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Update from Wiki Education Foundation October 2013

The main news for this update is that we have job descriptions for the program manager and executive director positions, and we'd like to get feedback on them. We have offered the program manager position to Jami Mathewson, and she has accepted; the start date will be November 1. We'd have preferred to get feedback on the PM job description before offering it to Jami, but the WMF is going to stop funding her as of October 31 and we felt it was necessary to make an offer immediately we had the job description agreed to by the board. That's not to say that the job description can't be improved by feedback given here, of course. The job descriptions are below. I'll be away for the weekend and will only have intermittent access to a computer so I may not be able to respond to any comments till Sunday night. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:11, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

So these aren't job openings, really, right? You already have people in mind you want to hire. Sounds like WMF already has their minds made up. Good luck! Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 18:51, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

There's nobody in mind for the ED post; just the PM. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:25, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

How does one apply for either post? Who makes the hiring decisions - the board of the WEF? Where can I see a list of all people who work for the WEF? Thanks, I will email this around. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I too would be interested to know, as I am going to be job searching soon. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 03:03, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll post an email address to send resumes and a cover letter to shortly; just checking with the board to see who will receive them, and to see if there's anything else we'll request. Blue Rasberry: the WEF has no employees at the moment, though Jami Mathewson will soon be an employee (I hope). The hiring decision will be made by the board, which is Diana Strassman (chair), PJ Tabit (treasurer), Mike Christie (secretary), Chanitra Bishop, Bob Cummings, Richard Knipel, and Annie Lin. I only have limited time to post this morning but will come back later and link those names to their user pages. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

PJ suggested that we hold off on applications until we get feedback on the job description for the ED, and possibly revise it in the light of that feedback; we ought to have a stable job description before inviting applicants. That seems sensible to me. I will however post here how to apply when I have that information. In the meantime, please let us know how the job description could be improved. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:42, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike. :) I'm excited to work for the WEF—I know we've been in a really weird limbo over the last year while trying to not make too many changes in the midst of figuring out who will coordinate the program. This is going to be a great opportunity to take all the feedback you guys have given and to continue getting feedback about ways we can improve the student experience when editing Wikipedia as well as the volunteer experience. Whenever there's an ED posting, after taking into account all of the feedback, we'll definitely want to reach out here to get the most qualified candidates for the role. Cheers to a fun road ahead. :) JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations JMathewson! We need somebody who has knowledge of the WEP and can with the community support take this to the next level! I think that's what we all want. Crtew (talk) 04:06, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

WEF Program Manager job description

Reports to: Executive Director

Scope of work

The program manager is responsible for:

• registering participating professors, classes, and Wikipedia Ambassadors;
• recruiting, managing, supporting, and evaluating Wikipedia Ambassadors;
• monitoring program activity to ensure that assignments run smoothly and successfully;
• supporting the training of Wikipedia Ambassadors, including updating and maintaining online training, fostering communication between experienced and new Wikipedia ambassadors, and answering questions as needed;
• helping to develop and execute ongoing evaluation of all facets of the education program, including student contributions, ambassador support, and professor participation;
• addressing concerns raised by stakeholders;
• developing partnerships with mission-aligned organizations and academic institutions;
• working with the executive director to improve the self-sustainability, effectiveness, reach and diversity of the education program; and
• managing public outreach and press inquiries.

Deliverables

The program manage will:

• provide regular reports on progress toward goals, established in consultation with the executive director, for recruiting and on-boarding professors and ambassadors;
• provide a monthly report to the executive director describing progress, changes, successes, and problems/challenges/concerns in the program; and
• conduct annual program evaluation using metrics/goals established in consultation with the executive director.

Qualifications

Required:

• experience coordinating and mentoring volunteers;
• strong oral, written, and interpersonal communication skills;
• demonstrated ability to work independently and meet deadlines with limited supervision;
• experience editing Wikipedia.

Preferred:

• experience with the Wikipedia Education Program;
• ability to use SAS, Stata, Access, or similar programs to conduct basic data collection and analysis;
• ability to use social media (e.g. Facebook, Twitter) to advance the mission of the WEF;
• experience collaborating with many stakeholders with sometimes conflicting opinions to advance shared goals.

Comments

You say "preferred: experience with the Wikipedia Education Program". Could someone who is in charge of hiring for this position make a guess at how many people have enough experience to meet this qualification? Surely just passing experience or one term of experience is not significant, right? How many people exist in the world who have enough experience to matter? Of that population - how many might one guess to have analytics experience of the sort preferred? 50%? 5%? Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:19, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I doubt there are very many people with experience with the EP; that's partly why it's preferred, not required, though it's also true that it could be learned on the job more quickly than some of the required skills. The analytics skills, to me, are preferred not required because they're less central to the role -- it's important, but those skills could be acquired on the job or even, at a pinch, farmed out to someone else. That's not true of some of the requirements such as strong communications skills. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:59, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

• I see nothing about helping improving the quality of Wikipedia:Student assignments. Why is that? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  I take it you mean improving the quality of student assignments, not of the linked article? If so, I'm not sure what you're driving it -- do you mean that improving the quality of what the students produce should be a goal? I think we have to settle for intermediate steps -- improving the resources we provide to professors and students. Obviously the better work the students produce, the better off the encyclopedia is, so I'm not disagreeing with the end goal. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

  I think a few bullets, including "monitoring program activity to ensure that assignments run smoothly and successfully" and "helping to develop and execute ongoing evaluation of all facets of the education program, including student contributions, ambassador support, and professor participation" capture this. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• And why is there nothing about working in tandem with the Wikipedia community, whether they are ambassadors or not? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:18, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  Can you clarify? Obviously the PM has to work with the community: there will be communication back and forth. But a great deal of what the PM does is invisible to the community -- phone and email exchanges with the professors, answering inquiries, writing and reviewing resources. Do you have some wording you would like to suggest as part of the job description? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:46, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

  I would include the Wikipedia community among the stakeholders in the "addressing concerns raised by stakeholders" bullet. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:22, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• Shouldn't it be part of the PM's job to help prevent and fix bad-quality student edits? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:44, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

  Depends what you mean, exactly. If working with professors to improve their assignments and course design towards best practices counts as prevention, then yes; but if you mean they should go in and fix the problems caused by each student, then no, for reasons given elsewhere on this page -- essentially, I don't think it's a sensible use of the relatively small amount of paid time we will have. Improving resources and improving professors' understanding of Wikipedia has a multiplier effect on future contributions; fixing one edit doesn't have a multiplier effect. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:53, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

  In my opinion, if Jami started making some corrective edits, it would have a multiplier effect within the community by creating good karma, fostering cohesiveness, and creating an atmosphere of teamwork. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:03, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

WEF Executive Director job description

Reports to: Board of Directors

Scope of work

The executive director is responsible for:

• working closely with the board of directors to develop the organization's strategic plan;
• directing the transition of operations from WMF to WEF;
• overseeing the organization's annual operations, including implementation of annual plan;
• providing strong fiscal management;
• leading initiatives to engage stakeholders;
• establishing with the board of directors annual fundraising goals and ensuring that those goals are met;
• setting annual numeric goals with the program manager to ensure measurable programmatic expansion; and
• overseeing the development of the organization’s key messages.

Deliverables

The executive director will:

• work with the board of directors to develop both annual and short-term (three-year) strategic plans;
• provide a monthly report to the WEF board of directors summarizing program activity and metrics as well as fundraising progress; and,
• raise, with assistance from the board of directors, approximately $600,000 in the first year.

Qualifications

Required:

• demonstrated record of fundraising success and possession of a network of donors who may be interested in WEF's work;
• organizational skills, including ability to successfully design and develop projects and provide metrics-driven outcomes analysis;
• management skills including budgeting, time management, goal setting, and human resources capabilities; and,
• exceptional communication and presentation skills, both verbal and written.

Preferred:

• advanced degree;
• work experience (preferably as an instructor or administrator) in institution of higher education;
• background in program evaluation, preferably in the field of education;
• proven ability to find creative and effective solutions in situations with limited resources; and,
• at least seven years of work experience in not-for-profit setting.

WEF ED comments

• Where did the figure of $600,000 come from? And why? It's remarkably specific, given that everything else here remains so undetermined and vague. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:47, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

• The $600k figure was determined based on several factors, including what is required to meet WEF's annual expenses, an estimate of additional funds needed to put it on sound financial footing, and an estimate, based on the recommendation of an expert, of what would be a reasonable amount for our organization to raise in its first year. Pjthepiano (talk) 02:25, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Your grant proposal bid lists your expenses as $147,570 for six months (most of which is salaries, a fact eloquently criticized by Mike Cline here). I take it you then quadrupled that figure by four to come up with $600k and so two years' worth of funding? Your grant proposal also dedicates $10k to fundraising, with the notion that you will hire a consultant to help--in addition to the Program Director, who is now (it seems) essentially going to be a full-time fundraiser. Have you hired a consultant yet, and has this indeed informed these calculations? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:47, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the reply, @Jbmurray:. As I noted on the grant talk page, it is not unusual or inappropriate for labor costs (staff salaries) to make up the bulk of the budget for an organization like ours. Our major output as an organization is staff support for the education program. It would be strange, I think, if at this point in the WEF's development the bulk of our costs were for something other than labor. In addition, as I've noted here and elsewhere, as the organization grows, we will be able to devote additional resources to other priorities and staff salaries as a percentage of the overall budget will fall. To your second point, your arithmetic is correct, but I think you've missed the point. We hope to improve the education program by doing, among other things, supporting more research, conducting more evaluations, expanding access to the program, improving instructional materials and course designs, supporting ambassadors, etc. All of these things take resources. I think it'd be a mistake to underinvest in the program and then turn around and wonder why it didn't do better. And to your final point, you are mixing up positions. The Program Manager (Jami) is solely focused on programmatic work. The Executive Director is focused on fundraising, strategic planning, etc. We have not yet hired a fundraising consultant. However, we have received input on these issues from both fundraisers at the WMF and independent consultants. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:01, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Ah yes, it is indeed the Executive Director whom you see as mainly devoted to fundraising. Which makes things even more circular, as they're mainly raising funds for their own salary. It does all seem rather inefficient. (In my experience, by the way, which is in the Arts, it's the Board who are expected either to raise funds or to donate them themselves. The usual phrase for board members is "Give it, get it, or get off.") --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 13:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's actually a standard practice in the nonprofit world for the executive director to be heavily focused on fundraising. We do plan for the ED to be supported in his/her work by the Board; however, as I've said, we have been advised by numerous fundraising professionals that if we don't have an ED who can raise organization-sustaining amounts of money, we will fail. As you know, we have placed a great importance on having a Board that represents the interests of Wikipedians, academics, ambassadors, and others. The individuals that best represent each of those constituencies may or may not have access to (or have on their own) the money the WEF will need to survive. I think if we had said that WEF Board members needed to raise or donate $100k per year or be kicked off the Board, you'd be railing against us here on the ENB for only accepting wealthy people. I think if you look at how other organizations function, you'll find that what we are proposing is a standard practice in successful operations. Pjthepiano (talk) 22:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Pjthepiano, enough of this talk of "rail[ing]." I'm merely pointing out my own experience with non-profits, and trying to get you guys to expand on what you have in mind. It's called communication! No need to bristle so. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:04, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I apologize. I didn't mean to characterize your current talk as "railing." What I meant was that if we had set conditions (e.g. requiring them to donate or raise $100k) that would limit Board service only to wealthy people then you would be criticizing us for that also (appropriately, in my opinion). I'll admit I am frustrated by our discussion since we have already debated many of these issues (e.g. proportion of the budget going to labor costs) at length on this and other pages. Could we move on to new items? Pjthepiano (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think that the topic has been discussed very little here. And elsewhere it was only discussed (and briefly at that) in the context of your grant proposal. Indeed, your model for how the WEF should operate in general has basically hardly been discussed at all. It's about time there were some discussion, shy though the WEF may be of such debates. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:19, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I've no intention of being shy of such debates, though I probably haven't always responded to your comments as fully as I might. I'll have to plead pressure of time as at least a partial excuse. I would love to see such a discussion here; in fact LauraHale, below, asks related questions -- and by discussion I don't just mean that people ask questions and WEF board members respond: I mean that I'd like to see non-WEF-board-members engaging with each other and coming to consensus on these points. The more discussion on this topic the better, as far as I'm concerned. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll add that the goal for the board has always been to be representative, rather than to be a fund-raising board, and I still think that's the right approach. The byelaws give us the option of four or five appointed seats in addition to the elected ones. These were conceived as a way to bring in expertise the board might be lacking -- financial controls, educational design, whatever -- but I think appointing people with fundraising abilities ("give" or "get", in jbm's terms) would be a good idea. There's also been a suggestion that we could have an advisory board which would be made up of prominent figures who would be able to help us fundraise; that hasn't been discussed much yet but I'm sure it will be. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:05, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that if the board aims to be representative, it's nowhere near that aim... and you admit it won't get close for some time. The current members are there out of WMF selection or self-selection, there has been no attempt to replace the various members who have left over the past year or so (except by putting in an ex-WMF staffer). Yet if you were to move towards a representative model, you might soothe some of your current problems. I don't see much reason why you don't make at least a gesture towards representativity now. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:19, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

What do you have in mind? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:48, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Quite specifically, I have mentioned a) that you need to have some kind of links with the Educational Technologists. Among the names I've raised have been Jim Groom and Brian Lamb, but there are others; and b) someone who is prominent in Digital Humanities, and here I've specifically suggested Cathy Davidson. But you do need to figure out what this board is for. It's not even close to representative at the moment, and doesn't seem to have much other logic, either. It's a group of those chosen by or formerly employed by the WMF. And their track record has not always been good, as we know. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The names you suggest could be candidates for appointed seats; there wasn't much discussion of them when you first suggested them, because we were nowhere near ready to talk about appointed board members, but I've passed the names along to the board again now. With luck the educational professionals on the board will know more about those disciplines and those names than I do. I think I do know what the board is for, and one of its jobs is to be representative; I agree it's not very representative so far -- we have members of the constituencies we want to represent, but they weren't chosen by a democratic process. What do you suggest to make the board more representative, prior to the elections? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Mike Christie, maybe there could be an (at least partially) transparent process to make the board more representative? In what ways is it not representative, in your mind? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:38, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not representative because the members were selected, not elected. There will be elections each summer, with a two year term, for the six elected seats; at that point I think the board will be fully representative. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:44, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not jbmurray, but he would be a good person to have on the board in an instructor slot. That would (COI) leave me a slot. ;-) User:Pharos seems to be more of a "Wikimedia Chapter" person than an "English Wikipedia" person, I would argue. So that might be a concern, but honestly, I don't know. Pharos could do a great job of representing the Wikipedia community and I wouldn't know it because I'm not privy to the board conversations. It doesn't appear they are very active on the education noticeboard, at least. That, to me, does raise a bit of concern. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 23:03, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I have no special interest in serving on the board, at least as the organization is currently constituted. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

jbmurray, do you have any people you would like to see on the board? Or does anyone who is a current member concern you in any way? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 23:06, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

See above as to who I'd recommend. As to who concerns me: We know so little about most of the members of the board, who have barely interacted here, it's hard to say. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Pjthepiano, I'm not sure how specific you want to get, but I'm curious what kind of evaluations you have in mind, what kind of support to ambassadors you imagine, and what you mean by expanding access. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:04, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: I think that's an important and productive question. When we spoke on Skype a few weeks ago, I emphasized how I think we need to have a discussion about what the appropriate metrics are for the program. Right now, however, we're operating on some tight deadlines trying to orchestrate the hand off from the WMF to the WEF so could we table that discussion for a bit? For now, if you could give us feedback on the ED and PM job descriptions that'd be great. Once we get some of these administrative things running smoothly, I agree that we need to turn our attention back to the issues you've raised. Pjthepiano (talk) 22:47, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

• Why would this position be more valuable to the movement than, say, the Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation? Remember how the Chapters Association was told to go back to the drawing board when they proposed an ED position that paid half this much? And, absent some major external fundraising, how is the WEF in a position to offer to pay this much? This seems quite a bit of cart-before-the-horse. Risker (talk) 00:49, 22 October 2013 (UTC) NOTE: See below. Risker (talk) 03:41, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think that reads "raise $600K [in donations]" not raise $600K for the ED salary! --Mike Cline (talk) 01:40, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the question, @Risker:. I'm not sure I understand your question comparing the ED positions at the WMF and WEF. Could you elaborate on what you are asking? With regard to your second question, the ED will devote much of his/her time to "major external fundraising," at least at first. We have discussed this quite a bit with experts in this field and they have advised us that it is highly unlikely that we will be able to secure the amount of money we need to sustain the WEF long term without this ED position. And as Mike mentioned, the $600k is not the ED's compensation. As you'll see from our startup grant, we estimate that ED's salary will be about $85k, which is modest, but competitive for a small organization like ours. I hope that helps. Pjthepiano (talk) 02:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I stand corrected, Pjthepiano. Seriously though, that's a huge chunk of change for a program whose metrics are pretty odd. Pages are pages, they're not x number of keystrokes. Risker (talk) 03:41, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we can certainly have a discussion about what the appropriate metrics for the program are. I'm not sure I agree that the WEF budget should be smaller because the evaluation methods the WMF used are "odd." But I think your point is well taken - a full discussion about evaluation methods would be very fruitful. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:13, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• The feedback I have seen from inside the movement says that no more than 20% of I believe staff salaries should be spent on fundraising. Given the large number amount, what percentage of time does the WEF foresee this position to spend on fundraising? How have other Chapters/Thematic Organizations handled their initial employees? I can think of one chapter (not the WCA) that wanted their first employee to have this position first, and they got knocked down for it big time. --LauraHale (talk) 13:33, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

• I think a difficult thing here is that the WMF has a much larger avenue for fundraising (donations by many via millions of page views), whereas the WEF will need to foster some new relationships with grant-making organizations. I think the WEF board has been very realistic that this role will be a much higher percentage of the ED's overall job description in the early year(s)...hopefully not plural. :) Hopefully a great candidate will already have some of these relationships and the skills so that it does come out to be a smaller percentage of her/his salary. Also, you said "other" Thematic Organizations—the WEF actually withdrew its Thorg application but does intend to seek affiliation again down the line. Just to clarify. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 20:12, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
• @LauraHale:, I'm not sure where the 20 percent figure you cite comes from, but it's typical for the ED of a nonprofit to spend the majority of their time on fundraising. As much as we would like the ED to focus solely on programmatic work, the reality is that the program needs resources to be sustained. Pjthepiano (talk) 03:30, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

My apologies. I think I misunderstood something. In any case, the 20% number came from a presentation made by Asaf at Ibercoop conference in Mexico City last week or the week before. The 20% dealt with the whole organization, not just the ED position. After looking around for best practices information, I see that a number of ED descriptions place a lot of importance in the role of fundraising as a key basis for hiring them when an organization has small staff. (Though inside the movement, this appears to be handled differently. First employees don't often appear to be in a fundraising role, but doing things like GLAM or education or interns who do office paperwork. Amical Viquimedia has a staff person for their education programming, and Wikimedia UK does. The first as I understand it gets a lot of their money through government grants. The question when looking for an ED to bring in money then should be is the person going to seek these through grants or soliciting individuals? Either approach likely impacts on the organization in a big way.) --LauraHale (talk) 12:50, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, LauraHale. I can't speak to the models of the organizations you've cited without knowing their particular financial situations. I do know that we won't be able to replicate the WMF model (few organizations can). When the WMF puts a campaign on WP, it gets seen by millions of people. We don't have that luxury. So our organization (both our Board and our ED) will have to spend more time raising money through other sources. Pjthepiano (talk) 16:29, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Can you provide information on what organizations you are trying to model yours after? And what type of fundraising you are aiming to do? Will it be primarily through grants, either government or other sources? Or through a donation driven model where you seek donations from wealthy individuals? Or smaller donations from a larger pool of potential donors? I would think the type of funding you're seeking is going to end up being a major driver of the metrics you will be asked to provide, and will dictate the likely candidate you would get for ED. If you're looking for a grant based funding model, getting some one with experience getting large single donors seems less worthwhile. If you're seeking grants, then it seems like something the ED and the board should all have skills and knowledge in. --LauraHale (talk) 17:44, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

I expect most of our support will come from grants and large private donors. The former is the space where the ED will be mostly responsible for building relationships, developing grants, and securing funding. I see the latter as being a space where the Board can play a larger role. WEF is obviously a small organization so the Board is going to have to be heavily involved in many operational tasks, including raising money. However, we have been advised by several experts that we need an ED focused on fundraising if we have any hope of sustaining the program. Pjthepiano (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Comments from Biosthmors

