I had an interesting conversation with two representatives from Wikimedia today to discuss how to improve content quality and rigor within the public policy sections of Wikipedia. Recently, a UBC professor decided to have his students write Wikipedia articles instead of doing a term paper. If their articles met the high standards of the Wiki editor community and were promoted to “Good” or “Featured” content, the students received an ‘A’. I thought it was a unique way to get students to take more stock in their work, since it would be made public, and also to learn more about how Wikipedia works (for good or otherwise). Obviously writing in an encyclopedic tone is different than many other styles of writing, but I think its useful to have students conversant in communicating with many types of audiences, regardless of the subjects they study.
Since I work for a university think tank, it’s easy to see how our faculty members might think about collaboratively using Wiki projects to both teach and improve educational resources. However, as someone who’s only used Wikipedia as a tool for branding the respective organizations I’ve worked for (yes, I realize that it’s against Wikipedia’s contribution guidelines to do this, but everyone does!), I began to think that Wikipedia might have a role in the think tank and policy community in years to come.
Research think tanks host a number of scholars and experts who could contribute a great deal of knowledge to the Wikipedia commons; the problem is that there’s no incentive (monetarily, professionally or institutionally) to do so. If, however, defining a particular field is part of an organization’s mission (say “natural security“), then it would make sense.
Would foundations be willing to support think tanks seeking to distribute their content through Wiki articles and Wiki projects as part of their overall outreach strategy? I think so! It’s a fun way to involve interns and younger research staff in research dissemination, and improves the quality and rigor of articles on Wikipedia.