Wikipedia:Education program/Assignment Design Wizard

This page is for drafting copy for the initial version of the "Assignment Design Wizard" tool, which will replace the current {{course page wizard}} as well as most of the classroom-related sections of the WP:EDUCATORS training.

Course details

In this step, the instructor will input standard information about their course.

Welcome to the Wikipedia Assignment Wizard!

This tool will help you to easily create a customized Wikipedia classroom assignment and customized syllabus for your course.

When you’re finished, you'll have a ready-to-use lesson plan, with weekly assignments, published directly onto a wiki course page where it can be customized even further.

Let’s start by filling in some basics about you and your course:

Assignment types

In this step, the instructor will learn about the recommended types of Wikipedia assignments supported by the wizard, and the relevant learning goals for them.

Choosing a Wikipedia assignment

You can teach with Wikipedia in several different ways, and it's important to design an assignment that achieves your student learning objectives and works within the context of Wikipedia. Your first step is to choose which assignment(s) you'll be asking your students to complete as part of the course.

We've created some guidelines to help you, but you'll need to make some key decisions, such as: which learning objectives are you targeting with this assignment? What skills do your students already have? How much time can you devote to the assignment?

Most instructors ask their students to write or expand an article. Students start by learning the basics of Wikipedia, and then focus on the content. They plan, research, and write a previously missing Wikipedia article, or contribute to an incomplete entry on a course-related topic. This assignment typically replaces a term paper or research project, or it forms the literature review section of a larger paper. The student learning outcome is high with this assignment, but it does take a significant amount of time. TYour students need to learn both the wiki markup language and key policies and expectations of the Wikipedia-editing community.

If writing an article isn't right for your class, other assignment options offer students valuable learning opportunities and help to improve Wikipedia. Select an assignment type to the left to learn more about each assignment.

Assignment type: Research and write a Wikipedia article

Description

You guide your students to select course-related topics that are not well-covered on Wikipedia, and they work individually or in small teams to develop content. Students analyze the current gaps, start their research to find high-quality secondary sources, and then consider the best way to organize the available information. Now it's time for them to propose an outline, draft their articles, provide and respond to peer feedback, and move their work into the live article namespace on Wikipedia. Along the way, students may work with experienced Wikipedia editors who can offer critical feedback and help make sure articles meet Wikipedia's standards and style conventions, and it's important to incorporate time into the assignment for the students to integrate those suggestions. Students who do great work may have their articles featured on Wikipedia's main page, and all high quality articles will help inform thousands of future readers about the selected topic.

Optionally, you may ask your students to write a reflective paper about their Wikipedia experience, present their contributions in class, or develop their own conclusions and arguments in a supplementary essay.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 6 weeks
Recommended timeline: at least 12 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Large survey classes
- Intro (100-level) classes
Works best for:
- Classes with fewer than 30 students
- Advanced undergraduates or graduate students

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Develop writing skills :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Source-centered additions

Description

Students read Wikipedia articles in a self-selected subject area to identify articles in need of revision or improvement, such as those with "citation needed" tags. Students will find reliable sources to use as references for uncited content. This assignment includes a persuasive essay in which students make a case for their suggested changes, why they believe they are qualified to make those changes, and why their selected sources provide support. After making their contributions, students reflect on their work with a formal paper, and discuss whether they've accomplished their stated goals.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 6 weeks
Recommended timeline: 8 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Intro (100-level) courses
Works best for:
- Large classes
- Advanced undergraduates

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Writing skills development :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Find and fix errors

Description

Students are asked to find an article about a course-related topic with which they are extremely familiar that has some mistakes. Students take what they know about the topic, find factual errors and other substantive mistakes, and correct those.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 6 weeks
Recommended timeline: 8 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Intro (100-level) courses
Works best for:
- Graduate students

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Writing skills development :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Identify and fix close paraphrasing / plagiarism

Description

Students search through Wikipedia articles to find instances of close paraphrasing or plagiarism. They read the source and reword the information in their own language to be appropriate for Wikipedia. In this assignment, students gain a deeper understanding of what plagiarism is, how to avoid it, and how easily it can be discovered. They also practice reading, understanding, and reproducing information.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 4 weeks
Recommended timeline: 6 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Group assignments
Works best for:
- Classes with support of a university librarian or support faculty
- Large classes

