Wiki Education is asking that faculty consider assigning students to write articles for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has limited entries on intercultural dialogue-related topics. The two seem a natural fit.
In Wiki Education’s Wikipedia Student Program, college and university instructors assign students to write Wikipedia articles, empowering them to share knowledge with the world. Students research course-related topics that are missing, underrepresented, incomplete or inaccurate, synthesize the available literature, and use free tools and trainings to add information to Wikipedia. They are now accepting submissions for the Fall 2022 term.
I’ve not used Wikipedia assignments in courses because I retired before this became a thing. However, I learned the process in order to create a page for the Center for Intercultural Dialogue, and later was asked by a colleague to please create an entry for intercultural dialogue as a topic, as there was not yet anything available on the site. So I know it’s not difficult, and I also know that there is not as much content on related topics as there might be. Therefore, I suggest that anyone looking for a new and interesting type of applied assignment might want to consider the creation of Wikipedia pages as a possibility as a way to ensure that Wikipedia has the most up-to-date content relevant to intercultural dialogue topics.
For students, one benefit is that it is possible to check how many times anyone has viewed an entry. The ICD entry has been available for under two years, but has already had over 5000 views. Having that kind of impact should help motivate any student to do their best work.
Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz, Director
Center for Intercultural Dialogue
Center for Intercultural Dialogue 