• I strongly disagree with setting annual numeric goals with the program manager to ensure measurable programmatic expansion. I don't think the education program has its house in order yet. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:54, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Perhaps "ensure" is too strong a word. For Spring 2014, for example, we are not looking to expand. Maybe we could say something like "determine numeric goals for expansion, if appropriate." I would also say that that individual bullet it not subordinate to any of the others that talk about improving the program, ensuring the classes are successful, etc. Each of these responsibilities needs to be balanced. Further, "programmatic expansion" doesn't only meet adding more professors or students. It could mean adding more ambassadors to support the same number of students, for example. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
• There isn't even a bullet for having a working knowledge of Wikipedia as a preferred criterion? O my. Who was/were the author/authors? Was that point debated before it was left out? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:56, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  The point came up; my recollection is that several people pointed out that any formal requirement for WP experience might cut too deeply into the pool of candidates. Of course a knowledge of Wikipedia would be an asset. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

  • I'll add that experience editing WP and knowledge of the education program are both required for the PM. I think the ED should have a different focus - primarily making sure the WEF gets the resources it needs to survive and establishing strategic direction. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

• How long after the hire will the annual plan and strategic plan be developed? Where will it be published? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  I don't know where it will be published but I'm sure it will be. There is no timeline yet. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• The text that says: "working closely with the board of directors to develop the organization's strategic plan". So how should I conceptualize the relationship between the ED and the board? Is the chair of the board the "real" boss? Is the ED the "real" boss? Is the consensus of the board the "real" boss? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:02, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  This is more a question about how boards interact with the organizations they represent. The board can fire the ED; the ED can't fire the board. Does that answer your question? Within the board the chair is a position that the board can choose to change at will. The chair has whatever powers the board chooses to delegate, assuming the board has those powers to begin with. There's no iron template that we have to fit within. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• Does overseeing the development of the organization's key messages imply that the WEF already has key messages? What are those key messages? Do they reflect community consensus on Wikipedia? Or will I just start seeing (WEF) behind account names instead of (WMF) making spurious arguments and mischaracterizations of Wikipedian opinion? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:06, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  I'd like to see discussion on this board help to shape those messages, especially the parts that concern those on this board the most -- for example, what message do professors who are interested in teaching with Wikipedia receive? If there's any message that the WEF supports that the WP community doesn't, I'd be alarmed. If there turns out to be a disconnect between what WEF board members say and what the community thinks, I would encourage the community to elect better (more representative) board members. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

• I see absolutely nothing about helping insure the quality of Wikipedia:Student assignments per the results of Wikipedia:Education Working Group/RfC. Is this because the WEF thinks it is a bureaucracy that operates above the lowly level of Wikipedia community consensus? Or can the community consensus from the RfC that there are concerns are about the quality of the work done, the amount of time needed to monitor and correct mistakes, and the value for money of the programme please be incorporated into the job description of the ED? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:11, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

  As above I'll assume you mean improving the assignments, not the linked essay. Do you mean that the ED's job description should include this? My answer is partly the same as for the PM, but I would also say that the ED is, of necessity, going to be mostly a fund-raiser, so not mentioning student assignments is because they will be less involved with classes on a day-to-day basis than the PM. Also as above, I hope it's a given that we all want student work to improve. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:45, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

  I'll add that we have participated in these discussions, and many others, in good faith, honestly considering the issues raised by those with concerns about the program. I think you know that we don't consider the WEF to be a "bureaucracy that operates above the lowly level of Wikipedia community consensus." In fact, we've stated several times that in order to be successful, the program must operate within WP policies and practices. I hope we can debate the various issues associated with the program without resorting to mischaracterizations of our positions. Pjthepiano (talk) 04:45, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Question for the WMF, questions for the WEF, course not getting off to a good start

I am asking this question because it is prompted by User:SandyGeorgia's and User:Colin's current troubles, which are Wikipedia's troubles. It relates to a course mentioned now in the archives. Did anyone at WP:WMF happen to help "the Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network (EvMedWikiNet)" develop? Did any Wikipedian? I see it linked at Education Program:Case Western Reserve University/ANTH 302 Darwinian Medicine (Fall 2013). It just appears that, from my perspective, with neuroscience, psychology, and now this, that we keep ending up with all these professional societies having large ambitions, but without ever appearing to get help from Wikipedians first. It's quite annoying. Has anyone had contact with the Evolutionary Medicine Wikipedia Network? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:24, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Many schools participate without any interaction with the education program or with Wikipedians. I feel like this course would have been signaled to WikiProject Medicine, but I do not recall it being mentioned there. The two users Biosthmors just mentioned are also people on the medicine page. At Wikipedia:Education_noticeboard/Archive6#Request_for_course_instructor_right:_Sanetti_.28talk.29 it seems that there were problems soon after starting. This does not seem like a risky class if the professor gives oversight and has had a bit of training. Hmmm... I am not sure what action to propose but this needs a response. I could offer an hour of video chat with the professor. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:42, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I see Education Program talk:Case Western Reserve University/ANTH 302 Darwinian Medicine (Fall 2013)/Timeline needs some basic formatting, but I think that is best done with an ambassador and professor working together on Skype so the professor actually learns how to edit Wikipedia. Wikipedia shortcuts aren't even linked on that page. If this course is going to be run again, which I hope it does, if feedback is taken to improve the course/course page (and hopefully others within this "network", though google doesn't show anything). Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:49, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I do not see the bad course page as a major concern. I do dislike the wizard guidelines in setting up a timeline, and also for asking for the syllabus for the course. This just results in copyvios and useless information being pasted here. In any case, I offered to talk with the professor - see User_talk:Sanetti#Offer_to_chat_about_course. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:52, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

The hour of video chat would ideally be with a medical editor (such as User:Jmh649, or User:Colin, or even User:Maralia or User:Nikkimaria) since issues of editing medical articles are rarely well explained by others (WP:MEDRS in general, and as it relates to WP:UNDUE). In this case, it just happens that the first thing to come to attention was copyvio (before we even knew it was a course),[1] in the midst of another WMF whitewashing of ongoing copyvio concerns, but copyvio is more easily addressed than the other problems that are surfacing (copyvio can easily be reverted, the rest is harder to deal with). For example, experience with writing for a Wiki with a known POV (Evolutionary medicine) will present a challenge for students who are guided by a professor who may not understand issues of WP:UNDUE in neutral writing, or at least may not be experienced in same. I am stretched to explain these issues to the professor and her students, but have patiently tried to do so, and it has taken my time away from article editing, since this course is hitting multiple medical FAs on my watchlist. It is unfortunate that they are targeting Featured articles, as a good deal of their proposed content may turn out to be UNDUE on those pages. The bad course page is certainly a concern, as pointed out by Colin (they are targeting highly viewed articles contrary to some course guideline page). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

It's a little upsetting to me to see you describe the recent plagiarism research as "whitewashing". I've tried to be fully transparent about the methodology we used (and its known and potential shortcomings) and the results we got, and to be circumspect about what conclusions are warranted.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:14, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it was a later comment from someone else that triggered my comment (can't recall who, but another WMF person came late to the discussion and questioned something along the lines of implying there was no problem-- most offputting). Sage Ross, you rarely write anything that concerns me! Now, having said that about you, that is not to say that I don't have ever-growing concerns about this program.

The sense that those promoting this program are not understanding its effects on established editors continues, and continues to grow. On this very page, where I raised a coyvio concern, within 24 hours, professor rights were granted by someone who wasn't even aware that concern was on the page and without taking advantage of that opportunity to bring it to the prof's attention and make sure the prof was brought up to speed. Do you all think blowing the whistle on a student who is identified by name on a public forum is fun or that it was something I wanted to do, considering it is this program that has led to an increase in ill-prepared student editing? For gosh sakes, at least read what is on the page before granting rights and missing the chance to educate. And the concern that class editing constitutes meatpuppetry continues, and established editors find it harder and harder to keep articles clean. Issues like this further the division between paid and unpaid volunteers. Yes, in general, there is whitewashing of those concerns on this board, but no, I'm not going to take the time to go back and find the comment from the WMF staffer that amounted to "whatdya mean problems, there are none". Baloney. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Went back in archives to find the referenced comment, which was, in response to Bios:

I'm trying to understand what you think is "sucky" about the program in the US and Canada. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 18:42, 9 October 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, this noticeboard isn't that old, there are only five or six archives, and it's not that hard to process through the discussions of problems; that comment seems dismissive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

And Sandy, it's been a while since I've done much with deep vein thrombosis, but I think it's given me enough exposure to MEDRS to be a "spokesman" on behalf of how to edit clinical medical topics.

I wouldn't mind helping out with the course page, but offering now doesn't seem like a good time. Lane has offered to help. Sandy has been reaching out by email. You two, keep us updated? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:32, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I did not intend to leave you off the list of qualified ~! By all means, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy. But FYI, when you said "For gosh sakes, at least read what is on the page before granting rights and missing the chance to educate", I agree with your sentiment, but I think that would have been technically impossible unless the course page were developed in user space with a Wikipedian (or a Wikipedia-savvy person) before being "reviewed" here. The user rights are to play in the Education Program space. I made that kind of argument here. That's a super long thread, though! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:16, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

As previously discussed on this page, the program pages have been made sufficiently difficult that I (a long-time and involved editor) have difficulty even finding the pieces to sort out what's what when my watchlist is hit by student editing. An already difficult situation made worse by programming changes here that make Wikipedia pages not act like Wikipedia pages. Call me an old dog who can't learn new tricks, but seriously ... I write articles. I don't want to have to figure out why you all set up pages that can't even be found or watchlisted. I used to love mentoring new editors. This program has taken the joy out of both. Because I spend most of my time now fixing faulty edits and attempting to mentor students who will never become established Wikipedians, or become knowledgeable enough to help with routine article maintenance. They are here for the grade, they take our time and resources, they leave when the course ends. In the case of medicine, after typically adding little to nothing of value. I would love to again mentor a committed editor-- one who wants to learn and will become an asset to WP:MED. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

+1 Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: I have to repeat that I disagree (but agree with User:Bluerasberry) that the Course Page is not as important to the quality of the class contributions as you are making it out to be. Yes, I believe it positively impacts the class when the professor works closely with somebody to understand guidelines and set up an assignment, but you have to be realistic that plenty of professors do not want to duplicate their work that they're doing on the syllabus, on another space for their students, and in the classroom. You hopefully realize by now that a professor taking on a Wikipedia assignment is a lot more time-consuming than sticking with their traditional curriculum, so please give them the benefit of the doubt that they aren't taking it lightly. Some classes and some students will likely have issues, no matter how much preparation goes into the assignment, but it certainly doesn't all go back to what the Course Page looks like or whether it's formatted appropriately.

As for the user rights, they are granted to provide a professor a tool to use when teaching with Wikipedia. Professors don't have to use the education extension because this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. This particular professor never responded to the email I sent him via WP, but I do think having his students' usernames and being able to track them back to that class is more useful than not. Isn't it? It's not ideal, and it's not the norm when it comes to professors wanting support, but it seems better to me to have some insight into the class rather than none. Another note—is Bluerasberry not qualified to speak to medical guidelines? JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 17:49, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but I find it to be a mischaracterization of my position to say it doesn't all go back to what the Course Page looks like or whether it's formatted appropriately. That's not my position... Yes, I certainly do understand it is more time-consuming, which is why I volunteer and I think we need more Wikipedian–instructor pairings, in my opinion. I like having a course page as well, but it's not like a course page is how the community figured out things weren't going well with the edits.

If Bluerasberry has brought up a disease article to good status and has also addressed WikiProject Medicine-associated peer review concerns from "seasoned editors" (I'm thinking Axl, who is a physician), then I think that's the general threshold to get "street cred" in the project, in my opinion. I'm not certain if this quasi-arbitrary threshold has been met or not. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:05, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

And I understand that professors do not want to duplicate their work that they're doing on the syllabus, on another space for their students, and in the classroom, which is why I want the course page to be the main spot students turn to when they have questions about their assignment. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:10, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

@JMathewson (WMF): I don't know if Rasberry is qualified to deal with medical articles; I know who the active, involved, knowledgeable WP:MED editors are because I've worked with them for years. Others aren't always well versed in WP:MEDRS, or how to apply MEDRS along with UNDUE in the context, for example, of a Featured article that must use high-quality sources per WP:WIAFA. I listed a few editors known to me to be familiar on that level, because this particular course is approaching the work with a built-in bias, and UNDUE in the context of MEDRS needs to be explained to them. Also, after seven years actively involved in every aspect of the process, four years as WP:FAC delegate, I know which medical editors know WP:WIAFA and write on that level; this course is targeting multiple Featured articles. The kind of poor research that might stand on an undeveloped article typically has no place on an FA, so the students are likely to find their experience frustrating. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

I think there's a fundamental problem with this whole course. As indicated by Jfdwolff, here '"I notice that the course focuses particularly on Darwinian medicine. I think it is very important to be clear that with regards to many medical conditions, evolutionary aspects may well be too underdeveloped scientifically to include into mainstream encyclopedia articles. Of course there are famous theories (about the evolutionary advantage of haemoglobinopathies in sickle cell disease, for instance) but unless these theories are covered in reliable secondary sources, there might well be a reason to exclude them from Wikipedia". This class was asked to pick articles from (among other criteria), "the list of most viewed articles on WikiProject Medicine". The assignment is almost guaranteed to be POV because the student is asked to find areas where there "are important evolutionary considerations not yet represented on Wikipedia, for example by consulting from evolutionary medicine resources". These sources are biased towards Darwinian medicine, which is a largely speculative endeavour. The students are not asked to consult the sources on the article subject and then see if the WP:WEIGHT given to evolutionary medicine issues within those reliable sources finds representation within the articles. A single review article on evolutionary medicine & the topic is regarded as sufficient. Although the students are asked to not evangelise for evolutionary medicine in their writing, it is hard to see how they can apply NPOV given the earlier advice.

The articles chosen are (name / class / daily hits)

• Obsessive–compulsive disorder. C-class. 5600 hits.
• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder predominantly inattentive. Start-class. 1500 hits.
• Hypothyroidism. B-class. 3400 hits.
• Major depressive disorder. Featured article. 3500 hits.
• Migraine. Good article. 3500 hits.
• Dental caries. B-class. 1700 hits.
• Coeliac disease. Featured article. 4400 hits.
• Sarcopenia. C-class. 300 hits.
• Narcolepsy. C-class. 3200 hits.
• Multiple sclerosis. Featured article. 7300 hits.
• Osteoarthritis. B-class. 2700 hits.
• Inflammatory bowel disease. C-class. 1600 hits.
• Color blindness. C-class. 3300 hits.
• Pre-eclampsia. B-class. 2700 hits.
• Osteoporosis. B-class. 2800 hits.
• Demyelinating disease. C-class. 600 hits.
• Causes of autism. C-class. 461 hits.

The prof running the course isn't an experienced Wikipedian. I have no doubt their intentions are good. However is hasn't been thought through and shows all the lack of preparation typical of student courses. Only on Wikipedia do we find professors teaching a topic they know nothing about (how to write for Wikipedia), asking students to do something they haven't done themselves. And please, can we stop repeating the "because this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit" as an excuse. These students and professors are welcome to edit Wikipedia on a voluntary basis like everyone else. But Wikipedia is not a homework assignment -- it is an encyclopaedia read by thousands of people every day. While something like Wikipedia:Assignments is not policy, I see no good coming of this program at all. Colin°^Talk 12:34, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Colin, I sympathize 100%, except I think it's an overstatement to say "I see no good coming of this program at all". (One could find some good somewhere, of course.) And I'd like to see a WEF response from Mike Christie. But anyways, this course is a perfect example of why Jami Mathewson (the Program Manager to be starting Nov. 1) has started emailing Regional Ambassadors at least some details about professors and courses while emailing the Regional Ambassadors to ask them to grant course instructor user rights. That thread was long and is now linked at WP:WEF in the September update. But we have to strike the right balance. I'm not sure where that is at. Clearly Wikipedian's aren't providing enough input before courses massively fail like this one. How can we get the WEF to actually get Wikipedia assignments improved before they are designed to fail? That's the question. Currently they are focusing on administrative tasks, such as finalizing the Executive Director position before offering it out. There is a spot for a Wikipedian on the board, and I've been asking for that spot, but I gather other Wikipedia editors are asking for it as well. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:47, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Re "One could find some good somewhere, of course" Yes small miracles happen occasionally despite the odds. But I continue to see defence of letting just anyone do this unprepared and unaccountable. We get a "They are not one of ours, nothing we can do, anyone can edit" response. I don't accept that. Is someone from WEF going to join with JFW and ask them nicely to stop and reconsider?

I'm going to take this page back off my watchlist again, along with the above medical articles. No point. -- Colin°^Talk 13:37, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

At work and unable to respond now; will try this weekend or late tonight. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:04, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Who else has their hat in the ring? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:02, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I have many of these on my watch list and have worked extensively on some of them. I moved one addition to a subpage. Most of the articles have not been edited yet. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 14:04, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

• I just talked with the professor. I gave her a tour of Wikipedia with screenshare. I emphasized the need to make contributions while also having each student go to the talk page and say what they did, as well as accept feedback. I showed her WP:MEDRS. She is going to have the students indicate which articles they are editing on the course page. I will also show her this discussion and ask her to response here to concerns. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:17, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Spectacular! Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:03, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Refocus

I appreciate all of the subsequent work on this issue, but I am concerned that the focus in this discussion was shifted to the professor, the students and the course, overlooking several WEF missteps along the way that could have helped avoid a potential trainwreck. I do not feel as negative about possible outcomes as some have expressed here, because since the problems were raised, the students and professor seem to have been nothing but cooperative and willing to understand Wikipedia policies and procedures. I probably expended too much effort in trying to explain policies and guidelines to the class and students (User talk:Sarmocid/sandbox), where Colin and Jfdwolff were better able to explain the POV issues with much less wordiness.

So, to refocus on what I believe should be of concern:

1. I encountered an initial copyvio (not since repeated from that class and something that should be considered unfortunate water under the bridge), and came to this board because I could not begin to figure out where to find the course or professor. I was pretty much brushed off here, told to find it myself, and yes, I had already consulted Biosthmors, who happened to be traveling at the moment (or I'd wager he would have helped).
2. After pointing out that I was trying to find that course, professor rights were requested and extended here by staffers who apparently do not even review this board, and missed the first opportunity to engage early on with what has turned out to be a helpful and collaborative professor.
3. At that time, had anyone with knowledge of how content is built on Wikipedia, particularly how medical content is built, read the course description and engaged the professor, they woulda/shoulda been able to point out the issues that have now been explained by both Colin and Jfdwolff. With a whole lot less time and agida for all involved.
4. As an unfortunate side issue, it happens that the POV that the course description encourages is the same POV of another editor who is not hearing it on five different talk pages, consuming talk with discussion but never providing secondary sources supporting proposed text, wanting to use one researcher's publications about his own theories rather than secondary reviews of that researcher's theories. The IDHT editor engaged the course students and professor, which presented another wrinkle that could have been avoided if WEF staffers had simply and early on pointed out the POV problems in the course design.

Consider how all of this looked from the course's standpoint; typical Wikipedia dysfunction. How do they know who they should listen to? Well, how about WEF staffers, for starters?

So, after a lot of medical editor time is expended here by editors who could be writing content and mentoring users who will become regular contributors here, Colin once again gives up in disgust (and not likely at the course, but at the WEF), I find that almost two years after I resigned as FAC delegate specifically so I could concentrate more on medical writing,[2] I spend almost no time mentoring new editors who will continue to produce good content, little time writing, and most of my time dealing with bad student editing because my area of editing happens to be focused around topics that are hit by every manner of wackiness (eg the klazomania example discussed many times).

I am no longer concerned about this course, except to the extent that the professor should rightly feel put off by the display of incompetence, and it should not have taken so much to get folks here to understand the issues. I am, again, concerned that in the next six weeks, as term-end approaches, any productive editing I might do will be hit by courses unidentified, as students who haven't tagged talk pages from courses we don't even know exist will dash to get their grades before the term ends, overwhelming my watch list with edits that are likely to require 100% removal, after lots of effort to determine if there is copyvio or other policy violations. This problem is not getting better. Repeat: this problem is not getting better. Some of it all goes back to ... the design of this program, which is becoming more and more indecipherable to even a regular, long-time, involved editor, and seems less and less responsive to the concerns of established editors.

