community’s culture and write about it how it makes sense from an outsider’s perspective. No one can know everything, but don’t we want to have the closest truths out there for the knowledge seekers?

Reflections on Learning Days at Wikimania 2018

A couple weeks ago, I started an adventure I never imagined I would. I traveled to Cape Town, South Africa to attend Wikimania 2018.

The past year has been amazing, getting to travel the world for the sake of free knowledge (1, 2, 3, 4). For this trip, I applied for a scholarship early and thankfully, I received a scholarship. This scholarship was for conference attendance and room and board, which made the trip much more attainable.

I left St. Louis midday on a Monday, flying through Atlanta and Paris before arriving in Cape Town late Tuesday night. I was optimistic about my ability to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (awake and aware) Wednesday morning for the start of Learning Days, but I think I overestimated my abilities.

After a very important hunt for coffee, I arrived 15 minutes late for Learning Days (yikes! Apologies, friends!). Learning days is a pre-conference set for upcoming and emerging leaders in the Wikimedia movement. It gathers us together to learn best practices and collaborate on challenges in the communities. I can personally say I learned loads from the other attendees just during discussions and our conversations between sessions. This is my absolutely favorite part about attending conferences in the Wikimedia movement – the natural way in which you learn so much just by talking to people. For the content that really stuck with me from Learning Days, let’s just say I have pages and pages of notes! I’ll try to keep my summary to just a few things.

Bag I bought while in South Africa with the quote “If you educate a man, you educate an individual but if you educate a woman you educate a nation.” It says it’s an African proverb. Some of my friends from India said it’s from Gandhi. Whoever said it, I like them. 🙂

The first piece that is highly important that I think everyone should continually practice: listening. Listening can be powerful and listening can be dangerous. Let me explain. Through listening, one can learn, build empathy, connection, etc. Through listening, people can also be tricked.

You see, it is a very dangerous thing to listen. If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person.

-Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband

Critical listening is, well, critical. Exercise your listening skills by doing the following:

Be present. Don’t think of other things or tinker on your phone while someone else is talking. Give them your attention and show that in your body language (eye contact, turn your body toward them, ignore your phone, etc.)
Don’t be quick to solution. We are creatures who like to solve problems, but maybe now isn’t the time, or the person just wants a sympathetic ear. Just listen.
Ask clarifying questions. Maybe you don’t know a detail or you want to make sure you’re fulling understanding, so ask. It’ll show you’re engaged and want to know more.

There are three types of listening:

Listening to win: listening to find information you can use to aid you in some way.

Listening to fix: listening to develop a solution to the issue at hand.

Listening to learn: listening to know more. This is the most engaging.

We learned about these different types of listening and how to recognize them in ourselves. We did this for the sake of community listening. To practice these we employed them during an exercise with a technique called Collective Problem Solving. We discussed community needs we had and assigned each need to a table. We then got to pick which table we joined. The tables were developed out of the needs we discussed, which included: community health, resources, volunteer retention, and cross-collaboration within the open movement.

During the Collective Problem Solving, we practiced the stages of good listening. First, we were listening to understand, and responding with clarifying questions. Then we asked deeper questions to get deeper understanding. Then we proposed solutions and worked collaboratively to understand the deeper problem and develop a solution. The solution to our table’s problem was so simple, but hugely impactful to the community health and could even reduce volunteer burnout, because the debates required over this topic would thus be reduced! Listening might just be the solution to world peace, or Wiki-peace, but for now, just start small and be a good listener.

We also talked about the differences among the scope of diversity, inclusion and equity. While the definitions above do not encompass the differences among these concepts culturally or linguistically, they do give us a starting point to help us recognize who is here and how they are involved. Diversity is equal participation and is about people. Inclusion is equal experience and about the process. Equity is equal outcomes and about the impact. These concepts were underlying themes during the whole of Wikimania. I’ll go into more detail later.

The next part that really stood out to me was storytelling for projects. This is something everyone needs to do because we want to have people engaged and caring about our projects. This framework tells you how to structure your story to make a good story that is impactful. Follow the ABCD framework:

Attention – get the attention of the audience
Because – tell them why it matters
Content – share the story
Do – call to action

Did you know the use of the word because increases engagement by more than 30%? Make your project stand out by telling the story and why it matters. You know your project, but others don’t. Practice storytelling for your next project and see what impact it has on engagement or acceptance. Even do it on a smaller level in daily communication and see how things change.

