Integration of Wikipedia into educational settings
Wikipedia-based education refers to the integration ofWikipedia and otherWikimedia projects into educational settings, where students and educators use these platforms for learning, teaching, and knowledge creation. This approach leverages Wikipedia's vast repository of information and collaborative nature to enhance educational experiences. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia can be used as anopen educational resource (OER). Additionally, because the website invites participation by its users, it can also serve as anopen educational practice.[1][2][3]
Wikipedia is one of the largest and most popular educational websites globally, with over 53 million articles in nearly 300 languages. It serves as a valuable resource for a wide range of topics, from science and history to current events. TheWikimedia Foundation supports educational initiatives that encourage the use of Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects in classrooms and beyond.[4]
According to a number of researchers, Wikipedia-based education offers unique learning benefits, including the development ofdigital literacy,critical thinking, andcollaboration skills.[5][6] Students enhance their writing and research abilities by contributing to Wikipedia, while also learning to evaluate the reliability of online sources.[7][8] Furthermore, interacting with Wikipedia as a complexdiscourse community emphasizes the process through which knowledge is proposed, negotiated, and revised based on user interactions. Wikipedia's unique contributions to knowledge production lie in its collaborative, social practices, where content is generated and interrogated without a controlling editorial staff. This environment fosters critical literacy and active participation, making it a valuable tool for developing skills necessary for navigatingopen access content in digital spaces.[9][10] Students are motivated, when editing Wikipedia articles, furthermore, by the opportunity to write for a more public audience.[11]
