Library instruction and Wikipedia: investigating students' perceived information literacy, lifelong learning, and social responsibility through Wikipedia editing

Wikipedia as an academic service-learning tool in science and technology: higher education case from Siberia

Wikipedia, the open crowdsourced encyclopedia that anyone can edit, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites globally. Its integration into university curriculum as an innovative educational tool is a slowly growing trend; however, many higher education institutions have yet to fully grasp its potential. In response, a specific optional module for Wikipedia editing, designed for the selected undergraduate science courses at the School of Advanced Studies, Russia, was implemented as an optional extra credit service-learning activity, a teaching methodology combining meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. Students who chose to participate and those who preferred not to participate in the activity were invited to participate in a research project to explore their perspectives and experiences. In total, five sessions of focus group discussions were conducted with participants (12 females and 2 males) in one set and non-participants (5 females and 4 males) in another to identify students' perspectives on themes such as their interest in science, reasons for their choices, and their expectations before the activity while post-experience focus group discussions were used to identify the perspectives of participant students on themes, encompassing contribution of the service-learning activity, acquisition of new skills, and the development of prosocial behaviors. Students' opinions on integrating social responsibility topics into the curriculum were also explored. The results extracted from these focus group discussions, analyzed through consensual coding, revealed factors promoting student participation, like interest in the subject, novelty of the activity, and grade improvement opportunities, as well as factors deterring participation, such as concerns about academic benefits, workload, and time constraints. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that Wikipedia editing serves as a novel teaching methodology, promoting student learning and development in digital literacy and information literacy, which are among the twenty-first-century skills. Interestingly, at the same time, not all students could address the value of contributing to open, crowdsourced knowledge for public service or interpret this activity as an academic service-learning. These suggest that Wikipedia editing is an innovative teaching approach, fostering students' learning and development while also indicating its potential to enhance students' understanding of responsible citizenship and public service in the digital age.

Leveraging Wikipedia in undergraduate health sciences education: a key tool for information literacy and knowledge translation

Background

Academic institutions and libraries are familiar with Wikipedia. There is growing momentum in higher education for using Wikipedia as a learning tool in various contexts. These include, but are not limited to, the use of Wikipedia-based assignments to teach information literacy, science communication, evidence-based practice, and more. Although there is growing acceptance of Wikipedia's value in the classroom, there are limited exemplars available for how it is applied in undergraduate health sciences education.

Description

This program description describes a librarian instructed course in the Bachelor of Health Sciences Program at McMaster University in which students dedicate one academic term to learning about Wikipedia content production and making contributions to a health-related Wikipedia article of their choice.

Outcomes

In the five iterations of this course that have been offered, undergraduate health sciences students have made significant contributions to 25 health-related articles in Wikipedia. They have added more than 120,000 words and over 2,000 references to high-quality literature. In class, conversations emerged about the meaningfulness of the editing Wikipedia, information literacy, and knowledge translation.