U students contribute Wikipedia articles

For some students at the U, term papers end up not in a file or at the bottom of their backpacks, but published—on Wikipedia. Students in Günseli Berik’s graduate economics class this fall will continue to participate in the Wikipedia United States Education Program, which encourages professors to assign their students to edit or create new articles on the popular Web-based encyclopedia as part of their coursework. Participating for the first time in the Wikipedia program this past spring, Berik assigned her students to write an article in lieu of a term paper for their course on Gender and Economic Development in the Third World. By the end of the semester, students had contributed 15 new articles that explored topics such as maternal health in Uganda, child marriage in India, women’s rights in Tonga, the Gender Inequality Index, and women’s education in Pakistan. They also learned important lessons in research, publishing and editing on Wikipedia. Read more here.