There are Wikipedia Education Programs in more than 60 countries worldwide. Some programs are working to develop MOOCs (massive open online courses) in collaboration with local and national academic institutions and government partners. Some of these MOOCs are complete while others are still in preliminary stages. We list these MOOCs here.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Argentina. Also can read the historic data.
Volunteers with Wikimedia France have developed a MOOC called . The focus is to learn how to contribute to Wikipedia and to discover more about the way it works. Participants can earn certification based on their percentage of completion. The curriculum will include videos. The course is hosted on the France Université Numérique MOOC platform, supported by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research in France. The WikiMOOC lasts for 5 weeks and involves 2.5 hours of work per week, including the courses. Courses start on February 22nd, 2016. There is a short video trailer about the WikiMOOC on YouTube in French. Additional information about course content and pacing can be found on French Wikipedia .
Wikimedia Sverige, led by Education Manager |Sara Mörtsell, developed a MOOC called "Digitala Skollyftet" (in English: "Digital School Initiative"). Swedish educators are doing impressive things and by sharing and connecting with each other, and as a result, the online community of Swedish educators is a thriving one. In designing and planning for this MOOC, WMSE wanted to explore the intersection of course and community in a Massive Open Online Community. The MOOC's themes are education, digital media, and the idea that "sharing is caring". WMSE is also using P2PU to award digital badges to Swedish educators on the MOOC.
Wikipedia and Wikimedia played a starring role at BETT 2015. Jimmy Wales presented the keynote speech, entitled The New Paradigm of Open Access to Information. His presentation included an overview of Wikipedia and its use in formal education settings and outlined the use of Wikipedia Zero in the developing world. Dr. Toni Sant, Education Organiser for Wikimedia UK, took part in a panel discussion on The Changing Landscape of Technology in Higher Education. The discussion was about the impact of technology in higher education and MOOCs. Dr. Sant proposed that the use of Wikipedia in education is a type of MOOC activity, which preceded the rise of this term and would likely continue even after the use of this term has been replaced by something else.
In 2015, Wikimedia Israel initiated a courseware aimed at introducing the Hebrew Wikipedia to new potential editors and training them in basic editing skills. The courseware currently includes 4 parts: Introduction to the HE-Wikipedia interface, expanding an article, creating an article and how to upload an image. Since it was initiated the coursware has been used in all of Wikimedia Israel's educational projects: in academic institutes, high schools and in Wiki-Women meetups. The courseware is available through Wikimedia Israel's website.
After the first run, we can safely say that the courseware alone, without any external help, can provide the self-learner with editing skills.
The courseware was successfully assimilated into our training instruction array: Today, all of WMIL volunteer instructors use it.
Read more about the Wikipedia Education Program in Israel here.
- Video on Commons: George Siemens interview on MOOCs and Open Education
- An interview with Dr. George Siemens. He discusses MOOCs and their benefits for teachers and learners in the context of open education and OER. He also gives advice for anyone wishing to run a MOOC.
- MOOC on English Wikipedia: Writing Wikipedia Articles
- A six-week-long, free and open online course about writing Wikipedia articles. It was developed in collaboration with the School of Open. The course is conducted on English Wikipedia. The course was offered four times during 2013-2014.
- Learning Pattern on Meta: Designing a proposal for a distance learning resource
- A learning pattern on how to generate a proposal to provide training on issues related to digital culture and open educational resources.