Wikipedia:School and university projects

WP:SUP

The School and university projects page collects information about Wikipedia projects for school and university classes, including an archive of many past class projects.

Lists of current classes (and other programs) using Wikipedia can be found at dashboard.wikiedu.org and outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org, as well as below at current projects.

Interested in using Wikipedia assignments in your course? Try these resources:

Wikipedia:Student assignments, a page of advice and best practices for running Wikipedia assignments
Wikipedia:Training, a set of training modules for students, educators and others involved with Wikipedia editing assignments
Wikipedia:Education program, a portal for U.S. and Canada classrooms to receive more organized support. If you're not from the U.S. and Canada, no worries! Feel free to check out the students assignments page and to ask for help at the education noticeboard.

Want to report a problem or ask for help related to a class editing project?

Post to the education noticeboard (WP:ENB).

Start the training for educators

Current projects

Brochure with case studies of using Wikipedia in higher education

Data is not easily available for previous projects using the course page system that launched in January 2013 and was removed in 2018. For details, see the discussion of retrieving data from the archived database tables.

Please add new projects at the bottom of this section, and indicate when the projects will end. When a project is completed, archive the information relating to it in one of the subpages listed below at "Past projects". If you need help with this, leave a message on the talk page.

You are invited to add the template {{Educational assignment}} to the talk pages of articles which are created or significantly changed due to an assignment. The template looks like this:

This article was the subject of an educational assignment that ended on 1 January 2008. Further details are available here.

University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany – Translation (Ongoing – SINCE 2006)

This is a short project that has been repeated every semester since summer 2006 in the context of a few translation classes (German to English). These classes are exclusively for students in the English Department; most of them are teacher trainees. During each project period of two to three weeks students work on selecting, translating, proofreading and editing texts. Learning how wiki software and Wikipedia work is also a part of what we do. We'd love to coordinate this work with other groups. –OberMegaTrans (talk) 21:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)--AnTransit (talk) 11:07, 15 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey (Fall 2007–present)

An assignment was created by Davida Scharf, Director of Reference and Instruction at NJIT's Van Houten Library and tested in both online and face-to-face junior-level technical communication classes taught by Prof. Carol Johnson in the Fall of 2007 and Prof. James Lipuma in 2008 and currently. Students are asked to create a new article or revise an existing one on Wikipedia. They are asked to consider the audience they are addressing, as well as the context, as expressed in branching in and out and categorization, We developed a rubric for assessing student work. Contact us for details. See our presentation at the Merlot Conference in San Jose, California, August 2009. This project is ongoing. In 2010 we were invited to the Wikimedia Foundation for discussions that launched the Outreach Program to Higher Education. Our work was featured in a brochure of case studies in 2012. In Spring 2011, Prof. Theresa Hunt piloted a literature-based Wikipedia assignment in a freshman composition course. In Fall 2012 the librarians in collaboration with several faculty members in various disciplines utilized an assignment that requires students to trace information in a Wikipedia article of their choosing back to the sources cited in order to verify the accuracy and quality of the information and source. In some cases students are editing and improving the entries.

School of Law, Singapore Management University: Constitutional and Administrative Law Wikipedia Project (ongoing; started January 2010)

This project, which started in January 2010 and has been repeated each year since, is managed by Assistant Professor Jack Tsen-Ta Lee of the School of Law, Singapore Management University. Participants of the project are LL.B. and J.D. students. They are required to collaborate with the members of the groups to which they have been assigned to prepare a Wikipedia article or part of one. The aims of the project are to encourage students to internalize the material covered in the course, as well as to contribute towards producing a body of accurate information about Singapore constitutional and administrative law that is freely available on the Internet. The project page is at "Wikipedia:School and university projects/SMU Constitutional and Administrative Law Wikipedia Project".

BI Norwegian Business School, Oslo, Norway (Fall 2006–present)

Prof. Espen Andersen (Espen) regularly assigns Wikipedia writing as one of several graded assignments for various graduate level classes in Technology Strategy, eBusiness or IT Management (MBA/EMBA/M.Sc.), 3–4 classes per year of 25–60 students. Details of the assignments can be found here for GRA6821 and here for GRA6834. The intent is to teach the students how to behave and contribute in a crowdsourcing environment – and, of course, to make Wikipedia better! The students can contribute in any language version of Wikipedia they choose (most use the Norwegian or English one), but will create a user page listing their contributions, and write a reflection paper towards the end of the course. The idea is that the students do the editing throughout the course, gaining experience as they go. For the more experienced Wikipedians – should there be a problem (copyright violations, non-encyclopedic material, etc.) please address the individual contributor, and escalate to Espen Andersen if undesirable behavior is continued. (These are graduate students of business and problems seldom arise, but once in a while someone misunderstands and pulls a fast one.) Espen Andersen's contact details can be found at his contact web page.

