Wikipedia:WikiProject Consumer Reports/university outreach

Lane Rasberry (user:bluerasberry), the Wikipedian at Consumer Reports, visits universities to support students in contributing to Wikipedia pages. Particularly this happens with students and teachers in health classes.

Purpose
Wikipedia is a highly consulted source of information on many topics. If people contribute to Wikipedia then readers of Wikipedia benefit.

Anyone can contribute to Wikipedia articles, including students. In the Wikipedia's education program, there are tutorials and support resources to help professors and classes integrate exercises to contribute to Wikipedia into classrooms. Students who contribute to Wikipedia report that they find the experience meaningful and helpful for their learning.

Scope
This project is sponsored by Consumer Reports, and for that reason, professors and classes which are sharing information which is relevant to typical consumers are favored in this project.

More particularly, classes in New York state are favored, and medical schools and health classes are preferred over other kinds of classes.

Process
Wikipedia outreach to universities began in summer 2010 with the public policy project. After that trial was finished, the Wikipedia education program was established to develop best practices and resources for classes to partner with Wikipedia. About 1000 classes have participated in the program. Most of what happens in the course of this kind of outreach is established and can be predicted, even though since Wikipedia is live and public, there are always surprises.

Wikipedia education program

 * The general portal to information about the Wikipedia education program is at Education program.
 * To ask a question about the education program, visit the Education noticeboard.
 * To access training and resources to support a class in doing Wikipedia, visit the hub for instructors or the hub for anyone who wants to volunteer

Health content on Wikipedia

 * The general portal to all Wikipedia health policy is WikiProject Medicine. On the talk page anyone may get an answer to any question about anything related to Wikipedia and health.
 * Health information on Wikipedia is a Wikipedia article

Affiliations

 * Meetup/NYC/Medicine October 2013
 * Education Program:Harvard University/Obgyn bootcamp (April 2014)
 * Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, 2014-present

Potential affiliations
Medical schools are the obvious options for partnership.


 * watchlist
 * WikiProject Consumer Reports/Medical education

Events
Consumer Reports presented the "Why Medical Schools Should Embrace Wikipedia" paper as noted on that paper's project page.

Participate!
Anyone can participate in the Wikipedia education program if they like. If you are in New York and interested in health articles and want to partner with Consumer Reports in developing Wikipedia health content, then contact Lane Rasberry, Wikipedian in Residence at Consumer Reports!
 * email lrasberry@consumer.org
 * call 914.378.2684 during office hours EST. This number is in New York.