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Writing skills development :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Translate an article into English

Description

This is a practical assignment for language instructors. Students select a Wikipedia article in the language they are studying, and translate it into their native language. Students should start with high-quality articles which are not available in their native language. This assignment provides practical translation experience with the incentive of real public service, as students expand the representation of the target culture on Wikipedia.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 4 weeks
Recommended timeline: 6+ weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Students translating from their native language to the language they're studying
Works best for:
- Language courses

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Develop writing skills :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Copyedit

Description

This assignment asks students to fix typos and wording problems in existing course-related or self-selected articles. It explicitly engages them in thinking about clarity and communication, and they still learn about a new voice through Wikipedia's encyclopedic tone. By focusing on word choice, students learn about the “authoritative” voice and how its tone can convince, even if the content is questionable.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 2 weeks
Recommended timeline: 4 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Students without strong writing skills
Works best for:
- English grammar courses

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Writing skills development :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Evaluate articles

Description

Each student selects a course-related article and writes a report analyzing its current state, including potential revisions, which encourages a critical reading of both content and form. After you give feedback on suggested revisions in the critical essay, the student carefully selects references and makes the edits. Finally, students compose self-assessments to evaluate their contributions.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 5 weeks
Recommended timeline: 8 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Large survey classes
Works best for:
- Classes with fewer than 30 students

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Develop writing skills :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Add images or multimedia

Description

If your students are adept at media, this can be a great way of contributing to Wikipedia in a non-textual way. In the past, students have photographed local monuments to illustrate articles, designed infographics to illustrate concepts, or created videos that demonstrated audio-visually what articles describe in words.

Requirements

Minimum timeline: 2 weeks
Recommended timeline: 3 weeks
Not appropriate for:
- Students without media skills
Works best for:
- Students studying photography, videography, or graphic design

Learning objectives

Master course content :
Develop writing skills :
Increase media and information fluency :
Improve critical thinking and research skills :
Foster collaboration :
Develop technical and communication skills :

Assignment type: Something else

Description

Have another idea for incorporating Wikipedia into your class? We've found that these assignments work well, but they aren't the only way to do it. Get in touch, and we can talk things through: contactwikiedu.org.

Learning the Wikipedia essentials

To get started, you'll want to introduce your students to the basic rules of writing Wikipedia articles and working with the Wikipedia community. As their first Wikipedia assignment milestone, you can ask the students to create accounts and then complete the online training for students. This training introduces the Wikipedia community and how it works, demonstrates the basics of editing and walks students through their first edits, gives advice for selecting articles and drafting revisions, and explains further sources of support as they continue along. It takes about an hour and ends with a certification step, which you can use to verify that students completed the training. Students who complete this training are better prepared to focus on learning outcomes, and spend less time distracted by cleaning up after errors.

Assignment milestones

Create a user account and enroll on the course page.
Complete the online training for students. During this training, you will make edits in a sandbox and learn the basic rules of Wikipedia.
To practice editing and communicating on Wikipedia, introduce yourself to any Wikipedians helping your class (such as a Wikipedia Ambassador), and leave a message for a classmate on their user talk page.

Will completion of the student training be part of your students' grades?

Getting started with editing Wikipedia

It is important for students to start editing Wikipedia right away. That way, they become familiar with Wikipedia's markup ("wikisyntax", "wikimarkup", or "wikicode") and the mechanics of editing and communicating on the site. We recommend assigning a few basic Wikipedia tasks early on.

Which introductory assignments would you like to use to acclimate your students to Wikipedia? You can select none, one, or more. Whichever you select will be added to the course syllabus.

Each of these is an optional assignment, which the instructor can select or unselect. By default, the first two are selected.

