This document discusses using Wikipedia as an educational tool in classrooms. It provides statistics on Wikipedia usage which show it is one of the most widely used information sources. The document then describes assignments professors can give students, such as editing existing Wikipedia articles or creating new ones. It shares examples of classes at LaGuardia Community College and Hunter College that have incorporated Wikipedia editing. The benefits cited include teaching students critical thinking, information evaluation, and allowing them to become producers of information for the public. Resources for setting up Wikipedia assignments are provided.

1. Making Wikipedia:
Students as Information Creators
NMC Summer Conference Chanitra Bishop
June 16, 2016 Iris Finkel

2. Is anything missing?
Ernest J. Gaines

3. Teaching with Wikipedia
• Why?
• Used by EVERYONE!!
• Teach critical thinking skills
• Encourage students to be producers of information
video - open access
image - open access

4. Wikipedia Stats
•Began January 2001
•8,000 views per second
•7 million views per month
•5 million articles
•3 million edits per month
•30,000 editors
Data as of April 2016 - https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/SummaryEN.htm

5. Wikipedia Stats
Also top website for information on
the go:
Knight Foundation

6. Wikipedia Stats
Top source of medical information
Engaging Patients Through
Social Media Engaging Patients
Through Social Media

7. Even used by scholars
The Oxford Textbook of
Zoonoses Vs. Ebola Virus
chapter 31, “Marburg and Ebola
viruses,” written by Graham
Lloyd, works at the British
government-research facility
Porton Down
Pinsker, Joe. “The Covert World
of People Trying to Edit
Wikipedia--For Pay.” The
Atlantic. Atlantic Media
Company. 11 August, 2015. Web

8. Activity
• You have two articles on the same
topic
• Read them and compare/contrast the
two articles
• Questions:
• Do the articles have the same info?
• What’s the same? What’s different about
the two?
• Is one better than the other?

9. Types of Editing Assignments
• Short assignment
• Copy edit an article
• Fix or add links
• Class vs. individual students edit
• Edit an existing article
• Create a new article
• Adding images
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
• https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Reusing_content_outside_Wikimedia
• Coding

10. Wikipedia @ LaGuardia Community
College
http://goo.gl/m4tdY4
Teaches:
Wikipedia editing
paraphrasing
plagiarism

11. Wikipedia @ LaGuardia Community
College
Teaches:
Wikipedia editing
& practices –
plagiarism not
allowed – students
required to
paraphrase

12. Wikipedia @ LaGuardia Community
College
Teaches:
Source evaluation
& critical thinking
skillsv

13. Classroom Experience

14. What students have to say

15. Wikipedia Resources
•Wiki Edu resources
• For instructors
• Tutorials
• Managing the Wiki Edu Dashboard
• For students
• Tutorials

16. For Instructors

17. Wiki Edu Dashboard

18. For Students
And more...

19. Instruction
• 5 Pillars
• Creating an account
• Using the sandbox
• Visual editor vs. wiki markup
• Moving article to main space
• History
• Talk pages

20. Five Pillars

21. Creating an account

22. The Sandbox

23. History

24. Talk

25. Outreach and Collaboration
• Librarians - Connect with faculty
• Faculty – Work with librarians
• Connect with local Wiki chapters
• Host Edit-a-thon
• Have a theme
• Select articles to edit
• Provide print & online sources
• Goal is to have a single edit

26. Wikipedia @ Hunter College
• Spring 2016
• Hosted Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Women of African Diaspora
during Women’s History month with AfroCrowd & Africana
Puerto-Rican/Latino Studies
• Fall 2016/Spring 2017
• Work with classes in the Africana Puerto Rican/Latino Studies
department
• Continue to have edit-a-thons

27. Sources
• Altman, Thomas, Rosen, Daniel, Nadarajah, Siva, et. al.
Engaging Patients Through Social Media. New Jersey: IMS
Institute for Healthcare Informatics, 2014. Web.
• Lynch, Jack. You Could Look it Up: The reference shelf
from Babylon to Wikipedia. New York: Bloomsbury Press,
2016. Print.
• Pinsker, Joe. “The Covert World of People Trying to Edit
Wikipedia--For Pay.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media
Company. 11 August, 2015. Web.
• Thonemann, Peter. “The All-Conquering Wikipedia”The
Times Literary Supplement. 16, May 2016. Web.

28. Further Reading
• Dougherty, Jack, O’Donnell, Tennyson.Web Writing:
Why and How for Liberal Arts Teaching and
Learning, University of Michigan Press. 2015. Web.
• Nawrotzki , Kristen, Dougherty. Writing History in
the Digital Age. University of Michigan Press. 2013.
Web.
• Wiki Education Foundation -wikiedu.org &
dashboard.wikiedu.org

29. Questions
Thank you!Chanitra: cb1579@hunter.cuny.edu
Iris: ifinkel@hunter.cuny.edu