The University of Oxford’s IT Services and Bodleian Libraries organised an editathon focused on women in science to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day on 15 October 2013. The editathon took place at IT Services on Banbury Road, Oxford, and included some basic training by Martin Poulter, the Jisc Wikimedian Ambassador supported by Jisc and Wikimedia UK.

Ada Lovelace is widely held to have been the first computer programmer, and Ada Lovelace Day aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) by encouraging people around the world to talk about the women whose work they admire. This international day of celebration helps people learn about the achievements of women in STEM, inspiring others and creating new role models for young and old alike.

This Wikipedia editathon celebrated the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day by helping people learn about the contribution of individual women to the world of science, with the aim to add to and improve the coverage of individuals, events and resources related to women in science.

Our idea for the event was: 'Come along to learn about how Wikipedia works and contribute a greater understanding of the role of women in science!'

• Date: 2-5pm, Tuesday 15 October 2013
• Venue: IT Services, University of Oxford (directions)
• Participants: All were welcome! The event was open to anyone who wishes to help preserve women’s science history. No Wiki editing experience was necessary, female editors particularly encouraged to attend.
• Registration: was captured at http://courses.it.ox.ac.uk/detail/TWOE.
• Cost: Free!
• More info: http://blogs.it.ox.ac.uk/adalovelace/.

We were based in a computer lab, wifi also available.

Approximate Timetable

• 1.50-2.00pm Registration, housekeeping
• 2.00-2.15pm Introduction by Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and welcome to IT Services, Professor Anne Trefethen, Head of IT Services
• 2.15pm Introduction from Martin Poulter and team
• 2.30pm-4.30pm Edit, research, basic training
• 4.30pm-4.40pm Summary and closedown
• 4.40pm-5.00pm Cake and refreshments

All apart from one were female.

Most participants (around 18 or so) had not edited Wikipedia before the event. A few (again around 3 or 4) had already made a few edits prior or were involved in open culture (two people were from Europeana so knew about CC licensing, etc).

• Liz McCarthy (talk · contribs)
• Avigail Aven (talk · contribs)
• Junopupster (talk · contribs)
• CNB2013 (talk · contribs)
• Melissa Highton (talk · contribs)
• Sporter666 (talk · contribs)
• Ann Hazelwood (talk · contribs)
• Jmcauliffe60 (talk · contribs)
• LouiseNewell (talk · contribs)
• HoydenCaulfield (talk · contribs)
• Emhj4477 (talk · contribs)
• Caroline Marten (talk · contribs)
• Gizmo (talk · contribs)
• SuzJane (talk · contribs)
• Zool0525 (talk · contribs)
• Amandatreeuk (talk · contribs)
• Ylvaprytz (talk · contribs)
• Backens (talk · contribs)
• HurricaneAlly (talk · contribs)
• Katsreference (talk · contribs)
• Ktlindsay (talk · contribs)
• Valeryrose (talk · contribs)

• MartinPoulter Jisc (talk · contribs) (Martin Poulter)
• RexxS (talk · contribs) (Doug Taylor)
• Deskana (talk · contribs) (Dan Garry)

• Wikipedia:Tutorial • Help:Editing - traditional wiki mark up help • Wikipedia:VisualEditor/User guide - new Visual Editor help

The following was a small sample of topics and women to work on that we presented to the participants. Our suggestions for improvements were: Making sure reference links are still appropriate and functional; Adding new inline citations/references; Adding a photo; Adding an infobox; Adding data to more fields in an existing infobox; Creating headings; Adding categories; etc.

Articles needing creation

• Audrey Arnott, a medical illustrator who worked with the neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns at the London Hospital and followed him to Oxford when he was appointed Nuffield Professor of Surgery in 1936/37. She founded the Medical Artists’ Association of Great Britain from her home in Wolvercote in 1949.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald, a physiologist and clinical pathologist.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Cecilia Glaisher, who was married to meteorologist James Glaisher and did botanical photography in the Victorian period.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Margaret Jennings, a member of the Oxford team working on penicillin under Howard Florey (see the Dictionary of National Biography article on 'Discoverers and developers of penicillin')
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Bronwen Loder, Human Genome Project
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL
• Antoinette Pirie, a biochemist, who worked with Ida Mann.
  • Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Articles for expansion and/or cleanup

• Louise Johnson, molecular biophysicist
• Helen Wallis, cartographer and Map Curator at the British Library
• Mary Ward, Irish biologist

Plenty of opportunity for new articles and expansion at List of female Fellows of the Royal Society. As of 6 October 2013, there were 15 Fellows and 3 foreign members without articles.

Tools

• PrepBio: tool for starting a biographical article: Don't worry if you don't know what this is, just go ahead and edit directly.

Coverage

• Guardian's Higher Education Network has an article from Liz McCarthy and Kate Lindsay.
• Oxford Today also has an article on Celebrating Women in Science by Liz and Kate.
• Kate Lindsay's retrospective blog post and photos

Articles created

• Audrey Arnott
• Cecilia Glaisher
• Margaret Jennings (scientist)
• Illa Martin
• Margaret McLarty
• Antoinette Pirie
• Mabel Purefoy FitzGerald

Biographies improved

• Margaret Burbidge
• Ida Freund (more than doubled in size)
• Dorothy Hodgkin
• Lucy Hutchinson
• Louise Johnson (article doubled in size)
• Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh
• Barbara McClintock
• Jane Sharp
• Richard Symonds (academic)
• Priscilla Wakefield
• Helen Wallis (article nearly doubled in size)
• Mary Ward (scientist)

Other articles improved

• Voluntary Aid Detachment
• List of female Nobel Laureates
• Many individuals were added to Category:Members of Oxford University Department of Computer Science and other minor changes were made to reflect that the Oxford University Computing Laboratory has been renamed.

See wmuk:File:Ada_Lovelace_Day_2013_15_10_13_Melissa_Highton.pdf (PDF of participant survey carried out by Oxford University IT Services)

• variety of reference books, access to some University of Oxford e-resources, including the Dictionary of National Biography.
• selection of Women in Science podcasts [1]
• Some of these women's papers are in the Bodleian Library - Bodleian Reader's Card needed (see Bodleian Admissions for information).

Note: Wikipedia pages that include lists of important women are all missing plenty of key people, so feel free to add to those lists

Lists on Wikipedia

• List of female mathematicians
• List of women scientists
• Women in computing
• Women in engineering
• List of women astronomers and List of astronomers
• Women in medicine
• Women in geology
• List of female Nobel laureates
• History of women in engineering
• Timeline of women in dentistry
• Women and the environment through history

External resources

• Biographies of Women Mathematicians
• Encyclopedia of Women in Medicine
• Indian Academy of Sciences - List of Women Scientists
• Lilavati's daugters
• Biographical Memoirs of the National Academies of Science
• Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
• Women in Aviation and Space History
• Changing the face of Medicine (women in medicine)
• Archives of Women in Science and Engineering at Iowa State University
• Writing Wikipedia Pages for Notable Women in Computing (applies to other subjects as well)

Last year, a similar event in Oxford attracted contributions to expand or improve Mary Somerville, Bertha Swirles, The Million Women Study, Cynthia Longfield, Thekla Resvoll, Sydney Mary Thompson, Edith Bülbring, Marthe Vogt, Ida Mann, Joyce Lambert, Rosalind Pitt-Rivers, and June Almeida, and create Julia Bodmer.