Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science: an interview with Daniel Mietchen

"Daniel Mietchen, a biophysicist, a contributor on the Wikimedia projects including the Wikimedia Research Committee, and the managing editor of Citizendium, has been awarded a grant by the Open Society Foundations to be the Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science. The Wikimedia blog has an announcement and so does Daniel on the new blog set up for the project by its institutional host: the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany. The project's stated goal is "improving Open Access coverage and reuse in WMF projects". Images are already being reused from many Open Access scientific journals, but such reuse could be extended across many more Wikipedia languages and also into sister projects like Wikibooks, Wikispecies, Wikisource, Wikiquote and Wikiversity. Mietchen's role marks an interesting development for the Wikimedians in Residence programs which have thus far been primarily involved in cultural sector outreach as part of GLAM collaborations. The post on the Wikimedia blog has a number of ways Wikimedians can get involved in this initiative. The Signpost caught up with Mietchen to talk about what the project entails...."