Wikimedia in Education 2nd Edition

By Ewan McAndrew, Wikimedian in Residence, University of Edinburgh.
To coincide with Wikipedia’s 24th Birthday, seven new case studies have now been added to the booklet of case studies of Wikimedia in Education (pdf), continuing our work collating best practice examples of innovative use of Wikipedia as a learning technology to engage with in the curriculum.
These include:
1) Dr. Glaire Anderson – History of Art (UG) assignment on evaluating and expanding Wikipedia information on medieval Islamic contributions to history of science, technology and the occult. In small groups, students used knowledge gained in the course, as well as images of scientific instruments and manuscripts from the landmark Wikimedia UK-Khalili Collections partnership, to expand and develop and illustrate Wikipedia articles keyed to the course topics.
2) Dr. Evelyn Balsells – Global Health Challenges (Pg Online) assignment on researching and substantially improving short stub articles about natural and manmade disasters around the world. e.g. 2020 Kerala floods
3) Scotland, Slavery and Black History – History Society students working with Professor Diana Paton to improve articles examining Scotland’s role in the Transatlantic slave trade. The controversial politician Henry Dundas was a focal point and historical facts and a more nuanced understanding about his legacy were added to the article about him.
4) Dr. Matt Graham – Contemporary African History assignment substantially improving articles about the African continent such as: The Siege of Jadotville, LGBT history in Uganda, Hereroland, the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations, the Flag of Biafra, and Pan-Africanism.
5) Dr. Andrea Wallace – Art and Law assignment. Students worked in groups to improve knowledge in articles on art, colonial statues and monuments. They used knowledge gained in the module, as well as in other modules, to create and expand on Wikipedia articles related to their legal studies, while considering their own participation in the power dynamics of knowledge production, citation, representation, visibility, and access.
6) Local history study at London secondary schools – collating and editing details of the life stories of People of Colour living and working in their local area in the 1700s.
7) Knowledge Activists project at Edinburgh College – a small group project researching and publishing new articles about underrepresented artists on Wikipedia and establishing links with a major local art gallery (Fruitmarket gallery).
The new 2025 edition of the booklet also includes a section on “Going Further with student engagement” and showcases examples of student internships and student work placements focused on delivering Wikimedia-related projects.
This takes the booklet to a grand total of 21 case studies. Of our 21 examples, 18 pertain to higher education, one from further education and two from secondary. This resource has been designed for anyone involved in education, and will be of particular interest to teachers, lecturers and learning technologists involved in open pedagogy and course design, or who have an interest in library skills, innovative learning, working on the open web, co-creation, collaborative working, or digital skills.
The chief aim of this booklet is to let educators (and learners) take inspiration from these case studies as examples of best practice where engaging with the Wikimedia projects as a form of learning technology can help achieve learning outcomes, graduate competencies and also help improve understanding of course disciplines and under-represented topics, culture and histories globally and impactfully.
Another aim was to make sure educators felt supported (and knew that support was there both from Wikimedia UK and other open educators) in trying out new open, collaborative and experiential ways of supporting and meeting the needs of learners and the demands of both curriculum transformation and our digital economy.
It is therefore especially gratifying to see this community of practice growing as Dr. Glaire Anderson reached out to and made use of the experience of two educators featured in the 2020 booklet, Dr. Alex Chow (Theology at UoE) and Dr. Sasha Livintseva (Film Studies at QMUL), to develop her own Wikipedia assignment in her own discipline, History of Art. This is exactly the kind of building on prior knowledge and collegiate sharing of best practice we hoped for.
But rather than my talking the talk, I’ll let Glaire and her students speak about their experience of walking the walk:
I was worried going into the term that the students would dislike the experiment, that they would be put off by the necessity of having to learn yet another new digital tool at an already difficult time. A few weeks into the course they had spoken frankly about the stress of knowing that what they created would be out there in the world as free and public knowledge, their sense of worry and responsibility to do this work ‘right’.
I was therefore surprised at mid-course feedback that specifically mentioned the Wikipedia project as something that was going well in the course. They appreciated how the editing process had gotten them thinking about knowledge dissemination. Thanks to their efforts Wikipedia’s freely-available knowledge is now a bit more diverse and globally representative.
In a year that brought pervasive systemic injustices into stark relief, our experiment in applying our knowledge outside the classroom gave us a sense that we were creating something positive, something that mattered.
As one student commented, “Really love the Wikipedia project. It feels like my knowledge is actually making a difference in the wider world, if in a small way.”
~ Editing Wikipedia: Stars, Robots and Talismans Honours Course, Dr Glaire Andersen, Teaching Matters Blog.
Download Wikimedia in Education (pdf) here.