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
- WikiEdu for Instructors
- Case Studies About How Instructors are Teaching with Wikipedia
- How to Use Wikipedia as a Teaching Tool
- Wikiedu Online Orientation to Wikipedia for Instructors: approx. 30 min to complete
- Wikipedia Community Advice for Instructors
- Five reasons a Wikipedia assignment is better than a term paper
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.