Academics and Wikipedia 

Among many academics, Wikipedia has a poor reputation. It’s not uncommon for college professors to discourage students from using the site or penalize them for quoting, citing or referencing it in their written work. Usually left unstated, the assumption behind this attitude is that, since it does not go through the channels of peer review characteristic of academic research, Wikipedia content doesn’t meet the right standards of accuracy and verifiability, and is, therefore, inherently unreliable. In this way, academia’s model of legitimation via peer review (in which quality control is ensured by vetted scholars in positions of institutional power) is pitted against Wikipedia’s more malleable and decentralized model (in which quality control is distributed across a wide network of agents known as “Wikipedians” who build content and fact-check one another collectively).

This resistance is hardly surprising given that we academics are trained from the earliest stages of our professional formation to equate scholarship with the system of peer-review that has ruled higher education, by some accounts, since the 1600s. For many of us, scholarship is synonymous with peer-reviewed works, which is to say, publications anonymously evaluated and approved by experts in the field. Measured against this standard, of course, Wikipedia’s model of knowledge production looks more than vulgar and unrefined. It looks positively dubious. By shunning legitimation by the few in favor of legitimation by the many, this model seems to do away with the very notion of expertise, and to confuse what the Greeks called doxa (opinion) for episteme (knowledge). Since anyone and everyone can be a Wikipedian, or so the argument goes, anything and everything can end up on Wikipedia, regardless of whether it’s true or false. 

While we cannot deny that Wikipedia’s model of knowledge production has its limits (which model doesn’t?), it is revealing that those who oppose it most feverishly tend to be those who are least familiar with it, with what it is and how it works. For instance, even critics who know that behind every Wikipedia page there is a large community of contributors who fact-check, update, and cross-reference its claims may not realize that behind this community there is a complex constellation of rules, guidelines, and principles regulating the behavior of its members. Yes, practically anyone can become a Wikipedian. But this does not mean that Wikipedia is a digital Wild West where “anything goes.”

Thanks to its internal quality control mechanisms, Wikipedia often yields content that matches,  in terms of epistemic merit, the best of what the academic system of peer review has to offer. As early as 2005, a mere four years after Wikipedia’s launch, the prestigious journal Nature published an article showing that entries on the new site surpassed those in the Encyclopedia Britannica in terms of accuracy and credibility, putting the newcomer above its more prestigious cousin as far as epistemic reliability is concerned. Since then, the line between academia’s centralized and Wikipedia’s decentralized models of legitimation has only continued to blur. Nowadays, more and more academics are incorporating Wikipedia into their courses in one way or another, with a few even suggesting that academic scholarship should emulate Wikipedia’s malleable approach to knowledge creation in order to meet the informational and pedagogical challenges of the new century.  

Wikipedia In the Classroom

In early 2024, I partnered with Wiki Education (a nonprofit that seeks to improve Wikipedia) to incorporate a Wikipedia assignment into a course I planned to teach that summer entitled “Humanities 315: The History of Science From the Scientific Revolution.” Beginning from the Copernican revolution in astronomical physics, this course traced the evolution of modern science through the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, paying attention to the progression of scientific concepts “from above,” as well as to the social, cultural, and political forces that shape scientific rationality “from below.”

At the time, Wiki Education was promoting an initiative designed to close a gap in Wikipedia’s archive. By Wikipedia’s own admission, scientists from traditionally underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (Latinx, Black, Asian, Pacific-Islander, Indigenous, etc.) are significantly underrepresented on “the free encyclopedia,” resulting in a problematic imbalance. So, Wiki Education was on the hunt for professors who might be interested in incorporating an assignment into their classes that would put students to work on closing this gap. The basic idea was that students would become temporary Wikipedians and write biographical entries for influential scientists from minoritarian backgrounds who did not yet have a presence on the site.A two-in-one package, the assignment sought to educate students about the ins-and-outs of Wikipedia while giving them an opportunity to help address a concrete racial injustice tied to digital representation.

Given that my course dealt explicitly with how classism, patriarchy, and white supremacy have influenced the history of Western science (and given my own interest in the relationship between racial oppression and the politics of knowledge), I decided to apply. Upon hearing I was accepted, I quickly edited my course syllabus to make room for the five-week long assignment, which asked students to:

1. Create a Wikipedia profile 
2. Familiarize themselves with Wikipedia’s “backend” software program (where the content that will eventually appears on the site is created, edited, and fact-checked)
3. Select a scientist from an underrepresented community from a list provided by Wiki Education
4. Conduct research on that scientist’s personal history, educational background, and contributions to the fields of science and technology 
5. Write, in groups of four or five, an entry on that scientist adhering to Wikipedia’s policies concerning citations and references, and 
6. Publish their entry (pending approval by site)

Students didn’t have to reach the final stage (publication) to receive full credit for the assignment, but they did have to complete all the steps leading up to it. And they were graded based on how far into the assignment they got and on the quality of their individual contributions to the collective writing effort. (I should mention that, as part of the initiative, Wiki Education provided support in the form of a $700 stipend and two staff members who helped answer student questions about how to create entries on the site). 

