How to contribute to the Learning Area on MDN

If you're here for the first time or after a deep search, it's probably because you're interested in contributing to the MDN Learning Area. That's great news!

On this page, you'll find everything you need to start helping improve MDN's learning content. There are many things you can do, depending on how much time you have and whether you are a beginner, a web developer, or a teacher.

Find specific tasks

Contributors are using a Trello board to organise their tasks. This is how you can find specific tasks to do on the project. To get involved, just create a Trello account and ping Chris Mills to have him give you write access to the board.

Contributing is a great way to have some fun while learning new stuff. If you ever feel lost or have questions, don't hesitate to reach us on our mailing list or IRC channel (see at the bottom of this page for details). Chris Mills is the topic driver for the Learning Area — you could also try pinging him directly.

The following sections provide some general ideas of the types of tasks you can do.

I'm a beginner

That's awesome! Beginners are very important and valueable for creating and giving feedback on learning material. You have a unique perspective on these articles as a member of their target audience, which can make you an invaluable member of our team. Indeed, if you're using one of our articles to learn something and you get stuck, or find the article confusing in some way, you can either fix it or let us know about the problem so we can be sure it gets fixed.

Here are some suggested ways you can contribute:

Add tags to our articles (5 min)

Tagging MDN content is one of the easiest ways to contribute to MDN. As many of our features use tags to help present information in context, helping with tagging is a very valuable contribution. Take a look at the lists of glossary entries and learning articles without any tags to get started.

Read and review a glossary entry (5 min)

As a beginner, we need your fresh eyes looking at our content. If you find a glossary entry hard to understand, it means that entry needs to be improved. Feel free to make any change you think are necessary. If you do not think you have the proper skill to edit the entry yourself, at least tell us on our mailing list.

Write a new glossary entry (20 minutes)

This is the most effective way to learn something new. Pick a concept you want to understand, and as you learn about it, write a glossary entry about it. Explaining something to others is a great way to "cement" the knowledge in your brain, and to help you make sense of things yourself, all while helping other people. Everybody wins!

Read and review a learning article (2 hours)

This is very much like reviewing glossary entries (see above); it just takes more time, since these articles are typically quite a bit longer.

I'm a web developer

Fantastic! Your technical skills are just what we need to be sure we provide technically accurate content for beginners. As this specific part of MDN is dedicated to learning the Web, be sure your explanations are as simple as possible, without being so simple that they're not useful. It's more important to be understandable than to be overly precise.

Read and review a glossary entry (5 min)

As a web developer, we need you to make sure our content is technically accurate without being too pedantic. Feel free to make any change you think is necessary. If you want to discuss the content before editing, ping us on our mailing list or IRC channel.

Write a new glossary entry (20 minutes)

Clarifying technical jargon is a very good way to learn and be both technically accurate and simple. Beginners will thank you for that. We have many undefined terms which need your attention. Pick one and you're good to go.

Read and review a learning article (2 hours)

This is the same thing as reviewing a glossary entry (see above); it just takes a bit more time as those articles are quite a bit longer.

Write a new learning article (4 hours or more)

MDN is lacking simple straightforward articles about using web technologies (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc). We also have old content on MDN that deserves to be reviewed and reshaped. Push your skills to the limit to make web technologies usable even by beginners.

Create exercises, code samples or interactive learning tools (? hours)

All our learning articles require what we call "active learning" materials, because people learn best by doing something themselves. Such materials are exercises or interactive content that help a user to apply and manipulate the concepts detailed in an article. There are many possible ways to make active learning content, from creating code samples with JSFiddle or similar, to building fully hackable interactive content with Thimble. Unleash your creativity!

I'm a teacher

MDN has a long history of technical excellence, but we lack depth of understanding of the best way to teach concepts to newcomers. This is where we need you, as a teacher or educator. You can help us ensure that our materials provide a good, practical educational track for our readers.

Read and review a glossary entry (15 min)

Check out a glossary entry and feel free to make any changes you think are necessary. If you want to discuss the content before editing, ping us on our mailing list or IRC channel.

Write a new glossary entry (1 hour)

Clear, simple definitions of terms and basic overviews of concepts in the glossary are critical in meeting beginners' needs. Your experience as an educator can help create excellent glossary entries; we have many undefined terms which need your attention. Pick one and go for it.

Add illustrations and/or schematics to articles (1 hour)

As you might know, illustrations are an invaluable part of any learning content. This is something we often lack on MDN and your skills can make a difference in that area. Check out the articles that lack illustrative content and pick one you'd like to create graphics for.

Read and review a learning article (2 hours)

This is similar to reviewing glossary entries (see above), but it requires more time since the articles are typically quite a bit longer.

Write a new learning article (4 hours)

We need simple, straightforward articles about the Web ecosystem and other functional topics around it. Since these learning articles need to be educational rather than trying to literally cover everything there is to know, your experience in knowing what to cover and how will be a great asset.

Create exercises, quizzes or interactive learning tools (? hours)

All our learning articles require "active learning" materials. Such materials are exercises or interactive content which help a user learn to use and expand upon the concepts detailed in an article.  There are lots of things you can do here, from creating quizzes to building fully hackable interactive content with Thimble. Unleash your creativity!

Create learning pathways (? hours)

In order to provide progressive and comprehensible tutorials, we need to shape our content into pathways. It's a way to gather existing content and figure out what is missing to create a learning article to write.