Assigning Students to Edit Wikipedia: Four Case Studies

During the 2010-11 academic year, the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that supports Wikipedia, worked with professors at universities across the United States who were interested in using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in their classrooms through a pilot version of the Wikipedia Education Program. This article presents a case study of four professors' experiences: two professors at Georgetown University, one professor at Michigan State University, and one professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Each describe the ways they incorporated Wikipedia into their classroom and the learning points that emerged from the experiences. Together, they offer suggestions for other professors who are interested in participating in the Wikipedia Education Program. (Contains 1 table.)