Summer came and went, and the assignment was by and large a success. Though there were hiccups along the way (some students produced entries that didn’t meet Wikipedia’s standard for publication, while others didn’t bother creating a profile in the first place), the majority of students reported enjoying every stage of the process. 

 For starters, many were thrilled to learn about how Wikipedia pages are made. Although none of my students were Wikipedians prior to the class, all of them reported visiting the site on a regular basis, even when professors explicitly warned against it. Wikipedia was already a key part of their online experience, a recurring digital landing spot. Thus, seeing the backend program, familiarizing themselves with the platform’s rules and regulations, and seeing a collectivist model of knowledge production in action helped demystify the site, which in turn gave them a more nuanced understanding of its various strengths and limitations. For example, the assignment enabled them to see that even if Wikipedia content isn’t put through the grind of traditional methods of peer review, it is subject to norms of accuracy and verification that make it more reliable than the average blog, website, or social media profile. At the same time, this behind-the-scenes access clarified for them that while Wikipedia may be good for general information about a large variety of topics, it’s not the place to go for original research and innovative discoveries. 

“Real” Writing 

The most common refrain I heard from students as we debriefed about the experience at the end of the summer semester was that they were proud to have finally worked on “something real.” “I felt like this was my first real assignment in a college class,” one said. Another followed with: “It was more real than writing the usual essay.” 

I confess: I didn’t respond well to these claims. I balked at the suggestion that traditional classroom assignments (the weekly response, the midterm essay, the final project, etc.) were somehow less substantive or less real than assignments that simply happened to have the name of a recognizable organization attached to them. Was writing for Wikipedia readers really more “real” than writing for me, or were my students just awe-struck by the fact that they were contributing to one of the most famous online platforms? 

It was a fair question. Or so I thought. 

After mulling over their comments for a couple of days, however, I realized that my reaction was…well, reactionary. Rather than listening to what my students were telling me about their experience of the assignment, I chose to worry about what I thought their comments meant about my teaching style, which regularly features the kinds of assignments they characterized as not-so-real. By projecting this insecurity onto my students, I failed to listen to them and to do what every professor should aspire to do, which is meet students halfway in conversation. To course-correct, I had to ask myself a question that demanded more careful consideration: In invoking the so-called reality of this assignment, what were my students flagging for me about assignments, homework, and education more generally? What did this concept mean to them such that it seemed to illuminate their experience? No sooner than I framed the problem in this manner, I came to see their comments in a new light–no longer as veiled criticisms of my pedagogy, but as sincere critiques of our education system and what traditional approaches to pedagogy do to students’ relationship to writing. 

From an early age, students are taught to write for their professors. Every student knows that what they produce in the classroom will rarely, if ever, be seen by anyone other than the person who has the power to give them an ‘A’ or an ‘F.’ Thus, for most students, writing is tangled up from the get-go with complex dynamics of power, discipline, and submission. Given the asymmetrical nature of the student-teacher relationship, it’s only a matter of time before students learn to give their teachers what they (the students) think they (their teachers) want. So, students master a skill that isn’t easy to unlearn. They learn to write exclusively  for “the Professor,” that amorphous character whose power in the classroom is virtually unchecked. From elementary school to college, the task is the same: Here is a topic, now write about it for an audience of exactly one (where the “one” in question is the person with power over you)! 

One consequence of writing under these conditions is that students are never asked to imagine what they might have to (or want to) say to a broader audience, by which I mean an audience composed of different kinds of people, each of which with their own reasons for wanting to listen in. This, I now believe, is what the Wikipedia assignment offered my students for the first time in their lives. It offered them an audience that wasn’t “the Professor,” an audience of not-me. And my students experienced this as a breath of fresh air. This new audience freed them from me, but it also freed them to imagine a host of other subjects in the position of “reader,” which altered their psychological landscape. I still remember one student in particular, a humanities major, who said: “It’s kinda cool that my mom might read this. I know she’ll want to show it to her friends and to my aunts. Maybe it will help her understand what I’ve been doing in college!” For that student, this assignment was more real. It was more real because it had the power to touch her social world and maybe even make it tilt. Had any other assignment ever done that? 

Furthermore, the mere prospect of having one’s writing “out there” (read: in the World Wide Web) was also transformative for some students. For them, the overarching question was no longer “What should I write in order to get the grade I want?” but “Knowing that strangers may read what I write, what do I actually want to say and how?” Even when my students didn’t reach the final stage of publishing their work on Wikipedia, the possibility that their work might have a life beyond the classroom was enough to shake things up and give them a glimpse of what another relationship to writing might look like.

Conclusion

Of course, I do not want to romanticize the Wikipedia assignment. Some of my students were annoyed by the assignment from the start. Others found the backend program counterintuitive and hard to use (and on this point, I concur). But even the students who complained about the nuts and bolts of the task later reported feeling happy about having participated in a pedagogical exercise with a political mission: helping scientists from underrepresented backgrounds receive the recognition they deserve. 

