Wiki4YearOfSound2020

For the International Year of Sound 2020 (#IYS2020), the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, took the lead in designing the online event Wiki4YearOfSound2020, to facilitate the improvement of Wikipedia content related to acoustics, sound, human communication, music, noise its effects and control, and soundscapes. This campaign expands on a previous successful campaign for Wiki4WorldHearingDay2019.

This initiative falls in the categories of awareness raising and education. Its goal is to make it possible for anyone, individuals or groups, to participate in the IYS2020 campaign at their convenience, while making quality information related to acoustics freely accessible to all. Contributions are welcome in many languages.

The platform Wiki4YearOfSound2020 (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wiki4YearOfSound2020) provides guidance on how to improve Wikipedia articles and offers a list of existing Wikipedia articles pertaining to acoustics. Information on how to translate Wikipedia articles with suggestions for acoustics-related articles to be translated were also included. In addition, one can also donate images and other media to the open access repository WikiCommons. A companion page, the Wikimedia outreach dashboard (https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/courses/National_Institute_for_Occupational_Safety_and_Health/Wiki4YearofSound2020) allows anyone to monitor contributions and reach, with great level of detail and accuracy. Tracking has started and will continue till the end of December 31, 2020. So far, the effort has recruited hearing subject matter experts who edited more than 170 Wikipedia articles. These, so far have already amassed more than 2 million page views.

NIOSH currently has hands-on workshops planned to bring together Wikipedia editing veterans with acoustics experts the February’s National Hearing Conservation Association conference and next May’s Acoustic Society meeting. This campaign expands on a previous campaign for Wiki4WorldHearingDay2019. Ways to participate include registering for the campaign so you can follow the visit to the pages you contributed, hosting a short event, or incorporating Wikipedia assignments in the classroom. The Wiki Education Foundation offers superb support for that, see Teach-with-wikipedia.