Abstract—Since Wikipedia's founding in 2001, higher
education has found it controversial as a teaching and learning
resource. Many faculty members still ban students from using
Wikipedia for their coursework. But a noticeable disparity
exists between how academics in STEM (science, technology,
engineering, & mathematics) and those in the humanities
understand and engage Wikipedia as a teaching and learning
resource. Wikipedia, as the scholarly research shows, is a far
more credible source than generally acknowledged; and as many
educators in STEM, and particularly the natural sciences, have
also shown, Wikipedia can be a vital part of the undergraduate
and graduate curricula. This study reviews the scholarship on
Wikipedia; examines how Wikipedia can have a vital role in
humanities education, including that of preparing students to
write better and to do scholarly research; and argues why
Wikipedia should be part of the humanities curricula globally.
Index Terms—College writing, humanities, English studies,
Wikipedia, curriculum reform.
Thomas J. Haslam is with the College of Liberal Arts, Shantou University,
China (e-mail: haslam@stu.edu.cn).
Cite: Thomas J. Haslam, "Wikipedia and the Humanities in Higher Education: Past Time to Renegotiate the Relationship," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 246-251, 2017.