Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

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Purpose of this page Using this page This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Wikipedia editor. Topics for this board might include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Wikipedia Education Program. Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}} Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith. There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues: An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism. Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen. Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone. Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Wikipedia:General sanctions#Active sanctions "Start a new discussion thread". Use an informative title: ==Informative title==. If a thread is related to an ongoing discussion, consider placing it under a level-3 heading within that existing discussion. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. If no comments have been made within 30 days, your post and any responses will be automatically archived. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". If discussion is already ongoing elsewhere or if there is a more natural location for a discussion, please continue the discussion there, and put a short note with a link to the relevant location on this page. If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, please place your comments on this page and they will be addressed. Managing threads If you'd like to make sure a thread does not get archived automatically after 30 days, use {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section. Use {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} within a section to have it archived (more or less) immediately. A brief Archives page lists them with the years in which those now inactive discussions took place.
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Request for course instructor right: Francesca Di Lauro

Name

Frances Di Lauro

Institution

The University of Sydney

Course title and description

WRIT1001 Academic Writing - The Essay WRIT2002 Advanced Writing and Research

Assignment plan

In the junior unit WRIT1001, students will receive training in Wikipedia Editing, and assignments will be structured around conducting research, verifying facts, editing entries to correct or supplement facts, and including citations where they are lacking. Students enrolled in the senior undergraduate unit WRIT2002, come from diverse disciplines and faculties across our institution. The assignments will involve students searching Wikipedia to find whether their research projects (on varied topics) are already represented. Where they are not represented, students will, following the dictates of the Wikipedia pillars, create and develop pages throughout the semester on their chosen topics. Where pages do exist, students will continue to develop them with links to and from the pages, additional information, images, and citations. Students will also make improvements to the organisation of information on the pages, to the writing style and accuracy of expression.

Number of students

Total number in WRIT1001: 100 Total number in WRIT2002: 60

Start and end dates

2013 and 2014

--Francesca Di Lauro 08:12, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Question: I see from one of your class titles that it is about writing essays. Are you aware that Wikipedia's policy against original research means that Wikipedia articles are not and should not be essays? --Tryptofish (talk) 19:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment: Students in that class will not be adding any of their original research findings to Wikipedia articles. The activities I have been developing for that class will involve working on articles that need facts to be verified or supported by citations. Where they find information to add to existing articles, they will be required to show proof that the information comes from published sources in their edits. Frances Di Lauro 03:59, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Good, thanks. That's what I was looking for. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Comment: This might actually be the first course I have seen where the activities are likely to be a clear net positive for Wikipedia's article set. Looie496 (talk) 13:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Since folks seem good with it, I'll go ahead and grant the instructor right. (Any admin, or anyone with the course coordinator right, can do this. If you're interested in getting the latter right so that you can help close instructor requests in a timely manner, you can request it on this page.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:27, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

@Sage Ross (WMF): since I've done a lot of instructor request reviewing in the past (I've been following the "review-ask on IRC/post on AN-repeat" method ;) ), that'd be useful. Thanks, Theopolisme (talk) 15:38, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

List of past projects

Hello, I need a list of North American (or US) institutions which have run a Wikipedia-oriented course as a part of this education program. This still seems under construction. I want to use it for PR purposes. Thanks, kind regards, Vojtech Dostal, WM Czech Republic --Vojtech.dostal (talk) 09:21, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

@Vojtech.dostal: I'm not sure if there is a canonical list, but the lists of classes and institutions for previous terms are here: Wikipedia:Education program/Courses.

The courses since the beginning of 2013 are listed at Special:Courses, and you'll get the full list if you change the "current and planned" option to blank. You can see all the institutions here: Special:Institutions. (Note that a few of the courses are outside North America.)

There is also one institution in Mexico, which does work on Spanish Wikipedia. See outreach:Education Portal/Projects and Programs/ITESM-Campus Ciudad de México.

