“The Art of Ignoring: Why Critical Ignoring Strategies Matter in Digital Curation”
Dr. Shani Evenstein Sigalov
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83382677877
Digital Curation is commonly understood as the work of selecting, organizing, and preserving information. Yet in environments characterized by information overload, mis/disinformation, and GenAI–driven content production, curation increasingly depends on ae less visible practice: deliberate ignoring, academically known as Critical Ignoring.
This seminar presents findings from a qualitative study of Digital Curation practices in Wikipedia and Wikidata, focusing on how experienced contributors curate STEM-related content in real time. Using think-aloud interviews, the study examines how strategies of critical ignoring (including self-nudging, lateral reading, and strategic non-engagement) are enacted during authentic curation practices. The findings both corroborate and extend the existing framework by highlighting additional, practice-based strategies shaped by time, expertise, and sustained participation in Open Knowledge communities.
The session will reflect on what these findings reveal about learning while practicing Digital Curation, considering the theoretical context of Personalized Learning, Critical Thinking and Collaborative Practices in the age of GenAI. It will also invite discussion on how Critical Ignoring strategies can be meaningfully integrated into the teaching and practice of Digital Curation.
Dr. Shani Evenstein Sigalov is an educator specializing in Technology & Learning, researcher, lecturer and Open Knowledge advocate, just finishing serving for 6 years on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, that supports Wikipedia and its sister projects globally.
Her research focuses on the intersection between Education, Technology, Innovation and Openness, and she currently serves as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Digital Humanities Research Hub, University of London. Her current project, AI-BRIDGES, explores harnessing GenAI toward Cultural & Academic heritage preservation and accessibility, through Linked Open Data (LOD) platforms, like Wikidata and Wikibase.
Today she will be sharing findings from her research on Critical Ignoring in Digital Curation processes. This research, which was recently published in the “Smart Learning Environments”, was conducted under the mentorship of Prof. Dina Tsybulsky, as part of the Biology Education Research Group at the Faculty of Education in Science and Technology.