Photo of me presenting about survey strategies by Wikimedia Ghana User Group

During Learning Days, I presented about Surveys and how to properly design them to get the most out of them. Learning how to develop surveys is a highly important skill because when done correctly, it can give you the information you need. Note, I said information you need here instead of information you want. That is an issue I see with so many surveys and research studies. People have an idea of what they want to know beforehand and unwittingly ask leading or biased questions. This will not get the clean information and lead you into developing solutions for the community that they don’t really need! Check out my slides and the handout on Commons to get your survey is on the right track, and even to find out if a survey is the right tool for the job. Feel free to share and contact me if you would like some survey or methodological support for your project.

Oh, I hinted about bias in the paragraph above. I gave a lightning talk about bias. If you ever go to an event, go to the lightning talks. They’re always great because you can learn so much about the rest of the wiki community in such a short period of time.

The next thing we did during learning days that really stood out to me was the final activity on the second day. It stood out to me because I am an analytical thinker. Analytical thinkers are great at big picture thinking as well as seeing the complexities and nuance in a sea of grey. I cannot think of the name, but the activity was the one where there are two words placed on opposite sides of the room. You have to pick one, or a point in the middle. I dislike these activities because I generally think for the whole and not for myself. This is great because people like me help the NGOs of the world do amazing work, but it’s bad for activities like this because I cannot stop analyzing the situations in which one concept would be more important than the other, and visa versa. The world is less black and white but more grey, and often, ‘it depends’ is an appropriate response for this activity.

With that being said, I highly enjoyed Learning Days and hope to see it continue. I do hope, however, that some sort of cohort model can be developed so attendees can connect over a period of time before the actual Learning Days event and even after. I find the issue with in-person events is there is great momentum and excitement while we’re all together, but then we go back to our lives afterward without a clear plan to continue the enthusiasm.

Speaking of enthusiasm, you can clearly tell I am excited about this event because I have so much to say. The main event hasn’t even started at this point in my narrative, and this post is already pretty long, so I’m going to make it into two parts. Come back tomorrow for my reflections on Wikimania 2018. See you then.

My dissertation defense: Experiences of College Students with Disabilities

My dissertation is titled An Exploration of the Lived Experiences of College Students with Disabilities. Some of my friends and colleagues attended to hear the great research. Now you get to watch it and share it with your friends and colleagues! The SlideShare is below as well.

Dissertation Defense: An Exploration of the Lived Experiences of College Students with Disabilities from Jackie Koerner

Cookies, Candy, and Qualitative Research

Thursday, July 21 at 1 pm CT have my public defense of my dissertation: An exploration of the lived experiences of college students with disabilities (my dissertation abstract).

All are welcome to attend, or email me if you’d like the link to the live cast. If you come in person, you’ll be able to enjoy homemade cookies. Otherwise, you’ll have to BYOC.

An exploration of the lived experiences of college students with disabilities

Below is my dissertation abstract in its current form. Enjoy and please do let me know if you’d like a copy of the final draft!

This dissertation presents a phenomenological study of the experiences of students with disabilities during higher education. This study began due to the lack of literature available regarding the experiences of students with disabilities regarding their pursuit of higher education. The research focus grew from the enrollment rate inconsistencies between students with and without disabilities in higher education. The rate of enrollment of students with disabilities in higher education is significantly lower than the enrollment of students without disabilities. The reasons behind this are complex. It is affected by individual student’s choice to not disclose his or her disability, the transition preparation of the students with disabilities, and the experiences of students with disabilities at higher education institutions. Much of the literature focuses on data about students with disabilities, but little engages students with disabilities in the research.

A qualitative research design provided rich data. Data collected from individual semi-structured interviews was analyzed for themes and sub-themes. The interviews were correlated with observations and observer notes. Nine students with disabilities attending a Midwestern private higher education institution provided nearly nine hours of dialogue, observations, and notes to analyze. From this data, the following themes were extracted and listed here in order of strength, from least to greatest: identity (self-advocacy, self-worth), accommodations (academic life, support from others), social interaction, assumptions and stigma, and barriers. Specific observations or quotes were used to illustrate the existence of themes and sub-themes.

