Wikipedia Education Program/News/21 January 2014

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.

Editing Wikipedia brochure helps newbies learn basics

The Wikimedia Foundation has released a completely revamped edition of the old Welcome to Wikipedia brochure, now titled "Editing Wikipedia". You may remember the Welcome to Wikipedia brochure as a blue B5-sized brochure aimed at helping newcomers learn to edit Wikipedia. Written in 2010, the brochure was the first major piece of printed guidance ever produced by Wikimedia, but it had started to show its age. The revamp, Editing Wikipedia, is now available in PDF and hard copy for distribution to students and other new editors. Featuring volunteers from all over the world, the new brochure covers both the how and the why of editing Wikipedia, with special focus on the things that trip up new editors most often: writing in an appropriate encyclopedic style, using and citing reliable sources, and understanding wiki markup (with an updated markup cheatsheet). Read more or download the brochure.

New term kicks off in US, Canada

The new term has started at most universities in the United States and Canada, so if you're a faculty member, it's time to gather materials and prepare your assignment. If you're teaching with Wikipedia this semester and still have not set up a Course Page for your class, please follow this link. You can also find step-by-step instructions here, or you can reach out to Jami Mathewson at jamiwikiedfoundation.org if you still need support in finalizing your assignment. Don't forget to utilize one of the most important features by clicking on "Courses" to see all edits from the students enrolled on your Course Page. This is a great way to get a daily/weekly snapshot into the progress your students are making!

Facebook Open Academy students work on extension

The Wikipedia Education Program team is working with Facebook Open Academy students this term to improve our course page software, the Education Program MediaWiki Extension. Andrew Russell Green and Sage Ross will mentor two computer science students from Stanford University in the coming months as we collaborate on a major redesign of the course pages. Learn more about the Facebook Open Academy project.