St. Charles Community College, Cottleville, Missouri (Summer 2011 – present)

There are over 1000 psychology-related stubs in WP:PSYCH. Even new psychology students will be capable of improving these articles to a collegiate level. Introduction to Psychology is an introductory overview of the field of psychology. It is an examination of behavioral, cognitive, psychoanalytic, humanistic and biological viewpoints in psychology. The course includes learning principles and applications, motivation, emotions, stress, psychobiology, personality, abnormal behaviors and approaches to therapy. Contact Professor Harden for more information.

University of Hull – Scarborough Campus (UK) – School of Arts & New Media (ongoing)

Students at the School of Arts & New Media explore the concept of open content and the read/write web while learning about specific aspects of either Digital Performance, Machinima or Cyberpsychology. They do this by creating and/or editing Wikipedia entries about some of the key projects and established areas of interest in their area of study. The coordinating tutor for this work is Toni Sant who has worked with students in the same department, on contributions to existing Wikipedia entries as well as new ones, since 2010. See details of current session.

Universitat Jaume I – Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences – Universitat Jaume I – E-translating Project

Third-year students from the Universitat Jaume I (Castellón, Spain) translate selected articles from the Spanish to the English Wikipedia language version in teams. The texts selected are pre-assessed for lexicon and terminology with the aid of ADA. ADELEX ANALYSER. The objective (and reward for both students and teachers/facilitators) is for students to see their translations published on Wikipedia article. Students will assess each other's translations and suggest corrections. A parallel project at the University Jaume I, in which second-year students translate Wikipedia articles from English into Spanish, can be found at "Aprendices de traducción con la Wikipedia".

University of Kent – Attitudes and Social Cognition (Spring 2012 – present)

Students in the final year module SP612: Attitudes and Social Cognition led by Mario Weick submit an annotated Wikipedia entry as part of their course assignments. The project supports the APS Wikipedia Initiative. A list of contributions can be found here: SP612 (talk · contribs)

Georgia Institute of Technology – Introductory Neuroscience (Spring 2007–present)

Professor Steve Potter's Introductory Neuroscience class at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA (BMED/BIOL 4752) has been adding and fixing up Wikipedia articles related to neuroscience since 2007. Each student chooses a neuro topic of his or her choice that is a stub or non-existent on Wikipedia, and becomes an expert in that topic across the semester. To do that, students read papers and books, interview other experts, and practice Wikipedia mechanics. These Georgia Tech seniors have contributed hundreds of neuro-related articles to Wikipedia. More info can be found at: User:Professorpotter/GeorgiaTech-IntroNeuro and at Prof. Potter's Teaching Page

University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia – Research Methods (Ongoing)

This semester-long project, running since 2010, provides third year Arts students with an opportunity to undertake research into the lives and histories of Australian subjects. Using traditional documentary research methods the students build a knowledge base to underpin a high quality Wikipedia article on people and organisations whose archives are held in the collecting library of the University of Queensland. I choose the subjects of research and the students work in groups of 4 or 5 in close consultation with me to develop the content for the article. After some weeks of research the students begin working in a sandbox to build the article. It is transferred to the mainspace two or three weeks out from the end of semester and the Wikimedia Australia members were asked to comment on their work. Learning how to work within wiki software and understanding the place of Wikipedia in contemporary knowledge sharing are essential aspects of this project. The students take great pride in their work and the University is happy with the results as well. –Kerry K Kerry K 10:30, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Imperial College London Science Communication for Life Sciences (2012–present)

Students create and edit articles on a variety of biological and biochemical topics for a final-year module in Science Communication. This has run each spring term since 2012. See User:Polypompholyx for past and current contributions.

University of Padua, Italy, Educational Technology (from 2009–present)

Students in the Educational Technology classes create and modify articles in the Italian Wikipedia about learning, training and other topics related to e-learning and Web 2.0. They learn to use Wikipedia as contributors, improving their digital competences on selecting and evaluating reliability of informations. Contact prof. Corrado Petrucco of the Departement of Education. User:Conradpd

University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2015, Spring

ENGL 151H 'Rhetoric as Argument' This is a first-year honors English composition course that engages students in the study of written argument: developing an informed and committed stance on a topic, and using writing to share this stance with particular audiences for particular purposes. There are 13 students in the current session, working on a variety of topics and pages, from Adam Kotsko's book Awkwardness to plant cognition. After writing a rhetorical analysis of a mentor text, students enter a related conversation on Wikipedia. The course is taught by Daniel Clausen. --Daclausen (talk) 20:52, 4 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

John Bapst Memorial High School, Bangor, Maine, AP Biology (2012 – Present)

This project is a series of annual end of the year May/June final exam assignments for an AP Biology course. Students identify a biology or medical topic of interest which is missing important illustrating diagrams and create and upload diagrams that illustrate important concepts in Biology. T In this assignment: students demonstrate their understanding of designing and communicating concepts through a scientific model, learn about the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, practice peer review techniques, learn the basics of captioning, graphic design, and develop a deep understanding of their chosen concept. The current project and links to the past year's projects can be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject AP Biology Bapst 2015.

