Equipedia

Project Leader: Cicilia Östholm

Number of participants: 12

Duration: 5 days

EQUIPEDIA is an initiative to create an online search tool, together with the Wikimedia Foundation, for equality and active change making within academia. Gender and race bias is a well-known problem within humanities as well as other fields of higher education. 

This is a call to join forces within RCA and across London to challenge current standards within our field and create a search tool for accessing web-based free-content, featuring women, people of colour, differently abled/ people with disability, non-western origin, and LGBTQIA+ exclusively. The aim is to have a positive effect on equality in representation by making it easier to find a wider representation of perspectives besides well established and overrepresented cannons, on any topic or search word.

Learning through sharing experiences and contributing skills, 12 participants will construct a guiding tool to the work of competent people from underrepresented groups within branches of knowledge production. 

As EQUIPEDIA should be developed by people with experience and knowledge from effected intersections of underrepresentation, the initiative will be open for people of underrepresented groups from outside of RCA, with experience of academia, activism, and web development. 

Beside web-developing and web-design, documentation, PR and organisational skills will be useful as we will host public events and connect with other institutions and initiatives across knowledge production.

After sign-up, applicants will be asked to specify their skillsets or experience suitable for this project, or otherwise, motivate their interest in their application.

Timetable:

Day 1, 10 am – 4 pm: 

Am: Discussion and sharing of experiences, employing inclusive practices and techniques. 

Pm: Compiling a set of requests and requirements for the online search tool and plan our work ahead accordingly.

Day 2, 10 am – 4 pm: 

Am: Mapping out our network of people to contact and involve directly. e.g. bloggers, journalists, rectors, professors, tutors and other staff within academia, students in higher education, separatist groups, NGO’s and other organisations. 

Pm: The group divides into task-oriented work groups and begin working on web-development, PR,  design, and organisation of upcoming events.

Day 3, 10 am – 4 pm: 

Hosting a public hackathon for developing EQUIPEDIA. 

Day 4, 10 am – 4 pm: 

Am: Presentation and feedback session of the outcome. Collecting feedback and development suggestions, before the last fixes of a web tool ready-to-launch.

Pm: Work groups continue their work, preparing for day five and finalising a test version of EQUIPEDIA. 

Day 5, 10 am – 4 pm: 

An open, full day session for contributing and editing previously collected material, inviting people to join in, list and add their go-to references using EQUIPEDIA. The aim is to involve and target bloggers, journalists, rectors, professors, tutors and other staff within academia, students in higher education, separatist groups, NGO’s and other organizations, to get involved and connect their sources and references to the test version of the search tool. 

Follow up event: Official Launch Party 

We host an official launch party, including all previously involved, invited guests and the public at a later date when EQUIPEDIA is ready to launch for public use. 

Location: 

The workshop and public events will be held at RCA facilities, e.g the Senior Common Room in Kensington.