Wikipedia has significant potential for classroom use, especially in humanities and social science courses with significant writing components such as research or historiography papers. Analyzing articles or assigning students to edit Wikipedia collaboratively based on course readings are effective in teaching students to evaluate sources critically.
Writing for Wikipedia in larger-scale assignments such as term papers is also very effective. It gives students the opportunity to write something that will be read by broader audience than just a professor or teaching assistant, and emphasizes the proper use of scholarly secondary sources. Wikipedia is also a very convenient forum for giving and receiving feedback from classmates, which can dramatically improve the quality of student writing.
Resources edit
- Alan Liu's statement on APPROPRIATE USE OF WIKIPEDIA - A concise statement, intended for students, explaining the appropriate and inappropriate use of Wikipedia for research.
- Wikipedia:School and university projects - The main page for Wikipedia assignments, including links to other resources and a list of projects and assignments that have been used by other teachers and professors.
- Wikipedia:School and university projects - instructions for students - A brief guide for students beginning Wikipedia-based assignments, with information on how to edit articles.
Suggested assignments edit
Small assignments edit
I) Have students collaboratively create or edit an article related to the reading or lecture material for that class period. Instruct each student to add or modify a small amount of content (a sentence to a few paragraphs) or provide citations from the reading for existing content.
- If a primary source is used, such as a seminal or historically significant book or document, it may be appropriate to create an article about it, if one does not already exist. Students should provide a summary as well as place it in a broader context.
- If a secondary source is used, select one or several articles for which the reading would be an appropriate source, especially under-developed, unsourced, or non-existent articles. Have students add significant content from the source or add citations.
II) Have students critique course-related articles, leaving comments on discussion pages.
Medium assignments edit
I.) As a substitute for book reviews or other essay assignments in which each student reads a different book, have students individually write (either from scratch or beginning from existing content) an article on the subject of the book. This is particularly effective for biographies and other books where the work's scope coincides neatly with an encyclopedic topic (such as case studies, ethnographies, microhistories, and other analyses of well-delimited topics.
Large assignments edit
I.) For term papers, topic-specific literature reviews or historiography papers can be written as Wikipedia articles (or for more diffuse topics, sets of articles). Such synthetic articles are an excellent compromise between primary research and less rewarding assignments like essay questions.
- Selecting a topic - Have students choose course-related topics that have inadequate coverage on Wikipedia. Provide a list of suggested topics or have students spend some time exploring their own interests on Wikipedia until they find a lacuna that interests them.
- Research - Set clear guidelines for what kinds of sources are appropriate (e.g., only scholarly books and journals; only paper-published sources; any source consistent with Wikipedia's policy on reliable sources). Make sure students are aware of Wikipedia's policy of no original research; Wikipedia's definition of original research is narrow enough to allow limited use of primary sources in some cases, and to synthesize secondary literature, but does not allow analysis or synthesis that amounts to an original argument. You may want assign a separate, non-Wikipedia portion of the assignment for students to develop their own ideas on their topic.
- Posting and feedback - Have students post and format their work on talk space or user space subpages, so that students have a chance to experiment with formatting and improve their work before it goes into Wikipedia as encyclopedia content. If possible, provide a period during which students read and comment on the work of their classmates, and revise their own work based on peer feedback.
- Adding work to Wikipedia - For articles that did not previously exist, or where the student's article is unequivocally superior to existing content, move the subpage to the appropriate location. (If there is an existing article, you will need to have an administrator perform this operation.) For instances where some of the existing content is worth keeping, either have the student integrate his/her work into the article, or leave a message on the existing article's talk page requesting the assistance of other editors in merging the content. You may want to make the final step of moving work into article namespace optional; some students may be uncomfortable making their work public.
Help from the Wikipedia community edit
If you need help with the technical or logistical aspects of running a Wikipedia assignment, Wikipedians will be happy to help.
- Wikipedians who have coordinated past assignment projects include:
- You can find other Wikipedians who are willing to help at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination
- For quick help on specific issues, leave a message at Wikipedia:Village pump (assistance)
- If you would like help (such as formatting assistance or article feedback) from Wikipedians interested in the subject matter of your student papers, try leaving messages at WikiProjects related to the topics.