The importance of not hiding the past
Raeleigh Evans and Eden Jones are both students at Brigham Young University who — due to the pandemic — have never actually met in person. But in fall 2020, they collaborated together to create a brand-new Wikipedia article on the Code of Indian Offenses, a 1883 legislation that restricted religious and cultural ceremonies of Native … Continued
“A form of public engagement”: My Wikipedia experience
Emma Chow will graduate from Brown in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies. Last academic year, she was assigned to edit Wikipedia as a class assignment, supported by Wiki Education’s Student Program. She reflected on the experience on Brown’s website; her post is re-published here with permission. For as long as I … Continued
When a student’s pride in their work lives on
Andrew Oh was drawn to the Wikipedia assignment even before taking Dr. Joan Strassmann’s class at Washington University in St Louis. “In fact, I signed up for the class because its course listing description talked about how we’ll be writing for Wikipedia,” Andrew tells us in an interview. “No other class on the listing had … Continued
Teaching students that their words have power
“College professors tend not to allow you to include a Wikipedia article as a citation in a paper you write. So what are you doing encouraging your students to go to Wikipedia?” Houston Matters host Craig Cohen asked Dr. Melissa Weininger in a radio interview last week. “Well, I’m not encouraging them to go to … Continued
Wikipedia’s gender inequality tackled by Rice students writing ‘activist’ articles
Jewish women are underrepresented on the reference site — but not if this class has anything to write about it Wikipedia is the most popular reference site on the internet, with nearly 20,000 articles added every month. Yet an estimated 85% of its editors are male — a problem of gender imbalance the site’s founder, Jimmy Wales, … Continued
What do students think of adding to Wikipedia as an assignment?
Based on your course or discipline, completing a Wikipedia writing assignment can achieve so many meaningful outcomes: from helping close the gender gap, to documenting dying species or languages, to researching important new scientific discoveries. There are also plenty of learning objectives and selling points that we see fulfilled over and over again, no matter … Continued
Adding to Wikipedia as an assignment? It’s a pizza cake…
Information Services and Instruction Librarian Melissa Kahili-Heede and Dr. Richard Kasuya led their students at the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in a Wikipedia writing assignment last term that changed the way they worked with both students and faculty. This was the second time they’ve had medical … Continued
An ecology student becomes a Wikipedian
“You’re not always able to make a huge impact, but at least you can make a dent.” Kai Medina learned how to add content to Wikipedia pages as a student in Dr. Randi Rotjan’s marine biology course this Spring. Since then, he has remained an active editor on Wikipedia, adding content, photos, and field recordings … 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