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Journalism Students Assigned To Write On Wikipedia
Hugh Pickens writes "eCampus News reports that at the University of Denver, journalism students are assigned to write Wikipedia entries as part of a curriculum that stresses online writing and content creation, and students have so far composed 24 Wikipedia articles this year, covering topics from the gold standard to the San Juan Mountains to bimetallism, an antiquated monetary standard. Journalism instructors Lynn Schofield Clark and Christof Demont-Heinrich say students are told to check their sourcing carefully, just as they would for an assignment at a local newspaper. 'Students are leery about mentioning Wikipedia, because they might be subjected to criticism. But I tell them it's an online source of knowledge that just has some information that might be questionable, but that doesn't mean you have to dismiss all of [its content],' says Demont-Heinrich, who first assigned the Wikipedia writing to students in his introductory course taught during the university's recent winter semester. He said the Wikipedia entries didn't require old-school shoe leather reporting — because the online encyclopedia bars the use of original quotes — but they teach students how to thoroughly research a topic before publishing to a site that has over 350 million unique visitors and gets over 10 billion page views a month. 'I see journalism as being completely online within the next two to five years,' says Demont-Heinrich. 'If you're not trained to expect that and write for that, then you're not going to be ready for the work world.'"
Both news writing and Wikipedia (encyclopedia) writing requires one to be impartial, to establish notability of the subject and to be precise. The best part about it is that those students will quickly learn in the wiki process that their writing can be much improved and that there is more aspects to their subject then they thought.
A couple years ago my quantum theory course had 10% of our grade from "Contributing to Wikipedia's coverage of quantum physics and related math topics." http://am473.ca/
Maybe they can work with Wikipedia, by asking for a list of article stubs or proposed articles Wiki would like to see researched and written. It could be something that benefits both parties.
Excellent. Then the students will know what to write, and the Wikipedia admins will know what to expect so they can delete it. Everyone wins!
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Rather than have students waste time producing busywork that the professor will Trashfile at the end of the year, they are contributing their efforts toward society. These Wiki articles will be picked-up by other editors and added to with new information, and someone like me will come along and read them years later.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall