“The sheer number of eyeballs looking to Wikipedia for health-related information is staggering,” said committee lead Amin Azzam, MD. “Helping health professions school faculty to implement Wikipedia editing assignments into their local contexts is far more impactful than my direct teaching of my own students. Getting this information on Wikipedia will help everyone who reads Wikipedia for their own or their loved ones’ health.”

During their two-year term, committee members will collaborate with Wiki Education across key areas of the project, including outreach and recruitment. Working with Wiki Education staff, the scholars will expand faculty awareness of the Wikipedia assignment through outreach to health professions networks, partnership development with organizations and institutions, and support for Teaching with Wikipedia webinars.

“Ever since taking a Wikipedia-editing course as a medical student, I’ve been passionate about improving health-related content on Wikipedia; whether through designing courses or encouraging colleagues to get involved,” said second-year ophthalmology resident Tolga Guven, MD. “I firmly believe in the open-access movement and that motivation should be the only barrier to acquiring knowledge. The opportunity to work alongside and learn from like-minded educators while helping improve one of the world’s most-referenced information sources was one I couldn’t resist.”

The group will also assist with a study led by Azzam to investigate the impact that editing Wikipedia has on health professions student editors. Committee members will support survey design and focus group framework development.

“This work excites me for two main reasons: one, the educational opportunity it presents for health professional students; and two, its potential to improve public health,” explained Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Sheila Kusnoor, PhD. “Participating in Wikipedia editing courses gives students the chance to learn how to identify high-quality evidence and clearly communicate it to a lay audience. These skills are critical, as patients need access to reliable, easy-to-understand health information to make informed decisions about their care. Enhancing the quality of health information on Wikipedia can help empower patients with the knowledge needed to improve their health.” 

2025 Medical Community Advisory Committee members:

Mohammad Aldalou, MD is a postdoctoral scholar at the Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). In 2021, he founded OMEN-Palestine, the Palestinian chapter affiliated with Osmosis from Elsevier, where he led efforts to expand access to medical education resources for students and early-career physicians in the region. He also served as a regional lead and consultant with Osmosis from Elsevier, focusing on competency development and student engagement within the medical education program. At UAB, Dr. Aldalou’s research centers on formative assessment and competency-based medical education. His research interest lies in leveraging learning analytics to track student progress and inform the design of more effective and personalized educational experiences.

Amin Azzam, MD is a passionate health professions educator-innovator. He loves leveraging technologies that maximize learners’ capacities to become the awesome health professionals we all want in society. He is a professor at three San Francisco Bay Area universities: University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine; University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health; and Samuel Merritt University. He’s also a consultant to several health education technology companies.

Tanya Cupino, MD, PhD is a recent graduate of Loma Linda University. She has a PhD in microbiology and molecular genetics and a professional interest in adult patients with rare genetic conditions. In 2019, while still in medical school, she volunteered to participate in an international, asynchronous Wikipedia editing course that was sponsored by the medical learning platform Osmosis. After learning how to edit Wikipedia, Dr. Cupino collaborated with Dr. Guven and Dr. Azzam in designing an online course that teaches healthcare students how to improve the health content on Wikipedia. Dr. Cupino contributed to peer-reviewed publications that explore the multifactorial value-added outcomes in teaching healthcare professional students to edit Wikipedia, and has presented similar findings at research conferences. She is passionate about supporting any efforts to ensure trustworthy, approachable, fact-based resources that patients can freely access when they have questions about health concerns.

Scott Ewing, DO is an Interventional Cardiologist and medical educator in Fort Worth, Texas. Previously, he was a mechanical engineering manager at Texas Instruments in Dallas, Texas. He is board-certified in internal medicine, general cardiology, and interventional cardiology. He is an Assistant Professor and clinical preceptor at the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU. Additionally, he is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he teaches several cardiology classes, serves as 3rd-year Internal Medicine clerkship director, and teaches the TCOM WikiMed class twice yearly.

