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.

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.

And in many cases, that answer was probably pretty good. English Wikipedia has nearly 7 million articles, far eclipsing any information that was available in any print encyclopedia. The last print edition of Encyclopedia Britannica had 32 volumes; if you printed Wikipedia today, even without images or references, it would take up 3,624 volumes.

It’s easy to look at these numbers and think, wow, Wikipedia is pretty great. And it is! It’s a grassroots-driven, independent, openly licensed source of information, with a nonprofit hosting it whose primary revenue stream is small-dollar donations from users, meaning it’s free from the corporate or government influence that dooms many other sites on the web. In an increasingly commodified internet, Wikipedia remains true to the original promise of the world wide web.

But if you look beyond the surface level, you can see plenty of challenges in this model. Because Wikipedia relies on volunteer writers and editors, it’s an encyclopedia written by those who show up and volunteer. And, for many years, it’s been a relatively homogenous group of people who do show up and edit Wikipedia, especially in the United States context. That matters because who is part of the editing community influences what articles are on Wikipedia and what perspectives are present in articles. 

To accurately reflect the full spectrum of human experience, especially in the United States, Wikipedia has a long way to go. But Wiki Education, and other groups in the broader Wikimedia movement, are helping close those gaps.

The contributor gender gap

Wikipedia’s gender gap is one of the most talked about gaps on Wikipedia. (It even has its own Wikipedia article!). While women make up slightly more than half of the world’s population, the percentage of content contributors (known as “editors”) on Wikipedia who identify as women is grim. Worldwide, the Wikimedia Foundation’s most recent Community Insights Report found that only 14% of editors identified as women and 5% as gender diverse, with the caveat that users could select multiple categories. A total of 80% of users identified as male, with 4% preferring not to say.

The numbers are a little better within the United States. While there has been no statistically significant change in recent years, the number hovers around 16–18% identifying as women.

Wiki Education has long worked to tackle this problem by bringing in a community of diverse editors. In contrast to the 18% women peak of editors in the United States, Wiki Education’s own program participants in 2024 were 58% women and 5% gender diverse. While 80% of Wikipedia editors are men, only 37% of Wiki Education’s program participants are. 

Wiki Education – and many other organizations in the Wikimedia movement – are working hard to address this gender gap. We’ve made great progress; recently, English Wikipedia hit the milestone of 20% of all the biographies are of women. This may seem paltry, but it’s due to the hard work of a coalition of organizations, including Wiki Education, and a dedicated group of volunteer editors tackling this gap. When the English Wikipedia community started focusing on women’s biographies as a clear example of the gender gap 10 years ago, less than 16% of biographies were of women. 

The contributor ethnicity gap

While the gender gap is pronounced, the gap in ethnicity of Wikipedia editors in the United States, especially in comparison to the general population, is also quite pronounced. Based on the 2024 Community Insights Report, we find that particularly, Black or African-American and Hispanic or Latino/a/x editors are quite underrepresented in the United States. 

While 14.2% of the population in the U.S. is Black or African American, according to the 2020 Census, only 3% of the Wikipedia editing population in the United States is. Similarly, 19.5% of the US population is Hispanic or Latino/a/x, according to the 2020 Census, but only 3.2% of the Wikipedia editing community is.

Wiki Education’s programs, targeting diverse college campuses, bring substantially more diverse contributors to Wikipedia. 

• 14.9% of Wiki Education’s program participants in 2024 self-identified as Black or African American, slightly higher than the U.S. population and substantially higher than the 3% of existing Wikipedia editors.
• 14.8% of Wiki Education’s program participants in 2024 self-identified as Hispanic or Latino/a/x, slightly lower than the 19.5% of U.S. population but substantially higher than the 3.2% of the existing Wikipedia editors.

Indeed, Wiki Education’s program participants are demographically less likely to be White than either Wikipedia editors or the general population. While 80.3% of Wikipedian editors and 71% of the US population identify as White, only 56.9% of Wiki Education’s program participants do. 

Why are Wiki Education’s program participants more likely to be ethnically diverse in comparison to the general U.S. population? In general, college-aged students are more diverse than the general population, which helps, but it is also due to outreach Wiki Education has done, particularly to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), as well as to institutions whose student bodies are more diverse. 

