Wikidata and research
Wikidata and research is a conference taking place at the University of Florence, 5-6 June 2025.
The conference is organised by a scientific committee in collaboration with the University of Florence and Wikimedia Italia. To attend, please fill the registration form in English or in Italian.
Scholarships Application open until the end of April
Improve Wikidata and research/Introduction
The conference Wikidata and Research wants to explore and trigger the synergies between academia and the Wikimedia projects, with a specific focus on open data, collaborative open research infrastructures and research assessment.
Wikidata and Research
[edit]Wikidata https://www.wikidata.org is a free open multidisciplinary and multilingual knowledge base that can be read and edited by both humans and machines. It is the central storage of structured data for the Wikimedia projects (including Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource), and it is a research infrastructure, providing and hosting open data, and supporting new analysis and visualisation.
With more than 113 million items Wikidata has become a hub of the Linked Data Cloud that connects open datasets shared by volunteers, researches, cultural and public institutions from all over the world. It also provides support to many other sites and services beyond the Wikimedia projects. The content of Wikidata is available under the open tool Creative Commons Zero - CC0, can be exported using standard formats and can be interlinked to other open datasets on the linked data web.
All these features make Wikidata a key infrastructure for scientific research and for the implementation of Open Science. Scientific research can contribute to the publication of open data but can also benefit from the use of open data published in Wikidata and the collaboration with its communities. The comparison between datasets produced by research projects, archives, libraries and museums and the LOD Cloud can bring out recurrences, new relationships and infer new knowledge (data mining and evidence based approach). It is also a way to improve data quality and enrich the datasets with links to other databases, in an interdisciplinary perspective. Scholars can collaborate with volunteers, join the Wikidata communities and receive support from other active contributors, opening research to new collaborations and confrontation, developing new strategies and tools, and sharing methodologies at an interdisciplinary and international level.
Wikibase is the open source software used by Wikidata. Everyone can create their own Wikibase instance downloading directly Wikibase or, since 2022, using the platform Wikibase Cloud <https://www.wikibase.cloud/>, which allows to create up to six Wikibase instances per account; these instances are hosted on the servers of Wikimedia Deutschland.
Key topics
[edit]The conference’s themes include but are not limited to:
- Methods and data management. Research strategies and Data Management Plans that use Wikidata and/or other Wikibase instances as key platforms for research data.
- Sharing datasets. Case studies related to importing datasets (including datasets related to GLAMs and education) to Wikidata and/or other Wikibase instances, dealing with the methods and the tools used, the challenges of the process and the potentialities in terms of data analysis and reuse.
- Reuse of data. Case studies in any discipline (environmental data, medical data, heritage, archival and bibliographic data, biographical datasets...), completed or still ongoing, involving the use of Wikidata and/or other Wikibase instances to collect, extract, relate, and discover data.
- Data visualisations and tools. Visualizations and tools based on Wikidata and/or other Wikibase instances created or used by institutions, researchers and research projects.
- Research assessment. Altmetrics based on Wikidata to evaluate scientific research and research impact.
- Projects and proposals. Projects and proposals focusing on research and Wikidata and/or other Wikibase instances.
- Overviews. Analysis of the use of Wikidata in research related to specific disciplinary areas or topics.
Selected bibliography
[edit]- Mora-Cantallops, Marçal, Salvador Sánchez-Alonso, and Elena García-Barriocanal. 2019. «A Systematic Literature Review on Wikidata». Data Technologies and Applications 53 (3): 250–68. https://doi.org/10.1108/DTA-12-2018-0110.
- Shenoy, Kartik, Filip Ilievski, Daniel Garijo, Daniel Schwabe, and Pedro Szekely. 2022. «A Study of the Quality of Wikidata». Journal of Web Semantics 72:100679. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.websem.2021.100679.
- Turki, Houcemeddine, Mohamed Ali Hadj Taieb, Mohamed Ben Aouicha, Lane Rasberry, and Daniel Mietchen. 2024. «Ten Years of Wikidata: A Bibliometric Study». In Proceedings of the Wikidata Workshop 2023 co-located with 22nd International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2023). Athens: CEUR. https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3640/paper13.pdf.
- Vrandečić, Denny, Lydia Pintscher, and Markus Krötzsch. 2023. «Wikidata: The Making Of». In Companion Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023, 615–24. Austin TX USA: ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3543873.3585579.