The College of Idaho (Winter Session 2010, 2012, 2017, May Session 2021, Winter Session 2024)

Students in Professor Steven S. Maughan's history course, The Terror: Language, Radicalism, and Violence in the French Revolution, 1789–1799, will work to critique and improve biographical entries on notable French Revolutionary figures. Each will create their own Wikipedia login ID, will become familiar with Wikipedia as a community and as a knowledge resource, and will refine and expand a biographical entry drawing on high-quality scholarly sources.

The assignments, based on templates provided for past Wikipedia course projects, will be completed by the end of Jan. 2024.

University of Extremadura, School of Technology, Cáceres, Spain, Discrete and numerical mathematics (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020)

This is an educational and learning project in the context of the course 'Further Mathematics' that is common both to the Bachelor Degree in Computer Software Engineering and to the Bachelor Degree in Computing and Computer Engineering, taught at the School of Technology (Escuela Politécnica, EPCC) of the University of Extremadura. Its main aim is to work on discrete and numerical mathematics topics on the English Wikipedia, 1^st, individually: (a) contributing to existing articles (expanding and improving articles; performing critical analysis of existing articles (on their talk pages); adding theoretical and practical applications and cases of use, specially in the field of Science, Technology and Society; adding examples and case studies; adding notes, references, bibliography, inner links, external links and multimedia content (photos, illustrations, videos); making conceptual and style corrections; improving an article to try and get it to be highlighted; translating articles from other wikipedias, expanding them) and (b) creating new articles, and 2^nd, in teams: selecting an existing article being qualified as a 'stub' (short article) or creating a new article and trying to get it to be a good or even a featured article. It has been launched on February 2017 — by the way, we wish to thank the Research Group of Applied Telematics Engineering and Advanced Communications (GÍTACA) that help us with the non-Wikipedia IT support during the academic year 2016–2017 —. To date, this educational and learning project has had four editions (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020). There is an equivalent project for contributing to the Spanish Wikipedia from the same starting date to present. Coordination: Juan Miguel León Rojas.

The University of British Columbia, Department of Linguistics (2013, 2014, 2017)

Students in Professor Rose-Marie Déchaine's syntax course work to develop and improve entries related to syntax. Each student creates their own Wikipedia login ID, and becomes familiar with Wikipedia norms. Working individually or in groups, students contribute content to currently existing stubs or articles, with the goal of: (i) adding examples and reviewing the literature; (ii) adding notes, references, bibliography, inner links, external links and multimedia content (phrase-structure tress); (iii) editing for consistency of style; (iv) improving the overall quality of the article. Students develop the ability to communicate technical concepts about linguistics as the scientific study of language, learn about the collaborative nature of Wikipedia, and acquire a deeper understanding of foundational concepts. To date, this educational and learning project has had three iterations (2013, 2014, 2017).

University of Pennsylvania, School of Nursing (2017)

Students in N313 Obesity and Society, and N355 Self-care in Chronic Illness learn about the health-literacy impact of Wikipedia and identify articles to improve as small-group projects on related topics such as Food deserts and Spirituality

Ahmedabad University, Ahmedabad, India, Centre for Learning Futures (2018)

This is a project where about 500 students work in groups of five to create approximately 100 articles in their sandboxes. The contributors are all students of the Academic Reading and Writing Course offered by the Centre for Learning Futures, Ahmedabad University, in the Winter Semester of 2018. The articles under this project are mostly about issues, places, persons and events pertaining to the local history of the city of Ahmedabad, India, or related areas. A smaller number of these articles are also about general topics pertaining to India. While most groups make their articles in their respective sandboxes, a select few will be recommended to submit theirs to the Wikipedia review process. More details and links to articles here: Wikipedia:School_and_university_projects/CLeF111_Academic_Reading_and_Writing

Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna

Wikipedia:School and university projects/IIT SSSUP polo Valdera

University of Florence, Italy, Political sciences Erasmus class (2019)

15 Erasmus students (from China, France, Italy, Germany, Spain)are working in groups in order to create Wikipedia articles in the field of European institutions history. More details: [1].