MOST of what the Medicine Project produces of quality is done by about a dozen editors. The WEF has never produced a single medical editor that endured. Do you all want to continue discouraging all of the Colin's out there, who can and do actually write boatloads of featured content? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I haven't read all of this yet, but the WP:WEF doesn't have an employee until Nov. 1st, FYI. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:52, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I am wholly uninterested in the WMF politics that are taking over this board (indeed, this website). I don't care what they are called and whether they are paid-- there are people designing these pages, handing out some sorts of rights, and conducting business here in ways that is becoming unwieldy, indecipherable, and off-putting. The folks who gave the professor of this course some sorts of rights did it without reading this board, without understanding how content is built, and while missing the early advantage to engage more productively. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I understand your frustration. It is quite a complex beast. But FYI, "community members" hand out the rights. They are called Regional Ambassadors. And in my opinion, they have been quasi-curated by WMF staff. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:08, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Requesting the course instructor user right comes with default language

Is it optional? It is at Wikipedia:Training/For educators/Request instructor right/preload. I just removed Daniel, who confirmed in an email a while back he left the program in the Summer. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:35, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this section in the wrong place? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't think so, I think it's part of the larger narrative here. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:49, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

And what are the criteria for becoming a Regional Ambassador?

Personally, I was surprised to see that User:Frankcjones became one because I still kind of consider him a "newbie". Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 16:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Honestly, I'm completely fine with us moving the RA selection/approval to WP:ENB, as long as everyone comes to consensus on the qualifications. As for Frank, he was recommended by another RA who has met him and interacted with him IRL and at teaching-with-Wikipedia workshops. You probably realize from the lack of participation here and on the mailing list that there aren't a ton of super-active RAs these days (certainly none so active as you :) ), so involving excited, eager, and interested people who have demonstrated a passion for learning more as they go seems, well, like a pretty good way to involve volunteers. That's just me, though, and I'm completely open to moving a "selection process" here—though I think we would better serve the Wikipedia Education Program and everyone involved by establishing a less hierarchical Ambassador system.

User:Pjthepiano and I have also been talking about what we believe to be much more important changes to the "Regional Ambassador" team, including moving it from a "regional" system (since everyone meets remotely anyway) to a subject-based system. The WEF board members have been talking about this since they were still the Working Group, and I think it's something we could revamp for Spring 2014. User:Etlib has also been trying to focus us on this change for a long time, and I think we're finally going to be able to take the time to do so! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 23:44, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Jami. I am looking forward to seeing and helping the program develop and re-think itself. I'm not sure I agree with your first sentence, though. I don't know who the word everyone refers to in your first sentence. Questions that come up to me include these: did "everyone" come to consensus before the RA critiera were initially set? And who set the inital criteria? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:00, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

JMathewson (WMF), what are the current WMF criteria, though? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I have no idea who came to consensus on RA criteria in the first place, as I was not yet involved in the Education Program. I imagine there was a posting on the Ambassador talk page, as this noticeboard did not yet exist. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 19:16, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 22:47, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Relationship between poorly performing classes, the Education Program, and the WMF/WEF

Biosthmors asked me (above) to respond to this thread as a member of the Wiki Education Foundation (WEF). I haven't reviewed the medical edits that Colin and Sandy are commenting on; I trust their judgement that these are harmful edits. These comments are my own personal opinion; I haven't reviewed them with other WEF board members.

I think the issue with poorly performing classes is one that the community is going to have to resolve, because I don't see the WEF or WMF as possessing either the power or the authority to prevent these classes from happening. Several people on this noticeboard have worked on ways to solve this, by proposing guidelines or policies that would help -- for example by asserting the authority to block student editors who are causing problems, or by elevating MEDRS to BLP-level so reverts can be done on sight. I'm not sure if those are the right answers, but that's going to be up to the community.

I would like to see the WEF contribute its resources to fix these problems. Here are some suggestions for things the WEF can do to help resolve these issues. I'd like to hear more ideas.

• Engage with the professional societies that have declared an interest in Wikipedia, and do outreach work to make them aware of pitfalls and how to avoid them, particularly with regard to medical issues.
• Write, collect, curate and publish articles, how-tos, videos and other material that can be used by external groups wishing to work with Wikipedia
• Identify and maintain lists of contacts with Wikipedia expertise willing to talk to professors and professional societies remotely or in person. Write and assist with presentations that can be used in these talks
• Write up case studies of good and bad student experiences and class experiences, and incorporate this material in the talks and articles above.
• Track and follow up on any reported announcements of societies, universities or individual classes planning to work on Wikipedia, in order to try to communicate with these groups prior to class design
• Work with the community to review successful classes and try to determine what makes them successful
• Volunteer to communicate directly with professors and societies running classes with problematic edits, and explain the problems and encourage communication directly with the community on Wikipedia talk and project pages
• Capture input from professors running the classes on their interactions with Wikipedia and make it available to the community, to provide additional insight into what can and can't be expected from an on-wiki class.

There's nothing in my list above about course page requirements, requirements for professors to comply with any prerequisites, or requirements for on-wiki communication. The reason is that I don't believe the WEF has any authority to make any such rules. The community can do so, in which case the WEF can help to communicate those rules to the professors; but the WEF has absolutely no right to assert any such thing. The only thing the WEF can do along those lines is set requirements that a class must meet if the WEF is to provide help to it -- and the value of that is debatable because it is likely to be classes that fail to meet minimum standards that need the most help. Any requirements such as the above would have to be set by the community, via discussion on this page and/or elsewhere. I'll participate in those discussions as a Wikipedian who is representing the community to the WEF as a board member, but the WEF as an entity has no particular rights in that discussion.

If there's more that can be done by the WEF, I would love to hear it, because I entirely agree with Sandy, Colin and Doc James that there is a real problem here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:14, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the followup, Mike; considering the considerable years we have of working closely together on top content, I am glad you don't find it necessary to review the work done by me or for example other FA folks :) :) I am always relieved you, as a person who knows how to build top content and has interacted for most of your Wiki-career with the people who actually do that, weigh in here, and glad we have your considerable talents at our disposal.

I agree that community solutions will be needed, and that there may be little that WMF or WEF can or will do. What I would like for the "paid" folks to do is "first no harm". Read this board. Understand the extent of the problem. Stop doing things that make it worse. Put out a blooming press release that tells the truth, and will help discourage every Tom, Dick and Harry professor from unleashing students on Wikipedia to a) push their pet theories into a top-10 website, b) create an amount of copyvio established editors can't keep up with, and c) come in here with the mistaken impression that they can guide students in editing Wikipedia when they have never done it themselves.

Look, we got all kinds of publicity after Jbmurray's successful course; we've never had another course achieve that kind of success, and we have no retained students from those courses (at least we have Jbmurray maintaining those FAs, though). That story needs to be told accurately to the press if the WMF places any value on content and retaining established, knowledgeable editors and if they take seriously legal obligations with respect to the known amount of copyvio in here (I'm not sure they do after the SOPA debacle, but I suspect that legally they better at least pretend to care).

I like your list, but I would add that I am increasingly concerned that this noticeboard is being used for politics and disinformation more than it is used as a place where an established editor can come and say, "I am trying to write content, and I keep encountering student problems, can someone deal with this"? The purpose of most noticeboards on Wikipedia is to get more eyes on problems, and where editors experienced in dealing with problems do that. The BLP noticeboard attracts people who know BLP issues, 3RR attracts those who evaluate editwarring-- where do we go when we need help with disruptive class editing? We don't get help in here. Editors (say, for example, Colin and me) who want to write content and used to love mentoring new editors who would stay on and help and who have no interest in being unpaid TAs to students who are only here for a grade and will not generate any useful content should be free to do that (write content and mentor useful new editors rather than act as TA for editors who won't be retained and won't further content), and should be able to come here and say, here's a problem from this program, will the resources on this board deal with them. Instead, we have a number of staffers (meaning, people with WMF after their username) weighing in here who seem completely indifferent to or unaware of the extent of the problems, a couple of regular editors who try their best to help at what is becoming a full-time job, but almost nothing in the way of actual help to relieve the strain on established editors. I wouldn't mind seeing a high-profile case of blocking so that we could get the attention of either the press or the universities involved, so that the word would get out that this kind of stuff needs to stop. I am aware that medical articles are apparently hit harder than other content areas, probably because the few dozen or so medical editors that are left still take sourcing seriously and care that we don't disseminate inaccurate medical info. We are giving students exceptions in the name of not biting the newbies that we wouldn't give regular new editors, and we are getting nothing in return, since these editors never stay on and become regular contributors.

Professor rights were granted here to a course whose very design encouraged POV editing. Why did no one even read the course design, or alternately, were the people reading the course design so unversed in content building that they couldn't recognize the built-in problems? What is the purpose of this board if faulty course design is approved?

In the real world, when a student plagiarizes, they usually get a big fat F. Why must we tolerate it in here? If the WMF cannot or will not do something, why don't we get a community policy to block the entire course as soon as we have one instance of plagiarism, since the profs are never checking their student edits as Jbmurray did? That will at least get their attention, and perhaps help stem the tide.

Why do we have this program? Why hasn't the WMF put out a press release explaining the significant amount of issues, copyvio, poor text, bad experiences, etc? The "encyclopedia that anyone can edit" was built around the idea that people wanted to be here. Why are we promoting programs that chase out those who want to be here, while encouraging those who are only here for a grade? If the WMF does not get on this, you know the regular press will. DO SOMETHING. Best regards to you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Sandy's right on. This thread is getting unwieldy, but I want to toss out a suggestion here. It's come up repeatedly that we can't expect teachers to do assignments themselves (in advance, pre-user right) because they're too busy. Maybe it's worth revisiting that, to ensure that they're well-equipped to handle a gaggle of 15+ student-editors, that they know how to handle flare ups before we put them in the drink. If the concern is that more profs will then go around the formality altogether, those "rogue" classes are very similar to any other edit ring and should be treated no differently (Sandy's meatpuppet recommendation). I think this would be a good step towards a cure. I also strongly agree with Sandy about the tenor of conversations on this noticeboard and how that should change. czar ♔ 15:47, 26 October 2013 (UTC)

Hello Czar. I think I agree with what you're saying. What was the argument you were capturing when you said others say "we can't expect teachers to do assignments themselves"? I think that if instructors are really too busy to prepare to run a WP:Student assignment properly then that is why the page says "Consider delaying your Wikipedia assignment to next semester if you are not familiar with how things work." Maybe we should beef up the language/the presentation of that language? If instructors aren't prepared, then they should not force students to become "paid" editors who are compensated with course credit, in my opinion. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia "anyone can edit". But is it the encyclopedia people can be forced to edit? That's what classroom assignments are—students are compelled to edit. Is that exactly in line with the mission of Wikipedia? I don't think so. If we block an entire class that is unprepared, then we are only doing the students and our readers a favor by halting the disruptive and unproductive edits that were made under compulsion by an ill-prepared instructor who likely doesn't have an inkling about the website and its values. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:55, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I find this a very onerous and problematic idea. It is essentially guilt by association. If a class of 25 students is involved in a Wikipedia related assignment that involves editing, and a handful of students don’t comply with WP norms, policies and guidelines, then all 25 students are guilty and would be blocked. A very dangerous precedent that could be applied to any group of editors that had some form of association. Two editors associated with say the World Wildlife Fund plagiarized some articles, we could rightly say that under this concept, all editors associated with the fund should be blocked. The trend lately in WP seems to be to focus on punishing any editor and the groups they are associated with that is found to be problematic. There’s rarely any real effort to focus energies on training, mentoring, and providing the right kinds of resources editors (including students and professors) need to become productive within the norms of WP. Additionally, I find the repeated mantra that students are being forced to edit WP against their will a bit tedious and unsupported by any evidence. An editor is an editor regardless of their motivation, skill or expertise and should be treated as every editor is treated. The WMF saw wisdom in promoting the use of WP in the classrooms of higher education because they believed this was an avenue to improve participation and content. I agree with that wisdom and sincerely wish we could focus not on how we are going to punish editors, but rather how to get the most out of this program for WP. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:38, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why you conclude this would be guilt by association. All it would do is prevent predictable harm to the encyclopedia. If any group is being compelled to edit but is doing so in such a way that runs counter to the encyclopedia's policies and guidelines, then we should block those accounts to prevent harm, in my mind. To me, it's common sense students are being compelled to edit. Would you say "no, I'm not going to edit Wikipedia" to your instructor if it was 20% of your grade? I see wisdom in running carefully managed WP:Student assignments. I do not see wisdom in the model the WMF has left us with. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:18, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I don't see why you conclude this would be guilt by association - If 2 of 25 students were plagiarizing while the other 23 were complying 100% with WP norms and we chose to block the hold class because of the two-- If that's not guilt by association, then I don't know what is?

If any group is being compelled to edit but is doing so in such a way that runs counter to the encyclopedia's policies and guidelines, then we should block those accounts to prevent harm, in my mind. To me, it's common sense students are being compelled to edit. Would you say "no, I'm not going to edit Wikipedia" to your instructor if it was 20% of your grade? This is the kind of comment I find difficult to deal with. "Compelled to edit ... counter to WP norms" Do we have evidence that students are being compelled to edit in this way, or could it be they edit in a way that is counter to WP norms because they just don't know any better? In every class I participate in at MSU, the editing of WP is always optional from the student's perspective and students who chose not to edit, are given alternative means of achieving the class objectives. Students who chose to edit are given every resource possible to help them do it correctly. On the other hand we use WP in ways that are extremely productive from a learning objective standpoint that involves no editing at all. That kind of use of WP is generally not optional but in reality, doesn't require much upfront mentoring either.

All it would do is prevent predictable harm to the encyclopedia. Who is doing the predictions here? Sounds like there is some one or some group that has divine authority to pick and chose editors based on whatever criteria seems convenient at the time. There is a saying in the business world "Business would be easy if it wasn't for those pesky customers" I would add this "Wikipedia would be easy if it wasn't for those pesky editors" --Mike Cline (talk) 14:40, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Sandy, you embedded a few questions and suggestions in your comments above. I think some of them are directed to the community and some to the WMF/WEF, depending on who has the ability to implement the answer. Here's my take on some of your points.

• Put out a blooming press release that will discourage that tells the truth, and will help discourage every Tom, Dick and Harry professor from unleashing students on Wikipedia to a) push their pet theories into a top-10 website, b) create an amount of copyvio established editors can't keep up with, and c) come in here with the mistaken impression that they can guide students in editing Wikipedia when they have never done it themselves: This is an interesting one. I can think of a couple of different interpretations of this -- a press release to directly discourage professors from participating in the EP; or a PR intended to make it clear what the pitfalls are and what succeeds and what doesn't. I am not sure I would support the former; I think the latter is a good idea. However, at the moment my preference would be to do very little outward bound communication to publicize the EP. That doesn't mean stopping the existing newsletter and blog; to me it means no new outreach efforts. There is plenty to do with the existing groups that want to engage with Wikipedia, and we need to figure out how the community can best solve the problems you describe.
• Editors ... who want to write content and used to love mentoring new editors who would stay on and help and who have no interest in being unpaid TAs to students who are only here for a grade and will not generate any useful content should be free to do that ..., and should be able to come here and say, here's a problem from this program, will the resources on this board deal with them: The problem I see here is that there are not many ways the resources on this board can help. One thing both the WMF/WEF and individual editors can do is talk to the professor involved, as Blue Rasberry did yesterday for the course that brought you here this time, and as Philippe Beaudette did for Steve Joordens' class that caused so many problems. I think this can be really helpful. In many cases, though, what's also needed is manpower, to review and revert edits. My understanding is that for legal reasons it's not possible for WMF employees to edit Wikipedia as part of their job, and I suspect the same will be true of the WEF, though I don't know that yet. So the labour of cleaning up student edits has to fall on the community. Obviously there are alternatives that have been discussed such as blocking classes but those are not choices that can be made here; those are community policy decisions.
  • I'm not a lawyer, but the WEF is would not be considered a provider of the information, as WMF is, because it owns the domain, so I don't understand why there would be concerns with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. How can we get a legal answer all will be satisfied with? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:30, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

    We have a pro bono attorney, and I've no doubt they can settle that question for us. We haven't asked yet but we will. But even if the WEF can edit content without legal issues, I'm doubtful that would be a good way to spend the funds we raise -- I see the need to have someone do the edits, but is that a good task for a paid employee to work on? If we could get a grant from a medical professional group to fund someone to do exactly that -- clean up mistaken student edits -- then I could see it, but funds are often going to be allocated (by the grant maker) to other purposes, and as Sandy has pointed out, this is a task that can eat a lot of time. Is that the best use of WEF time? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:16, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

    Thanks. I look forward to hearing back about the possibility of the WEF editing content. If the volunteer community saw someone else chipping in, I think it would make us all feel better, and more like we were all playing for the same team. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:22, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Professor rights were granted here to a course whose very design encouraged POV editing. Why did no one even read the course design, or alternately, were the people reading the course design so unversed in content building that they couldn't recognize the built-in problems? What is the purpose of this board if faulty course design is approved?: I'm going to have to leave this question for others to respond to -- I don't read the course designs and user rights applications here, just because I don't have time. This is something handled by the community, not the WMF/WEF; here is the user rights grant discussion for that course's professor.

• User:Ktr101? Also could you please note below if you are seeking a seat on the board of the WEF as a Wikipedian? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:35, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Absolutely not, as I have way too much on my plate right now, and I have never had any plans on doing so. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 15:40, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply on that Kevin Rutherford. When you get a chance, might you also clarify if you would grant a class like this the course instructor user right again? To me it seems obvious that this course had little, if any, chances of improving Wikipedia quality given its course design. It appears it was designed to be a NPOV violation. I see from the logs that you granted the user right on October 16th. It's unfortunatle that I feel I need to go back, dig up these details, and ask this. But I'm not sure if the Regional Ambassador team has learned anything from this disaster (if I may call it that) of an assignment. And I want to make sure we learn and continually improve. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 18:09, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

This is what I followed, even if there are flaws in their submission, because we can easily train the professor. Now, please stop badgering me over this issue, as I don't need to explain myself whenever I grant a user rights, as on-the-job training is often the best way to teach Wikipedia, in my opinion. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 05:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• In the real world, when a student plagiarizes, they usually get a big fat F. Why must we tolerate it in here? If the WMF cannot or will not do something, why don't we get a community policy to block the entire course as soon as we have one instance of plagiarism, since the profs are never checking their student edits as Jbmurray did?: I don't think anyone wants to tolerate it -- the only discussions I've seen that are less than condemnatory are ones in which it's pointed out that the students involved often include online sources that directly reveal the plagiarism, so it seems clear that many students are not trying to deceive; they simply don't understand that it's plagiarism even when the source is cited. Either way, of course, it has to go. I think contacting the professor in these cases is usually the best way to go -- I've done it for a couple of classes I've assisted with. What would you like to see the WEF do once a class has started, beyond talking to the professor? As for a community policy, people at this board can help by formulating something for broader review by the rest of the community. We'd have to have something like consensus here on what to recommend, though, and I don't think we have that.

I skipped your last paragraph because I think it's the same topic as my first bullet above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:46, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

• Don't see a good place to thread my replies in here... but as a couple points: I've never run a class where 100% of students used sandboxes before going live. I probably never will. For most of the classes I am involved with, doing so would defeat a significant part of the purpose of the assignment. Unless somehow community consensus is arrived at to ban anyone who runs a class that isn't 100% sandboxed, I'll keep doing so. That said, none of my students edits have ever been brought up here as problematic, and as far as I know the only instances of blatant plagiarism in any classes I ambassadored for were caught by myself or the professor. Those students failed the assignment (and the class.) Just because I don't publicize that a student failed doesn't mean they didn't fail. Some other edits from students in classes I've run have had problems, but generally not revert on sight worthy problems. Future classes I will be watching more closely (partly because I am likely going to be resourced by Berkeley to do so,) and I reaaaalllly doubt that any of them will ever be brought up here as problems. I'd also like to point out that currently, every single person involved in the US education program except for professors/TA's and Jami are volunteers. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:59, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for ensuring well-managed student assignments, Kevin. If the whole program was well managed, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I wonder if the WEF will actually want to chip in. They should be asking their pro bono lawyer if it is possible. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:37, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
• While I understand the frustration college classes participating on wiki have brought, I think it's important to address why we have the program at all. The WMF goal is to bring more users into the fold. If new users are a problem for current Wikipedians, they should encourage WMF to end the program. Our volunteer effort is not able to supervise students creating copyvio problems in the way that has been suggested. Realistically, anyone can join Wikipedia whether they're a college student or not, so perhaps Wikipedians ought to discuss how much of the current and future userbase they want thinned out. Chris Troutman (talk) 05:02, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
  • User:Chris troutman, to the best of my memory, the WMF WMF Education Program officially dropped the goal of editor retention a while back. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:35, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
    • Just a point of clarification, the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic goals have not changed. Different departments within WMF work on different goals: for example, the Education Program works on adding quality, diverse content to Wikipedia; the operations team works on stabilizing the infrastructure; the Growth team (formerly E3) works on editor retention. The Education Program has never had editor retention as a goal, so it was not "dropped", and the Foundation has other departments working on editor retention (as they have been). -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 19:04, 28 October 2013 (UTC)
      • Chris? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:48, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
        • Biosthmors I'm not sure why you're asking for a reply from me. As has been explained, Campus Ambassadors like myself are trying to bring new users to Wikipedia. You should know this. You tell me that you don't like how new users in the Education Program do things; noted. I respond that new users join everyday, as part of a college class or otherwise. Our current output is the best it's going to get. I suggest you have a larger problem you should address. Chris Troutman (talk) 20:49, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
          • Chris, that's quite pessimistic to think the community, which is dissatisfied, should settle for the status quo. Maybe you should tell the community to give up and the WEF to disband, then, if they can't help things improve? Please specify my larger problem. I guess it really was a waste to help write Wikipedia:Student assignments, then. I'm trying to bring new users to Wikipedia myself, but responsibly. "Edit wisely" would be the short of it. It's as if the WMF says this: "please everyone, come screw up this place, and force students to edit, 'cause this is the 'encyclopedia anyone can edit!', and I use that propaganda to justify my job!" If you really want to go to outreach, maybe you should hold a sign on the side of the street that says "Edit Wikipedia"? Just a thought. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:08, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Requiring students to use sandboxes 2

For the December 2012 proposal see Requiring students to use sandboxes.