Critique an article. Critically evaluate an existing Wikipedia article related to the class, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article’s talk page.
Add to an article. Using course readings or other relevant secondary sources, add 1–2 sentences of new information to a Wikipedia article related to the class. Be sure to integrate it well into the existing article, and include a citation to the source.
Copyedit an article. Browse Wikipedia until you find an article that you would like to improve, and make some edits to improve the language or formatting.
Illustrate an article. Find an opportunity to improve an article by creating and uploading an original photograph or video.

Choosing articles

Choosing the right (or wrong) articles to work on can make (or break) a Wikipedia writing assignment.

Some articles may initially look easy to improve, but quality references to expand them may be difficult to find. Finding topics with the right balance between poor Wikipedia coverage and available literature from which to expand that coverage can be tricky. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when selecting articles for improvement.

Not such a good choice

Articles that are "not such a good choice" for newcomers usually involve a lack of appropriate research material, highly controversial topics that may already be well developed, broad subjects, or topics for which it is difficult to demonstrate notability.

You probably shouldn't try to completely overhaul articles on very broad topics (e.g., Law).
You should probably avoid trying to improve articles on topics that are highly controversial (e.g., Global Warming, Abortion, Scientology, etc.). You may be more successful starting a sub-article on the topic instead.
Don't work on an article that is already of high quality on Wikipedia, unless you discuss a specific plan for improving it with other editors beforehand.
Avoid working on something with scarce literature. Wikipedia articles cite secondary literature sources, so it's important to have enough sources for verification and to provide a neutral point of view.
Don't start articles with titles that imply an argument or essay-like approach (e.g., The Effects That The Recent Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis has had on the US and Global Economics). These type of titles, and most likely the content too, may not be appropriate for an encyclopedia.

Good choice

Choose a well-established topic for which a lot of literature is available in its field, but which isn't covered extensively on Wikipedia.
Gravitate toward "stub" and "start" class articles. These articles often have only 1-2 paragraphs of information and are in need of expansion. Relevant WikiProject pages can provide a list of stubs that need improvement.
Before creating a new article, search related topics on Wikipedia to make sure your topic isn't already covered elsewhere. Often, an article may exist under another name, or the topic may be covered as a subsection of a broader article.

As the instructor, you should apply your own expertise to examining Wikipedia’s coverage of your field. You understand the broader intellectual context where individual topics fit in, you can recognize where Wikipedia falls short, you know—or know how to find—the relevant literature, and you know what topics your students should be able to handle. Your guidance on article choice and sourcing is critical for both your students’ success and the improvement of Wikipedia.

There are two recommended options for selecting articles for Wikipedia assignments:

You (the instructor) prepare a list of appropriate 'non-existent', 'stub' or 'start' articles ahead of time for the students to choose from. If possible, you may want to work with an experienced Wikipedian to create the list. Each student chooses an article from the list to work on. Although this requires more preparation, it may help students to start researching and writing their articles sooner.
- (Yes/No) I would like help developing a list of appropriate article topics for my course.
Each student explores Wikipedia and lists 3–5 topics on their Wikipedia user page that they are interested in for their main project. You (the instructor) should approve article choices before students proceed to writing. Letting students find their own articles provides them with a sense of motivation and ownership over the assignment, but it may also lead to choices that are further afield from course material.
- (Yes/No) I would like help evaluating my students' choices.

Research and planning

Students often wait until the last minute to do their research, or choose sources unsuited for Wikipedia. That's why we recommend asking students to put together a bibliography of materials they want to use in editing the article, which can then be assessed by you and other Wikipedians.

Then, students should propose outlines for their articles. This can be a traditional outline, in which students identify which sections their articles will have and which aspects of the topic will be covered in each section. Alternatively, students can develop each outline in the form of a Wikipedia lead section — the untitled section at the beginning of an article that defines the topic and provide a concise summary of its content. Would you like your students to create traditional outlines, or compose outlines in the form of a Wikipedia-style lead section?

Traditional outline

For each article, the students create an outline that reflects the improvements they plan to make, and then post it to the article's talk page. This is a relatively easy way to get started.

