Documentation:Effective Practices for Wikipedia Assignments

Wikipedia-based assignments can engage students in an authentic learning experience that involves open collaboration, critical thinking, and knowledge building for a global audience. When students write or edit in Wikipedia, they are not using the same format or skills that they would in writing a research paper or persuasive essay – they are applying new strategies to produce knowledge that people will use in the real world and they are building digital literacies.

Why are you using Wikipedia?

Rationale: What is the value for students in writing for Wikipedia? How does it relate to your course goals?
Support: What support will you require? Consider both assignment design consultation (CTLT) and classroom support (CTLT, Writing Centre, Library): wiki editing orientation for students; research support; technical support. etc.
Rubric: How will you evaluate the contributions students make to Wikipedia? Criteria?
Digital literacy: Is it important to move students along a continuum from consumers to creators of knowledge?

Considerations

Core content guidelines: Does your assignment fit with Wikipedia's Core Content?
Time: Assignments typically need scaffolding over time in the course - however this depends on the assignment type.
Community/Culture: Wikipedia can be viewed as community engagement. Wikipedia has a highly engaged community of editors with their own culture.
Instructor Engagement: Helpful if instructor is engaging with the Wikipedia community.
Learning Environment: It expands the learning environment beyond the UBC community. Community editors support student learning and may challenge current biases on Wikipedia (gender-related, notability guidelines, etc)
Purpose: Wikipedia is a encyclopedia. It requires encyclopedic type of writing.
High Visibility: Wikipedia is highly publicly visible and editable.
Copyright: All work has to be CC (Creative Commons) licensed and needs attention to copyright.
Affordance: Instructor understands the structure and benefit of Wiki.
Iterative: There is no final draft in Wikipedia. The articles are always in development
Preparedness: Course that has well-defined goals and intention can integrate well with Wikipedia.
Generalist Orientation Students do not have to be expert in the subject matter. They are summarizing existing knowledge on Wikipedia.

Readings/Resources

Basic overview of Wikipedia

Jemielniak, D. (2014). Wikipedia in Short: Numbers, Rules, and Editors. In Common Knowledge: An Ethnography of Wikipedia. Stanford University Press. Retrieved from http://stanford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.11126/stanford/9780804789448.001.0001/upso-9780804789448-chapter-2.

Wikipedia in Academia

Salvaggio, E. (2016). Five reasons a Wikipedia assignment is better than a term paper. WikiEdu. Retrieved from: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2016/03/28/five-reasons-a-wikipedia-assignment-is-better-than-a-term-paper/

Wadewitz, A., Geller, A., & Beasley-Murray, J. (2010). Wiki-hacking: Opening up the academy with Wikipedia. In Wikisource . Retrieved from https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Wiki-hacking:_Opening_up_the_academy_with_Wikipedia&oldid=7011757

Wikipeda on itself

Why Wikipedia is so great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_so_great
Why Wikipedia is not so great: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not_so_great

Instructor Resources

Resources for group work

Using Wikipedia in the classroom requires a lot of collaboration from students' side and it is group-work based. Being able to understand your role as a group work facilitator is a key to the success. Below are tips on how to facilitate group work:

Implementing group work in the classroom - Resources for group work by the University of Waterloo
Approaches that can make group work effective - Resources from the Vanderbilt university.