There is a longer history of Wikipedia assignments before the Wikipedia Education Program started, which you can browse at the archives of WP:SUP.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:17, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much. --Vojtech.dostal (talk) 16:55, 1 June 2013 (UTC)

Marking courses as closed

When courses are finished, can they be marked as closed somehow? I'm thinking of something like Template:Cfd top / Template:Cfd_bottom, so it's clear that it's no longer active. Given that we have a finish date, it could be done a month after the finish by a bot? Stuartyeates (talk) 09:48, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Where are you thinking of marking? Special:Courses does not list courses that have ended in its default view, and the course pages themselves note the end dates. Later on, I think it would be useful to have course pages designed to show the status of a course (planned, current, or passed) in a more prominent way.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:37, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

I'm thinking of marking the entire page. Special:Courses is only one way of navigating to a course page (search, links from participants' pages, their talk pages, etc.). Stuartyeates (talk) 21:47, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

What if people want to see last semester's classes?

Is there a public place where the historical version of Special:Courses is available for viewing? Biosthmors (talk) 18:04, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You can use Special:Courses filters to select "Passed" courses, or limit it to a certain term. All the classes in the system are still viewable through Special:Courses, unless they were deleted, they just don't show up in the default view once they are over.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:10, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Excellent, thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 18:13, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Mckteacher (talk)

Name

Guy Boysen

Institution

McKendree University

Course title and description

The course in a section of Honors Introduction to Psychology. Students will primarily be in their first year of college. As part of their community service requirements, students will be writing a Wikipedia article that increases accurate coverage of psychology. They will be primarily writing about classic studies in the history of psychology.

Assignment plan

The following is a current draft of their assignment:

The Association for Psychological Science (APS) has initiated an effort to improve the representation of psychology on Wikipedia in terms of both its accuracy and comprehensiveness. Intentional, thoughtful, and scholarly contribution to Wikipedia represents an opportunity for service because it can increase the quality and amount of scientific information available to the general public. The contributions also offer students the opportunity to refine their communication skills by translating complicated scientific concepts into everyday language.

Students will sign up for one of the 40 studies in the Hock text. They will then review the Wikipedia article devoted to that study or a closely related topic and determine the strengths and weaknesses of the article. Then, they will identify topics that could be added to make the Wikipedia coverage of their topic more comprehensive. Building off their review, students will actually write a Wikipedia article based on their suggestion for an area in need of increased coverage. Articles must be written so that they are comprehensible to the general public. Articles must be written using reliable, scholarly sources. All sources must be documented both in the text and in a reference section. The length of articles will vary. However, if the article does not reach 300 words and 2 sources, a second article should be written.

The written assignment that is turned in will consist of two parts. The first part will include the review of the Wikipedia page. Reviews should contain strengths, limitations, and specific suggestions for expansion. The second part will consist of the actual article written for Wikipedia.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

9/2013-12/2013

--Mckteacher (talk) 16:10, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

• The book referred to, for convenience, is Forty studies that changed psychology: explorations into the history of psychological research by Roger R. Hock. Here are my thoughts. The fact that this is a small class is very good, as is the fact that it is an honors class. However, there are still a number of ways this could go badly wrong, so it would be helpful if you would make a commitment to work closely with a course ambassador who could advise you on ways to avoid pitfalls that have tripped up other instructors. Looie496 (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Medical students to do one month Wikipedia elective

Starting in Dec of 2013 we hope to have a few students from UCSF joining us at Wikiproject Medicine. They will each take on one article. Further details are here Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/UCSF Elective 2013. Feedback appreciated both in developing exactly how things will work before and analysing outcomes after the course. If it is a success hopefully this can continue long term. Doc James (talk ·contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:41, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Is the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/UCSF being abandoned in favour of Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/UCSF Elective 2013? If so, could we please get the old page clearly marked as closed? It's still advertising prizes which appear to have already been issued. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:48, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

One shall be the main page of the other. The first though does need updating.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 02:44, 8 June 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Qwh (talk)

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Return to the Course pages module.