Tolga Guven, MD is a second-year ophthalmology resident in the U.K. and currently works as the Simulation Fellow for the Wessex Deanery where he is responsible for coordinating the surgical simulation education for the other residents in the region. As part of this fellowship, he is undertaking a PGCert in Healthcare Education. Dr. Guven previously served as a Histology and Embryology Lector at Charles University from 2017-2020, where his passion to make complex medical information more understandable and accessible began. Following on from this experience, he collaborated with Dr. Azzam on designing an online Wikipedia-editing course for healthcare students, which aims to improve the quality and accuracy of medical information available to the public. Dr. Guven brings a unique perspective to medical education, coming from a niche clinical specialty, with a commitment to accessible knowledge dissemination.

Sheila Kusnoor, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and holds roles as Senior Information Scientist and Associate Director for Research at the Center for Knowledge Management (CKM). Dr. Kusnoor earned her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular neuroscience from Vanderbilt University. She began her career at CKM as a Knowledge Management Fellow in Personalized Medicine, aiming to cultivate expertise in informatics and information science. In her current role, Dr. Kusnoor leads and supports a variety of projects to advance VUMC priorities, applying expertise in knowledge management and informatics. Dr. Kusnoor is the course director for the WikiMed advanced elective, which teaches third- and fourth-year medical students how to identify high quality evidence to enhance Wikipedia medicine articles.

Maureen Richards, PhD is an immunology and microbiology educator. She has been working with the Wikipedia Platform as a course director for the past 9 years and has run 7 courses with over 100 total students. She currently serves as the Assistant Dean of Medical Education and Evaluation and Associate Professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford Campus. 

We encourage any interested instructor to visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into their courses with Wiki Education’s free support and resources. 

This project is funded through a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award (EADI #38991).

As Senior Institutional Giving Officer, Lauren engages institutional funders to support Wiki Education’s work. In her role on our Advancement Team, Lauren cultivates a diverse group of mission-aligned organizations to support Wiki Education’s programs. Her work includes grant management, developing reports to demonstrate programmatic impact, expanding foundation relations, and supporting new strategic partnerships.

Lauren brings a broad range of fundraising experience to Wiki Education, including work at nonpartisan nonprofit think tanks and experience across both the public and private sectors. Most recently, she led institutional giving work at the Milken Institute across health, finance, strategic philanthropy, and international pillars, and previously served as Development Officer at the Pacific Council on International Policy. 

Lauren earned a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from The George Washington University and continued her education at the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Southern California. She completed her Masters of Public Administration at the University of Southern California in 2023. 

Lauren has called Los Angeles home since 2015. She enjoys fine arts, volunteering, and Formula 1 racing. 

Thanks to a new $410,000 strategic partnership grant from the WITH Foundation, Wiki Education will build upon our ongoing work to improve and expand Wikipedia’s coverage of healthcare for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, filling in gaps for the benefit of all. This initiative and the work of the disability experts, advocates, and students it will bring to Wikipedia will help ensure more of this missing information is available – and that it’s presented in a more representative, equitable, and accurate way. 

“WITH Foundation is deeply gratified to expand our partnership with Wiki Education. Ensuring accurate healthcare information about adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities is paramount. Through our continued support of this effort, we are confident that this initiative will continue to empower individuals, families, and professionals with the knowledge they need to foster a more inclusive society and comprehensive healthcare for adults with I/DD.” – Ryan Easterly, Executive Director, WITH Foundation.

Over the next two years, Wiki Education will run a series of Wiki Scientists courses that will support more than 50 experts in intellectual and developmental disability (I/DD) healthcare, including adults with lived experience of I/DD. 

Through our Wikipedia Student Program, we’ll also support postsecondary faculty in disability-related fields as they incorporate Wikipedia assignments into their pedagogy. By engaging faculty scholars, we’ll connect their own expertise to the project and the research efforts of their students as they enhance Wikipedia articles on I/DD as part of their academic coursework.

Guided by Wiki Education’s curriculum, resources, and staff support, participants across both the Wiki Scientists courses and the Wikipedia Student Program will tackle gaps in Wikipedia’s coverage of disabilities and disability healthcare information. They’ll work to transform existing articles from short, underdeveloped “stubs” to more thorough and representative content, as well as to create new articles for disabilities and disability healthcare topics still missing on Wikipedia.