By specifically targeting colleges with diverse student body populations, Wiki Education can actively work to better reflect the demographics of the United States population than the current English Wikipedia community can.

The resulting content gaps

Why does Wiki Education work so hard to reduce these contributor gaps? It’s not diversity for the sake of diversity: Instead, it’s because Wikipedia gets better quality content when there is a broader base of contributors. People with lived or studied expertise in different cultural areas are able to identify perspectives missing from Wikipedia. 

Being female doesn’t automatically give you expertise in feminism, though, just as being Black doesn’t give you expertise in African-American literature. That’s why Wiki Education’s programs pair outreach to diverse institutions with outreach via disciplinary channels to instructors who teach in those content areas. By working with academic associations in diverse content areas, conducting outreach to professors who teach in disciplines whose focus is on historically marginalized voices, and creating resources to support student editors as they tackle these gaps on Wikipedia, we are able to help build a corpus of student editors who are studying these equity topic areas and can write about them on Wikipedia, under the guidance of their subject-matter expert instructor. This two-pronged approach enables us to bring both diverse content and contributors to Wikipedia.

For examples, see these articles edited by our program participants:

• Asian American feminism
• Benin ancestral altars
• Black masculinity in American media (new article)
• Climate change in the United Arab Emirates (new article)
• Contemporary Palestinian art (new article)
• Discrimination against homeless people
• Environmental impact of war
• Farangi-Sazi
• History of antisemitism in the United States
• Indigenous science
• Internalized ableism (new article)
• Ni una menos
• Paracas culture
• Perinatal bereavement

In each of these examples, students in our Wikipedia Student Program identified content gaps relevant to axes of what we call “knowledge equity” – according to the Wikimedia Movement Strategy, “the knowledge and communities that have been left out by structures of power and privilege.” Using the expert guidance of their instructors, their wealth of sources available through their campus libraries, and their own learning, they crafted knowledge about previously under-represented topics on Wikipedia. 

As Wikipedia’s millions of readers – and the many more who access Wikipedia content via generative AI services – seek information about these topics, they will have a more full picture of knowledge, thanks to our program participants. 

In today’s fractured media landscape, having one neutral, fact-based resource, where information is independent and open to all, is more important than ever. That’s why Wiki Education remains committed to ensuring that the content on Wikipedia is accurate, representative, and complete. 

We aren’t there yet, but we’re helping close the gaps. Please join us! If you’re a college or university instructor in the United States or Canada, assign your students to edit Wikipedia as a class assignment with our support. If you’re a subject matter expert, take one of our Wikipedia courses. Or if you’re just a supporter of our work, we – as a small nonprofit organization – always welcome donations.

“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.

– 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. 

1. Why was it important that Wikipedia have an article about Ali Guarneros Luna and why did you choose to create it? 

Ali Guarneros Luna is both inspiring and noteworthy. Her story is nothing short of remarkable – her upbringing and the obstacles she overcame to achieve her success are deeply moving. As a Chicana, a woman of Mexican-American descent, I found her story resonated with me on a personal level. 

My own parents faced significant challenges when they immigrated to the United States at a young age, working hard to support themselves and their families. Luna’s journey reminded me of their struggles and resilience, as well as the sacrifices they made to build a better future. Her story is one of perseverance, strength, and determination, which is so inspiring to women of all ages and backgrounds, but especially to Latina women like me. What makes her even more admirable is her role at NASA, an organization that has always been a source of fascination and inspiration for me. Learning about her involvement in various groundbreaking projects was truly astonishing. It’s not every day you hear about a Latina woman contributing so significantly to the field of aerospace engineering and space exploration.

Her achievements highlight the importance of representation and show that women of diverse backgrounds can succeed in STEM fields. For these reasons, I felt compelled to give her the recognition she deserves by ensuring her story is shared widely. She serves as a powerful role model for anyone with big dreams, but especially for Latinas aspiring to make a difference in fields like science, technology, engineering, and beyond.

