Public archaeology at its most effective
“Wikipedia’s popularity and reach mean that archaeologists should actively engage with the website by adding and improving archaeological content.” Academia is changing its mind about Wikipedia. Peer-reviewed research studies published in the last few years have found value in teaching students how to evaluate the site, rather than turning them away from using it altogether. One … Continued
Monthly Report, July 2019
Highlights July felt like Wikidata month at Wiki Education! This month we launched two exciting ways to learn about Wikidata: in person workshops and online courses. We facilitated our very first Wikidata workshop, a day-long, in person meeting hosted by METRO in New York. The 14 participants in this course added nearly 160 references to … Continued
Building digital literacy capacity with UMass Lowell faculty
Women in Red at UMass Lowell is a one-year project to build digital literacy capacity in higher education and address the gender gap on campus and in Wikipedia. To kick off this project, 13 faculty at the University of Massachusetts Lowell will be accepted into Wiki Education’s synchronous Wiki Scholars course, meeting online once a … Continued
New Dashboard feature simplifies student peer review
Wiki Education launched the Dashboard in 2015 and it has truly been a game changer for instructors and students running Wikipedia assignments. Since that time, we’ve been steadily improving the Dashboard so that instructors can more easily facilitate their Wikipedia assignments; students can make meaningful and lasting contributions to Wikipedia; and so we here at … Continued
Last week to sign up for September Wikidata courses!
It’s the last week to sign up for our September Wikidata how-to courses! Virtual sessions meet once a week for an hour and dive into how to use, as well as contribute to, the global data repository that is Wikidata. Over six weeks, course participants learn how open data practices best align with their professional … Continued
Why this student says Wikipedia’s stigma is undeserved
Philip Marr is a student at Louisiana State University, where he completed a Wikipedia writing assignment in Dr. Josef Horacek’s English course last term. Here, he reflects on what he found most valuable about learning how to contribute content to Wikipedia articles. All throughout high school, I was always told that Wikipedia should not be … Continued
Building student confidence and sharing knowledge outside the academic silo
When Hilary Wilson first took a look at the Wikipedia article she was to improve for her Earth science class, she realized the geological element didn’t even have a clear definition stated on the page. “That was my main inspiration for what needed to be changed and added.” The assignment was part of Dr. Jim … Continued
Life on Mars? Planetology students inform us on Wikipedia!
Mars has long loomed as a figure in human mythology and art. In the age of space exploration, though, Mars has taken on a new role: potential destination. It’s possible that, someday, humans may live on the Red Planet. To prepare for such an adventure, we must understand the ways in which Mars differs from … Continued
When social media savvy students write for Wikipedia
Dr. Carolyn Cunningham is Associate Professor of Communication & Leadership Studies at Gonzaga University. Here she shares what it was like for her media students to join the “Wikipedia ecosystem” in an assignment. I teach in the Communication and Leadership Studies program at Gonzaga University. This is a Masters level program offered in a hybrid … Continued
Me, a Wikipedian?
A few months ago, I got a text from a friend. “I think you’d be interested in this.” She’d sent me a link to an application for a course offered by Wiki Education and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to train people to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women’s suffrage in the United States. … Continued