How to Get Involved

Learn how to contribute your expertise

Interested in bringing your own expertise or lived experience to these efforts to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of disabilities and disability healthcare? We invite you to register for our upcoming Wiki Scientists courses! Learn more and register today by visiting learn.wikiedu.org.

Incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into your course

Are you a postsecondary instructor in the U.S. or Canada teaching in a disability or disability healthcare field? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to get started with our free resources, digital tools, and staff support to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into your courses.

Join our Speaker Series event (tomorrow!)

En“abling” Change: How Wiki Education is tackling disability on Wikipedia
Tuesday, April 22, 2025
11 am Pacific / 2 pm Eastern
Register for Zoom link

Panelists:

• Diana Boling, Xavier University School of Nursing
• Ryan Easterly, WITH Foundation
• Skylar Covich, Braille Institute of America
• Terri Hlava, Arizona State University School of Social Transformation

This edition of the Wiki Education Speaker Series will be moderated by Helaine Blumenthal, Senior Program Manager. We invite you to bring questions for our panelists!

The gender gap on Wikipedia extends across subjects and biographies to its contributors themselves – a gap that individuals, organized groups of editors, and organizations like Wiki Education are tackling head on.

In celebration of Women’s History Month, I had the pleasure of bringing together four scholars from across the country to explore the ongoing efforts to close the gender gap on Wikipedia. As part of Wiki Education’s monthly Speaker Series, the event “Persistence & Progress: Confronting Wikipedia’s gender imbalance” sparked meaningful dialogue between the panelists and our global audience.

Despite the ongoing and concentrated efforts of individuals and organizations alike, why do these gaps continue? One key reason is the precarity of labor as it relates to who contributes to Wikipedia, explained panelist Kira Wisniewski, Executive Director of Art + Feminism.

“It’s truly incredible that Wikipedia is the effort of millions of volunteers, but who actually has the ability to volunteer?” asked Wisniewski. “[For example], there have been many studies about how women, and particularly women of color, have been disproportionately affected by COVID. When you think of the factors of who is even able to volunteer, it helps reveal more answers on how these gaps appear and persist.”

Information activism and the work to support new editors is more important now than ever, emphasized Wisniewski: “What do people edit about? They edit about things they know…so that’s why working with students and getting people editing is so important.”

And there’s no doubt that professors like panelist Caroline Smith and her students are making significant progress in filling these gaps. Through their Wikipedia assignments, Smith’s students have collectively contributed 100,000 words to Wikipedia – and their work has been viewed more than 8 million times!

From the first time Smith incorporated the assignment into her Communicating Feminism course at The George Washington University, she noted how the coursework on Wikipedia resonated with her class. When her students looked for gender gaps in the online encyclopedia, they were surprised by just how much was missing – and that surprise created a sense of urgency to improve it, Smith observed.

“[They] found it so interesting and rewarding, and I think it spoke to some of the historical issues we were discussing throughout the semester in a really real, tangible way,” said Smith, who shows her students Wikipedia articles about their own institution to highlight gender gaps. “They were shocked to find that the amount of space devoted to the [Women’s Leadership] program is much less than some of the other things that happen on George Washington’s campus. Students see that and realize, even in this space I’m occupying right now, we’re seeing these imbalances.”

Like Smith, panelist Siobahn Day Grady also teaches with Wikipedia with free support from Wiki Education, empowering her students to add notable women and other historically excluded figures to the encyclopedia. Initially unsure about bringing a Wikipedia assignment into her course, Grady ultimately found the experience rewarding, just like her students.

“There are so many times when people don’t even recognize that they are worthy to have a Wikipedia article, that their contributions matter,” said Grady, a professor at North Carolina Central University. “I really take these moments as pure joy to celebrate the achievements of women doing amazing things that may not have an opportunity to have their work shared, if not through this work that we do with Wiki Education.”

