A recent study of two universities found that, contrary to popular opinion, faculty generally hold positive perceptions of students using Wikipedia. Another university case study in 2011 found that 75% of faculty and students use Wikipedia, with the majority referring to Wikipedia for initial research stages or preparation for lesson plans.

Established in 2013, Wiki Education has worked to promote the use of Wikipedia in higher education. As Wikipedia has become more common in course assignments, instructors have scaffolded Wikipedia in their pedagogy in various ways. Some university course projects are built directly on Wikipedia, often through university wikis (like UBC Wiki), or other Wikipedia projects (like the Canada Education Program). The kinds of classroom or pedagogical interventions on Wikipedia can vary, from directly writing, editing, and translating pages, to contributing media or writing reflective papers or gap analyses.

By using Wikipedia in the classroom, instructors might encourage students to think about the writing process in modes that are more collaborative and public-facing modes than the research paper or other traditional assignments. As an assignment, the Wikipedia article also requires the use of research skills like selecting topics, defining the scope, and vetting and citing sources. Instructors often point to Wikipedia as a tool for teaching students to think critically about rhetorical features of writing, like audience, voice, and argument, particularly for a platform that emphasizes neutrality. As David Gaertner notes, writing for Wikipedia encourages students to see the wider and more public possibilities of their writing (see also Heather J. Sharkey’s reflection on engaging with the public). In their observations about using Wikipedia in an undergraduate History course, Nelson and Jacobs point out the need to teach critical digital literacy skills for a generation already deeply immersed in Wikipedia in their everyday practices.

Finally, Wikipedia can transform the dynamics of the classroom space. Di Zou et. al. demonstrate Wikipedia’s versatility for flipped learning. Paola Ricaurte Quijano and Arianna Carli Álvarez consider more broadly the ways Wikipedia can facilitate open-learning environments. In asking students to pass through the many hurdles of Wikipedia’s notability criteria and to negotiate feedback from anonymous editors, Siobhan Senier writes that “one of this assignment’s greatest boons was that students came to see me the way I’d always seen myself—as the facilitator, not the bad guy. They were in closer and more frequent contact with me about their drafts than any students I can remember, seeming unusually accountable and motivated.”

Wiki Education provides extensive resources for implementing Wikipedia in the classroom, including an introductory guide for student editors. Art+Feminism has developed a guide for Remote Learning, including sample course assignments. The UBC Learning Technology Hub has created an instructor guide for using Wikipedia at UBC.