In effect, I could say that the Wikipedia assignment turned my classroom into an interesting house of mirrors where diversity was reflected off of multiple surfaces at once. Firstly, I, a professor of color, was teaching a class about the historical exclusion of minorities from the modern scientific project. Secondly, I was teaching this material to a highly diverse group of undergraduates attending at a Hispanic-Serving (HSI) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (AANAPISI). And finally, I was asking these students at this institution to help correct one of the ways in which this historical exclusion continues to be felt in the here and now—namely, the “gap” in Wikipedia’s coverage of the history of science and technology. My hope is that by learning to move between these layers of reflection, students came out of my summer class with a better appreciation of the gaps that have shaped our past and continue to inform our present. 

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.

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.

Joined virtually by attendees from across the globe, our panelists explored how the public and healthcare professionals alike turn to Wikipedia for reliable information, the impact of Wikipedia content on patient-physician communications, and the critical need for ongoing improvement of healthcare topics on the encyclopedia.

Whether our search for information is sparked by something we read in a book, watch on the news, or learn from a medical diagnosis, Wikipedia is the first stop we make online, emphasized panelist Maureen Richards, assistant professor and assistant dean at University of Illinois College of Medicine.

“Patients get a diagnosis, they receive a test result, and they Google it,” explained Richards. “If they have been using Wikipedia in all other facets of their life…they’re going to click on it and believe what it says – which means that those of us who have had the opportunity to study [healthcare] have a responsibility to ensure that information on Wikipedia is accurate and well-founded in scientific research.”

Richards, who first incorporated a Wikipedia assignment into her courses in 2020, noted her appreciation for how the project provides her medical students with the opportunity to practice the language of research and to learn how to synthesize primary literature for a greater audience. 

Like Richards, professor Amin Azzam assigns coursework on Wikipedia to his own medical students. Azzam underscores the critical, real-world nature of the work to his classes by encouraging them to explore the readership trend on any health-related Wikipedia article.

“When you look at article traffic statistics, there’s always a five peaks and two valleys pattern that reoccurs,” noted Azzam, who challenges his students to explain this pattern. “It’s weekdays and weekends, because exactly as Maureen said, people get diagnoses, and then they go home and read about them on Wikipedia. It really is incumbent upon us to make it as accurate as possible.”

Lending her perspective as a new Wikipedia editor herself, physician and policy researcher Gabriela Alvarado echoed the assertions made by her fellow panelists. As Alvarado explained, the platform’s accessible nature is a significant draw for those seeking answers to healthcare questions. She noted Wikipedia’s understandable language, clear visual formatting, and of course, one very simple but powerful characteristic of accessibility – it’s free to read.

“My family members will search for something and a paywall comes up on a journal,” shared Alvarado, who participated in a Wiki Scientists course focused on improving reproductive and women’s healthcare content. “The average person who isn’t affiliated with a school library can’t pay $50 for each academic journal they want to read. It’s a recurring conversation that academics have with themselves – are we screaming into this echo chamber? Why are we doing the work that we’re doing, who’s actually reading it, and who are we serving with our research?”

Just like Alvarado, health researcher Izidora Skracic was compelled to join the Wiki Scientists editing course to help improve public access to critical healthcare information. While Alvarado created a new Wikipedia article on breastmilk storage and handling, Skracic lent her efforts to enhancing high-traffic articles including Unintended pregnancy, Intrauterine device, and Contraceptive implant.

When asked for her best advice for new editors, Skracic recommended newcomers start small and work their way up to large-scale editing.

“In order to start, pick one sentence somewhere on any Wikipedia article that you’re reading, and just say, I’m going to make this sentence better – whether that means adding a citation, adding a second part of a sentence, or just adding more updated information,” said Skracic. “And as you build confidence, go bigger.”

Catch up on our Speaker Series on our YouTube channel, including “The Experts Behind the Edits: Expanding public understanding of healthcare,” and join us for our next webinar tomorrow, February 18!

Beyond the Classroom: Student editors improve Wikipedia
Tuesday, February 18 (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. 

I teach media effects to professional public communication students. I used the Wikipedia assignment as a final collaborative project in a 300 level class that meets the diversity requirement for Newhouse undergraduate students across majors including journalism, advertising, public relations, television, radio, and film, music business, and more.

This course is situated at the intersection of American history, psychology, and the media industry to help contextualize how media impacts society, specifically with respect to perpetuating long standing disparities. I was excited to incorporate the Wikipedia assignment into this course to demonstrate how the absence of available information (and perspectives) is just as important as the information that is available. Especially in the wake of the 20th century where an exponential increase in content and accessibility can cause people to believe that what is not recorded is not valuable (Corsbie-Massay, 2021, p54).

Project Process

Students began with a personal exploration of how they use Wikipedia and what they have been told about the quality of information on Wikipedia. Almost everyone reported relying  on Wikipedia for context at some point, even though past teachers and instructors repeatedly warned them that the information on Wikipedia was not reliable. However, only a handful (<10%) had ever attempted to edit a Wikipedia page. 