2. What did you especially want to get right about the article? 

I wanted to get her story right and get all of her information in the correct chronological order so that no part of her story was lost. I wanted to accurately portray her struggles, where she came from, and how she took it upon herself to succeed and become an influential figure in NASA and aerospace engineering. In telling her story, I wanted to make sure that her achievements did not overshadow her struggles, but rather were shown as integral to who she is and what she has accomplished. By doing so, I hoped to provide an honest and inspiring portrayal of a woman who serves as a role model, particularly for Latina women and others who aspire to break barriers in STEM fields.

3. Wikipedia has significant gaps in its coverage of women of color in its biographies. How was adding this biography meaningful to you?

Adding a biography of a diverse woman in STEM was deeply meaningful to me because I have a genuine passion for STEM and a strong desire to see greater representation within the field. Writing Ali Guarneros Luna’s biography felt like more than just a project – it was an opportunity to bring her inspiring story to light and to help close the gaps in coverage that exist for women of color on platforms like Wikipedia. It’s no secret that women, especially women of color, are underrepresented in STEM fields and often overlooked in historical and contemporary records. Being able to contribute to changing that narrative, even in a small way, was an honor. Ali Guarneros Luna’s achievements are remarkable, and her journey is one that deserves to be widely known. Highlighting her story was also personally fulfilling. It allowed me to celebrate a Latina woman who has made significant contributions to NASA and aerospace engineering. Knowing that my work could help ensure her legacy is recognized and inspire others to pursue their passions in STEM makes this accomplishment something I’m truly proud of.

4. How would you describe the power of Wikipedia in shaping people’s awareness and understanding of notable figures like Ali Guarneros Luna?

Wikipedia serves as one of the most widely accessed sources of information in the world. Typically, the first source for a person to read up about a topic or person at a glance is Wikipedia.  Its accessibility and collaborative nature make it a critical platform for documenting stories that might otherwise be overlooked, particularly those of underrepresented groups. By including biographies of individuals like Luna, Wikipedia not only preserves their legacies but also broadens the public’s perception of who can succeed in fields like STEM. For many, Wikipedia is a starting point for learning about influential figures, and having accurate, detailed information about women of color like Luna ensures that their contributions are recognized and celebrated. In Luna’s case, her biography showcases her incredible journey, overcoming challenges to excel at NASA and in aerospace engineering. By bringing her story to light, it does its job by making the information gap smaller. Wikipedia contributes to greater representation and inspires future generations to aim high, pursue their passions, and break barriers.

5. How did you feel about this assignment compared to a traditional assignment?

To be honest, at first this assignment was intimidating. I did not know what to expect, but I ended up enjoying it. I enjoyed learning the process and what actually went into Wikipedia. Knowing now the guidelines and effort that one must put into making a Wikipedia page, I appreciate the process a lot more. An assignment that contributes to a live encyclopedia makes all the difference from a traditional assignment, because what you are working on feels like it matters and it is amazing to see the final product.

6. What was your favorite part of editing Wikipedia?

My favorite part of editing Wikipedia was when I was able to see it all come together. It was amazing seeing peer reviews, and then going back into the editing process. Though it was time-consuming, it was worth it. I got to see how a list of information started to look like a biography, then see it go live.

7. Will you continue to edit?

Yes! I will continue to edit. I plan to keep up to date with the other accomplishments Ali Guarneros Luna makes, and I would love to keep editing the article and seeing her biography grow. I would like to edit other starting biographies, as well.

Valeria’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.

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.

The scholars bring their deep pedagogical and subject area expertise, as well as their passion for teaching with Wikipedia – each has incorporated a Wikipedia assignment into their curriculum. 

“My students light up when they realize their class work on invisibilized or silenced communities can have real-world impact,” emphasized Dean Allbritton, associate professor of Spanish and director of the Center for the Arts and Humanities at Colby College. “The knowledge that they are actively making space for others feels timely and important in a way that scholarly work often may not. I joined this committee because Wikipedia still has so much room to grow and so many opportunities still to make space in this world for those who have not yet been afforded it.” 

Advisory committee members will support Wiki Education’s Knowledge Equity initiative in a variety of ways, engaging with our outreach and communications projects, serving as panelists at academic conferences, and pursuing academic publishing opportunities. Members will also provide guidance and feedback on new Wiki Education curricular resources related to the initiative.

