In June and July 2026, Wikimedia Ukraine organized a Technical Skills Course for Wikipedia editors — a five-session online course designed to help contributors better understand and use some of Wikipedia’s technical tools.
Organizing learning activities for the Ukrainian Wikimedia community remains difficult because of the ongoing war. Air raid alerts, Russian attacks, and power outages can make it difficult or sometimes simply impossible to attend an offline event or even join an online session at a specific time.
That is why we designed the training as a course that participants could follow both live and asynchronously. People could join the webinars in real time, ask questions and discuss practical cases, while recordings were available afterwards for those who could not attend. If an air raid alert started during a webinar or the electricity went out, participants could return to the session later and continue learning at their own pace.
The course was led by three experienced members of the Ukrainian Wikimedia community.
Vira Motorko is a long-time Ukrainian Wikipedian and administrator of Ukrainian Wikipedia. In 2024, she was named Functionary of the Year as part of the international Wikimedian of the Year Awards, recognizing her extensive behind-the-scenes work on Wikipedia, including templates, interfaces, translations, and documentation.
Anton Protsiuk, Programs Coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine and a long-time Wikipedia editor and administrator, received an Honorable Mention in the 2023 Wikimedian of the Year Awards for his contributions to the Wikimedia movement and his work supporting the Ukrainian Wikimedia community.
Viacheslav Mamon is a Wikipedian, librarian at the V. G. Korolenko Kharkiv State Scientific Library, and a board member of Wikimedia Ukraine.
Over five sessions, the trainers covered templates, categories, redirects, Wikidata, and additional tools and gadgets for Wikipedia editors.
The course was designed to be practical. After each session, participants received an assignment that allowed them to immediately try the new skills themselves rather than only learn about the tools in theory.
A total of 33 people applied for the course, and 14 participants joined the live webinars. The recordings also made it possible to follow the course asynchronously.
To successfully complete the course and receive a certificate, participants had to complete all five practical assignments. Ten participants completed every assignment and successfully finished the course. 🎉
For some participants, the most important result was not simply learning how to use several new tools, but changing the way they think about editing Wikipedia.
“What I found especially valuable about the course is that it gradually changes the way you think about editing Wikipedia itself. Behind an ordinary page, you begin to see an entire system of technical solutions that help organize, find, and analyze information. Now, when I face a particular task, I am more likely to first ask myself whether there is a tool designed for it instead of immediately trying to do everything manually. This change in approach — and the feeling of having more freedom in how I work with Wikipedia — was the most important outcome of the course for me,” says Khvylia, who successfully completed the course.
The combination of theory and practical assignments was also important for Hanna Meleshko, another course graduate:
“Thank you for the Technical Skills Course for Wikipedia editors! I really appreciated the comprehensive and systematic approach to learning, as well as the fact that we had to complete practical assignments for each topic. Going beyond ordinary Wikipedia articles helped me better understand the Wikipedia ecosystem, how experienced Wikipedians work, and what techniques and technologies they use. I am especially grateful to Vira, who explains complex things in a very clear and visual way. My sincere thanks to the organizers and trainers, to the other participants, and to the entire community for your work, the welcoming atmosphere, support, and help throughout the learning process.”
Hanna Makarenko, who also successfully completed the course, says that having enough time to engage deeply with the material made a big difference:
“I was lucky that the Technical Skills Course for Wikipedia editors coincided with my vacation, so I had enough time and energy to listen carefully, review the materials, and complete the assignments. I am sincerely grateful to the organizers for the interesting and substantial webinars, especially to Vira Motorko and Anton Protsiuk, who patiently answered my many questions. Now the main thing is to reinforce the knowledge and useful advice I gained by putting them into practice. I hope this will help make Ukrainian Wikipedia better and our articles more informative and of higher quality.”
For Wikimedia Ukraine, this format is one way to continue supporting and developing the community despite the realities of war. Combining live sessions, recordings, practical assignments, and flexible timing makes it possible for people to keep learning even under these conditions.
We are grateful to everyone who joined the course, asked questions, worked through the assignments, experimented with new tools, and continued learning with us.
Link to the playlist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIM_OyinMX8nwqGITrBNergM9qp62orV7
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