Dear Wikimedians, The Community Development team has developed *a set of online learning modules* <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP000+2025/about> on the core content policies of (English) Wikipedia, and is inviting you to make use of them in your outreach work, as well as to adapt or remix them to your needs, or translate (if relevant) to other languages. Feedback on the content of the learning modules is also very welcome! Details below:
==Contents== In addition to a brief introductory module, there are seven content modules: 1. Preparing to participate in Wikimedia projects (norms and attitudes) 2. The Voice of Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View 3. Sourcing knowledge: Verifiability on Wikipedia 4. Notability: The standard of inclusion in Wikipedia 5. Copyright and free licenses tutorial 6. Communicating on-wiki (talk pages; getting help) 7. 101 ways to contribute to Wikimedia (beyond writing Wikipedia articles) ==Course structure== The full course includes 13 hours of videos, cut into very digestible short segments (rarely more than 5 minutes each; often shorter). Some segments are followed by comprehension quizzes to assist learners in ensuring they understood the segment. All videos have English subtitles, to ease understanding and to prepare for potential translation. The modules are intended for complete beginners, and assume no prior knowledge about Wikimedia, but do assume proficiency in English and a high-school level of education. They are intended to be taken in order, but can be taken separately. This is so that learners who are not complete beginners, but only want to strengthen their understanding of, for example, copyright and free licenses, can directly take just that module. ==Rationale== The Community Development team (with Dumisani Ndubane in the project's earlier stages) developed this course to support massive outreach in sub-Saharan Africa, based on input received from African Wikimedia communities, which shared a need for high-quality video resources on the core policies. (This is why many of the examples in the course are of African topics.) Despite that, the course is general and useful for anyone seeking to integrate into English Wikipedia anywhere in the world. Also, unlike some existing resources focused on teaching techniques (e.g. "this is how you add an image to an article"), this course focuses on imparting principles and attitudes needed to comply with Wikipedia policies, which, in our experience, is the steeper learning curve for most newbies. ==Uses for these materials== Based on the channels this is sent in, you are probably not a complete beginner, so perhaps you have no need to take the full course. Here are ways you can nonetheless make use of it: 1. You can use these modules as materials in your own trainings, in-person or online. (The slides are available and linked from the beginning of each module.) You can also assign watching particular units as tasks in any Wikimedia training you give. In addition to the full learning-platform experience, the materials (slides and videos) can be viewed directly on Commons <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikimedia_Core_Curriculum> (albeit without subtitles so far). 2. You can (and we would love it if you) direct interested newbies to the online course. If you have folks reaching out to you personally or through your affiliate's online channels asking for training, you can now direct them to the course's public landing page <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP000+2025/about>, which will guide them through creating a Wikimedia account and then taking the course. We are also launching a geo-located CentralNotice campaign in sub-Saharan Africa aimed at complete beginners (shown to Wikipedia readers), to invite them to take the course, and it would be great if you repost our external campaign message in any relevant circles you have access to. 3. You can translate the modules and/or remix them for your needs (with appropriate adaptations to your own Wikipedia's policies). If you are interested in doing this, get in touch with the team at [email protected] and we will set up your own copy of the modules you're interested in and you can begin customizing them. 4. Finally, this is just the initial release of the course. We are confident we can still make many improvements to the modules (as well as add additional modules in the future), and your feedback, both from your own wiki-experience and from any learners you support using these modules, would help us tremendously! Your feedback is very welcome at [email protected] or at the talk page. ==Where is it?== The complete course is on the WikiLearn platform <https://learn.wiki/courses>, the movement's open courseware platform (based on Open edX software), maintained by the Community Development team at the Foundation. To take the course, learners must have a Wikimedia account. This does mean complete newbies first need to create a Wikimedia account, before they'd be able to log into the learning platform (which only accepts logins via Wikimedia OAuth). Here are direct links to each module: 0. a brief introductory module <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP000+2025/about> 1. Preparing to participate in Wikimedia projects <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP001+2025/about> 2. The Voice of Wikipedia: Neutral Point of View <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP002+2025/about> 3. Sourcing knowledge: Verifiability on Wikipedia <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP003+2025/about> 4. Notability: The standard of inclusion in Wikipedia <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP004+2025/about> 5. Copyright and free licenses tutorial <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP005+2025/about> 6. Communicating on-wiki <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP006+2025/about> 7. 101 ways to contribute to Wikimedia <https://learn.wiki/courses/course-v1:Wikimedia-Foundation+WMF_AGP007+2025/about> ==FAQ== Q: Will it be available in languages other than English? A: This is an experimental Wikimedia Foundation program aimed at growing the active editor base in sub-Saharan Africa, and we experiment in English for practical reasons. *If* it succeeds, we will certainly be investing more in the program, including the [co-]creating at the very least a version of the curriculum in French. Q: What about other languages? A: We think the modules are good and can be useful to most Wikipedias, with appropriate adaptations to local policies (Notability does not work the same way in different Wikipedias, for example). We *encourage* volunteers interested in translating the modules into other languages to get in touch with us. Do note that the Foundation itself won't be investing in translation before it determines whether the approach is sufficiently effective. Q: Will there be additional modules covering other topics, such as Conflict of Interest, paid editing, Dispute resolution, tools, etc.? A: Conceivably. These are topics we only mentioned in passing in these core modules, to keep this already-comprehensive course manageable. But if the approach proves effective, we do expect to develop and offer additional modules. Q: Why is the Foundation doing this at all? Isn't outreach and training materials something the community normally does? A: Certainly, outreach is generally practiced by the communities. This is an experiment with a particular hypothesis described here <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Africa_Growth_Pilot_phase_two_Self-paced_core_content_policies_course_Wikimania_2024.pdf>. It is the result of both repeated requests from our African communities and the Foundation's own observations about obstacles to mission progress in Africa. If communities show up to take this and run with it, we would be delighted. Again, your feedback is very welcome at [email protected] or at the talk page <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Africa_Growth_Pilot/Online_self-paced_course> . A. Asaf Bartov (he/him/his) Lead Program Officer, Emerging Communities Community Development Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! https://donate.wikimedia.org
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