We then read “Interrupting epistemicide: A practical framework for naming, identifying, and ending epistemic injustice in the information professions” from Patin et al. (2021) and discussed how the absence of information impacted ongoing institutions and systemic disparities. We also had a guest lecture from the University Librarian affiliated with Newhouse that described the resources available through the library and the importance of discerning, digitizing, and distributing information. 

I then provided students with a list of locally relevant topics that did not have Wikipedia pages, or whose pages were categorized as “Stub.” This list was wide ranging and included neighborhoods (33%) and local non profits (26%), as well as gay bars, historical markers, and even the jail located just 1 mile away from our classroom. Students indicated their preference and were paired accordingly. At the end of the semester, each pair recorded and posted a 4m presentation to the class webpage answering the following questions…

1. What did you find most interesting about writing a Wikipedia Article?
2. What did you find most difficult about writing a Wikipedia Article?
3. How did the class content connect to this experience?
4. What should readers of your article be sensitized to?
5. How do you hope future Wikipedians will edit/add to your article? 

What I Observed: Generational differences in working “under the hood”

The students really struggled with the interface of Wikipedia, which was interesting for a generation that has been labeled “tech savvy.” The project reminded them that there is a difference between content and technology: Creating content has become so user-friendly, creators do not need  a proper understanding of how things work “under the hood.” I don’t know if any students attended the office hours held by Wiki Education (then again, few students come to my own office hours) and although they completed the exercises associated with the project (for which they received credit), they moved quickly through the assignments and still expressed confusion. In the end almost all of the pairs made it work, but those who waited until the last minute really suffered. 

Furthermore, only a handful of students sought information that was not already digitized (e.g., newspapers, library resources), despite extensive discussion regarding the digital divide and information injustice.  I thought that public communications students would be excited to publicly communicate the information from the not-so-distant past, but several students stated in their reflections that they couldn’t find additional information online and gave up. This surprised me as  I thought I had made it clear that most sources existed before the internet and  if something is not online then that means it simply hasn’t yet been found. In my opinion, the students did not yet recognize that digitizing the past is a desperate social need. 

What My Students Observed: Wikipedia is not a source, it is a resource.

Many described the strange feeling of being on the other side of the Wikipedia interface but by the end of the semester, they reported a greater understanding of how Wikipedia is made. This helped improve their ability to use Wikipedia as a resource, including contributing and editing. Many journalism students also expressed that the objective lens required by Wikipedia did not align with how they were taught to write; they were taught to share objective information through a subjective lens (i.e., storytelling) to engage the audience. The project also revealed the collective backend labor involved in every Wikipedia contribution. Together, these observations help disabuse the students of  talking points they heard  prior to the project (i.e., “You can’t trust Wikipedia”). 

Students ultimately connected this exercise to recognizing epistemic injustice as well as the role of Wikipedia in working to overcome social disparities. They saw ways to contribute to the public discourse and elevate public awareness through Wikipedia as a popular independent information resource. We talked about hyperlinking local entities (e.g., non-profits, neighborhoods) to other state or national pages with more web traffic, as well as the importance of information evolution (e.g., information was not just “outdated,” it needed to be “updated,” and this ongoing gap always provided new stories and angles to pursue). Overall, they responded positively to the exercise as it gave them insight into a staple of their information ecosystem (Introne, et al., 2024). 

In Conclusion

I would definitely do this project again. It was an honor to digitize and distribute information about local entities. Having said that, the learning curve for the students was sharp as was the learning curve for me as the instructor. In the future, I would probably dedicate a lecture to going through some of the exercises as a group to ensure students do not rush through this important material and that everyone was on the same page (literally!). But at the end of the semester, I really felt like we were helping advance a cause associated with a popular quote from author and activist Grace Lee Boggs: “History is not the past. It is the stories we tell about the past” (Boggs & Kurashige, 2012, p. 79). Therefore by synthesizing and digitizing stories from the past, we are literally doing the work of writing history. 

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.

For over a decade I have taught a history and political science course on American citizenship that coincides with the fall election season in even-numbered years. In my usual version, students wrote concise research papers posted to a public-facing website (one which, it must be admitted, garners negligible page views). So I already had oriented the course slightly towards student work designed to engage with the general public, away from the kind of final assignment destined to sit in my learning management system’s gated garden forever, likely not even retrieved by its own author. Joining Wiki Education for Fall 2024 and having my 20 students live-edit Wikipedia articles, I suspected, could be a better way of achieving course goals of having students see the relevance of their research in real time, with authentic stakes. 

