Editing Wikipedia

The objective of this course activity is to be able to add and edit content on your own, and others’, pages on Wikipedia.

You can register for an account from all Wikipedia pages by clicking on the create account link at the top of the page. You are strongly recommended to create your account now as during the facilitated session you will be accessing the user area of the site. Enter your details as requested from this link to open your account. When this is complete, you will be able to add new content to the site and edit existing entries.

Log into Wikipedia with your username and password and take a look at the sister sites where multiple authoring can also take place. You may have ideas later about how to use these additional resources with students.

The objective of this course activity is to understand the need for a code of conduct to ensure users of Wikipedia (and other wikis) act appropriately when adding or editing content.

Wikipedia has a strict code of conduct for adding and editing content. This can be found here [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Read through this – it is quite long. Note some of the key messages and reflect upon how these might be relevant to a group of learners preparing content for Wikipedia. How might you translate this etiquette into a form that students would use for Wikipedia, or for their own class wiki?