Founders

Dr. Robert Cummings

The founders of COLT, Dr. Robert Cummings and Pete Forsyth, share a passion for incorporating peer-to-peer interaction into the educational process. The two met as designers of the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative, a project aimed at exploring and reporting on the benefits of using Wikipedia as a teaching tool.

The Wikipedia initiative engaged dozens of Wikipedia volunteers, pioneering the concept of a “Wikipedia Ambassador.” Ambassadors support college professors and students as they engage with the complexities of Wikipedia. Research and media coverage of the initiative has revealed extensive benefits, both to the individual students and to the Wikipedia community, and provided guidance to Wikipedians and educators seeking to do similar work. The Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative was begun in 2010, funded by a $1.2 million grant from the Stanton Foundation, and executed and documented by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Pete Forsyth

Dr. Robert Cummings has been using Wikipedia as a teaching tool since the mid-2000s. He published the book Lazy Virtues: Teaching Writing in the Age of Wikipedia in 2009. [more about Robert Cummings]

Pete Forsyth has been a writer, advocate, and consultant for Wikipedia since 2006. He co-designed the Wikipedia Public Policy Initiative as a consultant to the Wikimedia Foundation. [more about Pete Forsyth]