Sometimes the better tact is “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

That’s what University of Washington-Bothell professor Martha Groom discovered when she came up with a unique way of tapping into the colossal online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Now one of a few teachers embracing this mammoth, web-based resource, professor Groom now requires her environmentat history students to either write an original Wikipedia article or do a major edit to an existing one, instead of turning in the usual big term paper at the end of the semester.

The inspiration came to her as she prepared teaching materials for her class and ran across information on Wikipedia that was a bit thin. She felt her students could do a better job researching and adding to the topics and that’s when the “win-win” idea struck…why not have her students add well-researched content to Wikipedia rather than a research paper for her eyes only. Not only would the students be positively impacting this online resource but they would also have the experience of “peer-review” that comes with every addition and edit.

You can view the full article at Ars Technica.