WikiLearn News – January 2025

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It’s here! Welcome to our first WikiLearn News of 2025! In this edition you’ll find out how Wikimedians are leveraging online learning in their communities. Are you interested in authoring an online course this year? Stay tuned for a Let’s Connect session in February created for you.

What’s WikiLearn?

WikiLearn is a free online learning platform that hosts self-guided and instructor-led courses that support Wikimedians in developing key skills and knowledge. WikiLearn is available in multiple languages and it’s managed by the Community Development team. It aims to offer quality courses, foster social learning, and recognize learners’ achievements. To date, over 10 affiliates have hosted online courses for their communities in 7 languages! In the last quarter of 2024, 445 people enrolled in the platform to learn something new and improve their contributions to the Wikimedia projects. 

Why is online learning important for Wikimedians?

As a team, we are dedicated to supporting Wikimedians in designing meaningful online learning experiences for their communities. By understanding their motivations and aspirations, we are able to continuously refine and improve WikiLearn to ensure we are meeting the unique needs of the movement. 

Over the past year, we have witnessed how engaging in WikiLearn allows course authors from around the globe to scale their efforts (e.g., reaching a wider audience, increased capacity building) while ensuring quality and consistency in their course delivery.

A great example of this is the Introduction to the WikiMed Translation Dashboard course. Lucas Rosnau, the Translation Coordinator for Wiki Project Med Foundation, is using WikiLearn to provide a new way to onboard volunteers onto the WikiMed Translation Project and thus support their goal of bringing “high quality, easy-to-understand health information to as many languages Wikipedias as possible”. Lucas tells us: “I’ve traditionally used online videos as the introduction to our translation project. The online learning option provides a different way to onboard volunteers. WikiLearn is more engaging and comprehensive than a single video; however, it does require more time. I provide volunteers with the option of taking the course (~20 minutes) and/or watching the video (12 minutes). Those who have tried the course give me positive feedback”. From the functionalities available on WikiLearn, Lucas enjoyed incorporating quizzes and he’ll dig into the tools available to better monitor learners’ progress as his next step in using the platform. You can check out the course here – it’s open for enrollment until August 30!  

Another interesting case comes from Wikimedia UK. Sara Thomas (Programme Manager) believes that WikiLearn offers “a way to bring together learning opportunities in the course catalogue that are presented in bitesized, easy to digest chunks and which include interactive learning opportunities”. Sara led Wikimedia UK’s Train the Trainers on WikiLearn in 2023, a program that focuses on teaching advanced tech tools and skills that enhance movement participation leading to increased contributions to the projects. Sara tells us that in shifting from “a series of emails sent to trainers in advance of our in-person weekend of training” to a WikiLearn course, she was able to “encourage the cohort to talk to each other and support others’ learning, as well as being able to track how they’d progressed through the training material”. The latter allowed Sara to offer timely support for participants so that they could be set up for success before the in-person component. The course feedback Sara received was extremely positive and she plans to use WikiLearn in the future – including to launch a self-paced version of the TtT program for general use. Wikimedia UK also launched the Changemakers Toolkit as a MOOC last year and it’s still open for enrollment!  

We’re excited for more affiliates and advanced organizers to make WikiLearn their own! During February, we’re joining the Let’s Connect team to deliver two sessions about course creation on WikiLearn for beginners. Stay tuned for the details on their Calendar and register for the first session on February 6th here.

How can you take advantage of WikiLearn?

We invite you to find the right opportunity for you and your community on WikiLearn:

  • Browse the Catalog to find open self-paced courses and join over 2000 Wikimedians mastering new skills on WikiLearn – you only need a Wikipedia account to enroll. 
  • If you’re part of a Wikimedia affiliate and would like to develop and host a course on the platform, use this short form to get in touch with the team. Join us at the Let’s Connect February sessions!
  • You can help make courses available in new languages! If you’re interested in translating any existing courses on WikiLearn, don’t hesitate to reach out. 

If you have any feedback to share about your experience on WikiLearn, please reach out via comdevteam@wikimedia.org

📣 Stay tuned for a next edition of WikiLearn News coming in a few months!Find previous editions here.

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