The American Studies Association is pleased to announce our partnership with Wiki Education. This collaboration enhances the ASA’s ability to support the educational activities of our members, and to proliferate widely knowledge of American politics, cultures, and histories. Wiki Education works to engage students and academics with a vision of bridging the gap between public and academic spheres through participation and actively engaged student learning. The educational aims of the ASA and Wiki Education closely align in this regard.
Wikipedia is the fifth-most visited website -- a source many people often turn to for crucial information. All its content is written by volunteers, a cohort that largely skews white and male. By partnering with academic units, Wiki Education encourages and supports the creation of new content and edits of current content by students in topics that are regularly overlooked. Student editors have helped to contribute valuable information, especially by expanding Wikipedia’s coverage of African American women, Latinx Americans, and issues of gender and sexuality.
The American Studies Association encourages our membership to work with Wiki Education. Through Wiki Education, university students have access to academic peer review journals and interdisciplinary research. Wiki Education supports instructors as they help their students take what they learn on campus and share it with the world. Wiki Education offers multiple resources to assist university instructors in the creation of assignments that allow students to combine curricular research activities with the creation of Wikipedia pages. Students research course related topics that are missing or underrepresented, synthesize literature, and use Wiki Education resources to learn skills such as fact-based writing, media literacy, citation practices, and critical thinking. In further support of instructors, Wiki Education offers trainings, instructional design consultation, and course management software to help instructors easily navigate the back-end processes of Wikipedia.
To learn more, about how Wiki Education can help support our students, strengthen our pedagogical practices, and improve publicly available information, please visit https://wikiedu.org/ and stop by the Wiki Education booth at this year’s Annual Meeting in Chicago.
Community announcements and events are services that are offered by the ASA to support the organizing efforts of critical constituency groups. They do not reflect the decisions or actions of the association’s governance bodies, the National Council or Executive Committee. Questions should be directed to the committee, caucus, or chapter that has authored and posted this notice.