Since 2019, students in Pam Kalas’s BIOL463 – Gene Regulation in Development course have created, expanded, fact-checked, and improved more than 60 Wikipedia articles as part of a course Wikipedia project. As Pam states, “I wanted students to have a chance to actively, tangibly contribute to the dissemination of scientific information to the general public, while being “producers” of this information – not in a sense of generating data, but by finding reliable sources, summarizing key points, and generating paragraphs, images, and possibly an entire article for a broad, general audience.”
Below, Pam and former BIOL463 student and TA, Madina Kagieva, share the overarching goals of this project, how it’s been implemented in the course over time, the effects on students, and key insights gained throughout the process.
What do you hope students get out of their experience completing this project?
The goals of the assignment are for students to research and learn about a (sometimes a bit obscure) topic tangentially related to the course, evaluate sources, synthesize information and make it accessible to anyone who may be consulting Wikipedia. As part of the process, students also learn about how Wikipedia editing works, the policies, guidelines and rules for writing for Wikipedia, source credibility and types of sources. Because students work in pairs or trios, they also practice working collaboratively.
How did you implement it?
I contacted Will Engle and told him I wanted to do a Wikipedia assignment, and he introduced me to the typical structure and process involved, as well as to the wonderful Wiki Edu resources and support staff. He also set up the whole assignment/project on the Wiki Edu Dashboard for me for several years in a row, and he and Rie Namba gave guest presentations in my class about Wikipedia. In the course, I have had two incredible TAs (Evan Warner and Madina Kagieva) who truly took on this project and guided the students every step of the way. Evan even did a TAR/SoTL project on this assignment, and you will see that Madina contributed enormously to this Spotlight!
Below is a schematic of the assignment structure.
What has been the result?
The result has been: dozens of Wikipedia stubs (entries consisting of just a few sentences) developed into short (start-class) full-fledged fact-checked articles, hundreds of reliable references added every year, numerous images added (including many original ones), errors corrected, content gaps filled, countless contributions from women and people belonging to other groups that are underrepresented among Wikipedia authors, and hopefully, a better-informed public.
Based on feedback received, and on the students’ responses to reflection questions, students have generally found the assignment valuable, something they could be proud of and/or show their friends and family. There have been students who chose to delve into the mechanics of the editing process, and all the coding involved. Others went on to edit and expand more articles and stubs over the months and years following the course. Yet others demonstrated unbelievable resourcefulness and resilience to track down whatever sparse information was available on their topic. Lucia, who took the course this past term, shared that the assignment helped her and her group learn more about a rare congenital condition (Aglossia) that is under-researched, and allowed them to practice looking for sources from the 18th century! She is also among those who keep watching for comments and improving their/their group’s article long after the course is over.
How have students responded to it?
The most qualified person to answer this is Madina, the BIOL463 former TA who was also a student in the course the first time we did a Wikipedia assignment! I am going to turn it over to her.
MADINA: I have seen this project from both sides, first as a student, and later as a TA, and in both roles, I have found that students respond to it with a lot of enthusiasm and genuine curiosity!
When I was a student, I found the project especially exciting because it felt so different from a typical assignment. Usually, when you complete a long paper or project, it is read by a TA or instructor, graded, and then mostly stays within the class. With Wiki, the work becomes part of a public resource that other people can actually use. I always used to wonder who the kind and knowledgeable volunteers were behind Wikipedia, so it was really interesting to suddenly be contributing to it myself.
I also appreciated that, especially for research-heavy assignments, the effort did not feel wasted. When you spend so much time digging into a topic, it is rewarding to know that your work may be useful to other people, often other students like yourself. For example, my Wiki partner and I worked on the article for Krüppel back in 2019, and four years later, when I became a graduate student and was TAing another genetics course at UBC, which had a primer on Drosophila gene patterning, I serendipitously learnt that one of my students in that class used my article when they were studying for the course! They were just as surprised as I was, when they found out that the article was co-written by me haha! I think that over time, students become much more invested in these kinds of assignments because they know their work is now part of a public encyclopedia that anyone can access, I was just lucky enough to personally meet some that did. That creates a very different sense of ownership than a conventional course project.
From the TA side, it has been incredibly rewarding to watch how students engage with the assignment. I TAed BIOL 463 about three times, and I was also a peer support person for one of the years prior, so I had the chance to see multiple “generations” of Wikipedia articles develop. Often, a stub article would be worked on by one student group in one year, and then picked up again by another group in a later year. Watching students gradually build on each other’s work was such a special thing to witness. One year, an article that had been repeatedly improved by different students even received Wikipedia B-status, meaning the article is well-written, covers the topic reasonably and presents its content in an appropriately understandable way. For reference, an overwhelming majority of Wikipedia articles are stubs and start articles, which is makes up 83% of the total Wikipedia article make up (Data from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_assessment). Only 2.73% of all Wikipedia articles get assigned to B-class. This makes achieving B-class standing on Wiki a lower chance than getting into Harvard haha! That felt like such a powerful example of students collectively synthesizing knowledge and carefully shaping something over time, which illustrated the “standing on the shoulders of giants” process quite well! It was a huge-huge achievement, and I was so happy and proud that “generational giants” at BIOL 463 were able to achieve such a milestone.
One particularly memorable example was a group that chose to write an article completely from scratch rather than selecting one from the suggested topics list. They approached us to ask whether they could pursue their own topic, and what they chose was Fanzor, a newly described class of RNA-guided systems thought to be ancestral to CRISPR-Cas systems. The students had read the paper, realized there was no Wikipedia article on the topic, and decided to create one themselves. That was such an exciting moment because it showed not only that they were genuinely passionate about the science, but also that they were able to recognize a gap in public knowledge address it in real time, before a stub even had a chance of being created!
