Writing for the greater good: what do educators think about using Wikipedia as a teaching tool?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract This research presents the results of a questionnaire survey (N = 222) exploring teachers’ experiences with using Wikipedia as a teaching tool, mostly in higher education, across various global contexts. The sample comprised educators from diverse regions, with a focus on those actively integrating Wikipedia and additional Wikimedia projects such as Wikidata, into their curricula. A mixed-methods approach was employed, combining quantitative analysis of structured questions with qualitative thematic analysis of open-ended responses. The findings reveal no significant gender or age biases among educators using Wikipedia; however, there is evidence of a global digital divide, with greater adoption observed in English-speaking countries. Most instructors reported assigning students to write or improve Wikipedia articles, typically accounting for about a quarter of the final course grade. Educators frequently utilized support tools and resources developed by the Wikimedia Community. Overall, participants reported positive teaching experiences, often linked to increased student and instructor motivation, as well as the achievement of multiple learning objectives related to academic and digital literacies. Nonetheless, the assignment was noted to be time-consuming. The study also found that Wikipedia assignments were well-suited for the transition from traditional to distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.012 | 0.042 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.009 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".