My students (and I) definitely found a Wikipedia-editing project challenging. Before the class began I selected about 40 course-related articles rated S or C class from which to choose, but they varied greatly in length, complexity, and research potential. There is a steep learning curve to navigating Wikipedia’s editing platform, even though Wiki Education’s tutorials are well-designed to guide students through the basics and get them editing confidently. I had to consider how much class time to devote to project instruction, debriefing, and troubleshooting, reducing some instructional time on other topics. Only a few students easily found scholarly reference material or saw immediate ways to improve their article, while others kept digging but couldn’t find many new sources or and got stuck on how to change what was already there.

Grading posed its own difficulties, which came up frequently in the weekly office hours held by the Wiki Education team. How could I standardize performance expectations when the articles were themselves so different? How would students know they were “done”? Would I grant an equivalent grade to those who added references or images vs. those who rearranged section text vs.  those who cleaned up jargon? If I wasn’t grading on word count, number of sources added, or longevity of edits, then what, precisely, were students being evaluated on? Especially as a first-timer, I found it helpful to talk with other instructors working through these issues. Focusing more on process and progress – evaluated partly by weekly journals and how well they stayed on track with the project schedule – rather than final product quality, resolved some (but not all) of the grading concerns. The dashboard is extremely well-designed both for student users and for faculty instructors, giving me clear access to their work and allowing progress-tracking throughout the semester.  

Despite these struggles, my students “got” the assignment in ways that were truly invigorating. For many of them Wikipedia had been a taboo source, one they’re not allowed to cite in college papers and had been actively steered away from in the past – yet one they all used regularly, sometimes guiltily. This project made them better users of the site, as it introduced them to the community of Wikipedians and their robust editorial policies, all of which was invisible to them before. Their audience became clearer: they weren’t writing just for their professor, but for general readers like themselves. Contributing to articles on voting rights, immigration law and citizenship requirements – in an election year, no less – lent urgency and importance to their work. 

In reflective essays at the end of the project, my students expressed genuine pride in what they’d accomplished. 14 out of 18 respondents gave themselves an A or B grade, citing specific improvements to their article and describing the level of effort, time, and care they put into the project (I will note I tended to concur with those self-assessments!). Through class peer review and feedback they got from fellow Wikipedia editors, they got a better grasp on the collaborative nature of knowledge, as comments like these attest:

“I also realized that people present information in different ways. Large projects like this one highlight that including a variety of perspectives makes the information richer and more meaningful, allowing us to share different insights on important topics.” 

“I thought that you could just add any information on Wikipedia and that it was easy to put in false information on the platform but after seeking the rules and expectations Wikipedia has, I realized its sole focus is for others to share together on important topics. It is a great way for minds to come together.” 

“I had to make sure to provide information directly from the source without injecting anything I thought or bias into it, even subconsciously. It was genuinely a great learning experience in that regard. Even beyond learning about Wikipedia itself, this project serves as a great thought exercise to really probe your mind and contemplate how you process and regurgitate information.” 

“I would say I learned a lot more about the process of research than the actual research topic itself as it was pretty straightforward … The overall process of understanding the topic to finding credible sources that you have to make sure to insert very specifically according to the guidelines was definitely intensive.” 

“I definitely feel better suited for research projects in the future after this, as I feel I’ve learned the importance of adjusting your scope in research as well as prioritizing credible sources.” 

I asked my students if I should repeat this project the next time I taught the course. I fully expected the class would tell me it was a good one-time experiment. Instead, I was amazed to see 17 of the 18 respondents said Yes or Maybe to that survey question. 

“Being able to see edits and the community working firsthand, along with how deeply they look into edits and sources, has been a great way to understand how one of the largest websites in the world functions. It would be great if more students, and people in general, could see this firsthand and understand this… I will genuinely go forward having much more faith in Wikipedia, along with being able to check sources when I’m skeptical, and plan to tell others about this exact thing. Overall it might be worth further experimenting how to go about it, but I’d rate the project 8/10 and can certainly say I learned something important to apply to real life from it.” 

“I loved this project, it felt like we did more than just a final project. We did something to help more people and if we continue to be passionate about this type of work we can continue to work on it moving forward.” 

“The project was crucial in the improvement of our analytical and professional writing skills. I enjoyed [peer review] as it provided me with a strong foundation of suggestions I should always apply to my writing. It was awesome to contribute to academic content on the internet.” 

“This was out of my comfort zone for assignments since it took learning a whole new system … I felt hesitant to add information and contribute as much as I could because I was conscious of, ‘is this the wrong thing to add’ or ‘if I take this part out will affect how the reader understands the article,’ but overall the assignment was interesting and it took learning a topic to a whole new level.” 

The students in Citizen Nation at Worcester State University in Fall 2024 edited 19 articles. They added 9.65K new words (many of which are still there as of this writing), 115 new references (most from academic database references), and have gotten 288k article views. The possibilities – and results – of adapting my standard research project into a Wiki Education collaboration exceeded all my expectations this term. I’m sure I’ll be back, in the next U.S. election cycle. 

-Tona Hangen, Professor of History, Worcester State University

Explore Dr. Hangen’s syllabus

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.

