Welcome to the Wikipedia Education Update — a newsletter from the Wikimedia Foundation that is distributed the first and third Tuesday of each month. Someone from our staff has talked with you about our Wikipedia Education Program to bring Wikipedia into higher education classrooms around the world, and we wanted to keep you in the loop on all of our exciting activities. If you would prefer not to receive these messages, simply reply to the email and ask for your address to be removed. Learn more about subscribing or read the archives.

Research shows students improve Wikipedia
Research data released today shows that Spring 2012 students in the U.S. and Canada programs improved the quality of articles by an average of 6.5 points on a 26-point assessment scale, with 87.9 percent of articles showing noticeable improvement after student edits. The new research is part of our ongoing efforts to determine success factors for future classes in the U.S. and Canada Education Programs. See the results.

Workshops introduce education program in Brazil
Two more workshops have introduced Brazilians to the idea of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool in higher education courses. On September 22, a group of experienced Campus Ambassadors and professors led an orientation in Rio de Janeiro for new program participants. More than 300 people attended a presentation in Porto Alegre the following weekend, with many of them joining three workshops afterward. Read more about the second event (in Portuguese).

Professor argues for Wikipedia's use in class
Wikipedia belongs in university classrooms, argued Michigan State University professor Jonathan Obar in a piece posted on Read Write Web. The highly informative article walks people through why Wikipedia is a valuable tool for both teaching and research, and explains the benefits for each in terms of student learning. Read the article.

Cairo students' translation work featured
The Wikimedia Foundation blog featured a post highlighting the work of two students from the Cairo Pilot, Helana Fola and Mina Saber. Helana and Mina are both French literature students at Ain Shams University, and they discovered a skill for French to Arabic translation through their work with the Cairo Pilot. Learn more about their experiences with the program.

Professor from Brazil profiled on WMF blog
Edivaldo Moura Santos, a professor of physics at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, started using Wikipedia in his classroom in spring 2012 as part of the Wikipedia Education Program. His students improved articles on electromagnetism, and he was thrilled with the unique experience it afforded them, especially in regard to student learning and engagement. His work was featured in a blog post on the Wikimedia Foundation blog. Read the post.