Wikipedia talk:Education program archive/American University/COMM420-620 (Spring 2016)/Course description

Who are the keepers of history in the digital age? What does Wikipedia’s crowd know that major institutions could reproduce for the public interest?

With Washington, D.C., as the backdrop, students in the “Wikipedia and Public Knowledge” class will collaborate with some of the world’s greatest institutions in media, libraries, and museums to explore the best ways to capture knowledge in the public interest.

This Spring 2016 course at American University (Washington, D.C.) bridges both theory and practice, with the class pairing with world-renown institutions such as the National Archives and the Smithsonian Institution, to analyze the policies, ethics, and dynamics of large-scale collaboration. Students will learn how to become a Wikipedia editor (Wikipedian) and how to apply the power of crowds to the mission of any institution, and to create high quality multimedia content for their portfolios. The class will spend as much time in downtown DC and online, as it will be in the classroom.