(237h) Imperial Chemical Engineering Wiki: The Development, Lessons Learned and Future Growth of Student-Led Wikis in Engineering Education

Wikis enable community-driven dissemination of knowledge, characterized by the freedom for any user to edit and create content. In recent times, wikis have become a prevalent learning tool in higher educational programs where these are often staff-led and integrated into specific classes. However, a review of the literature shows that there is limited evidence of student autonomy in the development of wikis.

In this talk we introduce the Imperial ChemEng Wiki, chemengwiki.com, which is a student-led initiative from within the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. This had the initial aim of formalizing a structure for the effective sharing of student-scribed notes and to provide students additional opportunities for increased collaboration and peer scaffolding. The ChemEng Wiki was formally launched in 2020 and has run for the past three academic years with contributions from over 30 undergraduate student developers. During this period, Google Universal Analytics was used to collect usage data which highlight a widespread use, recording approximately 55,000 sessions from over 50 countries.

Surveys were run periodically, and on average 90% of the students who responded found the Wiki to be a valuable means of retrieving information, consolidating concepts, and preparing for their examinations. Although not an immediate response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ChemEng Wiki has also shown the potential to mitigate isolated student experiences and enhance collaborative learning among students.

Feedback from the student developers was crucial towards the iterative improvement of the Wiki. We aim to empower others to foster similar initiatives by reporting both the lessons learned during each stage of the development and the framework and resources that have enabled this initiative to succeed.