“I’m excited about promoting the use of Wikipedia editing projects in the art history classroom because I am a big fan of giving students ‘authentic tasks’ that have a real-world impact,” explained Rachel Miller, associate professor of art history at Sacramento State University. “There is sometimes a perception that art history is just about sitting in a dark classroom and memorizing identifying information for works of art to regurgitate on an exam. I think art history can be so much more than that, and I hope to help other art history instructors discover the rewards students get from editing Wikipedia.” 

Committee member Katie Holt has incorporated the Wikipedia assignment into her courses at the College of Wooster since 2017. Reflecting on her decision to join the committee, the history professor underscored how empowering and impactful the Wikipedia coursework has been for her students.

“Students are rightfully proud of how their research and writing makes a freely accessible resource like Wikipedia stronger and more representative,” said Holt.

2025 Humanities & Social Justice Advisory Committee members:

Dean Allbritton

Dr. Dean Allbritton is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Director of the Center for the Arts and Humanities at Colby College. His research focuses on representations of health, sexuality, and gender in contemporary Spanish culture, with particular attention to the ongoing HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since 2018, he has integrated Wikipedia into his teaching, particularly in courses that highlight LGBTQ+ voices in Spain, expanding the visibility of lesser-known queer individuals in Spanish history and culture. A participant in Wiki Education’s Scholars & Scientists Program, he has also presented on the transformative role of Wikipedia in the classroom at the National Humanities Conference. His students have contributed over 35,000 words to Wikipedia; their work has received more than 127,000 pageviews during their courses, reinforcing Wikipedia’s potential to amplify marginalized voices and engage students in public scholarship.

Katie Holt

Dr. Katie Holt holds the Aileen Dunham Professorship in History at the College of Wooster (Ohio), where she teaches courses in Brazilian, Latin American, and Latino/a/x histories as well as digital storytelling and digital humanities methods courses. She has been teaching with Wikipedia since 2017 and enjoys how these assignments can both improve students’ information literacy and serve as a format for them to make meaningful contributions to improve public, freely accessible information on topics they are passionate about.  As of February 2025, Dr. Holt’s students have collectively improved 455 articles, adding more than 310,600 words and 3,700 references, and getting more than 30.7 million page views.  She has presented on teaching with Wikipedia as a pedagogical strategy for addressing content gaps about Latin American and Latino/a/x history at the American Historical Association (2025) and alongside her colleague Educational Technologist Emily Armour at Kenyon College’s Center for Innovative pedagogy What Works Conference (2023).

Rachel Miller

Dr. Rachel Miller is an Associate Professor of Art History at Sacramento State where she teaches courses on ancient, medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art, using teaching methods that place European art in a broader global context and decolonize European art’s traditional normative position in the canon of art history. Professor Miller has presented papers and workshops on art history pedagogy and organized pedagogy panels at the College Art Association and the Renaissance Society of America annual conferences. She has written on pedagogy for the Sixteenth-Century Society Journal and Art History Teaching Resources and has a forthcoming essay, co-written with Dr. Mya Dosch, in the edited volume, Equity-Enhancing Strategies for the Art History Classroom. Professor Miller has been using Wikipedia-editing projects in the classroom since 2017, and to-date, her students have edited almost 400 articles, contributing more than half a million words of new content to Wikipedia.

David M. Peña-Guzmán

Dr. David M. Peña-Guzmán is Associate Professor of Humanities and Comparative World Literature at SF State in San Francisco, California. He specializes in animal studies, the history and philosophy of science, theories of consciousness, and 20th century continental philosophy. He is the author of When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness, and Philosophy and Its Myths, and co-author of Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers’ Brief. He is also co-host of the philosophy podcast Overthink.

La’Tonya Rease Miles

A literature and cultural studies scholar by training, Dr. La’Tonya (LT) Rease Miles is a clinical faculty member in the Department of Education and Counseling Psychology at Santa Clara University.  Her research interests include the hidden curriculum in higher education, narratives about the first-generation college experience, and the representation of first-generation students in popular culture. She began teaching Wikipedia alongside her graduate students in 2022 and has gone on to coordinate two international edit-a-thons, including one focused on American authors who also identify as first-generation to college. 

