Wikipedia Education Program/News/18 June 2013

Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Program Update -- a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation about efforts to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms. The newsletter is released on the first and third Tuesday of each month. To be notified of the latest issue, add this page to your watchlist or email LiAnna Davis (ldaviswikimedia.org), the Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager, to be added to the distribution list.

Analysis of student motivations in First Monday

In their new article published in First Monday, Wikipedia researchers Amy Roth, Rochelle Davis and Brian Carver take a close look at the issue of student engagement with Wikipedia assignments. The analysis is based on research each of them did independently during during 2010 and 2011, and all of the data points in same direction: students are more engaged in Wikipedia writing assignments than conventional term papers. Read more in "Assigning Wikipedia editing: Triangulation toward understanding student engagement".

In Greece, students build medicine and math articles

Student editors at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) have been contributing to Greek Wikipedia for three years now. What started with the postgraduate Web Science program has expanded to undergraduates in the Medical School and the School of Mathematics, with students translating high quality articles from English to Greek. To date, more than 200 hundred students at AUTH have worked on Wikipedia. Read more about the growing education program on Greek Wikipedia.

UCLA labor historian tries a Wikipedia assignment

The Daily Bruin takes a look at how Tobias Higbie, associate processor of history, used Wikipedia in his American Working Class Movements course. It was the first UCLA course to participate in the Wikipedia Education Program, but from what the students and professor Higbie are saying, it probably won't be the last. Read more about Higbie's first Wikipedia assignment.

Communications students reflect on assignment

At Schreiner University in Kerrville, Texas, students of professor Mary Grace Antony — another first-time participant in the Wikipedia Education Program — are also reporting a great experience with their Wikipedia assignments. In Antony's New Media Technology and Communication course, students worked closely with Campus Ambassador Dan Simanek and Online Ambassador Theopolisme to expand existing Wikipedia articles. Read more about what Antony's students got out of their assignment.