University of Colombo, Department of English (2019)

Students in ENG3144/3163 Sociolinguistics learn about linguistic variation in Sri Lankan languages and identify articles to improve individually by including information found through sources such as published material and journal articles. Kpdoe (talk) 05:38, 14 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Saint-Louis University, Brussels, Marie Haps Faculty of Translation and Interpreting

In the spirit of Wikipedia:WikiProject Intertranswiki/French, Translation students create or expand articles in English by translating (parts of) articles from the French-language Wikipedia. This project has run from February to May each year since 2016. MHAN2016 (talk) 18:03, 18 May 2019 (UTC) Removing date to fix existing link. --MHAN2016 (talk) 10:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

University of Minnesota, Department of Earth & Environmental Sciences (2020)

My geomorphology class will be assigned a final project in which they identify gaps in geomorphology-related knowledge on Wikipedia and, with guidance from instructors, learn how to build well-referenced and accessible articles. Students will also develop and contribute key figures. Andy Wickert (talk) 17:00, 26 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

University of South Florida, History of Libraries class (Ongoing)

Students in the University of South Florida's LIS6110 History of Libraries class participate in a week-long Edit-a-Thon each semester with the intention of correcting and expanding upon articles pertaining to libraries, library history, and relevant library figures and events. In the process, students learn about the Wikipedia editing process and gain an appreciation for the collaborative Wikipedia community.

School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen, Russia, Science and Technology Class (2021-2022)

Students, who take Prof. Ayla Arslan's courses “Science and Technology” and “The Unit of Life” in the School of Advanced Studies (University of Tyumen, Siberia, Russia) during the second quarter of the 2021-2022 academic year participate in a four-week Wikipedia editing assignment. The Wikipedia assignment of the Science and Technology course is a part of the pilot study related to collaborative service learning project of Dr. Ayla Arslan and Dr. Marko Turk since 2021. The assignment, as designed by Ayla Arslan, included the academic writing and/or translation of selected articles of English Wikipedia and generation of a new Wikipedia article in the language of the student's mother tongue (e.g. Russian or any other language depending on the mother tongue of the student) with following aims: (i) acquiring information literacy and digital literacy by writing or editing the digital content of a selected Wikipedia article in English or Russian (or any other language depending on the mother tongue of the student such as Indonesian); (ii) practicing academic writing and language translation skills; (iii) learning and critically thinking about the knowledge related to selected course topic. (iv) developing awareness for public service for diversity, equity and inclusion for digital spheres (language diversity, crowdsourcing, open source, democratization of knowledge). The assignment was designed for students to acquire 21st century skills, such as information literacy. Out of 47 students, 24 students, who were signed up for the assignment, were divided into six groups and instructed according to a four-week plan during which students had special consultation with the course professor on a weekly basis (about 3 hours per week of the instructors’ office hours “Professor in the Box” and about 20-30 minutes for each student groups).

Üsküdar University, Istanbul, Turkey 2022-2023

Wikipedia editing project has been assigned to students as a part of the postgraduate course 'MLC501 Recent Developments in Biotechnology' which takes place in the fall semester 2022- 2023 at the Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Course Coordinator: Dr. Ayla Arslan

Past projects

External links

Wikipedia Education Program
- Using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education at Wikimedia Outreach wiki
Kristine L. Callis, Lindsey R. Christ, Julian Resasco, David W. Armitage, Jeremy D. Ash, Timothy T. Caughlin, Sharon F. Clemmensen, Stella M. Copeland, Timothy J. Fullman, Ryan L. Lynch, Charley Olson, Raya A. Pruner, Ernane H.M. Vieira-Neto, Raneve West-Singh, Emilio M. Bruna (2009) Improving Wikipedia: educational opportunity and professional responsibility. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 24(4):177–179.
Robert E. Cummings, Lazy Virtues: Teaching Writing in the Age of Wikipedia, Vanderbilt University Press, 2009 (reviews)
Piotr Konieczny, Teaching with Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation wikis, Slides from WikiSym '10 workshop
Frank Schulenburg, Klaus Wannemacher: Wikipedia in Academic Studies – Corrupting or "Dramatically Improving" the Quality of Teaching and Learning?, in: Peter Ebner / Mandy Schiefner (eds.), Looking Toward the Future of Technology Enhanced Education: Ubiquitous Learning and the Digital Native, Hershey, PA, 2009, ISBN 978-1-61520-678-0.
Normann Witzleb, Engaging with the World: Students of Comparative Law Write for Wikipedia (2009) 9 Legal Education Review 83 – 97.
Wikipedia: A scientific and educational opportunity in EcoTone blog
Commons:Guidelines for class projects
Wikinews:Guidelines for class projects
Wikibooks:Guidelines for class projects
Miran Hladnik, Slovene student projects in Wikipedia and Wikisource, 2008