3.8 Faculty spotlight: Marina Adshade

Dr. Marina Adshade

Dr. Marina Adshade from the Vancouver School of Economics uses Wikipedia as an assessment strategy in her course, ECON 351 (Women in the Economy). Students are asked to create an original Wikipedia biography entry for a notable woman economist. The structure of this assessment reinforces the value of creating original content and promotes course learning on citing sources and plagiarism. This assessment approach reduces the incentive to seek outside help by staging the work over the course of the term. Dr. Adshade also integrates peer-assessment, asking students to peer review entries for two classmates, to ensure that every article is reviewed prior to publication. Finally, students are required to continue improving their article as they receive feedback from the wider community of Wikipedia editors. Upon successful completion of this assignment, students are able to interpret and synthesize economics publications and present their important contributions to the field in a format that is meaningful for a non-expert audience.