Panelist Whitney James enrolled in a Wiki Education editing course in summer 2024 to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia herself, then incorporated Wikipedia assignments into her first-year writing courses. 

But the University of Notre Dame professor didn’t stop there – she joined two more of our editing courses to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women herself. As a new editor, James worked to improve existing content and created new Wikipedia articles for notable women including investor Tracy Gray and corporate sustainability expert Esther An.

“I feel like this work has a low barrier for entry and a really high impact,” said James. “It’s also very rewarding for me personally, which is an important self-care thing to think about. This is a really important space right now, and I’m happy to be part of it.”

As we wrapped up the discussion, I asked the panelists if they had advice for anyone who found our conversation interesting and liked the idea of a more inclusive Wikipedia, but didn’t feel like their individual efforts could make a difference on closing the gender gap. Smith kicked us off with a simple answer and a laugh.

“I would just say, no, that’s wrong,” said Smith. “Every voice matters and can make a difference. Maybe that’s oversimplifying, but I feel like it takes a lot of little movements to create broader change.”

Catch up on our Speaker Series on our YouTube channel and join us for our next webinar on Tuesday, April 22!

En “abling” Change: How Wiki Education is tackling disability on Wikipedia

Tuesday, April 22, 2025
11 am Pacific /  2 pm Eastern
REGISTER NOW

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. 

Visit learn.wikiedu.org to explore our editing courses for subject matter experts.

Connect with Art + Feminism at artandfeminism.org.

As Chief Administration and Financial Officer, Jordan works directly with Senior Leadership to build budgets, create financial forecasts, and make strategic recommendations, ensuring financial sustainability for our organization. Having owned two financial firms and served over 500 businesses in the Bay Area and beyond, Jordan brings a wealth of knowledge to her new role. Before joining our staff, Jordan worked with Wiki Education in a consulting capacity since 2016.

Jordan holds a BFA from University of California, Santa Cruz, where she focused on Intermedia Arts with a particular interest in Political Theory courses. Throughout her career in finance, Jordan has applied her background in philosophy, ethics and the duty of the arts to cultivate her holistic perspective towards organizational goals.

In her off-time, you can find Jordan in beautiful natural spaces on or around water – she loves to kayak, sail, swim, and spend time on the beach. Jordan also enjoys opportunities to build community by lending her professional skills to small businesses and upstarts.

Kelly Doyle Kim joins Wiki Education as Project Manager: Digital Heritage, focusing on the 250 by 2026 Campaign in our Wiki Scholars & Scientists program. In recognition of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, this new initiative will improve Wikipedia’s depth and coverage of American history.  Kelly will work closely with our Scholars & Scientists team, the American Association for State and Local History, and other cultural heritage organizations and professionals throughout the project. 

With over a decade of experience in the Wikimedia and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) sectors, Kelly is deeply passionate about bridging gaps in the cultural narrative and ensuring that diverse voices are represented in the digital space.

Prior to joining Wiki Education, Kelly worked at the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum, where she focused on addressing Wikipedia’s gender gap and amplifying the achievements of women in the US. She also previously served as Community Manager for Democratic Commons at mySociety, Wikimedian in Residence for Gender Equity at West Virginia University Libraries, and as an instructor in our Wiki Scholars & Scientists program.

Outside of work, Kelly enjoys exploring new restaurants, crafting pottery in her garage studio, and spending time at the local beaches of Charleston, South Carolina, where she lives with her husband and daughter.

Inspired by his previous research experiences, Ariyaratne focused his efforts on improving the Wikipedia articles for type 1 diabetes and the RAGE receptor, adding valuable information and several new sections to both articles. 

Thousands of words and more than 70 new citations later, and Ariyaratne’s contributions to Wikipedia have already been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. 

Throughout the project, Ariyaratne aimed to ensure that his contributions would provide readers with a clearer understanding of the complexity and dynamism of the biological systems involved in both topics, as well the ongoing challenges and advancements in the field of diabetes research.

And the benefits of Ariyaratne’s Wikipedia assignment aren’t limited to only those who will read his work. The experience also enhanced his own understanding of the topic, along with sharpening his writing and research skills, he explained.

