Odin Essers, Henrietta Hazen and Nicolette Siep

“ Feedback from the students indicates that the prospect of this outcome results in increased motivation, readership, and a sense of responsibility and ownership for “their” Wikipedia article throughout the course. Students also indicate that this course contributed to their understanding about the importance of open-access knowledge transfer and valorization of information. For example, by contributing high-quality, scholarly articles to Wikipedia they can contribute to a positive image of Wikipedia as a legitimate information source freely accessible to everybody in the world. ”

“ Second- and third-year undergraduate students can enroll in an Honours+ program for additional lectures and projects in order to develop academic skills, expand their knowledge, and build community. Students receive 5 ECTS if they successfully complete the course. Premium is an excellence program for graduate students to additionally work on a three-month group assignment with personal coaching, aiming to bridge the gap between the students’ academic and professional life. ”

“ With two courses and a research project, Maastricht University has been most prolific in its collaboration with Wikimedia Nederland. Alongside the regular curriculum, ambitious and motivated students of Maastricht University can participate in three excellence programs: Maastricht Research Based Learning (MaRBLe) , Honours+, and Premium. The aim of these excellence programs is to offer students extracurricular opportunities that help them to develop their talents, increase their knowledge, and strengthen their resume. ”

“ Knowledge valorization or societal outreach is an important aspect of the MaRBLe program. Students present their research results not only to their fellow researchers but also to interested parties outside of the university. They share academic knowledge with nonacademic stakeholders. In the second part of this course, students are given an assignment to disseminate their research results to a wider audience by writing and publishing an article on Wikipedia. Although most students are familiar with Wikipedia, none or only few have experience with creating or editing its content. ”

“ Although evaluation of the Wikipedia Education Program courses suggests a valuable impact on multiple levels, there are also areas of improvement. First, past experiences in the course Historical Book Review indicate that many students struggle with finding relevant information about the historical context of the book. Students tend to primarily search for references and texts directly linked to the book title. Future courses should focus on training students to find relevant information that is not directly linked to the book title. ”

“ Following this final meeting, students have time to finalize their Wikipedia book review and add it to their personal sandbox. A Wikimedia volunteer gives feedback via the talk pages. Detailed information about this course is centrally structured in a dedicated Wikipedia project page (FPN Historical Book Review, 2020) . Students are graded on two outputs: the presentation of the results of the deep reading exercise and the Wikipedia book review. ”

“ In addition, by participating in these programs, undergraduate students from various colleges are given the opportunity to develop their information literacy skills by gaining experience in conducting empirical literature research on primary historical sources and its publication through a popular open-access platform. ”

“ Since the aim of the Historical Book Review course is to write a book review, special attention is paid to the historical context and layout of the book (e.g., context, time frame, book reception, intro sentence, and headers) .
Opening Up Old Books
Opening up old books: Investigating the botanical archives of Maastricht is an intermediate-level research project within the MSP of the FSE. In this project, students study historical plant books from the Special Collections. ”

“ In order to obtain this goal, it was proposed to collect all available biographical information of prominent Dutch scientists since 1575 and enter them into Wikidata. Furthermore, the intention was to construct this database in such a way that it could be optimally used and easily accessed by a general audience. ”