Directory of Research and Expertise

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Research Summary and Profile

Research interests:

Communities, Classes, Races, Cultural memory, Culture, Digital resources, Digitisation, Education

Summary of research interests and expertise:

Shani is an educator specialising in technology and learning, researcher, lecturer and open knowledge advocate, interested in the intersection between education, technology, innovation and openness. She currently serves as a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Digital Humanities Research Hub, working on AI-BRIDGES: a project that focuses on creating bridges and harnessing GenAI toward cultural and academic heritage preservation and accessibility, through linked open data (LOD) platforms, like Wikidata and Wikibase. 

Past postdoc research projects include: Generative AI's impact on knowledge consumption and creation; digital humanities and linked open data, as a means for preserving academic and cultural heritage data; self-regulated learning; critical ignoring; and public humanities. Before that, her PhD focused on the semantic web as a learning platform, specifically Wikidata, as an Azrieli Foundation PhD Research Fellow. 

Past academic teaching experience includes: designing and directing for a decade the first for-credit elective courses globally to integrate Wikipedia and Wikidata into higher education; teaching in Medical School and Business School, and more recently, developing an academic course on GenAI from a humanities perspective. 

Open knowledge advocacy: with a special interest in governance and strategic planning, Shani is a long-time Wikimedian focusing on outreach efforts, creating collaborations between institutions and Wikimedia. She has served in various governance positions in the Wikimedia Movement and is currently wrapping her sixth year as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects globally (three years as Vice-Chair to the Board). She also co-leads Project Ben-Yehuda, the largest open online library for Hebrew writings (13 years as Chair). She has recently joined as a Governor at Swallowfield Primary School, where she is using her governance, strategic and educational experience to support the school. 

In her spare time, Shani serves as a consultant to various institutions on strategic implementation of GenAI and openness practices. She also enjoys playing music and travelling with her family through historic properties and gardens.

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