Contact details
- Name:
- Dr Shani Evenstein Sigalov
- Position/Fellowship type:
- Visiting Research Fellow
- Fellowship term:
- 01-Feb-2022 to 31-Aug-2024
- Institute:
- Digital Humanities Research Hub
- Home institution:
- Technology & Learning Program, School of Education, Tel Aviv University (TAU)
- Email address:
- s.evensteinsigalov@sas.ac.uk
- Website:
- https://www.sas.ac.uk/digital-humanities/dhrh/people/Sigalov
Research Summary and Profile
- Research interests:
- Communities, Classes, Races, Cultural memory, Culture, Digital resources, Digitisation, Education
- Summary of research interests and expertise:
-
Dr. Shani Evenstein Sigalov is an educator, lecturer, researcher and Free Knowledge advocate, exploring the intersection of Education, Technology, Innovation and Openness, with a special interest in bridging gender, language and social gaps in free knowledge projects.
As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Shani has led a variety of research projects: Exploring Generative AI (GenAI) adoption in academia via an online learning community; Examining organizational response to GenAI, focusing on the case study of the Wikimedia Movement, in partnership with the University of Cambridge; Researching the effect of Linked Open Data in Digital Humanities with TAU’s Center for AI & Data Science; and exploring the new phenomenon of Critical Ignoring in the context of Digital Curation. She also engaged in designing a chatbot for 5th-8th graders, aimed at developing students’ Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) and Problem-Solving (PS) skills, funded by the Ministry of Education. Her PhD, chosen for funding by the Azrieli Foundation’s Research Fellows Program, explored the Semantic Web as a learning platform, focusing on Wikidata, a Linked Open Data (LOD) database accessible to humans and machines.
As a Visiting Research Fellow at the DHRH, Shani is interested in examining how advanced technologies, Open Knowledge projects and Digital Humanities tools and approaches, can advance engagement with information and Data Literacy, in the Educational and Cultural Heritage sectors. She is currently investigating GenAI’s effect on knowledge consumption and production, in collaboration with Prof. Jane Winters.
As an educator and lecturer at TAU, Shani served as an EdTech Innovation Strategist at the School of Medicine. She is also integrating elements from the Open Knowledge Movements into the academic curriculum, focusing on gender equality, knowledge equity and a positive social impact, by advancing Open Education and the creation of OERs among other things. In this capacity, she has designed and directed the first, for-credit, academic courses in the world to integrate Wikipedia & Wikidata into higher education, which she has been leading since 2013. She is currently leading courses in various programs at TAU, among others, a course on User Engagement in Online Environments at the School of Management, and as of the coming academic year, a course on Generative AI.
As a Free and Open Knowledge advocate, her volunteer work is devoted to initiating and supporting Open Education and Open Culture (GLAM), Open & FAIR Science and Open Data initiatives. She serves as the editor-in-chief and Chairperson at Project Ben-Yehuda, the largest, free digital library for Hebrew writings; A Board member at The Public Knowledge Workshop; and also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that supports Wikipedia and its sister projects worldwide.