I suggested last year that education-program students be required to write their assignments in sandboxes, then once they are graded, the students can choose to carry the work over into mainspace, at which point they'd be treated like any other editor. This would solve the problems we've seen on this page at one stroke.

It would mean plagiarism and other problems wouldn't affect articles. Sandboxes could be deleted on request by students, or by anyone else who finds copyright violations in them. Students wouldn't be forced to release their work and be publicly connected to it forever. The material would still be available to WP if the students gave express consent for that once the course had ended, at which point it would be carried over and checked in much more manageable chunks. Students who knew they had plagiarized wouldn't request this, so the deliberate-plagiarism problem would be solved. All this would take would be an RfC to ask for community consensus. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:03, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

@Slimvirgin – …that education-program students be required to write their assignments in sandboxes I would agree that drafting article work in a sandbox is indeed a very good “best practice”. I’ve handled all my personal WP work that way for 6 years. It is also a good way to get new editors familiar with WP editing without outside interference. On the other hand, it is just a “best practice”. If we require education-program students to do so, then we must require every “student” editor to do so, and by extension, every WP editor to do so. My biggest gripe with the WMF Education Program and the WEF to date is the lack of commitment to truly curate and make available to the very large education community, WP in the classroom best practices, resources and such. Wikipedia isn’t the place to do that because everything that’s ever been said or will be said on this board—useful or not—is essentially invisible and will remain so. So until the WMF and WEF choose to make “education program best practices” widely accessible in a curated way to the education community, we will continue to waste time trying to fix problems with solutions that won’t work and that won’t even be accessible to those who might benefit from the discussion. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:39, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Mike, it doesn't make any sense to compare these students to regular editors. They're required to do this; others aren't. They're writing student essays; others aren't. They're being supervised and graded; others aren't. There's no point of comparison between the two groups.

But back to the point: sandbox editing would solve every single problem that is raised repeatedly on this page. There is no downside to it. Good material would be carried over into mainspace. Bad material wouldn't. Plagiarized material could be deleted. Material that the students wanted to distance themselves from could be deleted. Teachers wouldn't have the additional pressures that come with live publishing. It would be win-win. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 15:53, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

So a student editor choses to edit directly in the article space in direct violation of the "requirement" to edit in the sandbox before grading. The sudent's edits are otherwise perfectly in compliance with WP norms. Does this student get blocked, chastised, harrassed by editors on this board? What if 20% of the students in the class do the same thing? Does the whole class get blocked? Requiring a "special" class of editor to behave differently than other editors isn't a solution to the problem. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:22, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

This would be a very easy thing to arrange. Teachers registered with the education program would be asked to have their students edit in sandboxes. There would be no reason for students to ignore that instruction. If any did, that could be dealt with via the teacher, just as other problems are dealt with. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 16:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

+1 Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:20, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

I, too, very much like the sandbox idea. If we formalize it, I'd like to see the good contributions moved from sandboxes to mainspace before the class assignment ends, in order to provide positive feedback to those students who do things the right way, and maybe even get some of them interested in staying around. To speak specifically to Mike Cline's concerns, which strike me as reasonable, the solution is to do it just as SlimVirgin just described. In other words, it wouldn't be a policy violation just because an edit shows up in mainspace, and that makes all those concerns go away, insofar as I can see. Instead, we could make it a matter of expectations, as a guideline rather than a policy, for instructors who work through the program to set up class projects to utilize sandbox space. If that's how the project is set up, students will naturally do it that way. I think it really is a win-win. There will also continue to be classes that just show up and edit outside of the program. They would be treated similarly to other editors: given feedback about expectations and expected, over time, to learn to work with the community. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:58, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

@Tryptofish – The scenario you are describing is really a “best practice” not a “requirement” and there is significant difference between the two. If we accept that “Using Wikipedia in the classroom to achieve learning objectives” is the highest order goal, and that if we do that, any edits coming from that use probably improves participation, scope and quality of content in the encyclopedia, then language (and its intent) is important here.

* We (the community) require students to edit in the sandbox first (It doesn’t matter if that’s not the most effective method of achieving learning objectives, you must use the sandbox first, or else!.)

* We expect students to edit in the sandbox first (You’d better have a very good reason for not doing it.)

* We suggest students edit in the sandbox first (There’s lot of experience that shows that editing in the Sandbox first get better results).

I would hope that the community will take a “best practices” approach to these issues and not the dictatorial, “our way or the highway” approach that some on this board are proposing. The “our way or the highway” approach won’t improve the encyclopedia, it will merely deter those who seek to improve it. --Mike Cline (talk) 00:28, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

The "my way or the highway" characterization reminds me of dictatorial instructors who force their students to edit without knowing anything about the website. This is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, not the encyclopedia you can force anyone to edit. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:45, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Mike, I can't speak for "some on this board". Speaking for me, please note the difference between policies and guidelines. You are, correctly in my opinion, saying why a policy won't work here. Maybe "some on this board" need to be told that, but I'm talking about a guideline. As I said, we could make it a matter of expectations, as a guideline rather than a policy, for instructors who work through the education program to set up class projects to utilize sandbox space. That's what I'm saying. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:58, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I've been following with interest the discussion on sandboxes. I used to always have my students work in sandboxes, and indeed would not let them put anything on Wikipedia before I approved the content. After discussion with various Wikipedians, I realized that this does not help students learn how the wiki collaborative process works. I now spend much time teaching about Wikipedia policies, how to avoid plagiarism, reviewing the potential topics and having them seek advice on talk and project pages about their proposed work from Wikipedians prior to any mainspace postings. The only students who now begin writing in the sandbox are those creating new articles, which I generally discourage and only approve in rare cases. Other students, after their initial learning and engagement with Wikipedians, begin writing in the mainspace, which I believe helps them better learn how the wiki process works. It's been a better learning experience for them, and there have been comparatively few problems. And when any issue arises, I seek advice, and use it as a learning experience to improve my assignments.DStrassmann (talk) 03:57, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

Sandboxes and other "best practices"

Starting a sub-discussion here since I didn't want it to get lost in the discussion above — but @Mike Cline: I'd love to draw you out more on your perception of a "lack of commitment to truly curate and make available to the very large education community, WP in the classroom best practices, resources and such", and on the discussion of sandboxes. I'm wondering if you are aware of the Education Portal, where education program leaders globally come together to share resources. The page I linked there contains all of the materials developed by education programs globally (educational efforts are underway in more than 60 countries). You might also want to review the online training, which you're welcome to make suggestions on. If you have better suggestions for ways to curate all the best practices we've accumulated, I'm very open to hearing them!

Specifically in regard to sandboxes: in our pilot program in the US, we had students work in sandboxes, and the overwhelming community response was that sandboxes were hindering students' abilities to collaborate with the general editing community. When students worked in sandboxes, they missed the opportunity to collaborate with and get feedback from other editors, so their articles sometimes took wrong directions; by the time they moved them to the article namespace, the structure didn't work, or it had too much of an essay-like tone, for example. If they'd had the chance to get feedback from other editors early in the process by working in the article namespace, they could have headed off the problems. I'll also share our experiences with the Wikipedia Education Program Brazil, which had students work exclusively in sandboxes: They found that some students were much less motivated to contribute good work because they didn't think anyone would ever read it, since it was in a sandbox. Never underestimate the power of "anyone could read this right now" to convince students to work harder! And because most students add content in the same month, the Ambassadors quickly became overwhelmed when they felt responsible for reviewing all of the student work to ensure it was "acceptable" to be moved into the Portuguese Wikipedia article namespace. The upshot is that months later, good quality content on topics not covered on the Portuguese Wikipedia is still sitting in sandboxes, and the students have absolutely zero motivation to ever edit, since they didn't actually experience Wikipedia editing; they just learned wiki syntax. Clearly, though, sandboxes aren't all bad; what we've come to decide is that we explain the pros and cons of each approach, and let the professor make an educated decision. You can see that advice reflected in the four-slide sandbox discussion in the professor training and the Sample Syllabus (note that this brochure, as well as the Instructor Basics, Case Studies, and Essentials brochures, are all physically snail-mailed to every professor before the start of the term). I am always open to suggestions for improving the information contained in these resources. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Note that the on-wiki training includes sandbox advice for both students and instructors. Improvements or suggestions for improvement are most welcome. Here are the four slides that cover sandboxes:

• To sandbox or not to sandbox? - this is only part of the Ambassadors and educators training (not the student training).
• How to use a sandbox for existing articles - the top section is part of all the trainings, while the "your role as the expert" has some additional advice for the instructors. Some parallel role-specific advice is included in the Ambassadors training.
• How to use a sandbox for stub articles - likewise, this includes general advice for using a sandbox if you're expanding a stub, and instructor-specific advice beneath.
• How to use a sandbox for new articles - same pattern here.

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

@LiAnna – I want to respond to your question by starting with four words – tactics, strategy (goals and learning objectives), knowledge base, and scalability. In this response, the concepts behind these words are all linked. I am going to start with scalability. Because we (the WMF and the community) remain hamstrung by the methods used to pilot the Education Program—personal recruitment of professors, campus ambassadors, etc.—we have lost sight of the true scope of the Education community we are trying to support. There are literally 1000s of instructors and 100,000s of students that would benefit from using Wikipedia in the classroom to further Information Fluency learning. The great majority of the Education Community that would benefit from using Wikipedia will never see that benefit under the current methodology. And those that do stumble into using WP without access to comprehensive best practices are likely to do more harm than good to the community and WP. The current methods just are not scalable and the resources that have been accumulated are essentially invisible to Education community, let alone of dubious usefulness. Try to find the Education Portal/Tips and Resources without using the specific URL or page title. You can’t. Even if you could, once you get there you find a pretty much random lump of documents in multiple languages with very little insight into what individual documents contain. Even if you begin to explore them if you’ve had the patience to do so, you essentially find marketing brochures. Although the accumulation of this material is laudable, it has essentially been a tactical response to “We need some resources” without much thought (strategy) as to what the purpose and goals of the resources were. It is obvious to me that the current state of the resources was merely a tactical approach predicated on the non-scalable methodology (and platform) used to pilot the program.

What’s needed in my opinion is a well curated knowledge base that is readily accessible by anyone interested in using Wikipedia in the classroom, functions pretty much autonomously from a technology standpoint and is easily supported by non-technical volunteers. In my ideal knowledge base, discipline specific lesson plans and course syllabi, learning objectives, case studies, best practices, tutorials, et al. would all be organized and visualized in ways that any instructor could immediately find the resources they were interested in. Resources would be rated or peer reviewed by the crowd so that instructors could evaluate whether or not other instructors found the resource useful. Everything in the knowledge base would be searchable, tagged and organized. Such a knowledge base on a public website accompanied by forums, discussion boards, blogs and volunteer resources would be very powerful in addressing the true scope of the Education Community (students and instructors) that should be benefiting from using Wikipedia in the classroom. WP and the community would benefit because of the much higher probability of classes using WP would be doing so under the guidance of best practices and proven resources.

I am confident that you and others on this board are now thinking that this is much too grandiose, too much work and probably too expensive. If we continue to believe that the only solution is to use the Media Wiki platform, then we best be thinking—this is impossible—as the platform and the community that it supports has too many technical, cultural and rule based barriers to overcome. Yet the solution is at the WEF’s finger tips if they would just chose to do it. Other than a domain name and server space (both very inexpensive), such a solution supported with a handful of volunteers is essentially free. World class web-based collaboration and knowledge base platforms, easily supported by non-technical volunteers are available and free to non-profits. A knowledge base like I describe could be organized and running in a matter of hours. All the good and not so good ideas that everyone is burying on this board and associated wikis could be made accessible to 1000s of instructors in very short order. Accompanied by some targeting marketing, WP best practices for using the encyclopedia in the classroom would be available to the entire Educational Community should its members choose to use them. So to your question about ideas to improve the current set of resources, they certainly can be improved (as almost any tactic can) but to what end. As long as the focus is trying to scale an essentially non-scalable methodology, unsupported by any long-term strategy to reach the entire Educational Community, such ideas to improve current tactics are pretty much a waste of time. The WEF has the charter to service the Educational Community and Wikipedia in this way, but at times it seems they have little appetite for taking this approach and would much rather spend $$ on expensive salaries to replicate non-scalable methodology. --Mike Cline (talk) 12:30, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I read LiAnna's opening post with great interest, and I think that she makes some compelling points, that now cause me to re-think what I said above about wanting all student edits to be in sandboxes. In a way, I feel like it comes down to a balance between (1) the educational benefits of students working in our mainspace, and (2) the disruptive effects of mainspace student edits upon the established editing community. I don't want to unfairly minimize (1), and I ask that the rest of you not unfairly minimize (2). If we put our heads together, I hope we can figure out how best to balance those two priorities. --Tryptofish (talk) 14:30, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I second Tryptofish on this. 1st question: what is the learning objective of class, 2nd question: How can we use WP to help achieve the learning objective. 3rd question: If editing WP helps achieve the objective, what's the best way--sandbox or no sandbox or ???? --Mike Cline (talk) 17:09, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Mike (and apologies for my delay in response; I've been ill), I actually do not think your idea is grandiose at all; in fact, we had proposed something similar (an off-wiki education portal that contained course pages, automatically generated statistics on student contributions, a forum for participation among editors and professors, an online training structure that actually included knowledge tests throughout the modules to ensure people understood, and a searchable database of educational resources tagged by language, class size, discipline, weeks, etc.) in fall 2011, but we were told we as WMF needed to use MediaWiki instead; we were given developer time for the MediaWiki extension in response to our request. Clearly the MediaWiki extension doesn't address the larger issues we wanted to solve, such as the forum or the central database of resources, and our attempts to at least provide *something* (our current online trainings and list of resources) isn't ideal. In fact, one of my long-range hopes for WEF is that they will be able to create such a platform since they are not bound by the technical limitations we at WMF are. There's also a lot of support among the programs in other countries to create something like this, and we're talking to some of the chapters about hosting it as well. Creating a better database of resources is definitely on our strategic priorities list, and I'm hopeful that we'll see movement in this area in 2014. -- LiAnna Davis (WMF) (talk) 19:44, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

As a note for those unfamiliar with the internal workings of WMF: the reason that LiAnna's request was turned down probably wasn't that it was unreasonable or wasn't a good idea, but because tech ops has trouble maintaining more than a certain number of platforms with their available manpower. Even the WMF blog which runs on wordpress is something they're looking to outsource so that they don't have to maintain another CMS. Tech ops gets stretched super thin, so what might be an excellent idea for WEF might be unworkable for WMF. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Development of the extension

How could I possibly talk to the developer about the extension development? Could we get an update about that? I want to make sure the community is represented in this round of development. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:47, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

There are some changes recently committed that give a pretty good idea of what he's been working on so far. In the three months that he has to work on it, we're going to try to tackle as many as possible of the common complaints and improvement requests from users of the extension. If you want to talk with Andrew, his userpage is probably a good start: User:AndyRussG. We also work regularly in #wikipedia-en-ambassadors ^connect. Practically speaking, I'm acting as the product manager on this, so if you want to lobby for particular development priorities or pass along concerns from other editors that we might not be aware of, I'm your person.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 20:19, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Great. Thanks Sage. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 20:33, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, all... The list of bugs assigned to me also shows more or less what we've focused on so far. Right now I'm working out some details of a patch for bug 56005.--AndyRussG (talk) 21:17, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I'd like to encourage all participants to take a look at the list of bugs in AndyRussG's reply. Bugs in a bug tracker are a developer's todo list and if you/we want to get things done at the developer level we have to get used to working with them (yes, I know it's a hassle because it's off wiki). Stuartyeates (talk) 21:31, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. This is definitely on my to-do list, but I'm thankful Sage is acting as the product manager. Sage, this type of software would allow me to assemble a subset of my favorite WP:MED editors to see what they are up to and how we could collaborate in real time, right? That's a big thing I want. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:52, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's another person saying that they like collaborating and seeing what people within their WikiProject are up to. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:30, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Developing general tools for collaboration for WikiProjects and the like are outside the scope of this extension.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:19, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

But this extension could be easily adapted to foster WikiProject collaboration. How can we (the community) get the scope of the extension expanded? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:40, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

And are you speaking of the old extension, the one under development, or both? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:41, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

If there are WikiProjects that really want to use course pages to track activity, that's fine, and some of the things the extension does may be useful to leverage in other contexts later on. (We've started thinking about this, in terms of what a more general Course Pages 2.0 would look like, but that would likely not be the current extension.) But it's not practical to try to stretch the scope of the extension now, considering that there's so much room for improvement with just its main purpose of facilitating education projects.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Who can I talk to at WMF about this further? I was under the impression that stretching the scope was part of the strategic vision. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:56, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

As Steven Walling noted, the Growth team is tentatively planning to build a more general replacement later on. However, they have several other large projects to tackle first. The current work focused just on fixing bugs and addressing some of the main shortcomings in the current extension.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:10, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Got it. I guess I can ping Steven to get an idea of the timeline, then. Thanks Sage. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:37, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Placeholder. About to send an email. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Placeholder again. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Some stubs short articles don't need expanding

Some short articles that are marked as stubs don't need expanding. Some are fine right where they are. The WMF education program seems to assume there's something wrong with an article that is marked as a "stub". That's not necessarily true. It's a horrible assumption to make. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:24, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

• Any stub that cannot be expanded shouldn't be marked as a stub. A stub is definitionally an article too short to provide more than a rudimentary context to the topic. Asides from that, I do not understand the purpose of this section being posted here. It doesn't seem to contain actionable feedback, a question, or really even a complaint. Kevin Gorman (talk) 21:41, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Then we obviously need a new category in Wikipedia:V1.0#Statistics, wouldn't you agree? How about "ShortOK" with a new greenish color? In my opinion, it should be a big priority to change this damaging message that the Wikipedia:V1.0#Statistics rubric sends. No? To me it's obvious we need something better to work off of. I've mentioned this opinion to WhatamIdoing before. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:17, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Unless all the education material has been changed, there is an "expand a stub" mantra. But the whole assumption set behind what is a "stub" is based on a flawed perception of the encyclopedia, in my opinion. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:18, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

What is appropriately classified as a stub depends on what material is available on the subject. This is an encyclopedic concern that goes far beyond the education program. As an example, MissingNo. would barely be considered above stub level in some fields, yet it is a featured article. If you see a stub that cannot be expanded, it is not a stub and you should feel free to remove the tag. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:19, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

These are the 2 shortest FAs that I've stumbled across: Tropical Depression Ten (2005), Miss Meyers. Length is not a quality indicator. Stub is not a length indicator. –Quiddity (talk) 08:04, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

But Quiddity, wouldn't you agree that Wikipedia:V1.0#Statistics sends the wrong message? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:14, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

@Biosthmors: If there's an error, it would exist at the level of any mis-tagged article (ie, something that isn't a stub, being tagged as a stub), there is no "error" per se in the WP:V1 page.

If the problem is extensive, then Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting would probably be the group to best address that. –Quiddity (talk) 02:16, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Quiddity, according to Wikipedia:Training/For students/Sandbox edits for stubs, stubs are short articles. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 21:26, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

This slide has been resolved. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Free online Wikipedia course to be offered starting in February

All -- please see my blog post at Creative Commons, announcing the Writing Wikipedia Articles course. I'll be teaching it starting in February, in conjunction with the University of Mississippi.