The illustrations developed from the data the student participants provided aided in designing the concluding arguments. The conclusion of the study invites administrators at the Midwestern higher education institution to examine the data analysis. Some of the student participants provided suggestions for improvement in the accommodation and support of students with disabilities. Additional suggestions for improvement were developed from the data. While the information provided from the student participants aided in appreciating the experiences of students with disabilities, more research is needed regarding the experiences of students with disabilities in higher education.

Don’t limit yourself.

“Don’t limit yourself,” Dr. Porterfield said to me after asking what I want to do after graduation.

This is the best advice I have gotten in relation to my career. Dr. Kent Porterfield, VP of Student Development at Saint Louis University, told me this one morning over coffee. He’s been at SLU as long as I have, but me a green professional, and him a seasoned pro. He’d humbly shake off me calling him a pro. He’s a smart guy, and part of that is always being open to learning.

Finally, I appreciated this advice last night. The last 2 nights I spent at WordCamp socials (hosted by WordPress St. Louis enthusiasts). This is the first year Chris invited me to the socials. He just didn’t think about it before. I assumed, wrongly so, that WordCamp was going to be full of developers and people well-versed in WordPress. No, there are so many people from so many different walks of life. Their day jobs so diverse. Many were so interested in my research – some of them educators themselves or so glad to hear of me looking at education in that way.

So why am I limiting myself?

It took me 5 months to completely appreciate this advice. I shouldn’t limit my job search to my education, but rather assess my skills, my potential, and what I want to do. I’m smart. I learn on my feet.

Our potential is bigger than ourselves, that is, if we really unleash it and take the opportunities along the way. Don’t limit yourself.

Your data are the wrong data.

“Quantitative or qualitative?” he asked in a loaded, hurried tone.

This question always exasperates me. Immediately, I think, ‘Oh, you’re one of those. Oh, brother!” and roll my eyes.

I was at a social for WordCamp St. Louis hosted by the local WordPress community. This gent had traveled all the way from Indianapolis. He said he wouldn’t be attending the second day, as he “found what he needed.” His goal wasn’t to learn anything, but to find a person to build him a WordPress site. I guess no one knows the WordPress in Indiana?

Ok, let me start at the beginning. This gent started the conversation with, “Oh, I thought she was your daughter!” when I walked up to where he and Chris were already conversing. I asked what brought him to WordCamp and what he did. He’s a consultant in the K-12 sector and teaches statistic part-time. Then he asked what I do. I said I was finishing up my PhD and before I could tell him about my study he blurts, “Quantitative or qualitative?”

You see, among researchers, there are two camps: qualitative and quantitative. Each sees their own research type as better than the other. A vast majority of qualitative researchers see quantitative as good foundation for qualitative. It informs the study and points to where qualitative method should be used to go deeper. On the other hand, a vast majority of quantitative researchers refuse to recognize qualitative research as actual research at all.

I ignored his jabs and explained my study, all while he poo-pooed it.

I love Seth Godin’s example in his article: Actually, more data might not be what you’re hoping for.

So, data gave us the Kardashians.

I imagine the survey went something like this:

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least and 5 is the greatest, how much do you like spray tan?

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least and 5 is the greatest, how much do you like unimportant drama?

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is the least and 5 is the greatest, how much do you like rich people whining?

And the people interpreting the results viewed the data as, “By golly! People want the Kardashians!” *

But, did they ask questions like:

What are your favorite television shows?

What about those shows makes them your favorite?

Describe television characters you enjoy watching.

Tell me about how you decide on a new television show.

Do you see how the data both are valuable, but both will get you very different information? Data gave us the Kardashians, but maybe we could have had something cooler.

So, Dr. K-12 Qualitative Consultant, you see, my aim in life is to never stop learning and never forget how to listen. Maybe you have forgotten, or maybe you’re a republican and never learned how. Just crunching numbers together with some equations, or software, doesn’t give you the nuanced answers provided by the human condition. It takes critical thinking and continued learning about society to process that information.

*Yes, I know my questions are biased. I’m doing this as an example and to be funny. Relax, Mr. or Ms. Quantitative, there is room for humor amongst all those numbers.