“As someone deeply invested in the evolution of AI in education and training, I was thrilled to learn about Anna Makanju, an African woman shaping the AI industry,” explained educational technology student Lauren Love. “Since minorities are often underrepresented in computer science and artificial intelligence, our objective for creating this article was to highlight her impactful contributions and inspire awareness of her influence on the AI tools many use today.”

With a shared interest in adding representation to Wikipedia, information science student Katrina Powell teamed up with classmate Love to bring Makanju’s article to the encyclopedia.

“Lauren and I chose Anna Makanju because first and foremost, she’s a woman leader and second, we believe it’s crucial to increase representation of women in STEM fields on Wikipedia,” said Powell. “As a woman of color in STEM, we were particularly drawn to Anna’s story – her experiences navigating a male-dominated field and her commitment to ethical AI resonated with us. We hope that by sharing her story, we can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable online encyclopedia.”

The student pair, who worked closely to divide the workload and find high-quality sources for the new article, underscored the challenges posed by Wikipedia’s notability threshold for publishing new biographies. 

“I enjoyed delving into research to uncover Makanju’s diverse experiences and contributions,” said Love. “Refining the article to align with Wikipedia’s standards was also a rewarding challenge that pushed me to improve my writing. Ensuring alignment with their guidelines was definitely the toughest part.”

For both Love and Powell, the Wikipedia assignment offered the opportunity to give readers insight into the ongoing work to address ethical implications of emerging technologies, including Makanju’s efforts in shaping AI regulations to maximize societal benefit while minimizing risk. Powell, interested in pursuing a career in AI governance like Makanju’s, stressed the power of Wikipedia in raising awareness of underrepresented yet notable individuals.

“Before the assignment, I had no clue who Anna Makanju was, I had never even heard her name before,” explained Powell. “It was great learning about her background and the work she is doing in the tech field. I was deeply inspired.”

Similarly inspired by Makanju’s journey and professional impact, Love also appreciated the opportunity to sharpen her skills for a future career in learning and development and instructional design.

“Unlike traditional research or discussion boards that may lack engagement, this project allowed me to explore a topic of personal interest while refining critical skills such as creativity, collaboration, and effective communication,” said Love. “[It] enhanced my research and written communication skills, particularly in presenting diverse perspectives with neutrality.”

Powell’s and Love’s work on Wikipedia is part of a larger Wiki Education initiative sponsored by the Broadcom Foundation, which supports the creation of new biographies of diverse people in STEM on Wikipedia.

“It is critical for young women and people of color to see themselves as powerful AI leaders like Anna Makanju. The future of AI is here, and they can shape it to reflect their unique knowledge and achievements,” noted Paula Golden, President of Broadcom Foundation.

While their coursework on Wikipedia is now complete, both Love and Powell expressed plans to continue editing and improving the online encyclopedia into the future, finding the experience both fun and rewarding.

“It was a proud moment once the article was published,” said Powell. “It felt great to be part of history!”

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.

One Wikipedia assignment, more than 3,500 words, and 36 new references later, and the Irwin County Detention Center Wikipedia article has been completely transformed – thanks to England’s efforts to provide readers with a more comprehensive overview of its history, which includes allegations of non-consensual surgeries performed on female detainees. 

As the article outlines, more than 40 women detainees and a nurse at the facility came forward in 2020 alleging that unnecessary medical procedures, including hysterectomies, were conducted on women without their consent. But concerns for the health and wellbeing of detainees were raised long before the highly-publicized allegations in 2020, explained England.

“News articles sensationalized this dehumanizing experience of immigrant women,” said England. “However, what was missed in the hype of it all, whether you believed the women’s experiences to be true, is that the treatment of immigrants had been poor long before that at the detention center and that any abuse no matter how big or small should be addressed regardless of whether it makes a good headline or not.”

Before England’s edits, the article contained one short paragraph that focused on the 2020 allegations. Now, the article provides readers with several new sections, including other allegations made before 2020, a more detailed summary of the 2020 allegations, the legal aftermath of the 2020 allegations, and the 2022 report outlining the United States Senate’s investigation of the center. 

“When I talked to people about my topic, many disregarded the story and said that events like these surely could not be happening in our current time,” said England. “I wanted people to know that immigrant detainees have been poorly treated and continue to be treated that way, and that this is not an isolated event.”

England emphasized that while she personally believes the women’s allegations, she wants readers to be able to make their own determinations based on the facts. 

Reflecting on the impact of her edits, England underscored the crucial role of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors in making information accessible to everyone.

“In this day and age, people are all about instant gratification,” noted England. “They want quick information that is easily accessible, and Wikipedia can easily make that knowledge accessible and reliable. It’s just down to Wikipedia editors to make sure that there are articles written about these topics and that they are written/sourced well.” 

England, who considered her assignment to improve Wikipedia a win-win for everyone, enjoyed the opportunity to develop her research and writing skills in a new way.

“While I do love writing historical analyses, it was super fun to do something different,” said England.  “I put in a lot of work and effort to make sure that this article was as unbiased as possible. It is also kind of cool to say you have something published on Wikipedia  – I sent the link to all of my family.” 

