  In January 2019, prompted by the Wikimedia Movement's 2030 strategic
direction, the Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation identified the need to
develop a knowledge gaps index -- a composite index to support the decision
makers across the Wikimedia movement by providing: a framework to encourage
structured and targeted brainstorming discussions; data on the state of the
knowledge gaps across the Wikimedia projects that can inform decision making
and assist with measuring the long term impact of large scale initiatives in
the Movement.
  After its first release in July 2020, the Research team has developed the
second complete draft of a taxonomy of knowledge gaps for the Wikimedia
projects, as the first step towards building the knowledge gap index. We
studied more than 250 references by scholars, researchers, practitioners,
community members and affiliates -- exposing evidence of knowledge gaps in
readership, contributorship, and content of Wikimedia projects. We elaborated
the findings and compiled the taxonomy of knowledge gaps in this paper, where
we describe, group and classify knowledge gaps into a structured framework. The
taxonomy that you will learn more about in the rest of this work will serve as
a basis to operationalize and quantify knowledge equity, one of the two 2030
strategic directions, through the knowledge gaps index.
