Wikipedia Campus Ambassador Handbook

Topics: A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S

A

Assessing the student's contributions to Wikipedia articles

Knowing all the students' usernames on Wikipedia is a necessary precondition

Without knowing the students' usernames on Wikipedia, the instructor won't be able to grade them. Create a page for the course on Wikipedia before the course starts. Then create a participants list and make it mandatory for the students to add their usernames to that list. Once all students have signed the list, you can come back later and click on "user contributions" (in the menu bar on the left hand side of your browser screen) to review all of the student's activities on Wikipedia.

Being clear about the expectations

Being explicit about what you expect the students to do is key for the instructors. Example: The assignment for the students could be to add a minimum of 3 new sections to an existing article. Students could also be asked to add a minimum of 8 references to an existing article that lacks the appropriate sourcing, etc.

Using Wikipedia's "page history" feature

A key tool for assessing the student's work is Wikipedia's "page history" feature. The page history contains a list of the page's previous revisions. All past changes to the page in question are listed in reverse-chronological order. To find out what a specific student contributed to a Wikipedia article, you have to follow these four steps:

(1) Go to the article that the student worked on.

(2) Click on "View history" in the upper right tab list on top of the article.

(3) Find the student's Wikipedia user name in the list of contributors.

(4) Compare the previous version with the version the student saved: Tick the left-column radio button of the older version and the right-column radio button of the newer version, and then click the "Compare selected versions" button.

See Wikipedia's help page page history for more information about how to use the page history feature.

Using the "contribs" feature

A key tool for assessing an individual student's work is the "contribs" feature, which will show you a history of that student's edits.

(1) Click the history of any page to which the editor you are interested in contributed.

(2) Locate the name of the editor in the edit history.

(3) Click on the word "contribs" next to the editor's name.

(4) A list of the every edit that user has made to Wikipedia will appear.

Asking the students to give presentations about how they improved Wikipedia

In order to get a better understanding of the students' activities on Wikipedia, you can ask them to give a presentation about how they improved articles on Wikipedia. This assignment will help them to reflect on their work. Alternatively, it could be a written assignment asking the students to reflect on whether they reached the learning achievements or not (e.g., how did editing Wikipedia improve their writing skills?).

Asking the students to peer review each other's work

Asking the students to peer review each other's work meets two objectives: First, the students will practice their review skills. They will have to critically evaluate their peer's contribution to Wikipedia. For example, they could try to answer questions like: Are the newly added sections of the article readable? Are all additions well referenced? Does the content adhere to Wikipedia's Neutral Point of View policy? How much do the additions improve the article overall? Second, asking your students to peer review each other's work also helps the instructor to save time. Assessing the contributions of each individual in a class of 30 students can be time consuming. Asking the students to write reviews is a more effective way of assessing the student's work on Wikipedia.

C

Clubs (Student Clubs)

see Starting a Wikipedia student club

D

Documenting the students' feedback on the assignment

Class/personal blogs

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[PENDING]

G

Grading

see Assessing the student's contributions

P

Press - getting press coverage for what you're doing

Contact your affiliated university's newspaper

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Contact your regional newspapers, television stations, and radio stations

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S

Starting a Wikipedia student club on campus

10 Steps to start a Wikipedia student club

OPEN QUESTION: should the content of this subject live on the Wikipedia Student Clubs page (as is the case now) or on the Campus Ambassador Handbook? Either way I would add a subsection about tips & tricks for making the student club sustainable, especially if the people who founded the club are close to graduation or going away for any other reason.