Wikipedia is the go-to source for information for much of the world. However, few understand its inner workings, and even fewer still contribute to it, even though it’s an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Wikipedia plays a central role in today’s information landscape. The English Wikipedia has more than 6 million articles, which might seem relatively complete. Impressive though this number may be, Wikipedia is a dynamic enterprise in need of constant updating and expansion. Nowhere is this more true than subjects related to historically marginalized and underrepresented populations, regions, and topic areas. You and your students can play a critical role in ensuring that Wikipedia is up-to-date, reliable, and above all, equitable.
Wiki Education is an independent non-profit organization bridging traditional institutions of knowledge and Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Student Program allows instructors to assign their students to contribute to Wikipedia either in lieu of or in addition to a traditional writing assignment. Through their programs they aim to
- Train students, faculty and other professionals to contribute to Wikipedia in their fields of expertise
- Improve Wikipedia’s equity, quality and reach.
- Close Wikipedia’s equity gaps, especially in equity areas
- Broadly build connections between the worlds of Wikipedia, academia, and other intuitions of knowledge
Student Learning Outcomes:
- Practice digital literacy in source materials
- Build writing and communication skills through engagement in the formal communication process to share ideas publicly
- Engage in critical thinking skills through analysis of authors, bias and discussing multiple viewpoints whiteout letting one standout above others.
The College of Wooster has previously held learning sessions with the WikiEdu staff to learn more about the benefits to both wikipedia and a classroom on the use of WikiEdu.
Wikipedia Education has an extensive training library that allows you to browse ideas on how to use it in the clasroom, designing the various assignments and taking you first steps to use. Don’t forget to apply to give your students access to the courses and training as well! Sign up at dashboard.wikiedu.org
Educational Technology staff is available for consultation on project planning, design, and to teach workshops or tutorials on various software. They can be contacted by Email (EducationalTechnology@wooster.edu) or can be booked for consultations through Bookings.
The Writing Center can be a great resource for creating the script for the Digital Storytelling narrative.
Example Contributions from College of Wooster Students:
In spring of 2022, Wiki Edu’s blog featured Emma Schell, a chemistry major and student in Dr. Katie Holt’s Modern Latin America class who worked on several Wikipedia articles which focus on multi-racial artists and an Indigenous group in Guatemala.
Types of WikiEdu Assignments
Research and Write Content
Researching and writing content is one of the most popular types of assignments for integrating WikiEdu into the classroom. Students can work individually or in small groups to create or expand wikipedia articles. They can choose to create an article of merit from scratch or expand an existing article on Wikipedia.
An assignment like this often takes 6 weeks minimum, but the ideal length of time recommended by wikipedia is 12 weeks to complete. While all disciplines can find articles to write and edit this assignment is suited for classrooms under 50 students.
Translating a Wikipedia Article
In translated Wikipedia articles, there’s a great deal of content missing from the English versions of the articles and vice-versa. Students will identify high-quality articles in the language they are studying and translate them into English. Non-native English speakers can translate an English article into their native language.
Translation assignments often only take 4 weeks, and are recommended from foreign language and translation studies courses with fewer than 30 students. Students must have native fluency in the language Wikipedia that they will edit.
Note on this type of assignment: WikiEdu’s staff can only provide supporting edits made on the English Wikipedia. Each language Wikipedia has its own community and set of norms and policies. If your students will be editing other language Wikipedia articles, let the staff know which languages so that their dashboard can be configured to correctly track the edits being made.
Create Images and Multimedia
Adding photographs, illustrations and videos can greatly improve articles on Wikipedia. This assignment asks students to find articles that could be improved thorugh multimedia and produce content and share it on the article.
Multimedia based assignments are shorter, 2 weeks is recommended, although students will have to take the Plagiarism and Copyright Violation training to avoid adding unacceptable content. Students in multimedia, photography and illustration courses or where students who visualize data and create original charts and graphs are best suited to this assignment.
Assessing a Wikipedia assignment relies on setting clear expectations for your students. Instead of setting minimum word count expectations, it is often better suited for a minimum number of references selected for a particular topic before beginning. This allows them to select a suitable and note worthy topic to write about and edit. Students should always adhere to Wikipedia’s policies and norms for completing training, and general conduct.
Tips from Wikipedia on Grading the Assignment
- Check the dashboard regularly to monitor student progress
- Most students work on existing articles, which can turn out to be more work than creating a new article.
- The Dashboard does not allow you to enter grades.
- You may grade each task on a scale or as complete/incomplete.
- Strongly recommended to grade students on completing their training modules
- Reflection papers can help you learn about the work completed.
- Never grade based on what sticks as this is simply out of the student’s control.
- Don’t worry when student work is removed. It is likely an editor with a different viewpoint on the article and the information is under review. It is simply Wikipedia working as it’s supposed to.
The back page of the Editing WikiEdu brochure offers a more detailed checklist for evaluating student work.
WikiEdu provides sample rubrics on how to standardize and assess your students’ work.