The open technology specialist at the University of Toronto Libraries: A comprehensive approach to Wikimedia projects in the academic library

Wikipedian-in-Residence (WIR) programs are becoming more common in academic libraries. Although they hold a great deal of promise, they are often limited in scope given their frequently short-term and sometimes part-time nature. After a successful one-year, part-time WIR pilot, the University of Toronto Libraries (UTL) has piloted a one-year, full-time Open Technology Specialist (OTS) role to build upon the WIR’s accomplishments and allow for a more comprehensive approach to Wikimedia activities in the library. Through extensive research, outreach, and relationship-building, the OTS has considerably expanded the scope of WIR’s activities to advance a wide range of institutional strategic priorities for the long term. In line with UTL’s commitment to barrier-free access to all of the right information, the OTS incorporates Wikimedia activities into existing workflows across the library system in ways that prioritize support for historically excluded communities and collections while being sensitive to issues of access and description. In its pilot year, the OTS has created a network out of previously isolated Wikimedia engagement across the library system, trained staff, and volunteers across and beyond UTL, and helped launch formal projects that deepen institutional engagement. The OTS has also continued to contribute to Wikipedia, expanding their editing scope to the appropriate use of archival sources and the development of tools, which help bridge the gap between Wikipedia and Wikidata. Through the OTS, UTL has systematically deepened its contributions to the open Web. The UTL OTS pilot experience has demonstrated that positions dedicated to engagement in Wikimedia or other open technologies hold a great deal of potential and are worthy of further consideration for ongoing investment of staff and budget resources by academic libraries.

The effectiveness of a training program using communicative theory in developing some concepts of Web 3 for educational technology specialists.

The aim of this research is to develop some concepts of web3 for the education technology specialist, to present a proposed training program for web3 technology, to define the concepts and technology of web3. There is a statistically significant difference at the level (0.05) between the average scores of education technology specialists in the pre and post applications to test the web3.0 concepts in favor of the post application. In light of the significance of the differences using the "T" tests, the square of ETA (2η) was calculated using the equation Eta square (2 η) to find the magnitude of the effect of the independent variable (training program) in the dependent variable (development of web3.0 concepts), and by calculating the value of the square of ETA (2)) (Al-Amiri, 2006, 233), reached (0.98), which indicates that the training program has a significant impact on the acquisition of some concepts of web3.0, where this value shows that the training program contributed (98%) of the total variance In developing these concepts,It is a large percentage indicating the effectiveness of the training program in developing web3.0 concepts for the target research sample, which is the education technology specialist (if the effect size = 0.2 is the effect is weak, and if the impact size = 0.5, the effect is moderate, and if the impact size is = 0.8 The effect is significant), (Asr, 2003). From the above it is clear that the training program contributed to the development of the targeted web3.0 concepts for education technology specialists, as it found a difference between the median of the pre and post applications to test the concepts of the web3.0 in favor of the post application at the research group, which averaged (51,85) compared to (16) , 75) for pre-application, with a large effect size of (0.98) according to the ETA square measure (2η) of the effect size.