Promoting Equity in Access to Open Knowledge

Abstract

The main objective of this chapter is to showcase how Wikipedia, as the largest free encyclopedia, can be used as a didactic tool to bridge the gap in accessibility of knowledge and information and promote equity. The focus is on introducing one of the Wikimedia Serbia projects, the Professional Development of Teachers project and accredited seminars for teachers. This project aimed at educating teachers from various provincial towns to work independently to implement Wiki-projects, such as Wikipedia, in their institutions to help their students to gain access to the knowledge they cannot access otherwise and teach them how to approach online information in the correct manner. The results show that the participants of accredited seminars for teachers generally have a positive attitude towards the use of Wikipedia in teaching by motivating them to work with students and develop different projects, and that the use of Wikipedia in teaching contributes to the promotion of equity in access to open knowledge.