As an aspiring history professor, England recognized the value of bringing research to the public in an accessible way.

“While writing scholarly articles is important, I think it is extremely important to be able to synthesize that information for the general public in a more informal manner,” explained England. “That way your information can be used for good rather than just sitting and collecting dust. I would totally be willing to assign my future students a Wikipedia writing assignment!” 

England’s editing efforts are part of our three-year initiative to improve humanities and social justice content on Wikipedia – the largest campaign of its kind in history. Read more.

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.

I began teaching with the Wikipedia assignment in the spring of 2018. At the time, I sought an alternative to the standard term paper that had been, and likely remains, the staple of most college history courses. My motivation was to find an assignment that students would enjoy completing and that I would enjoy grading. Over my previous six years of university teaching, I developed a dread for grading term papers as it became apparent that most students either did not have the time or did not see the point in writing a well-researched argumentative paper. Moreover, I noticed that many of my students were developing bad habits in their rush to complete term papers, including committing to an argument before establishing a research question, cherry-picking sources that confirmed unfounded assumptions, and ignoring counterevidence. I desired an assignment that would reinforce the teaching of historical methodology and leverage the accessibility of the internet, allowing students to reach a broader audience, which I hoped would motivate them to take greater pride in their work.

After speaking with colleagues and searching the internet for ideas, I stumbled upon the Wiki Education website and found the Wikipedia assignment. Despite my lack of experience editing or authoring Wikipedia pages, I was drawn to the assignment because it facilitates experiential learning by requiring students to apply the knowledge acquired through course readings, lectures, and research to a public-facing project. In my US history survey course, for example, I use the Wikipedia assignment instead of a final paper to evaluate students’ ability to do the work of a historian by choosing a topic, developing a research question, selecting and evaluating sources, and writing a historical narrative. 

I also use the assignment to help students build social and professional skills applicable beyond the classroom. To promote peer collaboration in larger classes, I have students work in pairs. Admittedly, most groan when they hear this is a group project; however, by the end of the semester, they overwhelmingly express appreciation for their partner and the flexibility the assignment provides to capitalize on each person’s strengths. For example, those interested in computer programming and coding tend to enjoy learning about wikitext and the formatting aspects of the assignment. For others, conducting research, locating images, videos, and sound clips, or writing the text of the article is preferred. While I require them to work in pairs, students decide how to manage their workload by deciding who does what and evaluating each other’s performance at the end of the term.   

To facilitate student-teacher mentoring, I require students to meet with me throughout the semester to approve their topics and receive feedback on sources and drafts. These interactions help break down the reluctance and intimidation students feel towards interacting with authority figures and often lead to future opportunities to advise them about their degree progress, university resources, and career opportunities. To teach information and media literacy, I have students turn in an annotated bibliography halfway through the term. Although not a required part of the Wikipedia assignment, I find that it reinforces the dashboard’s trainings on evaluating sources according to the credibility of the author and publication. It also teaches students to pay as much, if not more, attention to the sources used in a publication than the text itself. 

I have used the Wikipedia assignment in thirteen courses over the past six years and have been thrilled by the results. Overall, my students have published 180 new articles, edited an additional 492 articles, and added 8,500 references to Wikipedia! Incredibly, their work has received over 13 million views as of spring 2024. But the best part is that my students admit they enjoy the assignment. 

Here are a few examples of what students appreciate about the Wikipedia assignment: 

“The Wikipedia project we had over the course of the semester was very effective in getting us all to participate in the learning process. It helped us to be more involved in research and in learning how to be historians.”

“I loved the Wikipedia project we worked on throughout the semester. We got to pick our own topic and I appreciated what it taught me about doing accurate historical research.”

“I loved the Wikipedia Assignment in this class and using our research skills to be able to put something useful out onto the internet.”

“The incorporation of making a Wikipedia article was the best way to actually be part of making and recording history.”

As reflected in the comments above, students relish the “hands-on” opportunity provided by the Wikipedia assignment to apply what they learn through a medium that allows them to create something that makes a public contribution beyond the classroom. And this is the primary reason why I continue to teach with Wikipedia; it encourages students to become more informed knowledge producers rather than passive consumers of information.

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your courses? 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. 

What is feminist praxis? 

To start discussing potential answers to this question, we can first look up the word, praxis, in Wiktionary, and review its definitions. In English, praxis can mean “the practical application of any branch of learning,” but there are other uses and definitions. To dig further, we can check out the reference, which at the time of this writing takes us to the Oxford English Dictionary. From there, we can find out how meanings and uses have changed overtime and across subjects. We can also see how the word praxis in politics and philosophy has been used to mean the application of theories and ideas to sociopolitical activities. If you have access to multiple dictionaries or editions, we can compare different uses and definitions across sources. Now we are one step closer to discussing what feminist praxis may be.