Wikipedia lead section

For each article, the students create a well-balanced summary of its future state in the form of a Wikipedia lead section. The ideal lead section exemplifies Wikipedia's summary style of writing: it begins with a single sentence that defines the topic and places it in context, and then — in one to four paragraphs, depending on the article's size — it offers a concise summary of the topic. A good lead section should reflect the main topics and balance of coverage over the whole article.

Outlining an article this way is a more challenging assignment — and will require more work to evaluate and provide feedback for. However, it can be more effective for teaching the process of research, writing, and revision. Students will return to this lead section as they go, to guide their writing and to revise it to reflect their improved understanding of the topic as their research progresses. They will tackle Wikipedia's encyclopedic style early on, and their outline efforts will be an integral part of their final work.

Drafts and mainspace

Once students have gotten a grip on their topics and the sources they will use to write about them, it’s time to start writing on Wikipedia. For students working on existing articles, you can ask them to jump right in and edit live, or start them off in their own sandboxes. There are pros and cons to each approach.

Pros and cons to sandboxes: Sandboxes make students feel safe because they can edit without the pressure of the whole world reading their drafts, or other Wikipedians altering their writing. However, sandbox editing limits many of the unique aspects of Wikipedia as a teaching tool, such as collaborative writing and incremental drafting. Spending more than a week or two in sandboxes is strongly discouraged.

Pros and cons to editing live: Editing live is exciting for the students because they can see their changes to the articles immediately and experience the collaborative editing process throughout the assignment. However, because new editors often unintentionally break Wikipedia rules, sometimes students’ additions are questioned or removed.

Will you have your students draft their early work in sandboxes, or work live from the beginning?

DYK / GA processes

Advanced students’ articles may qualify for submission to Did You Know (DYK), a section on Wikipedia’s main page featuring new content. The general criteria for DYK eligibility are that an article is larger than 1,500 characters of original, well-sourced content (about four paragraphs) and that it has been created or expanded (by a factor of 5x) within the last seven days.

The short window of eligibility, and the strict rules of the nomination process, can make it challenging to incorporate DYK into a classroom project. The DYK process should not be a required part of your assignment, but it can be a great opportunity to get students excited about their work. A typical DYK article will be viewed hundreds or thousands of times during its 6 hours in the spotlight.

We strongly recommend trying for DYK status yourself beforehand, or working with experienced Wikipedians to help your students navigate the DYK process smoothly. If your students are working on a related set of articles, it can help to combine multiple article nominations into a single hook; this helps keep your students’ work from swamping the process or antagonizing the editors who maintain it.

Well-developed articles that have passed a Good Article (GA) review are a substantial achievement in their own right, and can also qualify for DYK. This peer review process involves checking a polished article against Wikipedia's GA criteria: articles must be well-written, verifiable and well-sourced with no original research, broad in coverage, neutral, stable, and appropriately illustrated (when possible). Practically speaking, a potential Good Article should look and sound like other well-developed Wikipedia articles, and it should provide a solid, well-balanced treatment of its subject.

The Good Article nominations process generally takes some time — between several days and several weeks, depending on the interest of reviewers and the size of the review backlog in the subject area — and should only be undertaken for articles that are already very good. Typically, reviewers will identify further specific areas for improvement, and the article will be promoted to Good Article status if all the reviewers' concerns are addressed. Because of the uncertain timeline and the frequent need to make substantial changes to articles, Good Article nominations usually only make sense for articles that reach a mature state several weeks before the end of term, and those written by student editors who are already experienced, strong writers.

Would you like to include these as an ungraded option for your students?

Did You Know?
Good Article nominations

Peer feedback

Collaboration is a critical element of contributing to Wikipedia. For some students, this will happen spontaneously; their choice of topics will attract interested Wikipedians who will pitch in with ideas, copyedits, or even substantial contributions to the students’ articles. In many cases, however, there will be little spontaneous editing of students’ articles before the end of the term. Fortunately, you have a classroom full of peer reviewers. You can make the most of this by assigning students to review each others’ articles soon after full-length drafts are posted. This gives students plenty of time to act on the advice of their peers.