“During my contributions to Wikipedia, I refined my expertise in scientific communication and critical analysis, essential for synthesizing complex research findings into coherent, accessible content,” said Ariyaratne. “This task required rigorous validation of information and precise articulation of intricate biological mechanisms, thereby enhancing my competency in data interpretation and literature evaluation – skills integral to scientific inquiry and academic rigor.”

Interested in learning more about Ariyaratne’s experience editing Wikipedia as part of his coursework? Explore our interview below to find out how he views Wikipedia’s role in shaping public perception and understanding, what he enjoyed most about his Wikipedia assignment, and why he plans to continue to edit the online encyclopedia.

How did you feel about your assignment on Wikipedia compared to a traditional assignment?

Editing Wikipedia differed markedly from traditional academic assignments in both scope and impact. Unlike traditional assignments, which are typically confined to the academic environment and primarily assessed by instructors, contributing to Wikipedia allowed me to engage with a global audience. This broadened the significance of my work, as the content I edited and updated could potentially influence public knowledge and understanding worldwide.

The real-time, collaborative nature of Wikipedia editing also introduced a unique set of challenges and rewards. It required a heightened level of accountability and thoroughness, knowing that the information provided would be publicly accessible and subject to scrutiny by an extensive community of editors and readers. This added a practical dimension to my academic training, emphasizing the importance of accuracy and the impact of shared knowledge.

This experience was enriching and empowering, offering a tangible connection between my academic studies and their real-world applications. It fostered a sense of responsibility and pride in contributing to an educational resource that people rely on every day, which is a distinct and valuable departure from the typical results of traditional assignments.

How was writing this particular content meaningful to you?

Engaging in the editing and creation of science-related content for Wikipedia has been profoundly meaningful to my professional development and scholarly pursuits. This process allowed me to apply and expand my understanding of bioinformatics and molecular biology, areas critical to my research on disease pathophysiology. By translating complex scientific theories and data into accessible content, I played a direct role in circulating accurate scientific knowledge.

How would you describe the power of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia plays a substantial influence in shaping global awareness and understanding of a vast array of topics due to its universal accessibility and extensive reach. As an open-source platform that allows users from all over the world to edit and contribute, it provides access to information and makes knowledge accessible to anyone with internet access. This inclusivity is crucial for educational equity and promotes a diverse range of perspectives in content creation.

Moreover, Wikipedia’s model encourages continual updates and revisions, ensuring that information remains current and reflective of the latest consensus in various fields, including science and medicine. This dynamic process of content refinement helps maintain reliability and accuracy, despite the open-edit nature of the platform. I also believe that Wikipedia is a tool that is used in bridging the gap between expert knowledge and general understanding.

What was your favorite part of editing Wikipedia?

My favorite part of editing Wikipedia was the satisfaction I felt from contributing towards global knowledge. This platform allowed me to directly enhance the accuracy and depth of information available to millions around the world. Specifically, I enjoyed incorporating cutting-edge scientific research into articles, ensuring that complex and evolving topics like Type 1 diabetes and the RAGE receptor are represented with the most current and comprehensive data. This task not only deepened my own understanding but also allowed me to share crucial scientific insights in a way that is accessible to a broad audience.

Moreover, the immediate and visible impact of my contributions provided a unique satisfaction that traditional academic work rarely offers. Knowing that the updates I made could help students, educators, researchers, and the curious public to better understand complex scientific topics was incredibly rewarding. The collaborative and dynamic nature of the Wikipedia community, where edits can be discussed and refined collectively, also added a layer of engagement and community interaction that enriched the experience further.

What was your least favorite part?

One technical challenge I experienced while editing Wikipedia involved mastering the Wiki markup language (Wikitext). For those without prior experience, the learning curve can be challenging. Ensuring that articles are not only factually accurate but also well-organized and visually appealing requires proficiency in this specialized language.

Will you continue to edit?

