Education/News/February 2022/Integrating Wikipedia in the academic curriculum in a university in Mexico

Integrating Wikipedia in the academic curriculum in a university in Mexico

Summary: In 2021, a university in northern Mexico took the decision to integrating Wikipedia in the academic curriculum. A new course is designed, including Media and Information Literacy skills and the development of the 21st century skills, using Wikipedia like a disruptive technology.

Updating and redesigning the curriculum and academic programs are fundamental activities of any higher education institution. It is a complex process that involves a multidisciplinary work team, whose objective is the elaboration of a transdisciplinary instructional design. In addition, the institutional mission and vision, educational model, emerging methodologies, the emergence of new technologies, employability trends, and job placement must be taken into account.

Wikipedia is a disruptive technology that serves as a pedagogical tool and educational platform. Various educational institutions around the world use it to promote the UNESCO Media and Information Literacy skills and the development of the 21st century skills proposed by the World Economic Forum.

This panorama allowed the inclusion of Wikipedia within the academic curriculum of a university in northwestern Mexico.

CETYS University is an educational institution based in the state of Baja California, Mexico. It has three campuses in the main cities: Mexicali, Tijuana, and Ensenada.

As part of the comprehensive training modules, there is a course focused on Information Skills Development, called Information Management, whose objective is for students to learn to search, retrieve and use information, under standards of academic integrity and information ethics.

This course (now called Informational Competencies) promotes the culture of Open Access through the analysis of different historical periods, from Richard Stallman to Aaron Swartz, from Project Gutenberg to Creative Commons, from the invention of the printing press to Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that was born free.

It is a great success to include topics related to the Open Access movement within academic programs; Disruptive technologies such as Wikipedia can help students develop an information culture, which will allow them to make better decisions in their academic, personal and professional lives, consolidating themselves as digital citizens and contributing to the development of the digital economy.