How many peer reviews will you ask each student to contribute during the course? (default: 2)

Final work and supplementary assignments

By the time students have made improvements based on classmates' comments—and ideally suggestions from you as well—they should have produced nearly complete articles. Now is the chance to encourage them to wade a little deeper into Wikipedia and its norms and criteria to create great content. You’ll probably have discussed many of the core principles of Wikipedia—and related issues you want to focus on—but now that they’ve experienced first-hand how Wikipedia works, this is a good time to return to topics like neutrality, media fluency, and the impacts and limits of Wikipedia. Consider bringing in a guest speaker, having a panel discussion, or simply having an open discussion in class about what the students have done so far and why (or whether) it matters.

In addition to the Wikipedia article writing itself, you may want to use a supplementary assignment. These assignments can reinforce and deepen your course's learning outcomes, and also help you to understand and evaluate the students' work and learning outcomes. Here are some of the effective supplementary assignments that instructors often use. Scroll over each for more information, and select any that you wish to use for your course.

Class blog or class discussion

Students keep a running blog about their experiences. Giving them prompts every week or two, such as “To what extent are the editors on Wikipedia a self-selecting group and why?” will help them think about the larger issues surrounding this online encyclopedia community. It will also give you material both on the wiki and off the wiki to grade. If you have time in class, these discussions can be particularly constructive in person.

In-class presentation of Wikipedia work

Each student or group prepares a short presentation for the class, explaining what they worked on, what went well and what didn't, and what they learned. These presentations can make excellent fodder for class discussions to reinforce your course's learning goals.

Reflective essay

Ask students to write a short reflective essay on their experiences using Wikipedia. This works well for both short and long Wikipedia projects. An interesting iteration of this is to have students write a short version of the essay before they begin editing Wikipedia, outlining their expectations, and then have them reflect on whether or not they met those expectations during the assignment.

Wikipedia portfolio

Students compile their Wikipedia contributions into a portfolio, including a list and evaluation of their selected resources, a survey of their edits, and an essay reflecting on their experience. You may encourage descriptions of how your students interacted with other Wikipedia editors, with links to key edits along the way (but remember that not all students will receive feedback from the community).

Original analytical paper

In courses that emphasize traditional research skills and the development of original ideas through a term paper, Wikipedia's policy of "no original research" may be too restrictive. To combat this, instructors make the Wikipedia assignment part of a larger analytical paper. Students’ Wikipedia articles become the literature review, while students develop their own ideas and arguments in a more traditional (offline) analytical paper.

Grading

Grading Wikipedia assignments can be a challenge. Here are some tips for managing your grading rubric:

Know all of your students' Wikipedia usernames.

Without knowing the students' usernames, you won't be able to grade them.

Make sure all students enroll on the course page. Once all students have signed the list, you can click on "user contributions" (in the menu bar on the left hand side of your browser screen) to review that student's activities on Wikipedia. If you have made student training compulsory, you can check the feedback page to see which students have completed it.

Set specific expectations.

Setting specific expectations is crucial for grading. For example, you may ask your students to add a minimum of three sections to an existing article, or a minimum of eight references to an existing article that lacks the appropriate sourcing, etc.

Grade based on what students contribute to Wikipedia, not what remains on Wikipedia when the course is over.

You can see a student's contributions in the article history, even if some writing was removed by another editor (or the student). A student’s content could be edited for many reasons, and can even be evidence of a student reflecting critically on their own contributions. When students feel they must defend control of an article for the sake of their grade, they may remove other editors' helpful improvements, which usually leads to conflict.

Wikipedia is a collaborative writing environment driven by verifiability, noteworthiness, and neutrality—all of which have created challenges for students familiar with a persuasive writing format in classrooms. Encourage students to reflect on edits to improve their understanding of the process and the editing community.

How will students' grades for the Wikipedia assignment be determined?

List of all the relevant assignment milestones based on the choices made so far in the wizard, possibly with an option to freely select additional elements that add to the total grade.

Review and timeline adjustment

About the course

Now it's time to write a short description of your course and how this Wikipedia assignment fits into it. This will allow other Wikipedia editors to understand what students will be doing. Be sure to mention:

topics you're covering in the class
what students will be asked to do on Wikipedia
what types of articles your class will be working on