This offers a comprehensive introduction to Wikipedia. For any aspiring Ambassadors who are fairly new to Wikipedia, this is probably a great way to get up to speed; additionally, if any instructors would like to send their students to our class in preparation for Wikipedia work later in the semester, they would be most welcome as well! A former student of ours just reviewed the course on her blog, as well. -Pete (talk) 21:13, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

@Peteforsyth: Both of those are great suggestions!! I'll definitely let any aspiring Ambassadors know about this and highly recommend they take the course. Same goes for any professors aspiring to have the best students ever! Thanks for sharing, Pete! JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:57, 6 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks @JMathewson (WMF):! -Pete (talk) 20:38, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

FYI, Pete, that ping didn't work. Best regards. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:24, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! fixed now :) -Pete (talk) 00:20, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Visions for the future

I think it's obvious from the page here (and WP:ASSIGN) that there is a community wish to see the education program evolve. I happen to have different views for the future outcomes of the program than Jami (the to be first employee of the WP:WEF). It seems my comments about the direction of the WP:WMF program haven't been popular with all. But to me it is obvious that the WMF deliberately spun off the program to the WEF so that it could evolve to adapt to community wishes faster. That's why the WEF has community seats, in my mind. Does anyone want to speak to the tension created when different people have different visions? Does anyone have suggestions for how the community and the WEF can move forward collaboratively and productively? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:39, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, it could act a little more like every other similar body on Wikipedia: i.e. act on Wikipedia, with transparency and openness of discussion a priority. Sadly, over the history of the organization's gestation it has progressively grown more opaque, and further removed from Wikipedia.

Another idea, given that whenever any suggestion at all is made, working group and WEF board members (those who bother to respond) declare defensively that they are "only volunteers" (as though ordinary Wikipedians somehow aren't...), and given that the board is at only just over half full strength, is that they also make electing selecting new members to the board a priority, rather than an issue that they continually kick into the long grass.

In lieu of either of these two (rather obvious) options, the WEF has lost much of the goodwill that it had at the start, has done nothing to convince its critics, and has learned little if anything from its initial failed RFC. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:57, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

So can we get a clear statement and assurance from the WEF that they will be abandoning the poor quality metric of using quantity (such as bytes/pages/words added) as a measure of success? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:52, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I suggested to the board that we change "setting annual numeric goals with the program manager to ensure measurable programmatic expansion" to "setting annual numeric goals with the program manager to ensure measurable programmatic improvement" to avoid the implication that there would be a quantitative metric, and we had agreement on that point. I suppose I can't really say that the board agreed not to use a quantity metric, since it wasn't discussed directly, but I gave that as the reason to make this change and nobody disagreed. Personally I am opposed to using a quantity metric; I don't think it's appropriate at the moment. Not that I'm opposed to measuring the quantity of material that the students are adding -- that's useful information -- but I don't think it's a good idea to set quantitative goals. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:54, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Could I please request, Mike Christie, that the board take a clear position on this issue? Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:20, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

When we discuss metrics I will advocate for a clear statement against the use of quantitative goals (not indefinitely, but as a current position). I'll certainly mention it here when we have that discussion. At the moment we're focused on making sure Jami's employment transition goes smoothly. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:50, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike Christie, why not indefinitely? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

FYI – These are the teachers and their students who will benefit from using Wikipedia in their classrooms

There was an interesting read recently in Slate about When Should an Academic Write for Free?. One of the statistics in the article stuck me as relevant to the US Education Program. Nearly two-thirds of all those teaching in colleges and universities aren’t the tenured professors in corduroy sports coats familiar from pop culture, inoculated from layoffs and depressed wages. They are instead adjuncts—who work on piecemeal teaching contracts for an average of $2,700 per class, per semester/quarter—and other non-tenure-track instructors. I sincerely believe that the proper learning objectives based use of Wikipedia in the classrooms of these instructors will not only make them more effective, but enable their students to learn better collaboration, writing, communication and problem solving skills. The Wikipedia Education Foundation was not created to facilitate student editing in Wikipedia, it was created to innovate and support the effective use of Wikipedia in the classrooms of higher education. Wikipedia will benefit from achievement of that goal. The WP community is an essential tool in that endeavor and cannot be ignored, but I wish everyone would focus on better ways to achieve learning objectives in the classroom instead of trying to micromanage every aspect of this as they are now. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

right. timesink on my watchlist, more kool-aid. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, I have on this page frequently suggested that Wikipedians in general and the WEF in particular should think more about the context of current changes in higher education in the US and elsewhere, one of which is the increasing reliance on adjunct and other precarious labor. But it's not clear to me why or how Wikipedia could be of special use in the classroom for such teachers... except in so far as Wikipedia projects are seen as time-saving mechanisms, indeed even as sources of free, out-sourced assistance from Wikipedia volunteers. If so, I would say that this is very much not the message that the WEF should be sending, either to Wikipedians or to institutions of Higher Education. On the contrary: I would emphasize rather that Wikipedia assignments generally entail more work of the instructor, rather than less. But perhaps I have missed your point. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:53, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

@JB, But perhaps I have missed your point. Indeed that’s the case. I believe and have demonstrated a number times in a variety of classes and disciplines at MSU that Wikipedia can be an effective tool to help instructors achieve learning objectives and editing WP is probably involved less than 30% of the time. If the WEF ever decides to curate best practices in that regard, I will more than obliging to volunteer my time to make such curation widely available to higher education and WP community ambassadors. Where we differ and I am guessing why my point is not understood can be can be interpreted from the essence of the two thoughts in this comment. But it's not clear to me why or how Wikipedia could be of special use in the classroom for such teachers... except in so far as Wikipedia projects are seen as time-saving mechanisms, indeed even as sources of free, out-sourced assistance from Wikipedia volunteers. You and many others on this board must sincerely believe that WP is not inherently useful in helping instructors achieve learning objectives. I know this because of the above comment and the utter lack of discussion about how WP can help achieve learning objectives on this board. The comment about “sources of free, out-sourced assistance” indicates to me that helping to improve learning of students in higher education is seen as a burden by many members of the volunteer WP community and all they want to do is eliminate the cause of the burden. I have a 180° viewpoint here, as I relish the opportunity to take my lifetime experiences in teaching, research, writing and facilitation voluntarily into the classrooms of my local university. WP is a tool, and just like any tool, I respect the tool and don’t employ it in ways that harm the tool. All that said, the fact that you missed my point won’t change your mind or mine about the efficacy of the Education Program and the WEF. --Mike Cline (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

You and many others on this board must sincerely believe that WP is not inherently useful in helping instructors achieve learning objectives. Mike, quite the reverse. I don't see where you get that at all. Meanwhile, as you explain your point, it sadly seems that I didn't miss it in the slightest.

Look, I have every interest in the world in "helping to improve learning of students in higher education." Indeed, that is my job; it is how I dedicate most of my time. Which is why, taking the broad view (as I have been suggested that the WEF do), I think it would be particularly prejudicial were there any suggestion that Wikipedia can somehow justify the increasing shift towards adjunctification in US higher education.

I think it's fantastic that you (and others) wish to volunteer to help out in your local university. But I think it would be a disaster if anyone were to think that this was in any way a substitute for a proper, professional instructorship, who are treated accordingly unlike the adjuncts "on piecemeal teaching contracts for an average of $2,700 per class."

This is an ethical as well as a political issue of the highest importance. If the WEF were to go down this avenue, it would be exceedingly disappointing. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 22:53, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I do think we have a misunderstanding and regret that my original post gave the wrong impression. I am not an academic, never have been. I am a professional consultant who students (the corporations I work for) must succeed or I don't get paid. Even when I was in the military, if those I mentored and lead didn't succeed, I didn't succeed. After 17 years consulting (teaching, facilitating, mentoring) in corporate America, including several universities and colleges, it is evident that there is tremendous disruption going on in higher education due to technology and free knowledge. The "Adjunctification" of education as you call it may be a logical by-product of the increasing competition in the education industry. I neither endorse or condemn such adjunctification as it is just a by-product of a competitive enterprise trying to survive in a disruptive environment. I understand your distress in the face of such change. However, learning is learning no matter what structure it occurs in or whether or not the instructor is tenured, adjunct or volunteer. I sincerely believe that WP can be a valuable TOOL in helping students learn 21st Century reading, writing and problem solving skills and it matters little the status of instructors teaching any given course. For many in academia, the disruption of their traditional environment, may indeed be distressing, but for the the WMF, WEF and WP community, I don't think they should have a dog in that fight. --Mike Cline (talk) 01:42, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, the situation in higher education is rather more complex than you seem to grasp. There's much that has been written on the issue, but this might be a place for you to start. Meanwhile, you have no idea about my "distress" or otherwise. In fact, personally I think there are very many opportunities; but there are also many risks. If the WEF wants to have any traction at all in higher education, it needs a rather more sophisticated sense of what's going on, and how Wikipedia may or may not fit within current developments. Which is, incidentally, why I have repeatedly been suggesting that the board co-opt new members who do have such awareness. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

A couple of comments. I agree with Jon that it's unlikely that using Wikipedia in the classroom is going to save an instructor any time, though I'm not sure Mike Cline really intended to imply that. Personally, I would be very unhappy if the WEF were to assist in the adjunctification of higher education; the topic hasn't been discussed generally by the WEF board but I'd be surprised if others on the board felt differently. I agree with Jon about the need for more board members with broader knowledge of the issues he raises; Jon, the names you suggested were discussed, and we are actively looking for new board members. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:04, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

I've also been wondering how this program helps students. I can't speak for science subjects, but in the humanities the aim is to educate people about the literature in the field and to teach them critical thinking. So a class about Kant (which might involve a lecture and seminar a week for a term or for an academic year) will read the Critique of Pure Reason and some secondary literature, and the teacher will offer half a dozen essay titles to test the students' understanding. Each student will pick one, and will have to demonstrate (a) an ability to stick to the point within a certain number of words; (b) familiarity with Kant, (c) familiarity with the important secondary literature; and (d) an ability to recognize and argue the key issues.

In the Education Program classes I've seen, students seem to be able to choose any title they want within a broad topic area, and the EP articles I've read have usually not been based on scholarly sources. Because the students are all working on different titles, there's no common literature that they would be discussing in class (at least, not obviously so). They're not allowed to violate NPOV or NOR, so they can't engage in original argument or choose to favour one scholarly source over others. WP articles have to follow the preponderance of sources, per UNDUE, which is the opposite of what undergraduates should be doing if they are being taught how to think.

A humanities undergraduate should always be encouraged to conclude: "I don't care that Kant and every secondary source says X, I say not-X and here's why," and to come up with an educated, well-structured argument that shows familiarity with the sources the student is departing from. That's pretty much the point of a humanities education, but it's the one thing they're not allowed to do on WP. So how do the people involved in the Education Program see these classes as helping the students reach that goal (sticking for the moment with non-science classes)? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:14, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, many humanities courses are poorly suited to Wikipedia projects, especially if they involve original research (per SlimVirgin) or creative writing. However many humanities courses (I'm thinking especially of historical topics) involve the student learning the scope, methods, debates and approaches in the field. Here here there are any number of ways the professor can use Wiki projects that will get the student to read what the reliable secondary sources have to say about the debates between ABC and DEF and expand their entries with suitable cites to the RS. Designing that learning objective and figuring out what the students should actually do is up to the professor.Rjensen (talk) 05:35, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, your points are well-taken, but nobody should seriously be suggesting that Wikipedia assignments replace what goes on in the Humanities classroom. I addressed some of these issues in my essay on the MMM project. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:49, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, I don't have much to add to the two comments above, particularly Jon's essay which I think addresses your core point directly. However, I'd also say that in some classes I've seen, some of the students frankly needed to learn more basic skills than constructing well-structured arguments -- they often needed to learn about reliable sourcing, the appropriate use of primary and secondary sources, exactly what counts as plagiarism, and how to write clear prose, for example. If the question is "what value does a Wikipedia assignment bring to the students", I think there are plenty of ways for instructors to design assignments that will have real educational value. I hope one of the resources the WEF will have is a history of what assignment designs have worked well in the past, so we can help future instructors avoid some of the possible pitfalls. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:18, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Bhushansbansode

Bhushansbansode (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I am always excited to gain and share knowledge. I find Wikipedia as the best source of knowledge for me and also updating it with knowledge will also help others to gain maximum of it.

2. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador?

   Maharashtra Institute of Technology , Pune , Maharashtra , India

3. What is your academic and/or professional background?

   Bachelor of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering graduate and Masters in Business Administration (appeared)

4. In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects.

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

5. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Also a Quora user https://www.quora.com/Bhushan-Bansode , I do not only deliver great answers but also create great questions.

  LinkedIn profile , http://in.linkedin.com/in/bhushanbansode/

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Bhushansbansode (talk) 16:37, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion

Note that this application appears to be from Bhushansbansode (talk · contribs) not user BHUSHANSBANSODE (talk · contribs). Stuartyeates (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Questions @Bhushansbansode: (1) What you consider suitable sourcing for articles about academic institutions? (2) Do you consider employees of an educational institution to have a COI when editing the article about the institution that employs them? Stuartyeates (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

@Stuartyeates and Stuartyeates: It was a mentioned BHUSHANSBANSODE during the Campus Ambassador application, I re-edited the application username.

Answer

1.The source for articles about academic institutions is In-Depth interviews with the top management of the institutions and making them voluntarily participate in sharing information in terms of articles that they think world need to know. Secondly, for feedback of the institution,world ranking,rating of the institution we need them to make students participate in the questionnaire made so that they can get a clear view of improvements, achievement and contributions of students and the institution as whole.This will result in formulation of new articles about the institution which are also beneficial for the institution for sharing with the world for better promotion. 2. Every coin has two sides, is the same case with most of the things , what happens is the educational institution will has a goodness to highlight but their are also some nightmares which are unforgettable. The problem is that some of these employees knew these cases and are eager to highlight the same but due to some issues they do not highlight these cases. So a case of anonymously posting can do. Bhushansbansode

Oppose: based on lack of contribution experience and apparent lack of understanding of sourcing and independence issues. Stuartyeates (talk) 00:11, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

WMF blog post about the WEF

There's now a blog post up on the WMF blog about the Wiki Education Foundation, for those interested. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:30, 9 November 2013 (UTC)

Yikes. Mike, with your name attached I at least thought it wouldn't look like it was written by the WMF. There isn't even a link to the education noticeboard. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

And please, everyone, Mike has told me multiple times he doesn't mind blunt and frank points being made to him. So please don't criticize my tone on this thread, yet. ;-) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:24, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: TheOriginalSoni

TheOriginalSoni

TheOriginalSoni (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   Because i think this is a role that could use my services effectively, while being in my areas of interest.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   I joined about a year back, and know all the basic Wiki policies well enough. I've been active towards helping newcomers on Wikipedia, and also on several WikiProjects and proposals. I'm also an OTRS volunteer.

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   I don't consider article-writing my strong suit, but I think most of what I've done is under the "Pages I've improved" section at User:TheOriginalSoni/About

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   I've been part of the Teahouse and am an active helper at the IRC help channel. I've also been alpha-testing WP:Snuggle to find more productive newcomers. Apart from that, if there is a newcomer who I think would do fine with some help, I actively help them learn the ropes around the encyclopedia.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   I see Teahouse as an example to follow in helping a new users become active contributors. Having helped several newcomers, of which a handful did become active contributors, I believe that the easiest way to do so is to just provide them a friendly atmosphere, and offer a helping hand towards solving whatever problems they face.

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   No conflicts that I'd consider major.

7. How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?

   I generally try not to make time commitments because of potential unavailability with regard to college schedules, but I've been active for considerably more than 2 hours a week these past days; so I think I'll do just fine. I edit and check up on Wikipedia regularly.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   I'd make sure they know not to copy "Even a single sentence" from anywhere else

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   If they do not understand it, I'd explain it again. If caused had a copyright violation, I'll remove the text, and contact a mod to delete any images, and revision-delete the text if it's a major copyright violation.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Wikipedia, being licensed under CC-by-SA, cannot have any copyrighted materials, either wholly or partly. So we cannot allow anyone to add material that are non-free on Wikipedia.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    I like helping others, as well as teaching.

Endorsements 2

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Comment. Thank you so much for posting TheOriginalSoni. This was going to be an easy endorse for me, until you said content building wasn't a strong-suit. Could you please elaborate, in your own words, upon the importance of secondary sources vs. primary sources? With that in mind, how do you view the appropriateness of the following article: Wikipedia talk:Articles for creation/Samer Hattar? My opinion is that we need online ambassadors who are well-versed in quality content curation, because that is the most contentious issue for the education program per the RfC (which is linked at the top of this page). Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:02, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

• Biosthmors When I said content creation isn't my strong suit, I meant I don't do that a lot, not that I am unfamiliar with the rules pertaining to content creation. Maybe I should have clarified that. I think I do have sufficient experience regarding the policies to be able to help others, as I have been doing for quite a while now.

As for the sources, we almost never use primary sources for anything other than supporting "non-contentious simple facts" as anything other than that would be likely to fall under WP:OR or WP:SYNTH. Also the fact that primary sources are much weaker than secondary ones, which makes them unsuitable as references in almost all cases. In general I follow the rule-of-thumb of "The source must be atleast as strong(reliable and high quality) as the claim."

As for the AFC, I see almost all sources being primary, which is definitely not a good sign for the article. Sources 3 to 7 are directly articles/research published by the subject. The first source also appears to be written by the subject or someone related to them, as apparent from the second section. In either case, the event would be considered probably primary because he appears to be connected to it. 8 appears to be an article of some sort, but given the fact that it's not linking to anywhere where this actual article might be, and is on the John Hopkins University "news network" makes it unusable too. 9 seems to be fairly secondary from first glance, so that should be okay. Though I am still unsure of it's usage as a source, I think it should be usable. Once again 10 and 11 are from John Hopkins, so primary.

In short, the entire article is based on 10 primary sources, and one secondary source. While primary sources are usable for supporting facts, as may have been the case in some of them, we still require secondary sources to establish the notability of the article, something primary sources are absolutely not allowed for. In this context, it was a quickfail with a special focus on identifying secondary sources to improve it.

Hope that is satisfactory. Please feel free to ping me again for further clarifications 10:28, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

• Endorse. Thank you for your reply TheOriginalSoni! =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:49, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Ping to User:The Interior, User:Smallman12q, and User:Sage Ross (WMF), the three people who commented at Wikipedia:Online Ambassadors/Apply/Biosthmors. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:46, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
    • O dern. Does anyone know why Smallman12q retired? Feel free to inform me on my talk page. Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:49, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Because this board looks like it could use some life, I was considering pinging all the former online ambassadors. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:19, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
        • Before I do that, perhaps I could just ping one I think I remember from the list, Doc James? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:22, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question 1) What is your opinion of news sources for medical content? What sort of references should students be using for medical content and what policy backs this up? 2) Is there a specific recommended order for the main headings of a disease related article? If so what is it and were does one find it? Thanks for the ping Brian. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 11:55, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Doc James,

• • The relevant guideline to be followed for this is Wikipedia:Medical_references, while the policy that backs this guideline up is Wikipedia:Secondary source.

• For medical context, we should always look for appropriate Secondary Sources that can be used as references. These would include reviews in medical journals and other such publications. Ordinary news sources, or popular press, would be unadvisable as a source, since they would generally tend to exaggerate the result, and tend to provide misleading information. At the same time, they provide for a sound starting place for writing the article, and if used carefully, can be a good source as a reference, depending on the relevant Wikipedia policies and common sense.

• • The recommended order for disease related article is given in the section at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Diseases or disorders or syndromes. Since the entire section linked answers your question, I did not copy it here for answering the question.

• I hope these answers adequately satisfy your questions. Please ping me again for further clarification.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 00:20, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Doc James, ping. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 23:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds mostly reasonable. I would say that popular press can be used for the social, cultural and historical aspects of diseases it should not be used for medical content ever. The popular press does not provide a "sound starting place" for writing an article and is not a good source as a ref. May lead you to a good source but most of the time leads to a poor source. Thought? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 23:53, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• Can someone else endorse here? It's been 12 days. Sorry TheOriginalSoni. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• No worries, Biosthmors. It appears that Doc James was waiting for a reply from myself.

Doc James, yes. While I myself did not know the policy on this thoroughly, I found your opinion quite agreeable on the various other aspects of a disease. Also, a further look into the relevant policy showed that it was indeed the case - Conversely, the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs, and historical information in a medical article.

