Wikipedia Education Program/News/3 September 2013

Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Program Update -- a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation about efforts to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms. The newsletter is released on the first and third Tuesday of each month. To be notified of the latest issue, add this page to your watchlist or email LiAnna Davis (ldaviswikimedia.org), the Wikipedia Education Program Communications Manager, to be added to the distribution list.

Wikipedia teaches students living history

Professor Amy E. Hughes teaches Western theater history at Brooklyn College, and last term she piloted a Wikipedia assignment in her class. Five students in her course contributed to Wikipedia articles on theater history. Professor Hughes authored a blog post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog recently describing her experiences and what she felt students learned from the project. Read the post.

Arab World program wraps up third term

Students in Jordan, Egypt, and Algeria put the finishing touches on Arabic Wikipedia articles they wrote as part of their coursework this term. And the numbers are outstanding. Students this term contributed 12.79 million bytes to the Arabic Wikipedia, more than doubling last term's 5.97 million bytes. The steady growth of student contributions to the Arabic Wikipedia each term is incredible, and it is thanks to the hard work of volunteer leaders throughout the Arab World. Read more about the contributions of students last term.

US, Canada students add 17 War and Peaces

Students in the United States and Canada program have added the equivalent of 17 War and Peace's worth of content to the English Wikipedia in the three years of the program's existence. After six terms, students have added 43.4 million bytes of high-quality content to the English Wikipedia. Each term, more than 1,200 students participate in the program. Read more data about last term.

Student leader achieves Featured Article

Samir I. El-Sharbaty, a faculty leader with the Wikipedia Education Program in Egypt, recently achieved Featured Article status for the article George I of Great Britain on the Arabic Wikipedia. Samir participated in the program as a student while at Ain Shams University and who is now a volunteer Wikipedia Ambassador leading efforts at Damanhour University in Egypt. Read Samir's article.