mission of this collaboration is to make free, online educational content accessible everywhere.
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. Currently, more than 500 students participate in these programs each year (Excellence Education, 2020).
The MaRBLe program is o ered to third-year undergraduate students during the elective period in order to provide hands-on experience in conducting multidisciplinary scientific research. The number of credits varies from 15 to 18 ECTS,1 depending on the college that organizes the course. 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.
Since 2014, Maastricht University Library has been collaborating with Wikimedia Nederland in the development of several educational programs. The first program developed was the MaRBLe course On Expedition at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS). In 2017, the Honours+ elective course Historical Book Review was introduced at the Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience (FPN). The Maastricht University Library has also been collaborating with Wikimedia Nederland on the research project Opening up old books: Investigating the botanical archives of Maastricht at the Maastricht Science Programme (MSP), an internationally oriented Liberal Arts and Sciences program of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE).