In my personal opinion, if any editor is currently in the process of writing a medical article, popular press can be a useful source to help understand the topic, and start off with a basic introduction. At the same time, a careful editor reading a particular statement from popular press on a medical article could locate relevant secondary sources relevant, and expand that statement into encyclopediac content that can be used in the article.

Also, there may be relevant sections of any article which could use some simpler words to explain the concept, rather than jargon which may not be always understandable to the reader. In that context, a popular press article on the same would be more helpful for the editor to explain the concept, provided it is correct and one can back it up with reliable sources.

• As always, WP:COMMONSENSE applies to the above.

Regards,

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 17:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question Earlier this year you removed large swathes of content from the Gloria Allred article. When your changes were reverted, you engaged in an edit war against three other editors to restore your preferred version. How important do you feel that compromise and WP:BRD are when dealing with new editors? Gobōnobō ^{+ c} 18:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• Hi Gobonobo,

Looking back at my edits from 10 months ago, I agree that the initial reverts probably were not according to policy. I made a misjudgement, which led me to edit war with two editors (The third editor I reverted was more of a technical one, since their revert was based on a statement which was later confirmed to be not actual policy.) Later, I tried to resolve the issue by discussing it at the relevant locations, and backed off it turned out I was incorrect. Nevertheless, I must have been more careful, and less disruptive back then.

As for the question, WP:BRD is a sound policy that any editor making changes must follow. It provides a useful way to deal with a number of edit wars, and for good reason. At the same time, compromise is also effective in resolving disputes, but in retrospect, may not be the best way to go. This is because there could be a case where one of the parties was more correct, or even wholly correct; but compromising forced a solution that was midway between them. So while compromise is effective, I'd consider it an inferior option compared to (well-natured) discussion and consensus.

As for dealing with newer editors, we must be much more careful to explain the relevant policies too, and help them learn the ropes around the way things are done, so they do not face any difficulties when in a dispute. At a very basic level, a few policies and norms that I would suggest the first to a new editor possibly in a content dispute would be Verifiability, not truth, Comment on content, not on the contributor and Reliable sources must be strong enough to support the claim

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• Question One of your user pages states that you are a "strong advocate of nuking" (WP:TNT). Students and other new editors sometimes add content to articles that doesn't seem to mesh with Wikipedia guidelines. When do you feel that it is appropriate to just revert changes made by those editors? Do you think it always necessary to engage editors on the talk page when you revert them? Gobōnobō ^{+ c} 18:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of Responsibility and Standards in Educational Assignments

It would be interesting to have more input in this discussion over at WT:ASSIGN. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 00:17, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Twomilkmaids (talk)

Name

Lauren Petrino

Institution

University of Miami

Course title and description

This course is an undergraduate composition course; it is the first in a sequence of two courses that all freshman take (although some of my students are sophomores who didn't take the course their first year). The governing logic of the course is "inquiry," meaning that the course should simply expect students to learn how to communicate, research, and put together conversations and information about the things they are interested in. Basically, their goal is to "inquire" meaningfully. There are nine students enrolled in the course, and the motivation for bringing Wikipedia into the course came when we read Marshall Poe's "The Hive," an article about the history and dynamics of Wikipedia. We then realized that Wikipedia fits into our course goals because it will help students to learn to write for a global audience, research concepts/gather data on things they are interested in, think about and engage with the mechanics of writing, and consider how knowledge is produced and disseminated (the "theme" of our course).

Assignment plan

I expect each student to create their own individual project that will expect them to contribute in some meaningful way to the matrix of knowledge production that is Wikipedia. The range of their project might include copy-editing, adding content, organizing existing material in a way that substantially affects the way information is presented, translation projects, or verifying and adding resources and definitions. As a class we are open to other types of interventions into Wikipedia, but our main goal is to contribute in some meaningful way and engage with writing, knowledge production, and inquiry. User Neelix has luckily agreed to be our online ambassador, since no local ambassadors are available for our university.

Number of students

Nine.

Start and end dates

My class has already begun, and we have started to practice editing under my own username for the moment. Our class ends on Dec 9th.

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Twomilkmaids (talk) 18:18, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

Students nominating articles for GA

For one of the previous discussions, see here.

I noticed that Khazar raised the issue here of a class flooding the GA review process with nominations. My understanding from previous discussions (though I now can't find them and may be misremembering) is that students wouldn't be encouraged to do this, given how precious volunteer time is. I thought this worth discussing here rather than on user talk, so I'll ping the people involved: Khazar2, JMathewson (WMF), Agelaia. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:45, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

This has come up a number of times and it turns WP:GA into a zoo. If the education program wants something along these lines, I suggest a process more like WP:DYK without the free ones, where people have to give constructive meaningful feedback before they submit their own and then a meta-moderation by long-term editors. Stuartyeates (talk) 04:14, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks SV, this probably is the best place to centralize it. The long story short is that this class of 50+ were assigned to nominate 1-3 articles each for GA; around a third of these nominations were obviously problematic enough that they were being quickfailed at first glance, and in many cases, the students hadn't yet made a single edit to their nominations. The professor has agreed to stop sending more nominations midway through the assignment, but 20 or 30 15 or so remain in the queue. I should note that this course seems to have done some good work in expanding species articles, and we should probably all be thanking Dr. Strassmann for creating it; it's just the GA mass nominations I'm skeptical of.

Personally, I'm not always opposed to student work being sent to GA, but it seems to me that a few prerequisites would be helpful:

1. Obviously, at minimum, that student nominators actually work on their articles first.
2. That the professor and/or Wikipedia course ambassador do minimal quality control to weed out poor nominations, rather than outsourcing that work to other volunteers.
3. That if the professor and Wikipedia course ambassador intend to rely on a project to give students feedback, they discuss their plans with that project in advance. Asking a project like GA for 100-150 extra reviews, as seems to have been the plan here, means many hours of extra work; it seems like both courtesy and common sense to discuss that plan with the project's members in advance, especially when (as here) the idea is for us to do all of it in a few weeks to a month. (It's possible I missed a previous discussion about this at a GA noticeboard, but nobody else at WT:GAN seems to have known this class was coming, either.)

This is my third or fourth long post about these nominations, though, so after this point I will gladly shut my piehole, get back to reviewing, and let others take the lead. Cheers to all, -- Khazar2 (talk) 04:48, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

I think GA is potentially a realistic target, and if a programme can result in thirty new good articles, all the better. In my own experience, one major issue which exists with this current batch of student nominations, and has existed with prior groups, is that nominators/editors will frequently not follow up on suggestions given by reviewers. This makes the demand on reviewers even worse. Ideally, in addition to Khazar's pointers, which are all very reasonable, I think we need to see some kind of guarantee that the students will be willing to "stick it out" and respond to reviewers' suggestions. J Milburn (talk) 11:27, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

The class I am currently working with includes nominating for GA as an optional step. The course assignment instructions to the students say: "If you opt to seek Good Article status you must remove the nomination at the end of the semester if your article is unreviewed; or alternatively, you must commit to following up on the review after the end of the semester. (Not responding to reviews provided by Wikipedia editors to Good Article review nominations is disrespectful of the time the editors put into their reviews and suggestions.)" As a result of an unprepared GA nomination this semester, I've suggested to the professor that we add a requirement that the students who wish to nominate an article for GA get the agreement of an online ambassador first. I think that's a good general suggestion for classes with OAs. I think we should suggest to classes without OAs that they ask somewhere (such as this noticeboard) for help in determining whether an article is GA-ready. This requirement could be skipped where the professor has a GA or FA of their own -- any such professor can judge the readiness of an article without referring to a GA. I don't know if jbmurray has a GA of his own, but if not, he and other similarly experienced professors should also be exempted from this requirement. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

• WP:ASSIGN is fairly clear on this issue. I suppose the problem is that despite its clarity it is not a guideline. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Thanks for that link--I'll point professors and online ambassadors there if this comes up again in the future. -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
    • Oops sorry Khazar2 I meant to link WP:ASSIGN (instead of the WT page). Now fixed. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 15:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
      • I figured. Thanks! -- Khazar2 (talk) 15:56, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
• I think the idea is nice in theory, but in practice, too many are straight quickfails, with maintenance banners and sometimes more than ten unsourced paragraphs. The students need to know what the minimum requirements are. The only one of these nominations I've ever passed was completed by someone else than the original reviewer (a regular editor), which is not ideal either. FunkMonk (talk) 21:22, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:ASSIGN says: "Good article and DYK nominations are strongly discouraged for a number of reasons,[10] but allowing a small portion of the most dedicated students to attempt these outcomes, after careful review by the instructor or ambassador, may be rewarding." What can be done to highlight that part of ASSIGN to teachers? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a good question. And I'd like to see a WP:WEF answer. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:06, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Here's a possible solution. In the agreement with WEF the professor becomes the only one who makes the nominations and has to space them at least one week apart so as not to flood the system. Rjensen (talk) 11:01, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

AfC heads up

This is to let others know that "Articles for Creation", popularly known in the community as AfC, is "severely backlogged". There are about 2,000 articles in front of the new articles that all of my students have created and we are beginning to submit. I have personally never seen AfC this far behind. If AfC is part of your process, you may NOT get to closure if your semester ends in early December. I personally grade my students using my own rubric and then we watch the AfC process. Students do get satisfaction in seeing their work reviewed once it is explained that the Wikipedia assessment looks at articles from the view of long-term development rather than short term development time that we have. However, the important part of AfC for me is the independent, peer-reviewed check on our content and I take note of the assessments (even though it varies by reviewer) to check whether changes I've made in the process are objectively achieving better results. For me, none of that is time sensitive. So the backlog is really about the student experience. Hope that helps, Crtew (talk) 14:23, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

This is unfortunate. There are no guidelines in place for prioritizing students, though I hope that those can be developed in the future. If I were to propose a way to have a class get priority in this queue, I would suggest that each student in a class commit to review 3 AfCs. The students by doing this would learn the process which Wikipedians use, and after the students had done this (an estimated 5-10 minutes to learn what to do, then 5*3=15 minutes to review 3 articles) then the professor could tag on an AfC page that the class needs priority for the articles on their course page. I expect that the community would be grateful for this and give good reviews by the next day, and this could be a scaleable, sustained, and routinized model for classes.

A system to facilitate this is not in place. I am not sure what is to be done. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:26, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Bluerasberry, but this is an a bad idea, and will never fly. It does not take 5-10 minutes to learn how to evaluate articles properly. It needs experienced editors. Also, formally accepting or rejecting an article requires the editor to install a script and if accepting, know how to move drafts into article space and then clean them up after the move. One of the huge problems with AfC was (and to some extent still is) inexperienced reviewers who are accepting wildly unsuitable articles and rejecting suitable ones, often because they don't have specialist subject knowledge, and often because they also have a very poor grasp of notability guidelines, especially those for specific subjects. See this RfC and the follow-up RfC (still in progress). Running an article through AfC just to get a peer review is a choice and I'm afraid it has to be balanced against the long wait involved. Voceditenore (talk) 16:13, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Per User:Voceditenore, Bluerasberry I am most disappointed to see you advocate for a failed system like the quid pro quo reviews at DYK. That you think students with little Wikipedia knowledge or experience should be reviewing other submissions at articles for creation is just ... alarming on every level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:08, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I reject your conclusion that the education program will forever have to tolerate the inefficiency of AfC - there will be better processes in the future. A lot of problems with AfC could be lessened with money and development if a project lead ever made proposals. My perspective would not be to blame and exclude newcomers, but rather to recognize that newcomers are not shunted by the system into the places where they can be useful. I disagree with you that newcomers can have no place in this process or that they need the skillset range you describe. I know the RfC. I am sure that you know that AfC is failing to recruit reviewers in sufficient numbers. The only target that either of us should accept is the recruitment of an abundance of competent reviewers, so I hope that we can both find some middleground between your exclusive demands and my permissive invitations. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:49, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Don't shoot the messanger. :) I'm not even a member of that project. I was basing my answer on long observation—I help out at their help desk sometimes, and I look at drafts when the reviewers need advice on some specialist subjects. They're not my "demands". In fact, they're not anyone's "demands". The consensus is pretty strong that the reviewers need to be experienced editors. When I find a draft that should be in article space, I simply move it there and clean it up. I don't go through the rigamarole with the script. But if you're rejecting an article, then you need it. It's virtually impossible to do manually. When I'm asked for advice and see that the draft should be rejected, I simply leave a comment at the top of the article for one of the reviewers to consult. One of the problems is that AfC was originally designed for unregistered users to create articles and is highly recommended for articles by COI editors (although the vast majority of paid editors don't use it, for obvious reasons). It was not meant to be a place for editors to get peer reviews or some kind of guarantee that their article won't end up at AfD (which it isn't). In my view it shouldn't be used for that, and that's what's leading to the backlog. That and the fact that for a long time, anyone using the article wizard got shunted to AfC automatically without being given the option to put what they'd created directly into article space. I'm not sure how money would help. Are you suggesting that reviewers should be paid? Voceditenore (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

No, I do not want reviewers to be paid, but I do want the infrastructure around the processes further developed. For example, there could be some kind of system which identifies AfC submissions which have no references whatsoever, and then those could go into a queue in which untrained new editors perhaps from the education program process them by answering questions from a wizard which would result in applying some problems templates to the submission. Likewise, untrained students could also review submissions with multiple references to verify that the references exist. Something else could happen - if there is a labor pool of people using AfC then it would be ideal if they contributed back to the resource which they consumed. I am presuming that development could lead to this; I could be mistaken, but know people make proposals.

I disagree that AfC should not be used as a tool for preventing AfD - not everything which passes AfC would pass AfD, but anything which cannot pass AfC ought not pass AfD and I would rather the backlog be at AfC than AfD because I have more hopes of untrained editors contributing to AfC than AfD. Perhaps you know that people on this board dream of every student at every university contributing to Wikipedia at some point in their college experience, and if that ever comes to be, then there needs to be a place where new student articles are reviewed. AfC is the only existing model for industrializing this review process and I strongly suspect that the success of the education program would only lead to more student backlog at AfC. If you ever want to talk industrial design in Wikipedia processes then email me. I have no solutions to anything but I would like to support more conversations starting. Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:57, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Jacobwc (talk)

Name

Jacob Craig

Institution

The Florida State University

Course title and description

Writing, Editing, and Publishing Online (WEPO); Today, writers don't just inscribe words on paper. Students in this course will compose written, visual, and/or auditory texts, using a variety of technologies, all in the context of Bolter and Grusin's suggestion (in Remediation) that different media are always informing each other. Students will be expected to create texts (1) for the page (2) the screen, and (3) the network. Each text will also be edited in accord with its medium. This part of the course is designed to help students practice writing for the network. The course is a 2000 level course for FSU undergraduates. While I have some experience editing for Wikipedia and in Mediawiki more generally, I do not have support with the assignment. I do plan on using the Wikipedia course module. This will be last major project in the course, so we will have covered collaboration and coding generally.

Assignment plan

Students will first analyze Wikipedia and print articles for differences in texts based on the ways that print-based writing and this model of online writing make knowledge. Then, they will write or revise a Wikipedia article about a key term, a key concept, or a key figure from the course.

Number of students

20

Start and end dates

August 2014 - December 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Jacobwc (talk) 22:05, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

• For everyone's information, I've been emailing Jacob and we have a Skype appointment tomorrow. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:03, 14 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Scheduling conflict. The meeting didn't occur, FYI. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I will soon, likely, be accepting a paid Wikipedian-in-residency dealing with the use of WP in higher ed

Hi all - the contract isn't actually inked yet, but it's looking very likely that I will be appointed Wikipedian-in-Residence at UC Berkeley's American Cultures Community Engaged Scholarship program. I figured that once it looked like a go, I should probably drop a note here. ACES is a program that focuses on under-represented disciplines, so most classes I work with will be coming from underrepresented disciplines. I intend to work much more in depth with these classes than is typical of a CA, including far more patrolling of their on-wiki contributions than I've done before. I'll also have significant influence on the instructional design of assignments, etc. Once the contract is actually inked, more details will be forthcoming about what I'll be doing, and I'll have a statement of potential COI on my userpage, etc. I would be happy to answer any questions, concerns, etc, although since I haven't officially started yet, some answers may need to wait a bit. Kevin Gorman (talk) 22:51, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Congrats, Kevin. --Another Believer _(Talk) 22:55, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Fantastic! Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:04, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I know Kevin to be a suitable candidate for serving in this role and think that all stakeholders would benefit if this position for him came to be. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:21, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

... lol. I was honestly kind of expecting a bunch of negative responses at the idea of me taking a paid position that will deal partly with ambassador type stuff. This has gotten far enough that unless a meteor falls from the sky, it'll happen. It won't be full time (and I'll be doing stuff other than education program stuff as well,) but will be enough time that I'll be able to much more intensely support several classes than is typical. I've also gotten some time set aside to focus on producing reusable materials related to the education program, which I'm excited about. Thanks all :) Kevin Gorman (talk) 19:36, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Well let me know if you want me to come up with some bogus argument against paid editing, but haven't we seen enough of that from WP:the community lately? Best wishes. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:14, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

A Wikipedian in Residence who assists the education program be implemented in a school would be most welcome. I wish that there were dedicated Wikipedia staff at every university. This seems like the least controversial of appointments, and if anyone opposed this it all, I would imagine that they had opposition to the education program practices and not that paid staff at a university was helping things to go more smoothly. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:04, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The WiR idea is a great move forward and I suspect in 10 years most major academic institutions, especially on the library side will have Wikipedia experts on their staffs. They will be paid to promote and support the use of WP in achieving the aims of the university (a lot more than just educating students here). Whether they are experienced wikipedia editors or not, they will be wielding a lot of influence over Wikipedia in the future. Kevin, you will be part of the beginning of something big in the world of information literacy education and the expansion of free knowledge. Good Luck. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:26, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike Cline, the WiR idea is fairly sucky, in my opinion, but it would be infinitely better if people actually edited content or project talk pages. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:57, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Enstandrew (talk)

Name

Andrew Stuhl

Institution

Bucknell University

Course title and description

History of Ecology. This course covers the development of ecology as a professional science, from its roots in natural history collecting to modern day global resilience ecology. This is a 200 level class and the current enrollment information shows students from across various majors (Management, Biology, Political Science, Environmental Studies) and years (Soph to Senior). Wikipedia fits into the learning goals for this course in two major ways. First, the history of ecology is a study of the ways humans have created knowledge about nature. In a similar vein, working on Wikipedia articles allows students first-hand experience in creating knowledge today, within a community of practitioners dedicated to rigorous, verifiable information. Second, the content area of these Wikipedia articles will overlap and complement our investigation of ecology's main figures, episodes, places, and patterns.

Assignment plan

I have yet to identify the articles we will be working on, but I hope to find start/stub articles. Students will work in groups of 3 or 4 to add content to these articles, following the Wikipedia guidelines. I like the structure of the sample syllabus in terms of scaffolding assignments and working through course milestones. I also appreciate the peer review and presentation components.

Number of students

35

Start and end dates

Jan 15, 2013 to April 29, 2013

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Enstandrew (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

• Granted. I'm happy to help as an Online Ambassador for this course.--ragesoss (talk) 15:46, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for Course Instructor Right

Hello,

My name is Brent Purkaple and I am a teaching assistant for Dr. Kerry Magruder at the University of Oklahoma in the History of Science Department. I am also an associate teaching assistant in Dr. John Stewart's 3013 History of Science from Antiquity to Newton during this current semester, which is making use of the Wikipedia education program. In the Spring I will be helping Dr. Magruder teach an online version of 3013 History of Science from Antiquity to Newton. He has requested I contact you in order to see about setting up a course page on Wikipedia. After following Dr. Stewart's courses this past Spring, as well as the one this Fall, he has decided to incorporate this into his class.

I appreciate any help!

Sincerely, Brent Purkaple

Institution

University of Oklahoma

Course title and description

History of Science from Antiquity to Newton. This course will be an online survey course, covering the major themes and objects. It will be stylized on the British Museum's History of the World in 100 Objects.

Assignment plan

Students will be requested to choose individually articles to edit within the time frame we are studying, Antiquity to Newton. They will then work through a series of stages to edit the articles according to Wikipedia guidelines. At the completion of the assignments they will also go through a peer review process among the classmates. Thus, in many ways it will be modeled on Dr. Stewart's class structure.