- Waagmeester, Andra, Gregory Stupp, Sebastian Burgstaller-Muehlbacher, Benjamin M. Good, Malachi Griffith, Obi L. Griffith, Kristina Hanspers, et al. 2020. «Wikidata as a Knowledge Graph for the Life Sciences». eLife 9 (marzo). https://doi.org/10.7554/elife.52614.
- Zhao, Fudie. 2023. «A Systematic Review of Wikidata in Digital Humanities Projects». Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 38 (2): 852–74. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqac083.
Florence, 5-6 June 2025.
The conference takes place in two different venues.
- 5 June 2025 - Main auditorium / aula magna University of Florence (centre of Florence)
- 6 June 2025 - Two rooms at the Campus di Novoli, University of Florence (via delle Pandette, 32 - Firenze)
Important dates:
- 15.10.2024 Launch of the Call for Papers
- 09.12.2024 Deadline for submissions
- 06.02.2025 Notification of acceptance / rejection
- By 17.02.2025 Deadline to confirm the participation in presence
- 01.03.2025 Registration opening
- 21.04.2025 Submission of the full papers
- 05-06.06.2025 Conference dates
Improve Wikidata and research/Programme
The conference about Wikidata and research is a two day conference with contributions in Italian and English.
Scholarships Application open until the end of April
To attend, please fill the registration form in English or in Italian.
Wednesday, 4 June 2025
[edit]Pre-conference at the Social science library, via della Pandette 2: Bottega della scienza – open access (in Italian)
Thursday, 5 June 2025
[edit]Venue: Aula Magna, University of Florence, Piazza di San Marco 4
| Time | Duration | Type | Title | Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:30 | 60’ | Registration | ||
| 10:30 | < 5’ | Welcome | Welcome by UniFi | |
| 10:40 | < 5’ | Welcome | Welcome by UniFi | |
| 10:50 | 10’ | Welcome | WMDE | Pintscher |
| 11:00 | 10’ + 5’ | Talk 1 | Wikimedia and Research | Pensa |
| 11:15 | 10’ + 5’ | Talk 2 | Introduction to Wikidata + Wikibase | |
| 11:30 | 5’ | LT | The bibliography of Giacomo Caputo and the role of Wikidata in enhancing it | Parrilli |
| 11:40 | 5’ | LT | Semantic commissions: Wikidata for historical-artistic research | Ionna |
| 11:50 | 5’ | LT | Using Wikidata to describe Neo-Latin architecture-related authors, texts and words | Jovanović |
| 12:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | A proposal for managing personal collections in Wikidata | Maio |
| 12:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | eViterbo: Linking Humanities Research and Open Data | Santiago Faria |
| 13:00 | 2 hours | Break | ||
| 15:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Authoritative Practices and Collective Validation: Wikidata within the Collaborative Digital Edition of the Greek Anthology | Guénette, Verstraete, Vitali-Rosati |
| 15:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Collecting and Detecting Ancient Greek Historians through Wikibase and Wikidata | D’Addario |
| 16:00 | 60’ | Poster session (in the courtyard) | ||
| 16:00 | 60’ | Coffee break (in the courtyard) |
Friday, 6 June 2025 (two nearby venues)
[edit]- School of Education, Aula Magna, Via Laura 48, 50121 Florence (coffee break and posters here)
- SAGAS: Via Gino Capponi 9, Florence
Room 1 – Via Laura 48
[edit]| Time | Duration | Type | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:30 | 30’ | Registration | ||
| 10:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Whose History We Keep: Benchmarking Wikidata's Record of the Past's Protagonists | Finke, Pohl, Große, Lukacevic, Haas |
| 10:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Hunting for Lost Heritage on Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata | Chemello |
| 11:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | A visualization system based on Wikidata for supporting and monitoring the Wiki Loves Monuments Italian contest | Elli, Mauri, Crespi et al. |
| 11:30 | 30’ | Coffee break | ||
| 12:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Visualizing Wikidata: the RAWGraphs 2.0 approach | Elli, Mauri |
| 12:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Developing a creative model for Wikidata analysis in the GLAM sector | Tabone |
| 13:00 | 2 hours | Break | ||
| 15:00 | 5’ | LT | Automatic Verification of References of Wikidata Statements | Simperl et al. |
| 15:10 | 5’ | LT | Mapping UNIMARC to BIBFRAME: The SHARE Catalogue Knowledge Base on Wikibase.cloud | Forziati |
