Using Wikipedia for research was no longer an option for students at the University of Washington, once they were assigned to make a Wikipedia page themselves.

Martha Groom, an environmental science professor at the University of Washington, required her students to create Wikipedia entries in place of a term paper for their final project.

‘I wanted to invigorate the assignment a bit,’ Groom said. ‘And I wanted it to mean something to the students.’

Groom assigned the project to two of her classes, one titled environmental history and globalization. She introduced the term-long project in the first week of class.

Some popular topics included alternative energy sources, wildlife, globalization of India and China and the environmental history of Jamaica.

Students peer-edited their classmates’ work by week eight, and Groom also carefully examined the content produced. By the 11th week, students were revising and posting their articles.

‘I tried to be extra thorough so they would know they had support,’ Groom said. ‘I wanted them to be proud of what they did, and I didn’t want them to embarrass themselves.’

Of about 30 students, each with their own Wikipedia entry, all but four articles survived the editing process of the network. Groom was impressed with the results.

‘Most of the articles are still up there. In the cases of the others, there was some discussion that the topics were repetitive. But their efforts weren’t lost, they were just merged with another article,’ Groom said.

Andreas Brockhaus, manager of learning technologies at the University of Washington, agreed that the project was a success. Brockhaus helped Groom elaborate on the project to make it work and provided encouragement and assistance to the students throughout the semester.

‘We weren’t sure how it would turn out in the beginning,’ Brockhaus said. ‘From what I’ve seen, the students did really well.’

As the students progressed, they faced challenges along the way. Groom said at first, some students had trouble writing from an unbiased point of view, while others felt that the writing style limited their creativity. By the end of the project, however, most students felt they were able to be creative, Groom said.

‘It’s much more powerful than arguing a case if you are fairly putting forward evidence to support your opinion,’ Groom said, ‘On the creativity side, you have to select what details to bring forward. It is a tremendous sorting process.’

Groom said the project allowed students to address issues they cared about. Many students even followed their articles after the project was over.

Groom and Brockhaus agreed that one of the best parts of the assignment was that the students were writing for a much wider audience than they would have otherwise. Term papers generally have an audience of one, but the Wikipedia assignment allowed access for the entire online community.

Brockhaus said it was especially impressive to see some of the articles come up first when the topics were Googled.

‘Type in ‘Roman deforestation’ and the article that comes up first is by one of our students,’ Brockhaus said.

Groom said that same student received positive comments about his article from someone online who read it within a week of its posting.

‘He worked very hard on his project, and it was a very nice affirmation,’ she said.

Groom received positive feedback from faculty members at the University of Washington regarding her success at incorporating teaching with the online community.

‘It increased the students’ pride in their work,’ Groom said. ‘It wasn’t just for me or for them, it was for a lot of people. I would absolutely do this again.’