information and apply appropriately to problem-solving. Evaluating information is emphasized, enabling students to identify fake news, misinformation, and disinformation. Learning is mapped to various areas of these information literacies with deeper engagement weekly in particular topics to scaffold overall learning over the twelve-week course.
At the end of the course, students reflect on their learning journey. They submit a reflection in which they critically analyze their learning. Importantly, they must identify what they have learned, report emotions attending this learning, relate their new knowledge to previous knowledge, validate and integrate these perspectives such that they challenge their previously held assumptions and approaches to their studies, and plan for future use of their newly acquired skills. The reflection helps to embed skills acquisition further, by encouraging students to review their learning holistically and to understand what it is they have learned and why.
The Collaboration
A collaboration among Wikipedia, academic staff, and the library to help second-year undergraduate students at University College Dublin become digital creators through publishing in Wikipedia began with the common objective to help students develop core digital competencies for digital citizenship. The course instructor had long liaised with the library to deepen student learning of information skills, with the college liaison librarian visiting the classroom to help teach particular information skills, such as referencing. The instructor and the Wikipedian met as the Wikipedian began working with the encyclopedia in Ireland and the Wikipedian gave a guest lecture to the class, and from there the librarian’s involvement in the course continued to grow. Alongside the involvement of Wikipedia in the classroom, the assessment for the course evolved to provide students not only the experience of locating and evaluating information but also to apply their developing information skills experientially in the “real-world” setting of the encyclopedia. The course combines classroom instruction, guest instruction, problem-solving exercises and activities, e-tutorials to help reinforce concepts and various information skills, a wide array of literature and resources to support information-seeking skills, visits to
