Abstract:
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Comfort and proficiency in science communication greatly improves a statistician's influence and efficacy. Yet, it can be difficult to motivate students to hone these skills. In 2016, Wikipedia Education prioritized expanding statistical content, highlighting an opportunity to enhance statistical communication training through Wikipedia. Wiki Education provides multiple project templates of varying intensity and duration, ranging from short projects (editing existing pages), to large projects (creating new pages with extensive content and references). In 2017 and 2018, we integrated Wikipedia projects into the statistical consulting practicum at the University of Idaho and solicited feedback. We found projects were easy to integrate into the course curriculum through customization of activities and aligning deadlines with the course schedule. Student's Wikipedia articles were well-written and have over 205,000 views to date. All students responding to the course evaluation indicated that they learned how to organize information for the general public from the Wikipedia project. Eighty-three percent of student respondents recommended using a Wikipedia project in next year's course.
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