Some professors believe Wikipedia has no place in the footnotes of a college paper. But could it have a place on the syllabus?
The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that does fund-raising and back-end support for the popular open-source encyclopedia, says yes. So do the nine professors at prominent colleges who have agreed to make creating, augmenting, and editing Wikipedia entries part of their students’ coursework.
“We’ve known for a long time that students are the fuel of Wikipedia,” said LiAnna Davis, a Wikimedia spokeswoman. “…We feel there is a place for Wikipedia in the classroom.”
“Students have access to so many journals and library materials and other scholarly materials that other people just don’t have access to,” she said.
Wikimedia’s new alliances with professors stem from its Public Policy Initiative, an effort to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of topics relating to U.S. public policy. On a grant from the Stanton Foundation, Wikimedia started recruiting public policy professors who were willing to have their students create content for Wikipedia. This fall, the foundation will help nine instructors — four at George Washington University, two at Georgetown University, and one each at Indiana University at Bloomington, Syracuse University, and Harvard University — integrate Wikipedia-related assignments into their syllabuses. (Wikimedia does not pay the professors to do this; the Stanton grant pays for foundation staff and training associated with the project.)
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