Submissions:2018/To Use Wikipedia or Not: How the Wikipedia assignment can build a bridge between Academia and Wikipedia

This submission has been noted and is pending review for WikiConference North America 2018.

Title

To Use Wikipedia or Not-How the Wikipedia assignment can build a bridge between Academia and Wikipedia

Theme (optional)

Recruitment & Retention

Academic Peer Review option

No

Type of submission

Presentation

Author

Helaine Blumenthal

E-mail address

helaine@wikiedu.org

Wikimedia username

Helaine (Wiki Ed)

Affiliation(s) (optional)

Wiki Education Foundation

Abstract

Wikipedia has gained considerable acceptance within the academic community, but barriers still persist. This presentation will explain how Wikipedia assignments at college and graduate levels help to break down these barriers, and what else needs to be done to build a more solid bridge between these two communities.

There are many factors that inspire instructors to use Wikipedia assignments in their courses on an ongoing basis, as well as some that cause instructors to dispense with the assignment after their first experience. Instructors encounter the same challenges that all first-time editors face, but they also grapple with factors unique to academia and their position as teachers and mentors. In exploring circumstances that lead to success as well as those that result in poor outcomes, we can better identify which instructors and courses are best suited for the Wikipedia assignment and improve our existing frameworks to better support them.

During this session, instructors will be encouraged to share their experiences running a Wikipedia assignment. Some of the topics we will explore, include:

• the ever-growing necessity for students to develop digital literacy skills
• professional skills students develop from the Wikipedia assignment
• pride students take in contributing to something beyond the classroom and the accountability that comes from writing for a public audience
• concerns surrounding online harassment
• technical complexities
• inequities in student access to technology
• varying nature of student abilities
• institutional bias instructors face in adopting the Wikipedia assignment
• mistrust that some Wikipedia editors express toward instructors due to their lack of editing experience

While most instructors are not "Wikipedians," they are an important segment of the Wikipedia community. Their students contribute millions of words to Wikipedia each term under the guidance of Wiki Education and their particular subject expertise. Understanding how to strengthen the intersections between academia and Wikipedia as well as the current roadblocks separating these mission aligned institutions is therefore valuable to both communities.

Length of presentation

30 minutes

Special requests

Preferred room size

15-20

Have you presented on this topic previously? If yes, where/when?

No

If you will be incorporating a slidedeck during your presentation, do you agree to upload it to Commons before your session, with a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license, including suitable attribution in the slidedeck for any images used?

Yes

Will you attend WikiConference North America if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this session, please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with four tildes. (~~~~).

1. Matthewvetter (talk) 14:26, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
2. Samantha (Wiki Education) (talk) 17:08, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
3. Shalor (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
4. Gamaliel (talk) 18:53, 15 August 2018 (UTC)
5. Add your username here.