Wikipedia is the world’s most widely used reference material. It’s the first place people go to understand context of the latest news, educate themselves on topics, or just discover interesting facts. For the last twenty years, Wikipedia and students have been inexorably linked, but some instructors worldwide move students from being just consumers of information to also being producers of information, by asking them to write articles as a class assignment. Similar assignments are also taking place on Wikidata, the open linked data counterpart to Wikipedia.

In this talk, we’ll explain the basics of both Wikipedia and Wikidata, discuss why educators should engage in pedagogical projects with Wikipedia or Wikidata, and discuss some best practices for doing so. We’ll also describe research about student learning objectives that come from Wikipedia writing assignments, as well as describing activities happening worldwide in the Wikimedia & Education space. 

LiAnna Davis (CA), Wiki Education