I will of course continue to edit. My experience editing Wikipedia has been immensely rewarding, offering me the opportunity to contribute to the global exchange of knowledge on crucial scientific topics. I plan to continue editing and updating articles, as this aligns with my commitment to educating the public as well as my passion for science communication. Engaging with this platform allows me to stay connected with the latest research developments and ensures that information shared with the public remains accurate and relevant. This ongoing involvement not only strengthens my own understanding but also supports my professional growth in the field of sciences and medicine.

Our support for STEM classes like Gallage Ariyaratne’s is available thanks to the Guru Krupa Foundation.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

“Contributing a biography of a diverse person in STEM to Wikipedia is a significant step towards addressing the underrepresentation of women and people of color on the platform. As a STEM major and a black woman, I find it empowering to see [these] individuals recognized for their contributions, as it validates the importance of diversity in these fields and provides role models for future generations, including myself.”

“Editing Wikipedia was life-changing.”

Two years ago, Wiki Education announced a grant from the Broadcom Foundation to bring historically excluded figures in STEM to light by connecting higher education classrooms to Wikipedia. 

The student quotes above, merely a fraction of the insightful participant feedback we’ve received along the way, underscore the multi-layered and profound impact of this project – on the individual student editors throughout their research and writing processes, and on their peers and on generations to come, inspired by these new contributions to Wikipedia.

Our partnership with Broadcom Foundation brought 131 new biographies of diverse leaders in STEM to Wikipedia, including historic figures like Blanche J. Lawrence, a biochemist who worked on the Manhattan Project, Mariah Gladstone, founder of online cooking platform Indigikitchen, and George Biddle Kelley, New York’s first officially registered Black engineer.

And now, thanks to generous new funding from the Broadcom Foundation, higher education students at institutions across the country will continue to build upon these efforts to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of diverse leaders in STEM. 

“This partnership is one of the most important Broadcom Foundation has engaged in,” said Paula Golden, president of the Broadcom Foundation. “It brings stories of important STEM pioneers to light that inspire young people of diverse backgrounds and ethnicities to follow in their footsteps.”

Supported by Wiki Education’s resources and staff, the students will focus on expanding STEM biographies on Wikipedia, particularly of women and people of color in math and engineering, to showcase the pioneers who look like them.

The project will engage faculty members new to the Wikipedia Student Program, in addition to those who will have previously empowered their students to improve and add to Wikipedia’s biographies through their Wikipedia assignments.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

“Each of the articles that my classmates and I worked on were all lacking information,” explained Fulton, a sophomore. “Our goal was to improve and transform these ‘stub’ articles. I chose to work on the article Oemleria cerasiformis, which is a plant that is native to the Pacific Northwest, and it’s also growing in my yard at home!” 

Fully embracing the challenge to transform the article, Fulton expanded the lead and added new sections on the plant’s taxonomy, description, phenology, and habitat, as well as several subsections throughout the text. She also significantly improved the article’s existing content, including information about the plant’s fossil record and the uses of its wood and fruit, which is the source of its common name osoberry. 

To reshape and radically expand the article, Fulton drew from a variety of scientific research publications, including journals and books that explore botany, ecology, and biology. 

“As I worked on this article, I learned lots of new information on this plant – that I see very often – that I did not know beforehand,” shared Fulton. “I also learned how to edit a Wikipedia article for the first time. Working on this article helped introduce me to professional writing on a scientific subject for a wide audience, a skill that will help me in school and in my future career.”

Fulton was not alone in her editing efforts, nor in the considerable impact she made on Wikipedia’s coverage of plants. Thanks to the work of her fellow classmates, the Wikipedia articles about species like Abelmoschus ficulneus (or white wild musk mallow) and Artemisia abrotanum (the southern wormwood), both flowering plants used medicinally, are now considerably more informative for readers.

And unlike Fulton, some students in the course looked far beyond their own backyards as they chose a species to research.

One student contributed more than 1,300 words and 26 citations to enhance the content of plants like Angelica glauca, which grows at high altitudes in areas from eastern Afghanistan through the western Himalayas and Tibet. Another student editor created a new article about an endangered variety of conifer endemic to Taiwan, Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. wilsoniana (commonly known as the Taiwan plum yew).   

