Would you trust a university’s advice column to provide trustworthy medical content? Probably not. And while Wikipedia policies require high-quality sources for medical articles, the guidelines aren’t always followed, and there are too few volunteers editing medical topics to keep all such articles at a high standard. That’s why the article for the medical procedure tubal … Continued
As an employee of Wiki Education for six months now, it’s impossible not to be inspired. Our participants in the Student Program have added over 47 million words to Wikipedia since our organization began. They bludgeon away at content gaps across the site like Thor’s mighty hammer itself! And our participants in our professional development courses contribute by bringing … Continued
With the Wikipedia Assignment, Wiki Education provides instructors with an alternative to traditional assignments. Instead of having students create one-time-use term papers, they create work that can reach thousands. Essentially, we love challenging educational paradigms in search of models that better fit the needs of students and instructors. It was fitting, therefore, when a student … Continued
When someone mentions “the first Americans,” you might think of the Mayflower, pilgrims, Puritans, and Plymouth Rock, or other European colonists. More than 10,000 years before the arrival of the pilgrims, however, the “New World” was home to hundreds of tribes, speaking dozens of languages. The identity and culture of these first Americans has been … Continued
Elysia Webb is a graduate student at the University of Florida. In Spring 2017 she contributed to Wikipedia for a course on Principles of Systematic Biology, taught by Emily Sessa. In this post she shares her experience improving the article on the Florida bonneted bat and the editing she has continued to do outside of … Continued