Number of students

Still to be determined

Start and end dates

Jan 13, 2014 to May 9, 2014

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Purkaple (talk • contribs) 21:10, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

I want to recommend Brent (and Kerry) for Instructor status. Kerry is an professor at the University of Oklahoma with extensive experience teaching both in the classroom and online and is developing wonderful multimedia resources for his courses. Brent has done well in my current class and has helped with several Wikipedia student projects. I am helping them set up their Education Program Course along similar lines to the two courses that I have successfully run. I don't foresee any problems in the development or oversight of the course. Kirwanfan (talk) 16:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• Granted. Kirwanfan and/or Purkaple, please ask Kerry to set up an account as well if he doesn't have one. Even if he's not going to be managing the course page directly, it's important to have a way for other editors to reach him in case there are problems that crop up during the course. I'm happy to help.--ragesoss (talk) 15:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: AminMDMA

Name

Amin Azzam

Institution

UCSF

Course title and description

UCSF Medical School Elective as described here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/UCSF_Elective_2013

Assignment plan

In pairs students will be editing articles in the top 100 of the WikiProject: Medicine scope of effort.

Number of students

6-10

Start and end dates

Nov 18 - Dec 13, 2013

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --AminMDMA 05:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

• Haha, Amin, I think combining your degrees in your username might give some of your students a funny impression about your hobbies. I've gone ahead and given you the user right you need, see you on Tuesday. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Ha! I never even thought it meant anything other than MDMA but now I wonder if it is an intended double entendre. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:03, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually it looks like Bios beat me to it, but either way you're set now. Kevin Gorman (talk) 05:34, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm realizing that since the coursepage for this elective was created long before I did due diligence to joining the wikipedia education community, that the newly created infrastructure for aligning this course with others is not linked to the previously created coursepage. Surely there is some mechanism to retroactively assign the existing coursepage to be associated with the newly created course, right? Can someone teach me how to do this please? I'm assuming it is my responsibility as the course instructor rather than a task of the course ambassadors... AminMDMA 05:51, 15 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AminMDMA (talk • contribs)

Hello AminMDMA. We can "Wikipedia:Transclude" the one into the other. I do this with User:Ituta/Course page by transcluding it into Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies/Gender and International Affairs (Fall 2013). So, we just need to copy and paste {{Wikipedia:WikiProject_Medicine/UCSF_Elective_2013}} into the new structured course page. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:00, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

And my apologies for the poor quality of the software. Thankfully, someone is working on that issue now. =) Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 06:07, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

The George Washington Encyclopedia student project

The George Washington digital encyclopedia is a project of a historical society and a university class that has students writing and publishing online articles dealing with Washington. It's close enough to the Wikipedia project to be worth looking at Adam Shprintzen, "The View from Mount Vernon" Digital Encyclopedias and Opportunities, especially the section on "Working with undergraduates" toward the end where student experiences are evaluated. Rjensen (talk) 17:31, 15 November 2013 (UTC)

Forestry and ecology articles?

Japanese afforestation, Salmon in the Pacific Northwest/SE Alaska temperate rainforests, Examples of Refugia in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres have recently showed up in the InceptionBot new article reports. They look like student essays. Sources look reasonable (I haven't tried to check for plagiarism/copyvio), but the topics are quite narrow and they're likely to wind up merged into another article. I think I can guess the affiliation of the class, but before I startle the instructor, does anyone have knowledge of the project? They don't appear to be part of the Education Program. Choess (talk) 03:03, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

I see three red-linked editor talk pages. No welcome, no template querying if they are part of a course or pointing them to resources, asking who the instructor might be, or any of the good sorts of things this page should be/could be dealing with. Do we even have a template for querying whether new editors are part of a course, welcoming them, suggesting pages they might read to aid in their editing, suggesting instructor rights, etc? That would be helpful; I have encountered multiple similar situations, where it would be helpful if I had some kind of template to try to get the students to at least engage on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:33, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Klortho worked on a template lately. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:49, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

They were dropped into mainspace on what (according to what I believe is the course page) was the final due date for the assignment, so I didn't really see the point in engaging a dump-and-run. My question is, if I connect the professor with the EP, will they try to steer the next iteration of the class to more useful topics, or will they encourage more of the same? From the conversation over on the student assignments page, it's clear that they understand there are many ways to contribute beyond students-write-essay-and-file-as-article, but I'm not sure if there's the will to push professors away from that. Choess (talk) 23:47, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Local history projects

The WEF can provide education services outside the university setting. One possibility is to work with state and local historical societies, and libraries, to train interested local volunteers in the ways of Wikipedia. The WEF staff and ambassadors can play central roles, instead of roles as helpers to professors running a university course. The technical issues of writing a Wikipedia article could be covered in a short workshop, and followup help can come from online ambassadors. These target audience could be people with a strong interest in local history and the time to devote to research and writing articles. There are thousands of these local historical societies across United States and Canada. They collect reliable secondary sources that are well known to the staff librarians and archivists. Funding is available through state sources such as the state Humanities Councils and the state Arts Councils, private historical societies, and local philanthropists. The target audience would be community people with a permanent interest in local history – unlike students, they are not here this semester and gone the next. Wikipedia has articles on every town and city in the US and Canada, but they tend to be weak on historical material and, indeed, seem to consist mostly of downloaded copies of statistical data regarding population and climate. Upgrading the quality would significantly enhance the visibility and usefulness of Wikipedia locally. The upgraded articles can be used by students who (under the direction of middle and high school teachers) work on projects such as History Day exhibits regarding local history. (Over 100,000 students a year complete History Day projects; WEF can help them understand and use Wikipedia.) Rjensen (talk) 08:36, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

@Rjensen: This is interesting. I also thought a few years back that an interesting group of people to work with when it comes to the opportunity to convert to long-term editors are the students in Academic Decathlon. This sounds like the type of group that's a good fit for Wikipedia and has a lot of overlap to GLAM (who has a lot of great support resources already). The WEF hasn't had the chance to talk about alternate "education" ideas past that first meeting in DC (that you attended), but it's definitely interesting to think about down the line. I do think we still need to work to improve and "streamline" our current best practices of teaching with Wikipedia before expanding to an entirely new group for which we have no history/data as a basis. I also know there are a few teams at WMF who have been working to evaluate events like edit-a-thons, so taking a look at those results would be really important before expanding our scope. Perhaps this is the type of idea we can table until further down the line. What do you think? Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

The clock is ticking on the WMF grant to the WEF and it's time to get some new projects rolling. WEF, in my opinion, should immediately set up multiple task forces to get started on multiple jobs simultaneously. As for the local history projects, the infrastructure is in place and there are tens of thousands of people who (in my opinion) are now outside Wikipedia & who would be interested in joining up if WEF provided the basic training. Rjensen (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Students finding plagiarism

I almost hesitate to post this, since I don't want to be accused of mindlessly promoting the education program, but I had some positive news over the last couple of days that I thought was worth passing on. Three students in the class I'm currently working with have found plagiarism in the articles they're working on. I've been sent details and will investigate over the next few days, but I'm glad to see that the emphasis the professor has placed on understanding and avoiding plagiarism is paying off. I'll report back here when I have the details (it might be a few days, since I have house guests arriving shortly), but I also heard from the professor that they're planning to give the students small prizes for finding plagiarism. Seems like an good idea to me, and might be worth suggesting to other instructors. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

That's very good news, Mike; in fact, such an endeavor seems like a much better use of student labor than expecting them to build articles, and something these programs might encourage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:26, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Just checked the first one, and it is indeed plagiarism. The article is Migration in China; see User talk:Netl0xp and User talk:Hadoooookin#Migration in China for details and links. I've removed the material. It had been there since late 2007; neither of the editors who added the material has been active for many years. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:29, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

That (2007) is not surprising. Remember, the plagiarism dispatch was written in 2009, and the first real plagiarism scandal that called attention to the extent of the problem was in October 2010. Before the Dispatch was written in 2009, we had widespread misunderstanding about Fair Use, plagiarism, and copyvio to the extent that we had entire FAs in the geology realm that were straight cut-and-paste from public domain sources. Many people honestly believe, as in the biomedical plagiarism case uncovered this week, that Fair Use covers them. That there is rampant plagiarism and copyvio yet to be discovered on Wikipedia should be no surprise to anyone (and particularly not the WMF, who fought SOPA hard because they probably knew how bad the problem was). Not only is this one of the best ways we could make use of student editors-- they could learn from the experience, we could benefit, and WMF would have to face up to how widespread the problem is (rather than deny it with flawed studies). I hope your efforts are successful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:47, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Out of time to check the others tonight, but I should have given credit to GavinCross, the student who found the plagiarism. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:54, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, I'm someone who tries very hard to see both sides of the discussions on this noticeboard, and consequently I am often outspoken in criticism of class projects, but in this case, I want to go on record expressing my great happiness with what you have reported here. I think it's splendid! --Tryptofish (talk) 18:11, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox problems

Mike, I hope you'll be sharing the course page with us, and more specifically, letting us know what was done right to get the students to actually engage the existing text in the article. I have never, I repeat never, had that experience with a student. They drop in brand new, poorly written text with no regard to or examination of what was there when they started, so I am most curious to know how this course was structured, and what can be done to encourage more of same, and discourage more of what I'm seeing. In fact, I'm not so sure this sandbox business is working out very well, because students go off and work in isolation, and then drop in a whole term's work that just has to be reverted, but never engage the way this GavinCross has. (See section below of what my experience is like.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:04, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

+1 and I'd add that if competent ambassadors or professors who were willing to editorially defend the material had to give clearance to move things out of the sandboxes then we might have a better system (per the WT:ASSIGN discussion and the ethical argument I make on my user page). I think instructors should be taking the lead. And if not them, then competent ambassadors. How many competent content-creating ambassadors do we have who are active in the English language education program? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:53, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, that type of sandbox dump-and-run is exactly why I will no longer work with classes that use sandboxes to form new articles and/or especially new versions of existing articles. If students using sandboxes is made mandatory like it was discussed somewhere earlier on this noticeboard, I'm outtie. It's a waste of everybody's time and I'm bloody sick of it. --Geniac (talk) 01:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Geniac, if the sandboxes are used to fix mistakes so that when the dump occurs, there's no reason to run, then that would be good for everyone, wouldn't it? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 09:52, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Biosthmors, I don't know what you mean, but that's not what I mean. By dump-and-run, I mean when a student will work away on their sandbox version of an article, then on the last day of class, dump it into article space, overwriting perfectly good existing material, then disappear, never to show up again because class is done. When I have suggested changes to a student sandbox, it is often met with non-response or resistance. --Geniac (talk) 12:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry I wasn't more clear, Geniac. I want to prevent dump-and-run. You might find Wikipedia_talk:ASSIGN#Responsibility to be more clear, as it's where people are discussing the outline of a potential guideline to prevent such damaging edits, which are done under compulsion. Best. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:40, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Geniac, sandbox editing by students is possibly creating more problems-- or at least the same amount of but different problems-- than article editing by students. Please see my samples and discussion in the next section. What appears to be different in this isolated case of a student finding plagiarism is that this student is actually engaging pre-existing text in the article, which in my experience, is quite far from the norm. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandy, the course page you requested is Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 1 (Fall 2013), with another section taught by a different instructor using the same plan Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities Section 2 (Fall 2013). I'll ask the professor what she did in the course design to get this outcome -- students finding plagiarism, rather than being guilty of it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Second example

Plagiarism in the slum article, found by student Feihuamengxue, in the same class as above. Details are here. Several more examples that she found turned out to be stolen from Wikipedia in the first place, so I didn't remove them. One of them is attributed to a professor in India. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Third example

Plagiarism in medical experimentation in Africa, found by student Jakejohnston1, in the same class as the two students above. Details are here. Added in 2010. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Encouraging students to notice and report plagiarism

I spent substantial time in my classes this semester teaching students about plagiarism and referencing more generally, and have been interested to discover that a key outcome has been three students detecting and reporting plagiarism they have found in the articles they are editing (as reported above by our online ambassador Mike Christie). Most students are conscientious contributors and want to do a good job, but can be shy about critiquing work that is already there. A boost of encouragement and the support of a great online ambassador makes a big difference. I've reinforced their efforts by encouraging others in the two classes to be on the lookout for the same. Have purchased some Wikipedia water bottles that I'm offering as a reward, as well as extra credit. DStrassmann (talk) 01:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Test case

In addition to the motor system test case below, these problems:

• Education Program:Boston College/Developmental Biology (Fall 2013), Hakeleh, Keilana, JMathewson (WMF)
• Education Program:Case Western Reserve University/ANTH 302 Darwinian Medicine (Fall 2013), Sanetti, Bluerasberry, JMathewson (WMF)
• Education Program:Rice University/Poverty, Justice, Human Capabilities, Section 2 (Fall 2013), DStrassmann, RobinPaige, Czar, Mike Christie, JMathewson (WMF), JoyceChou, Nadhika99, Twoods158, Colleenfugate, CoxChristine
• Undetermined course, Midd Intro Neuro
• Another potential undetermined course, Chs3ez, Kcvaught, Nickig419, Ahowerton93, Megmccabe

From multiple different classes and students, I have spent most of my fall tagging, cleaning up, checking sources, fixing content, linking, copyediting, moving, patching, trying to get students to engage on talk (basically they never do), and in no case yet can I say that any article is better off or that I couldn't have written the articles myself with far less effort and time. The articles are longer, yes, and often where we once had a stub we now have text, but in no case do we really have any text of value, or if we do, it's because established editors have had to spend inordinate hours in cleanup.

Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013)

Education Program talk:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013) Imran Naim, Professorpotter, Biosthmors, JMathewson (WMF), Cr188

I As I've always said, November 18, they all start dropping in articles, just before term-end, just as regular editors are gearing up for holidays, and these students had all term to engage the project.

• Sandbox to published in one hour. Uncited text, no PMIDs, will take a lot of work to determine if MEDRS is met.
• Primary sources, formatting problems, essay-- will end up merged if anything can be salvaged, and who is going to do that cleanup?
• Cerebral atherosclerosis, no PMIDS, needs to be checked for secondary vs primary sources. It is hard to imagine this content isn't covered somewhere on Wikipedia, but as there are few useful wikilinks, hard to tell where to look ...
• Central Nervous System Fatigue, no PMIDS, needs to be checked for correct sourcing, and needs to be fixed for WP:MSH (why oh why is this professor not explaining MSH), and moved to correct name if this article even belongs once sourcing is checked and if it is determined if the content should be merged elsewhere. Who is doing this checking and sourcing cleanup? If the students would use PMIDs, checking for primary sources would be much easier.
• Congenital distal spinal muscular atrophy, Another one just dropped in from sandbox, narry a PMID in there, so I would have to look up every source to determine if primary sources or MEDRS-compliant sources are used. Why has this professor-- at this stage of the game-- not explained PMIDs to these students? And why is something as simple as WP:MSH not explained?

OK, that is only a smattering of what is being dropped in from sandbox all at once, obviously there's some course deadline today, it's not possible to keep up with, or correct the amount of work from this course. Who's doing it? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for raising the issue User:SandyGeorgia. I've emphasized MEDRS multiple times to the classroom, but it still appears that it's not being followed by the students, to be honest. I think it was back in October during a Skype meeting when Professor Potter started to begin to understand how WP:PRIMARY vs. WP:SECONDARY and WP:N worked. Given that the class doesn't appear to understand MEDRS, blocking students who are working with topics that fall under MEDRS isn't off the table, in my opinion, as a preventative measure. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Samples

1. One student edit results in 72 edits for Dolfrog and me, and the article is still fairly incomprehensible, and likely to stay tagged indefinitely. (With the added twist that it was only revealed this week that we have two different classes editing the same article.) Student version before Dolfrog and I cleaned up.

   Sure, "it can be incorporated into the table later", passive voice. Who will do this incorporation of a blob of new sandbox text, out of place in the article? Wikipedia is not a sandbox. Grades must be due this week, so plop it in and let someone else fix it. (Someone else being Dolfrog and me.) In this editor's defense, at least she tagged talk before the other course appeared and pre-empted her work, and Ana Minchew is to be commended for generally good quality work. Now, since there were/are two courses working in there, if one of them will finish merging the two different versions (table or not, and other inconsistencies). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

2. Five new redlinked accounts, editing the same way at the same times, reverting for each other, edits suggestive of fall term and class deadlines, but not a single post from one of them on talk; result, endless cleanup hours for me and Slp1, and the article still a mess. As far as I know, we have no template we can use to query possible student edits, which look like meatpuppetry, but is most surely student editing so blunter forms of dispute resolution can't be used.
3. Unproductive discussion, nothing will result.
4. User talk:Sarmocid/sandbox, lengthy discussion, attempts to educate, no text will result, and no benefit will result to Wikipedia because these students do not have enough knowledge to be editing Wikipedia articles, and they do not stay around.
5. If User talk:Lek39/sandbox is dropped in at term-end, it will be reverted.

There are many more. This is but one small portion of what I have spent the fall term doing. In every case, my time has been wasted and could have been better spent adding content myself. But if I don't do this work, these students will drop these essays into medical articles, and they all will end up reverted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:59, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Additional medical samples I have uncovered

1. Koller's sickle just came to my attention via the notification system; it doesn't affect me, but is another example of the typical problem. I can read the entire lead here, and have no idea what Koller's sickle is. A page full of gibberish. On the other hand, if I go back before the student edits, to this old version, I can at least understand what Koller's sickle is (and I could even fix that version myself to make it more clear, but I can't do anything about the mess currently on the page). What are we to do with text like this and who fill fix it all? The profs? The ambassadors? Not in my experience.
2. Postmenopausal confusion, new article, just dropped in as one edit from sandbox, I took time to add PMIDs (which these students should be doing first by now), flag the primary sources, copyedit the lead, and tag the article: [3] Once the text is cleaned up and the primary sources are removed, this is a likely merge to menopause. Who is going to do that work? I've already spent more time on this article than it merits.

   Wonderful; now we have an article redirecting to a student sandbox. Will an admin active on this board please fix? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

   Ugh. I've deleted the redirect. If need be, the page can be recreated or (as you suggest) the material can be added to menopause. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

   Thanks Jb! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

   Ongoing consequences of students trying to add content when they have only edited in sandbox, haven't engaged the project, and don't yet even know how to edit Wikipedia.[4] Post at top of page, not bottom, and the student thinks Jbmurray moved the page, when the student is the one who moved the page. This sort of thing takes enormous amounts of time. And, the student hasn't even learned how to sign posts yet :) Do we really want to promote addition of content from students who are still learning the most basic basics of how to edit? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:27, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

   And, now the article is back, after multiple moves to the wrong places, with ... all of the work I did to flag primary sources gone. In other words, my time wasted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:16, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

   I spent another hour and a half tagging and cleaning up this article (partial repeat of yesterday's work), and in its current status, don't see why it won't end up merged to menopause. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

3. Cholera, sex-selective abortion and every medical article I have looked at from this course. Every medical article I have looked at from the Rice University course has inappropriate use of sources, or incorrect article structure, or essay-like content, or undue material. Are the professor and students aware of how to apply our our medical sourcing guidelines and our our general medical guidelines? Who is going to clean up, tag, copyedit, restructure, and remove poorly sourced material from these pages? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Motor system as a test case for this board

So, motor system is on my watchlist from my work on motor disorder, an article I created last month after DSM5 redefined neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood to motor disorders. It was tagged by a student today (well, that's a start, but s/he could have tagged it a month or two ago, when there was more time before term-end to guide him or her, but students tend to show up just as their deadlines approach, and one always has to go looking for their sandbox or course or professor). So, I pointed to his/her sandbox on talk, and went over to begin helping him/her craft something useful from the sandbox (as I've done so far this term on multiple student sandboxes, to little avail), and found that the effort to turn that student essay into something usable is more than I have time for, and the effort to type so much to explain to a student everything that is wrong there is not worth the reward, as these students never return to give back on other articles, rarely respond on talk, and never stay around to maintain their articles or help correct the issues that are tagged as needing to be fixed.

Motor system is a stub, but what is at User:Arnabrchakrab/sandbox is hardly usable. A stub which says little is more useful than an essay that says too much of nothing right. The student has put a lot of work into the sandbox, but getting that text into usable shape will take a large effort. But the student will probably drop it in there in a week or so, as term-end approaches (along with a couple dozen or more student sandboxes that will be dropped into articles I watch at about the same time). Some parts are incomprehensible, much is off-topic, the article will end up with multiple tags, I can't check for copyvio (not all sources are accessible), and I can already see it uses primary sources.

