Hello. My name is Heather Ford and I work as an Associate Professor at the University of Technology Sydney. I completed my PhD at the University of Oxford's Oxford Internet Institute (OII) in a thesis about Wikipedia. You can find out more about me here. I have been a supporter of Wikipedia for many years. I was on the Advisory Board, organising the first Wikipedia Academies with help from others in South Africa and working to bring members of the free and open source software and open content communities together to share insights and experiences as Project Lead of Creative Commons South Africa and Executive Director of iCommons. Since those heady days, I've become a little more skeptical - at least of any grand claims that we make about the openness movement, our tactics and strategies. I now focus my efforts on improving the research into Wikipedia - particularly on topics relating to: verification and sourcing practices, writing breaking news and Wikipedia's knowledge gaps. In addition to my research, my community work these days mostly consists in work with the Wikimedia research community. I used to help out with the research newsletterand Wikisym and offering informal advice to the Wikimedia Foundation on an ad hoc basis.

You can email me through the "Email this user" function in the "Tools" list to your left, or directly using hfordsa at gmail dot com.