Lesson Design

Last updated on 2023-04-24 | Edit this page

Design decision 💡


Sometime there is more than one way to do something. Here are some reason why we did certain things in a certain manner.

Write what you decide ✏️


In lesson development, many decisions are made within group discussions, sprints or conferences. In order to be able to track these, it is useful to store a meeting_notes.md in the repo. This md file documents all discussions that have been held and all decisions that have been made, to make the development easier to understand for newcomers. To make such a meeting_notes.md file was also one decision at a certain time and now is also tracked! 👍

Edit first vs. create first


In order to lower the hurdle for first edit the idea was suggested on the WikiCite 2019 brain storming that at first a exiting article should be edited and then later a new one should be created. This comes with the disadvantage, that either the participants work on rather different items (e.g. find something via the random item link) or the instructor has to pick/create for each participant a suiting item. Due to this we decided to rather start with the creation of new items in the Wikidata test instance (which needs only 4 fields to be filled out).

Keep lessons as simple as possible


Pacing and overall schedule


  • Pacing: The modularity of the lesson allows instructors to select the amount of content appropriate to the needs of the learners.
  • Each module has 15 minutes of stretch content which may be optionally included.
  • There is an additional 30 minutes built into the startup time to accomodate delays.

Possible paths through the lesson

Only teaching the basics

  • Startup
  • Episode 1: What is Wikidata?
  • Epidose 2: Underlying concepts of Wikidata
  • Episode 3: Introduction into editing
  • Episode 5: Introduction to querying

Full day option

  • Startup + What is Wikidata + Underlying concepts + Intro into editing + advanced editing + lunch + intro to querying + advanced bulk updating, bots

Modules and suggested timing


Startup (30 min)

  • 9:00 Late buffer
  • 9:15 Welcome
    • Code of conduct
    • Room logistics
    • Install/setup
    • Introducing to eachother

Wikidata-Hands-on-Introduction Part 1 (2 hours)

  • 9:45 Episode 1 (30 min)
    • What is Wikidata?
    • Introduction into interface
    • Wikidata Game
    • How is Wikidata linked to other Wiki projects?
  • 10:15: Episode 2 (30 min)
    • Concepts foundations
    • RDF triple in work of a librarian
    • RDF triple example
    • How Wikidata compares with other data sets
  • 10:45: Coffee (15 min)
  • 11:00: Episode 3 (30 min)
    • Intro
    • Create a new item
    • Add new statements
    • Questions
  • 11:30: Episode 4 (45 min)
    • Add references
    • Citation link in Wikidata
    • Norms
    • Finding stable identifiers
    • Use cases for good practice

Wikidata-Hands-on-Introduction Part 2 (1 1/2 hour)

  • 12:15 Episode 5 (45 min)
    • What is SPARQL?
    • How to query
    • Query on example
  • 13:00 Episode 6 (45 min)
    • Intro
    • Bulk upload/harvests
    • Bulk edits
    • Bulk creation/harvesting
    • Performance

Wrap-Up and Feedback (30 min)