Collectively, Fulton and her classmates brought an impressive 23,000 new words and 328 citations to Wikipedia’s coverage of plant species – and have since inspired other Wikipedia editors to engage with the content and make their own contributions, as well.  

Hero image of Oemleria cerasiformis by Michael Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Our support for STEM classes like Jenny Fulton’s is available thanks to the Guru Krupa Foundation.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.

– Ekaterina Schiavone Hennighausen, first-year student at The George Washington University

And to the benefit of readers worldwide, Schiavone’s attention to detail paid off. When assigned the task of editing Wikipedia as part of her coursework last term, the international business major decided to combine her passion for sports with the mission to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of women.

“I’m really big into sports and I wanted to make sure that there’s a section talking about the women involved in Formula One, because they’re such a huge contributor to the sport, but they weren’t mentioned at all on Wikipedia,” explained Schiavone. 

Thanks to her efforts, the highly-trafficked article now includes a section with information about female engineers, past drivers, and other notable women involved in the sport. 

Last month, Schiavone and three other postsecondary student editors from across the country gathered virtually as the featured panelists for our Speaker Series webinar “Beyond the Classroom: Student editors improve Wikipedia.” Although the four students had never connected previously, their collaborative discussion often led to the discovery of shared sentiments, experiences, and reflections.

Like Schiavone, North Carolina Central University graduate student Johnny Shanahan felt an increased pressure from the open, accessible nature of Wikipedia, but his uncertainty quickly turned to appreciation.

“The public-facing element was maybe a little intimidating at first glance, but it ended up being a huge advantage throughout the whole process,” explained Shanahan, who created a new article for chemist Joseph Gordon II. “We had partners assigned for our subjects, and it’s not always easy to write something with more than one person contributing. The platform itself made it really, really easy and helpful, and there weren’t any bumps in the road that I had in other classes where we had group projects.” 

While Shanahan noted that he generally received positive feedback from Wikipedia editors, his fellow panelist Jianan Li experienced a rockier start to her work creating a new Wikipedia article about loneliness in old age.

After reviewing the constructive feedback her draft received and more thoroughly exploring the structure of existing Wikipedia articles, the UCLA graduate student set out to revise her text, rewriting the article in a more neutral tone and removing the argumentative style she was accustomed to using.

While Wikipedia already had a lengthy article about loneliness, Li was surprised at how little the article talked about older adults, given that they are at particular risk. During the panel discussion, Li expressed gratitude to the Wikipedia editors who engaged with her work on the new article, providing the feedback needed to align the article with Wikipedia’s style and tone.

“I feel this community is so alive because they are real people,” said Li, who ultimately received a special token of appreciation from a Wikipedia editor in recognition of her efforts. “They really make contributions to the articles with you, together. And on the talk page you will see a ‘thank’ button, so you can always thank them for their feedback and contributions that make this process more fun.”

As the panel discussion came to a close, moderator Brianda Felix asked the students to share something about their Wikipedia experience that surprised them. Brigham Young University history major Phoebe England highlighted three key areas:

“First, that I could even edit Wikipedia – I didn’t know that I, as a college student, could do that,” she emphasized. “Another thing was just how regulated Wikipedia is, and then the last thing that surprised me is how many people and things aren’t on Wikipedia that should be. It’s just insane the gaps that are there. I think this is such a great project for students because there’s still so many people and things that should be on Wikipedia that just aren’t yet.”

Schiavone, who was also surprised by Wikipedia’s regulations and editing guidelines,  echoed England’s reflection.

“It was really interesting to unravel everything that I learned in high school about Wikipedia,” said Schiavone. “There are so many people editing and monitoring what’s being put on Wikipedia that it can actually be used as a really helpful source and not just a starting place.”

Catch up on our Speaker Series on our YouTube channel and join us for our next webinar tomorrow, March 13!

Persistence & Progress: Confronting Wikipedia’s gender imbalance

Thursday, March 13 (10 am PST / 1 pm EST)
REGISTER NOW

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada.