An Introduction to Wikipedia A Free Online Course
Wikipedia can be edited by anyone. But it can be difficult to know where to start.
Should you register an account? Can you create a new article about yourself? Is it ok to update an existing page? (Yes, no, and yes!)
To help you answer these questions and truly get started, there’s a new online course you can follow at your own pace called An Introduction to Wikipedia.
Delivered as a series of videos and quizzes, you’ll learn about Wikipedia and how you can contribute to the world's largest free online encyclopaedia, including:
- Creating your own Sandbox to practise editing
- Learning how a Wikipedia article is formatted
- How to find reliable sources and use them to improve Wikipedia articles
- Why copyright matters on Wikipedia
- How to add new articles to Wikipedia
- How to translate articles into another language, and more.
All together it will take you between 3-5 hours to complete the entire course, depending on whether you have used Wikipedia previously at all.
But you’re encouraged to spend additional time practising to get the most out of it, with additional resources provided for those interested in learning more.
At the end of the course, you will receive a certificate and micro-credential badge to show off your accomplishments.
To enrol, first make sure you have an account on Wikipedia and are logged in. Then go to the WikiLearn course page for An Introduction to Wikipedia and click Enrol Now.
While you’re taking the course, why not drop in to one of our events to ask us questions or let us know how you’re going? Find all of WMAU’s upcoming events on the Events page.