Education/News/May 2020/Wikidata introduced in Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade

Wikidata introduced in Faculty of Economics, University of Belgrade

Social Media channels or hashtags: Wikipedia, wikidata, Wikimedia Serbia, Education program, Serbia, students’ assignments

Summary: During this semester, Wikimedia Serbia has focused on introducing Wikidata into the Education Program. Workshop on editing Wikidata was held at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade.

Djordje and Nebojsa at Wikimedia CEE Meeting 2019

During this semester, Wikimedia Serbia has focused on introducing Wikidata into the Education Program. Workshop on editing Wikidata was held at the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade. Working on the Wikidata is recognized as a good way to improve students' skills by using new and open learning platforms, which can help students in their future work and understanding of issues in a certain field. In particular, very significant was initiative taken by Djordje Stakić, a teaching assistant of the Faculty of Economics and a Board member of Wikimedia Serbia. This partnership gave us mutual benefits - the students had more trust in someone who teaches them at the faculty, and on the other hand, Djordje has experience in working with Wiki projects, so he brought Wikidata closer to the students in the right way. The workshop involved 30 students who edited 714 items about Serbia. The topic was familiar to them and when they found out about the significance of these contributions, they gladly edited them. The basic idea was that students understand what the Wikidata is and how items are created, but also to learn how to group data and what is the advantage of the flexibility of data extraction from Wikidata. It is always challenging to introduce something new in cooperation with the faculties and that is the reason why we always feel the worry to what extent students will understand how and why it is done.. However, this example shows that students have understood the future of the Wikidata and its application in the right way. In addition to editing items on Wikidata, students also worked on editing articles on Wikipedia.