To maintain the integrity of its neutral content, Wikipedia has developed conflict of interest rules that many subject matter experts find surprisingly strict.

According to Wikipedia's rules, even though you are the expert on a topic, neither you nor any students editing for your course should edit articles based on your own publications. Nor should your students' work ever be vetted by an outside research group or other institution. Writing neutrally about your own work is possible but challenging, so Wikipedia policies discourage you from even trying. Wikipedia editors who monitor contributions are vigilant about seeking out conflict of interest editing, and are likely to create headaches, at best, for any student who violates the policy. It's better to avoid putting your students' edits under intense scrutiny by simply not assigning articles where you might have a conflict of interest.

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Do not assign:

• Articles that could only draw, or need to draw heavily, on your own publications or research
• Articles where student contributions need to be vetted by another institution
• Articles about your school, you or your colleagues, or your books

However:

• Drawing upon resources from a special collection at your institution or library is fine
• Students citing your publications as one part of a wide variety of high quality sources is fine

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If you're unsure if a topic is acceptable, simply ask the Wikipedia Expert assigned to your class for guidance.

Now, let's look at the exciting part: Finding ideal articles to improve!