| 15:20 | 5’ | LT | Enhancement and sustainable fruition of Cultural Heritage in the era of ecological transition: open data and citizen science | Minnella |
| 15:30 | 5’ | LT | A Wikibooks-Wikidata Integration for Crowdsourced Curatorship at the Museu Paulista in Brazil | Peschanski |
Room 2 – Via Gino Capponi
[edit]| Time | Duration | Type | Title | Speaker(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 09:30 | 30’ | Registration | ||
| 10:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | The OpenAcolit Project: a directory of Italian libraries built with Wikibase | Bargioni |
| 10:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | An ontology for Italian theatrical cultural heritage on wikibase.cloud | Gavrilovich, Bergamin, Paraninfi |
| 11:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Wikidata as a Backend for Research MediaWikis: A Case Study from the P-CITIZENS Project in documenting Amateur Theatre | Papazoglou |
| 11:30 | 30’ | Coffee break | in Via Laura 48 | |
| 12:00 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Reimagining Digital Gazetteers: A Wikidata-Powered Approach | Guénette |
| 12:30 | 20’ + 10’ | Paper | Opening up and linking type catalogues in Wikidata – increasing the visibility of natural history collections | von Mering |
| 13:00 | 2 hours | Break | ||
| 15:00 | 5’ | LT | Modeling Architectural Heritage in Wikidata: A Case Study of Early Modern European Hospitals | Leipold et al. |
| 15:10 | 5’ | LT | Integrating Projects Working Around An Open Database Of Published Music Recordings: a call for collaboration | Toni Sant |
| 15:20 | 5’ | LT | A data visualization tool for heritage buildings in India and Bangladesh: the project of a wiki for ID-SCAPES | Resta, Mendiratta, Trindade Cruz |
| 15:30 | 5’ | LT | ProgrEFR: spreading and promoting the research programs of the École française de Rome through Wikidata | Avellino, Saltetto |
Improve Wikidata and research/Scientific committee
- Iolanda Pensa, SUPSI University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland
- Elena Marangoni, Wikimedia Italia
- Camillo Carlo Pellizzari di San Girolamo, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa
- Silvia Bruni, Università di Firenze
- Monica Berti, Universität Leipzig
- Franco Bagnoli, Università di Firenze
- Carlo Bianchini, Università di Pavia
- Alessandra Boccone, Università degli Studi di Salerno
- Antonella Buccianti, Università di Firenze
- Dimitri D’Andrea, Università di Firenze
- Annick Farina, Università di Firenze
- Fulvio Guatelli, Università di Firenze
- Luca Martinelli, Wikimedia Foundation
- Alessio Melandri, Wikimedia Italia
- Daniel Mietchen, FIZ Karlsruhe
- Rossana Morriello, Università di Firenze
- Federico Morando, Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino
- Maria Ranieri, Università di Firenze
- Miriam Redi, Wikimedia Foundation
- Lucia Sardo, Università di Bologna
Improve Wikidata and research/Editorial guidelines
Maximum length of contributions:
Paper: 5000 words (including references, figure captions, author's names, and contact details), with a maximum of 5 figures. In English or Italian
Lightning Talk: 3000 words (including references, figurecaptions, author's names, and contact details), with a maximum of 3 figures. In English or Italian
Poster: 1000/1500 words, one image, and link to high resolution image uploaded in Wikimedia Commons. For the printed version: minimum 300 dpi, 70x100 cm. vertical.
For each paper, LT and poster authors are expected to submit also:
- Abstract in English: max 800 characters including spaces, in a separate text file;
- Biobibliography of authors: in English, max 300 characters including spaces, in a separate file (.doc, .rtf, ecc.).
- Keywords: in English, from 3 to 5, separated by commas;
- Links and credits: insert links to external datasets, if used, and credits.
- License: CC BY/CC BY-SA for texts; CC0 (preferred) for dataset
For every other instruction (reference format, bibliography, separate file format, etc.) please strictly adhere to the Firenze University Press editorial guidelines available through those links:
ITA: https://books.fupress.it/assets/pdf/Author_Guidelines_FUP.zip
ENG: https://books.fupress.it/assets/pdf/Guida_per_gli_Autori_FUP.zip
Please note that the publication will be an accessible ebook, so authors are expected to provide alternative texts for images, tables, graphs, etc. according to the instructions in §9 of the Guidelines above.
The deadline for submitting your paper/LT/poster is the 21th of April.