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
Why a Wikipedia assignment: a student’s perspective
Sienna Stevens was a student in Dr. Rachel Miller’s Baroque Art class at California State University Sacramento this spring, where she expanded a Wikipedia article as an assignment. Here, she talks about what the experience means to her. Before taking this class, I honestly had no idea that anyone could edit a Wikipedia page. Sure, … Continued
Wikipedia’s place in higher education
Alliana Drury is a first year undergraduate student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. In the Spring 2019 term, she took an English 101: Composition 1 course, taught by Dr. Matt Vetter and Teaching Assistant Oksana Moroz, and learned to contribute to Wikipedia as a major assignment in that course. In the following essay, she reflects … Continued
Catalyzing deeper learning in the Humanities with Wiki Education
When the nature of an assignment leads to discovery, not simply to compliance, the learning becomes the students’ own. Dr. Gardner Campbell began teaching Wikipedia writing assignments at Virginia Commonwealth University in 2018. Here he shares the results that he says have “far exceeded” his expectations. For over two decades, from writing projects in freshman composition … Continued