Abstract
Wikipedia, the open crowdsourced encyclopedia that anyone can edit, ranks among the top ten most-visited websites globally. Its integration into university curriculum as an innovative educational tool is a slowly growing trend; however, many higher education institutions have yet to fully grasp its potential. In response, a specific optional module for Wikipedia editing, designed for the selected undergraduate science courses at the School of Advanced Studies, Russia, was implemented as an optional extra credit service-learning activity, a teaching methodology combining meaningful service to the community with curriculum-based learning. Students who chose to participate and those who preferred not to participate in the activity were invited to participate in a research project to explore their perspectives and experiences. In total, five sessions of focus group discussions were conducted with participants (12 females and 2 males) in one set and non-participants (5 females and 4 males) in another to identify students’ perspectives on themes such as their interest in science, reasons for their choices, and their expectations before the activity while post-experience focus group discussions were used to identify the perspectives of participant students on themes, encompassing contribution of the service-learning activity, acquisition of new skills, and the development of prosocial behaviors. Students’ opinions on integrating social responsibility topics into the curriculum were also explored. The results extracted from these focus group discussions, analyzed through consensual coding, revealed factors promoting student participation, like interest in the subject, novelty of the activity, and grade improvement opportunities, as well as factors deterring participation, such as concerns about academic benefits, workload, and time constraints. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that Wikipedia editing serves as a novel teaching methodology, promoting student learning and development in digital literacy and information literacy, which are among the twenty-first-century skills. Interestingly, at the same time, not all students could address the value of contributing to open, crowdsourced knowledge for public service or interpret this activity as an academic service-learning. These suggest that Wikipedia editing is an innovative teaching approach, fostering students’ learning and development while also indicating its potential to enhance students’ understanding of responsible citizenship and public service in the digital age.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all students who participated voluntarily in the focus groups at the School of Advanced Studies in Russia. The authors would like to express their gratitude to the anonymous peer reviewers for their valuable time, expertise, and critical feedback during the review process. Their insightful comments and constructive suggestions greatly contributed to the improvement of this manuscript. We appreciate their dedication to maintaining the quality and integrity of academic research.
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The empirical part of the study is partially funded by the School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen, Russia.
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A.A. conceived the idea and designed and implemented the Wikipedia-based service-learning activity in her classes at the School of Advanced Studies in Russia. M.T. designed the focus group study, conducted the focus group interviews, collected the data and performed the initial data transcription at the School of Advanced Studies. Both A.A. and M.T. analyzed the data. M.T. produced Fig. 1. A.A. produced Fig. 2 and Tables and prepared the majority of the revisions. The first draft of the manuscript was written by A.A., and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors revised and approved the manuscript.
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The researchers got institutional ethical permission, and students were introduced to informed consent for research participation. In the analysis phase, students (S) got their codes without naming their names or initials to ensure anonymity. The same codes were used in the citations of the research participants’ answers with the letter P for participants and NP for non-participants.
Conflict of interest
A.A. is a certified trainer for the “Training of Trainers program” led by the education team at the Wikimedia Foundation. A.A. was not sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation for the conduction of this research. M.T. declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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Arslan, A., Turk, M. Wikipedia as an academic service-learning tool in science and technology: higher education case from Siberia. J Community Genet 15, 147–161 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-023-00692-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12687-023-00692-6