Wikipedia:Ambassadors/School Recruitment

Proposal for Santa Fe College to use Wikipedia in the Academic Curriculum

Executive Summary
Wikipedia has a vision to create a world where every single person has access to the sum of all human knowledge. We see the use of Wikipedia as a teaching tool as an important step toward making this vision come true. Students make great contributors to Wikipedia because they're immersed in a culture of learning, so sharing that knowledge with the world is a logical next step.

A number of instructors have incorporated working in Wikipedia into courses they taught, but it took a lot of work. Based on their experiences, Wikipedia has developed the Ambassadors Program to help instructors who want to use editing in Wikipedia as part of a course. This program include three components: syllabus assistance, materials easily incorporated into an existing syllabus to help get students started on working in Wikipedia; Campus Ambassadors, volunteers trained to help students get started in Wikipedia in the classroom; and Online Ambassadors, experienced Wikipedians who are available in Wikipedia, on IRC, or by e-mail, to help students.

According to instructors who have incorporated Wikipedia into their courses, students benefit in a number of areas: writing skills, media literacy, critical thinking, collaboration, community of practice, critical review skills, and technology fluency.

Through this project, we're hoping to both improve the quality of Wikipedia articles and make academia understand that Wikipedia is a great first step in research – you should not cite it in a paper, but you should look at the references section of articles to find sources you should consult and, if appropriate, cite.

Benefits to students
Students get a lot out of the assignment to edit Wikipedia, according to our professors. Instead of a paper they never use again, they are working collaboratively with other Wikipedia editors on a living document that thousands of others will reference as part of their classwork.

Those benefits include:
 * Writing skills: Students learn how to write in a neutral point of view in an encyclopedic tone.
 * Media literacy: Students gain a much better understanding of how Wikipedia works when they're required to contribute to it. When you understand what goes into a good Wikipedia article, you gain media literacy skills – you can evaluate the quality of other Wikipedia articles very easily.
 * Critical thinking: Students have to evaluate sources and translate academic works for the general public.
 * Collaboration: Other Wikipedia editors often work collaboratively with students.
 * Community of practice: Students learn as a group and join a community of practice.
 * Literature review skills: A Wikipedia article can often form the literature review section for a larger paper.
 * Technology fluency: Students learn how to use wikis, software that is internally used by many companies.

History of classroom use

 * How it started - individual professors making assignments. The first uses of Wikipedia in the classroom apparently were in 2003, when professors at Portland State University and University Saarland had students work on articles. Since then instructors at more than 100 schools have included editing Wikipedia in class assignments.
 * A notably successful integration of Wikipedia in the classroom was Murder, Madness, and Mayhem: Latin American Literature in Translation (WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem), a course at the University of British Columbia in 2008. The instructor has written an essay reflecting on the project (User:Jbmurray/Madness).
 * WikiProject Classroom coordination
 * Public Policy Initiative

Future

 * Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan Summary]