Another really meaningful moment involved a student group writing an article about a British mouse geneticist. There was no photograph of him on Wikipedia, and the only image they could find had an ambiguous license that seemed to require permission from the scientist himself. Since he had already passed away, the students tracked down his late wife instead. She was very touched to hear from them and glad to know they were writing about his work. It was such a heartwarming example of how deeply students can care about these articles, enough not only to write them carefully, but also to reach out to family members in order to share someone’s work with the world and, in a way, “put a face to the discovery.”
I have also been especially struck by students who chose to work on rare disease stubs. These topics can be very challenging because there is often so little literature available, and students sometimes had to search through obscure sources or very old records just to gather enough information. At the same time, they often seemed to feel a strong sense of responsibility, knowing that the people searching for these conditions online might be patients or family members looking for answers. Because of that, students were often very thoughtful about using clear, simple language and pointing readers toward foundations or other helpful resources, even within the tight word limits of the assignment.
Overall, I think students respond so positively to this project because it gives them a rare combination of intellectual challenge, creativity and public impact. They are not just completing an assignment for a grade, they are making something that other people can read, use, and build on. That seems to bring out a different level of care and engagement in their work.
What have you learned or found surprising?
PAM: In relation to the Wikipedia editing process, its credibility and accuracy (remarkably good for science articles in general) and how to write for Wikipedia, I have truly learned alongside the students. In some cases, I also learned more about the content that the students were writing about, and I was definitely very impressed by the extent and quality of the Wiki Edu resources. Some of the training modules are excellent for students to learn about the various forms of plagiarism and AI use.
I should not find it surprising, but I certainly noticed how invested most students were in their projects. They truly wanted to do a good job, often devoting way more time and effort than I had expected, and wanting to go beyond the requirements no matter how challenging it would be. There have also been groups who developed brand new entries (e.g. “NORAD” in 2024 and the already mentioned Fanzor); this was uncharted territory for all of us. Most of the articles have hundreds, thousands of views!
MADINA: I knew this project would be enjoyable for many students, but I did not realize just how dedicated some of them would become. Many went far above and beyond the basic scope of the assignment, and the quality of the Wikipedia articles seemed to improve year after year. Especially in the age of AI, I think there is something incredibly valuable about information being gathered, organized and carefully proofread by real people, particularly for lesser-known topics that would be very easy for AI to hallucinate about. I am proud of every student in BIOL 463 for taking on this project, and in all the years I have TAed the course, I do not remember a single group opting out or failing to present their work. On the last day of class, students usually publish their articles online together during class time, and it is always such a fun and joyful atmosphere.
One thing that was new to many students, and something they often found surprising, was the fact that because Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, other people can also edit or even remove parts of their work. I have seen students struggle with that at first, but more often than not, those edits are reviewed by other Wikipedia contributors, and if something was removed by mistake or without good reason, the original content is restored. Sometimes the changes do remain, but I think that in itself is a useful learning experience. It gives students a glimpse into what the peer-review process may feel like in academic spaces.
Another thing students often find exciting (and a little surprising!) is that they can include their Wikipedia article on their CV. In a way, Wikipedia feels like a kind of bioRxiv, but for anyone to use, regardless of background! So many people use it, and I would say I personally end up looking something up on Wikipedia at least once every few days. Becoming a contributor to public knowledge and learning how to translate specialized information into language that is accessible to a broader audience is a very difficult and valuable skill. I do not think undergrads get enough opportunities to practice that kind of knowledge translation, even though it is incredibly useful for any researcher. Even if students do not go on to work in academia or industry, the ability to explain something complex and niche in a clear, accessible way is a highly transferable skill for almost any profession.
Overall, I think Wikipedia is a wonderful educational exercise, and I wish more departments and courses gave it a chance. As a student, it was a fantastic experience for me, and I have been happy to see that same enthusiasm reflected in the BIOL 463 students I have worked with!
How has your implementation of this project changed over time?
Initially, all students in the course were asked to complete a Wikipedia project. To keep things manageable for everyone, the original assignment had a strict 600 words contribution limit, with the idea that (as per the collaborative nature of Wikipedia) others could and should further expand and improve the articles.
This has changed in the past year in that students can now chose between doing the “final project” or a Wikipedia project that is a bigger version of the original one, with the expectation of developing full-length articles that are as complete as possible. Last term, about half of the class chose the Wikipedia project, and they did amazing! All of the articles made it into Wikipedia C-class or B-class, the highest level achievable without applying for a formal peer-review (which I have recommended several teams to seek out after the end of the course).
Changes also happen every year in the list of stubs from which students can choose their topic, and more recently they have had the option of choosing short articles developed in previous iterations and further expanding them.
What advice would you give someone who wanted to incorporate something similar in their course?
Review the resources provided by the Wiki Edu and reach out to Will Engle and/or colleagues who have done these kinds of projects!
Is there anything else you would like to share?
Yes! Here are a few of the articles generated by BIOL463 students between 2019 and 2024 (Toxic small RNA; Dilbagh Singh Athwal; mobilome; floxing; gene therapy for blood diseases; genetic saturation) and the ones from the 2025 cohort (polysplenia; nutritional epigenetics; tubular heart; Bamforth_Lazarus syndrome; monogenic obesity; DHFR deficiency) that have not already been mentioned.
And here is a short article we wrote for the WikiEdu blog back in 2021: https://wikiedu.org/blog/2021/11/04/hey-i-actually-wrote-the-wiki-article-on-that/
Curious to see to see the entire list of Wikipedia articles expanded, fact-checked, and improved by BIOL463 students? You can find it here: https://blogs.ubc.ca/bionews/2026/04/list-of-wikipedia-by-biol463-students/