If you’re interested in adding a Wikipedia assignment to your course, please visit teach.wikiedu.org for how to do so. There, you’ll find step-by-step guidance for teaching with Wikipedia. This page serves as a useful reference once you’re participating in our program.

Our staff has been supporting the Wikipedia Education Program in the United States and Canada since 2010. In that time, we’ve helped more than 1,000 instructors in higher education. We’ve collected their experiences and feedback to put together some guidelines and training for you and your students.

If you have more questions, reach out to us at contact(at)wikiedu.org, or through the contact form at the end of the page.

Table of Contents

Resources for instructors

Before you begin, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with Wikipedia editing and community guidelines. Our online instructor orientation will walk you through the basics. You may want to take a look at the student training, as well. That way, you’ll see exactly what your students learn about Wikipedia (and perhaps pick up some new editing skills yourself).

Our Instructor Basics brochure contains crucial information for designing successful assignments. Our Case Studies brochure spotlights the variety of successful strategies for incorporating Wikipedia assignments. Hear from other instructors about the lessons they’ve done, and choose one that matches the learning objectives for your own course. Finally, for courses that engage in theoretical thinking around Wikipedia and knowledge production, we offer a Theories handbook for instructors. You can download the .pdfs below.

Getting students ready

Your class is about more than Wikipedia, so class time should still focus on the topic of your course. That’s why we’ve created an online training that helps students learn the basics of Wikipedia editing. This training will help students throughout the term, and takes about an hour in total. Completing the training is the first step in any Wikipedia assignment.

We also offer print and online copies of three brochures for your students—Editing Wikipedia, Illustrating Wikipedia, and Evaluating Wikipedia.

Subject-specific handouts for students

Some content areas in Wikipedia have topic-specific guidelines for contributors. This can range from specific details on sourcing and citations, or ethical or legal guidelines specific to that field. Provide these handouts (available in print or online) to students if you teach in these subjects. We provide guides for editing articles on the following topics:

Design your assignment

Once you’ve decided you’re ready to design your assignment, reach out to us using the contact form below. We’ll help you create a page to see what articles your students edit, track their training progress, and more.