Next, we can explore how the word praxis is used across different contexts via Wikipedia. We find out that the term is often used to describe “the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, embodied, realized, applied or put into practice.” If we recognize that praxis refers to a series of actions in relation to different ways of thinking, reasoning, and understanding, we can explore what that process may entail, how these processes change, and what their ultimate goals may be. We can also evaluate how this understanding emerged by examining the references listed at the bottom of the article and discuss relevant sources that could potentially be included. Then we can delve deeper into what feminism may look like in practice, how feminist ideas may evolve, and what ultimate aspirations of feminist praxis may entail. 

Could incorporating Wikipedia assignments be part of feminist praxis? 

Despite unequal access to digital technology, free online resources like Wiktionary and Wikipedia are remarkable for fostering critical conversations without paywalls. If you are a faculty working at a higher education institution, you likely have access to lots of research materials like books, peer-reviewed articles, journals, periodicals, databases, archives, and media through the university library. However, that is not the case for most people. Facts and information are expensive and not always accessible. I often joke with my students that I write papers that hardly anyone reads, and I am sure many faculty feel the same way. If you are not part of some established research ecosystem, most knowledge products are inaccessible, which makes it harder for the general public to learn new ideas and unfamiliar topics that are important for engaging in critical dialogues. 

While Wikipedia boasts an impressive amount of free content, it also suffers from significant gaps. One of the most frequently highlighted issues is gender bias on Wikipedia, largely due to the fact that men make up the majority of contributors. That is probably old news for many but given the geographical reach and the volume of traffic to Wikipedia, it’s crucial for educators to reflect critically on the knowledge production process and address this bias. Doing so will ensure that Wikipedia becomes a more reliable and comprehensive source of encyclopedic information. With the goal of fostering more informed and inclusive discussions about social issues, I started incorporating Wikipedia assignments into one of my graduate courses during the Fall of 2021, during the shift from virtual to in-person learning. 

I believe incorporating Wikipedia assignments can contribute to feminist praxis.

Wiki Education’s focus on social impact resonated with me during the public health emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the rapid evolution of scientific knowledge, misinformation, and the exacerbation of disparities. I thought my students and I could contribute to equitable knowledge access by updating references, filling content gaps, and learning to navigate open collaboration. I share my experiences below.

My course is a discussion-based graduate course that meets weekly and requires students to submit an original analytical paper at the end of the semester. To encourage students to start their research early, I had them find, review, and improve existing Wikipedia articles related to their research interests rather than creating new entries. In my class, students learn about the terminology and concepts related to welfare states and poverty, various strategies for tackling social welfare issues, with the goal of interrogating the link between welfare regimes and gender inequality. Therefore, students have access to scholarly sources that could be referenced to improve existing articles related to welfare and poverty, while recognizing the role of gender. For example, a student noticed during initial review that an article on pandemic unemployment lacked data points on women, and another observed that an entry on red tape and administrative burden could benefit from additional references on equity implications. These observations shared during weekly class discussions underscore the importance of ongoing review and improvement to ensure that Wikipedia becomes a reliable and inclusive source of information.

I used Wikipedia assignments as part of the participation grade, recognizing that the contributions made by students may not always remain. Given Wikipedia’s open structure, I emphasized the importance of students completing training modules and exercises, and through completion, they earned participation points. Learning to evaluate Wikipedia articles, make revisions, and conduct peer reviews is just as valuable as sharing contributions publicly. Both activities help connect theory with practice. To encourage collaborative learning, I grouped students with similar research interests for peer reviews. On several occasions, students got to share and compare their references, which also helped them make progress on course paper. 

Because the final analytical paper carried more weight in the course grade, some students focused on making small but important edits, such as adding newer references and correcting grammatical errors to improve readability, but many went further. A student described the intersecting challenges faced by women, youth, and LGBTQ+ people who are experiencing homelessness in California and another expanded on the intricate ways welfare programs affect poverty. Many students also addressed racial bias and geographical disparity on Wikipedia by detailing the impact of Real ID Act on marginalized communities, incorporating government statistics published in Spanish to unpack machismo in Puerto Rico, adding new information on poverty in Indonesia, and providing additional details on public child care programs across countries. After addressing content gaps, students developed their own analytical papers to advance their original ideas and arguments, which were graded separately. 

I am still learning and experimenting with Wikipedia assignments. Navigating between Wiki Education dashboard and Wikipedia interface can be difficult, and instructors may need to carve out some class time to assist students having technical difficulties. Aligning Wiki Education training modules and exercises with course schedules also requires some trial and error, like moving deadlines, but I believe Wikipedia assignments have been useful for my students and I to think more critically about knowledge accessibility and implications of content gaps. Most importantly, incorporating Wikipedia assignments has given us the tangible opportunity to collectively experiment and discuss what it’s like to connect theory with practice in the era of social media. I am excited to continue this journey with my students, hopefully inspiring informed and inclusive dialogues about our future along the way. I am proud of my students for making a difference by contributing to more equitable knowledge access and engaging in feminist praxis. 

Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your courses? 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. Apply by December 1, 2024 for priority consideration for spring 2025.