Members in the Media
From: GOOD Magazine

For a Growing Number of College Students, Wikipedia Is Homework

GOOD Magazine:

Wikipedia doesn’t have a stellar reputation for scholarly accuracy, but its staggering collection of 20 million articles in 283 languages has nonetheless made it the go-to reference for the world’s students—it’s even the most plagiarized source on college campuses. Now, a growing number of professors are bucking the anti-Wikipedia trend and assigning a new kind of homework: editing the site’s articles.

According to the Wikimedia Foundation blog, professors from nine nations are participating in the two-year-old Wikipedia Education Program, which allows them to assign articles to their students. In the United States, about 50 classes are participating in the editing effort. Student contributors “are expected to put in as much work into the Wikipedia assignments as they would put into a term paper or other large assignment,” the program’s founders say. The students are guided through the editing process by their professor, trained in-person “campus ambassadors,” and virtual mentors.

Read the whole story: GOOD Magazine

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.