Juana María Rodríguez

Dr. Juana María Rodríguez is Professor of Ethnic Studies and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley and has been collaborating with Wiki Education in her classrooms since 2016. She is the author of Puta Life: Seeing Latinas, Working Sex (Duke UP, 2023); Sexual Futures, Queer Gestures, and Other Latina Longings (NYU Press, 2014); and Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces (NYU Press, 2003). In 2023 she was awarded the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies Kessler Prize for her career long contributions to LGBT Studies.

Jennifer Stoever

Dr. Jennifer Lynn Stoever is Associate Professor of English at Binghamton University, Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sounding Out!: The Sound Studies Blog, and author of The Sonic Color Line: Race and the Cultural Politics of Listening (NYU Press, 2016). She is a founding member of the Engaged Digital Humanities Working Group at Binghamton University and Co-Director of The Binghamton Punk D.I.Y. Community Archive.  A 2018 Whiting Foundation Public-Facing Scholarship seed grant awardee and a 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, Jennifer has published research in American Quarterly, Social Text, Radical History Review, Modernist Cultures, and the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies among others, as well as in The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop (2018) and The Oxford Handbook of Sound Art (2021).  Currently, she is co-editing Power in Listening: The Sounding Out! Reader, with Liana Silva and Aaron Trammell (forthcoming on NYU Press), as well as the three-volume Encyclopedia of Sound Studies contracted with Bloomsbury Press (with Michael Bull and Holger Schulze). Her book-in-progress, Living Room Revolutions: Black and Brown Women Collecting Records, Selecting Sounds, and Making New Worlds in the 1970s Bronx and Beyond, inspired the course “Black Women and Creativity in the 1960s and 70s” that she has taught in partnership with Wiki Education since Spring 2024. You can read about her students’ work increasing the Wikipedia presence of Black women artists in “Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon honors Black artists” and Wiki Education’s“History is only as equitable as its sources and writers.”

“I did not know there was such a significant gap in coverage of minority groups, so increasing representation and visibility on Wikipedia is important!” explained Ashley, a senior studying chemical engineering. “Being able to highlight the many accomplishments of Lisa Secat DeLuca is meaningful in that it can challenge stereotypes in STEM and give a more inclusive viewpoint to those who see our article. The potential to broaden the public’s perception of who can excel in STEM is exciting.”

Working together to tackle their Wikipedia assignment, Ashley and Rezwan divided the research and writing into sections including DeLuca’s early life, professional life, and ventures outside her primary work focus. The duo then wove together their individual contributions to create their collaborative text for the article, hoping readers feel as inspired by DeLuca’s trajectory as they were throughout their research.

“Highlighting a woman in STEM was part of the appeal of covering DeLuca,” noted sophomore Rezwan. “As a computer science major, I hear little about the diverse figures contributing to the field. It was fulfilling to be part of the movement to bring these excellent minds to light so that more people know that STEM is for everyone.”

As one of the first reference points for people seeking information and a source of data for AI tools, Wikipedia has the power to increase public awareness of notable figures like DeLuca, explained Ashley. 

“Her presence on Wikipedia makes her achievements accessible to a global audience,” said Ashley. “While writing, I really thought about the tone of the article. It was important to write in a way that was professional, unbiased, and easy to understand for any possible viewers.”

Creating DeLuca’s Wikipedia article required an open mind and thorough research, noted Ashley – skills that will translate well to her career goals as a chemical engineer. 

Echoing Ashley’s reflection, Rezwan also outlined connections between the assignment and his own career goals in software development.

“Writing a Wikipedia article was an excellent exercise in research and writing for a public audience,” said Rezwan. “I want to work in software development after graduating, and being able to research a topic is an essential skill in this field. Furthermore, communicating well is vital, and Wikipedia has built my confidence as our edits are still live!”

Both student editors expressed their surprise at how easy it was to make edits and add sources to the online encyclopedia, referencing helpful built-in tools like the automatic citation generator, as well as the comprehensive training modules and guidance from Wiki Education.

Rezwan, who has since made other contributions to Wikipedia, underscored his appreciation for the unique perspectives brought by editors of diverse backgrounds. Ashley also emphasized the impact that can be made through even minor edits from a variety of editors.

“It’s beneficial to work on an article even if the edits are small, because then the articles can represent a broader collection of facts and insight from all editors,” she explained.

Ashley’s and Rezwan’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.

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.