Using Wikipedia to explain a concept

shivkiyer
shivkiyer Posts: 42 storyteller rank
in First-time course creation

Hello,

I am creating a course on electrical engineering and I need to explain a concept of basic physics - magnetism. These kind of concepts are best explained in Wikipedia. Is it acceptable for me to do a screencast and show students the link and browse through it while I explain the concept? The other option is to create a power point and draw my own diagrams and explain using that. But it would nice to give students the Wikipedia links and would also save me some time.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Shiv

Comments

  • AtilSamancioglu
    AtilSamancioglu Posts: 133 specialist rank

    Hi,

    It's OK to use Wikipedia as educational purposes and even for commercial purposes since it's licensed under creative commons attribution. However i believe you're going to have to credit the author or Wikipedia in general in your videos. There is an article here about this: https://www.quora.com/Is-it-okay-to-use-Wikipedia-content-for-commercial-purpose

    On the other hand i have to say i don't have any legal background so maybe someone with this capability can enlighten us on this.

  • shivkiyer
    shivkiyer Posts: 42 storyteller rank

    Hi,

    Thanks for your response. I will wait for someone else to comment. Other than that the link you posted contains most of the information I need. If Udemy has something specific, maybe someone could answer.

    Thanks again,

    Shiv

  • ScottDuffy
    ScottDuffy Posts: 838 rolemodel rank

    Legally, sure.

    But I don't think this is a great student experience and you'll likely get lower ratings than if you just explained the concept yourself.

    You're the teacher. Not wikipedia.

  • shivkiyer
    shivkiyer Posts: 42 storyteller rank

    Hi,

    Thanks for that tip. Is it ok to extract parts (images/text) from the Wikipedia article and provide the link in the power point as reference?

    Thanks again,

    Shiv

  • ScottDuffy
    ScottDuffy Posts: 838 rolemodel rank

    Yeah, sounds fine.

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