If it is dropped into the article, why would I not just revert the whole thing? That is what would be done with a regular editor-- it would be moved to talk, and the editor wanting to add it would be expected to do the cleanup. How much cleanup am I expected to do? I have done little but cleanup since the university term began. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not quite ready to make a final judgement yet, as a typical article of my own could look something like that at a certain stage of drafting, but certainly what is there now won't do at all. Looie496 (talk) 16:39, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

But term-end is nearing. [5] [6] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Is it fair to me that a kid's grade and fate is in my hands? User talk:Arnabrchakrab . I hope you're all happy, because I'm not. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

And now we have a desperate (rightly so) student edit warring to reinsert the content I removed, after Looie496 concurred it wasn't up to snuff. [7] Of course, this board is silent. How do you all expect to handle cases like this? Do you want me to go over and template a poor student who just wants his grade for edit warring? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

If a user is edit warring, I template them. If unresponsive, I report them at WP:AN3. Student or not, doesn't matter. Edit warring is edit warring. --Geniac (talk) 23:42, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

You see, this is why I think it's not good enough to say, as Mike has done, that the WEF Board is too busy exchanging emails, working on the website (I thought this was the website!) and so on to engage with a page such as this one. The silence and apparent lack of interest in what's actually doing on here on Wikipedia is demoralizing at best, and both irresponsible and rude at worst. And as I've said before, if the Board is swamped, it can always organize elections to bump its numbers back up and replace those who have left. But this is not good enough. --00:02, 19 November 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbmurray (talk • contribs)

I can't spend as much time as I would like to on this board today (not WEF obligations, just real life). Sandy deserves a reply, and I will respond as soon as I can; tomorrow at the latest. I will say, though, that the WEF can't be a labour force to deal with these issues. I would rather try to fix the problems at the source, so fewer and fewer classes cause problems, so that less labour is needed. I know that doesn't help Sandy at the moment, but this is a systemic issue, and needs to be fixed that way. I think the WEF has a better chance of doing that than any individual editor. Sandy, when I can I will try to help out with these articles, and if the articles are by members of the class I'm working with (at least a couple are) I will certainly talk to the professor about how to avoid a recurrence of the problems. One other point: it's been two days since I last posted on this board, and I see the WEF is being chastised for silence on this issue. We'll never, ever, post as fast as the community can respond in turn; it's just not possible. I remember being chastised by Awadewit once for trying to draw a discussion to a conclusion in less than 48 hours; she pointed out that most people don't live on Wikipedia time, where several hours is a slow response. I'll respond as soon as I can. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I believe I was present for that conversation with Awadewit :) But here's what you're missing. This one course has dropped more than a dozen poorly written essays into mainspace in the course of a day. That is only one of the many courses that hits me all the time. Sit in my shoes for a day, and watch my watchlist. This Program Is Crazy-Making, and I haven't been able to get you all to pay attention. So I posted in real time today, so you can see what a day in my life is like, and so you could see how bad this problem is !! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I am not reporting a poor student (who is the victim of a lousy professor and a bad bad bad program) for only trying to do what s/he has to do to get a grade. These poor students are running around desperate today, and the WMF/WEF staffers are silent. I can only hope they are silent because they are ashamed of themselves. But I doubt it ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• If a student's contribution represents a net negative, revert it, and if you know who their ambassador or instructor is, drop them a note. The fact that a student is receiving a grade for what they are doing doesn't mean you should let bad content stay up. Treating student editors as new editors means that, just as policies like WP:BITE apply to them, policies like WP:MEDRS do too. IME, in many cases where a student's content ends up getting removed, it doesn't significantly effect their actual grade on the assignment anyway. If you'd like, you can literally just drop edits that need to be reverted here or on my talk page and I can revert them myself and thus act as the grinch. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:21, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Not possible or feasible. Pretty much every student in that class, at this point, should be reverted. It's not fair to the one student who happened to be my test case-- none of the rest of them are any better (although a couple of them are, to their credit, responding appropriately to me on talk and trying their best). The students are the victims here. Well, along with our readers, but I digress ... Oh, and I have already pinged every ambassador and campus whatchacallit and prof to this discussion. Silence overwhelms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
    • I'll take a look through the rest of the class's contributions, and revert any where it's clear to me the content represents a net negative. This isn't exactly my field, so I may miss some, but I 100% support mass reversion of students' contributions where they represent significant net negatives. We're here to build an encyclopedia, and if student work is damaging that, we shouldn't leave it up just because they may be graded on it. I'll also email the professor explaining the situation at some point today once I'm done going through their work. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
      • Kevin, you aren't understanding the extent of the problem. You aren't equipped to do this! The students have not included PMIDs, which is the first step in helping to easily check if they are using primary sources (case studies, research, etc instead of reviews), and even if they had used secondary reviews, it will take experienced medical editors a good deal of time to determine if sources are used correctly. You all, even with the best of intentions, do not understand that these students are not equipped to be writing this content, and that checking it requires medical expertise. You don't even have links to the abstracts to be able to examine the sources, and in the one case where I added them (the menopause mess), they are now gone. Do you know how to search PubMed for PMIDs, and then, do you have journal access to look at the articles and determine if they are using primary sources, and if secondary reviews are being used correctly? Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches. The professor has not taught them basic medical editing info ... it is not their fault! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
        • See this sample citation:
          • Brown RS (2013). "Autoimmune thyroiditis in childhood". J Clin Res Pediatr Endocrinol. 5 Suppl 1: 45–9. doi:10.4274/jcrpe.855. PMC 3608006. PMID 23154164.
        • Click on the PMID, then when you are at PubMed, click on the bottom where it says "Publication type"-- you see it is a review rather than a case report, comparative study, whatever. And full text is available, which is rarely the case. You can tell by reading the source titles on many of these student essays-- even without PMIDs-- that they are using primary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
          • Er, yeah, I do have journal access (through MIT, Berkeley, and Columbia,) and am quite good at digging up the sources that people are using. You're right that I don't have time (or patience) to examine each article in depth and correct every problem, but I certainly have the ability to revert to good versions where they exist, and tag articles where no solid version exists to fall back on. That said, looking at some of this stuff kind of makes me want to say the WEF or ENWP's community needs to come up with a way to only allow approved, vetted courses to touch medical areas. I think you're also either overestimating the amount of medical expertise needed to review articles, or underestimating the amount of medical expertise I have. Trying to fix all of these articles would make me want to kill myself, but I'm quite certain that if I wanted to spend the time doing so, I could rewrite many of the articles in to high quality MEDRS-compliant articles. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:52, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
            • Not so much expertise, but when they haven't even used PMIDs, just way too time consuming. I don't want to kill myself, but I do want to go to my room, shut the door, and either scream, kick the pillow, or cry. My boys were once college students; what is being done to these kids is no good for anyone, and no good for us. We now have one student out of gobs whose work is reverted, my fault for choosing that test case, when his work is no better or worse than all the rest. Yes, my point has always been that it would be faster and a better use of our time for us to write these articles ourselves, and that if we are going to be training the students, we would at least want them to stick around and help. But they never do-- so our effort is wasted. Kevin, thank you for understanding this time. I do appreciate it. Now to my room. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

            Kevin, you say looking at some of this stuff kind of makes me want to say the WEF or ENWP's community needs to come up with a way to only allow approved, vetted courses to touch medical areas; I made a similar suggestion here, and I'd like to see more discussion of something along those lines. If the community came up with a specific guideline for students working on medical articles that's something the WEF could certainly help disseminate. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:06, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

            It's too late, Mike; that isn't enough!!! Re-read my whole post ... many of what are hitting us now are unregistered courses. The horse is out of the barn. Every college prof wants free TAs. Something internal won't work anymore. Press release !!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

            Mike Christie, the community already has a guideline. It is called WP:MEDRS. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:09, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

            MEDRS is only a part of the solution. It gives the rules, but what's needed is a presentation of those rules to instructors considering having their students work on medical articles, in a format, and via a channel, that they will pay attention to. That means more than sending a link to MEDRS; it means explaining a good deal of context, and providing supporting evidence from successful and unsuccessful classes, and presenting the material in a way that they find convincing. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

            I've been out all afternoon and will catch up soon, but just saw this post. Mike, is there something not up to snuff with what we already wrote at: Wikipedia:ASSIGN#Editing medicine and health topics? Because if that isn't clear, someone will need to explain where the problem is. I'll be back later to catch up, but from the work I've seen, it appears that neither the profs nor the students are reading that. Has that page been given to profs? You know "we" (those of us regular editors who have been concerned for a long time) put effort into that page as a place for dealing with the recurring issues, but if they aren't getting it, or aren't even reading it. If it isn't clear to a non-medical person, please let us know where, why, etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:28, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

            WP:ASSIGN, good though it is, (and ignoring for the moment that fact that it is only an essay at the moment, not a guideline) is in a format that is not particularly easy for instructors to absorb. I'd like to hear from those with teaching experience on this point, but I don't think the formats that work for the editing community internally -- text heavy, link heavy, acronym laden, and dense -- are likely to work well on instructors. If I were to strike up a conversation with an instructor at a pub and discover that they were planning a medical class on Wikipedia, ASSIGN is something I'd hand to them at the end of the conversation, as a summary and reference, not at the start.

            By the way, I'm not ignoring your comments about a press release; I've been thinking about it. I don't see how to make it work, though. For a start, I don't think the WEF has the cachet for anyone to pay attention to a press release just yet, so it's not an option for us. The WMF might get attention, but what would you have it say? That Wikipedia doesn't want students editing medical articles? That would have to be the community's consensus opinion, and I doubt that it is. Even if that changes, I don't see the release doing much good -- first, it would have to actually generate publicity to have any effect, which would quite likely attract more classes; and secondly I'm not sure how biddable academics are. And it would have to be nuanced to make clear that there are exceptions, such as Doc James' current project, the details of which I don't recall, but which someone else might link to. Anyway, I don't see how to make it a positive outcome. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

            hmmmm ... well, I'm no prose master (understatement :), so I'm not the one to help tune up WP:ASSIGN. We thought we had done what was needed :( Doc James UCSF thingie is at: Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/UCSF Elective 2013. Again, no prose master, but it's hard for me to imagine that someone like Jbmurray couldn't figure out how to improve that claptrap blog post put out by Jami M (after the psych class debacle in Canada, no less, which is what makes it so insulting!) in a way that would at least mention that there are differences in editing medical content, and a sentence or two more on that, so that we didn't have every Tom, Dick and Mary suddenly dipping in to medical articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:53, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

            Mike, as one of the two main perpetrators of WP:ASSIGN (along with Biosthmors), I'm very interested in (and taken by surprise by) your assessment of it as being too oriented towards experienced editors, and insufficiently readable for instructors. It's true that there are lots of blue links there, as everywhere else here, but I don't see it as being jargon-y or lengthy in a way that someone with a faculty appointment would find puzzling (although I can imagine an instructor who just does not care not bothering with it). But I'm going to go back and try to see if there are ways I can fix it. I would welcome you or anyone else pointing out anything specific that might be a problem in the writing. Also, of course, we will need to develop a guideline page, separate from the existing essay/information page. And perhaps, as the community comes to have more widely-accepted and established expectations about instructors and students, those expectations will find their way into future versions of the user-friendly materials authored by the WMF. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

            I think WP:ASSIGN is in pretty good shape. There are always improvements one could suggest, but improving the text isn't going to fix the problem I see. When I said that if I met a professor by chance in a pub, ASSIGN is the last thing I'd hand them, I meant that I would hand it to them and expect them to read it and follow its advice, but only when they were ready to receive it. Professors think they already know how to teach, how to use sources, how to construct text, how to write encyclopedically, and how the coverage of a topic should be divided. For them to believe that there are things they don't know about running a class on Wikipedia -- things that could cause them or their students extra work, or which could create problems for their assignments or for Wikipedia -- they need to believe that the person or organization telling them that is more knowledgeable about it than they are. Do you recall Steve Joordens' reaction to the invective about him posted here? It wasn't until Philippe Beaudette spoke to him over the phone that Joordens changed his mind; and with all due respect to Philippe, to whom I think we're all grateful for that intervention, it was surely because he is a WMF employee and not a Random Internet Person, as we all no doubt appear to be in the eyes of professors like Joordens. That's the problem that ASSIGN doesn't address -- how do we maximize the chance that when it gets into a professor's hands, it is taken seriously? We know the audience that ASSIGN is intended to reach, but there's work to be done to get the audience ready to accept it. Sandy, you say somewhere else on this page that if a professor can't cognitively deal with ASSIGN we don't want them on Wikipedia. What I'm saying is that it is not a cognitive issue. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:59, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

            Mike, thanks! That is an excellent insight! Like a couple of other editors active on this noticeboard, I'm both an experienced editor and, in real life, a long-time tenured professor, so I can see exactly what you are talking about, now that you have pointed it out to me. I'm going to give some serious thought to how we can revise ASSIGN to help make it something that is less likely to be blown off. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, more than one student reverted, Sandy. I wasn't kidding when I said I was going to go through the whole class. I've reverted to previous versions where they exist, and tagbombed where they don't (still going through them.) I wish there was a more specific "this article horribly fails WP:MEDRS" tag. I've pretty much always agreed with you that medical classes are hugely problematic and have said multiple times that I support things like mass reversion in cases like this, so I'm not positive why the caveat 'this time' is needed, heh. Dropping the professor an email in a bit, since with this many students fucking up, it is obviously an instructional design problem, and not the fault of the students. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:11, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

They are just kids :'( They don't deserve this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Weird comment.... but afk for probably half an hour, I need to go chase down an escaped chicken. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:15, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Well that was easier than I expected, back. And I agree with you Sandy, they don't deserve to get dropped in the deep end with no guidance. This is the professor's fault, not theirs. But the unfortunate fact that the students pretty much got screwed over shouldn't be allowed to mess up our content. With an email to the professor, I sincerely doubt he'll do anything like fail everyone or anything like that. It's still a colossal amount of unfortunately wasted effort on their parts :/ Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I actually lied, I'm not going to look over all the student contributions right away. EVERY SINGLE one I checked (about twenty) had severe problems. I'm dropping the professor an email, and if necessary will handle the cleanup of the rest of what this class has generated myself. Trust me Sandy, I get that shit like this isn't okay, I'm just not in a position to stop it. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:24, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Professor emailed, hopefully they still have enough time left in their semester to repair their work. I would hate to see this much effort go down the drain, but pretty much nothing the class has written is compliant with MEDRS :/ Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:42, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I am still catching up this morning, think that we may have one good article, but the template you want, Kevin, is {{subst:MEDREF}}; that is more specific and gives more information than the generic primary sources template. I remain dismayed at what the students and we are going through because of this course, and note that neither of the editors listed as course professors in the course description have any Wikipedia editing experience. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, I hadn't come across that one before and will use it going forward. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

MEDRS

I'm actually quite tired of all of this complaining about student edits. Student editors are no different from other editors who are learning to use Wikipedia - they make lots of mistakes. We need to encourage professors to create assignments where students learn from those mistakes, yes, but it doesn't help to have Wikipedians who are unwilling to engage with students just because they are students. I looked at that sandbox article. If someone had come to Wikipedia and written that after being here after a few weeks, I'd be really happy - that is someone we can work with. Moreover, it is information someone else can work with even if the editor disappears. When did we develop the idea that every piece of information, every sentence, every article needed to be perfect as it was added to the encyclopedia? Why do we think that somehow every edit added by Wikipedians who have been around for years is amazing? I've seen some horribly unreliable editing from long-standing editors, so let's dispense with that fallacy. Adding information to a stub/start article is almost always bonus and it will slowly get better. Wadewitz (talk) 20:03, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree, and this was more or less the substance of the original discussion [[8]]. Moreover, I think this is a fundamental part of the Wikipedia ethos, and what makes it different from (and far more successful than) the Nupedia project. Which is not to say that we should tolerate any old shit. But the barriers for editing can (and should) be relatively low. I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced that this basic principle should be different for certain sections of the encyclopedia (Medicine, for instance) as opposed to others. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:49, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

And there we have a clear difference between someone who edits in literature and someone who edits in medicine. I don't think bad literature articles ever hurt anyone. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

@Sandy, purely curiosity on my part. Do we have any evidence that poorly written medical articles have actually hurt some one? Or is this just an apprehension? --Mike Cline (talk) 23:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for asking, Mike, and prepare for TLDR :) I will also expand on my earlier, hurried response to Awadewit.

Awadewit seems to be saying that the poorly sourced student medical essays are OK for a start and early versions of articles don't have to be perfect. She is basically saying we are asking for too much perfection with respect to core sourcing policies. (The irony being that this is coming from an editor who pushed through extremely stringent sourcing requirements at FAC which are by the way mostly ignored today.)

Verifiability is one of the five pillars of Wikipedia-- a core policy. Our reliable source guideline (WP:RS) gives guidance on how to apply that policy to general articles, while our medical sourcing guideline (WP:MEDRS) gives guidance on how to apply Verifiability policy to medical and health content.

To argue that we should accept medical content that does not meet our WP:V policy is the same as arguing that we should accept general content that is sourced to blogs, tabloids, commercial or quack websites.

Now, perhaps in the literature realm, they do that. Maybe no one cares if Shakespeare was real. In the medical realm, quackery has consequences, and medical editors take that seriously. Apparently the rest of the Project does as well, because MEDRS did not gain guideline status until it got widespread exposure and support.

Another problem is that there are probably less than three dozen editors trying to hold down the fort with medical editing, so when professors unleash students to edit without even educating them about our medical sourcing policy, or even reading the info we have already provided and asking them to look up articles in PubMed and provide PMIDs and make sure they are using secondary reviews, the few of us who are doing most of the work are taxed. And the Project loses the opportunity for students to do it right, and for all of us to have an enjoyable experience.

To your specific question, Mike Cline, first, before I give you examples-- a generality. Even if I didn't have an example, should we wait for one to happen? I don't think you want to, nor would you expect those of us who edit in that area, to be splashed across the front page of the New York Times because harm came to someone as a result of something that could be traced back to our edits.

I don't know about you, but when I first came to Wikipedia, WP:BLP was not policy, and WP:MEDRS was not guideline. I remember the difficulty and the battles at Brian Deer, Andrew Wakefield, the entire suite of autism-related articles, and specifically, MMR vaccine controversy. What remains of the same core group of medical editors who had to deal with that mess-- trying sometimes in vain to keep the quackery out-- are some of the same editors still dealing with reliable sourcing in medical articles today. We have weekly examples at WT:MED of bad, bad information in medical content, and only a handful of folks who can and will deal with it.

If you do not think medical misinformation in mass media can kill, then please read MMR controversy#Media role and the rest of the article from MMR controversy#Disease outbreaks. Many of the same editors that Awadewit seems to think are expecting too much had to deal with the earlier versions of those articles, when we did not have policy or guidelines we could enforce. I'm not aware of anyone dying in the debate over Shakespeare. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:22, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Wadewitz "Wikipedians who are unwilling to engage with students just because they are students", put User talk:Sarmocid/sandbox as but one small example in your pipe and smoke it, because whatever you're smoking, we should all get some. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:45, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Sandy. I have seen kids infected as their parents did not get them immunized because of the press that Wakefield got. Mis information kills when that mis information pertains to medicine. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:56, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Wadewitz I think you are making a mistake based on your own excellent experience with your classes. The idea that student editors are no different from other newbies needs to be stamped out. It is a fundamentally harmful concept and is leading to the trashing of Wikipedia by profs who don't edit here and have no clue how it works. Typically the students don't learn from mistakes because they don't hang around and their instructors aren't any more clued up. We aren't avoiding them because they are students -- we don't interact because by the time anyone notices the edits in articlespace, the student has gone. They do all their sandboxing without interacting with the community and then copy their draft onto WP and disappear. It is the exception rather than the rule that any interaction occurs. And you assume there are volunteer Wikipedians to do that interacting. The mistake-detection and corrective advice certainly isn't coming from the profs. These students often add new articles that of course nobody watches. It's just a dumping ground for poor unmaintainable articles that then rot. There are no fairies going round digging out the sources and fixing the mistakes the student makes since actually didn't have the slightest clue about what they are writing (They are doing an "Introduction to ... course, so of course they don't have a clue). There are a tiny handful of editors who detect a tiny proportion of these classes and then struggle to deal with it. Turn your "When did we develop the ideal that" question round. When did we develop the idea that adding content, no matter what quality, was all that matters? This is all the WMF has in the past boasted about. Reams of paper. War and Peace. Load of shite, frankly. When did we develop the idea that the people writing encyclopaedias should themselves be selected precisely because they are ignorant of the subject? Because that's what happens when 1st-year undergraduates doing an "Introduction to" subject are set an assignment here. I'm sure there is a small part of the education program that is producing valuable content, but mantras like "anyone can edit", "no different to newbies" and "more information is almost always better" are harmful to critical thinking on the issue Colin°^Talk 11:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Sandy. Thanks for the comprehensive answer. It helps me understand your concerns even more. TLDR doesn’t faze me a bit and I hold little respect for those who chant it as an excuse not to listen to others in comprehensive discussions. Taking a bit more analytical, less emotional approach to finding a solution, I’d like to examine this from a risk-cost to solve viewpoint. There is no doubt in my mind that poor medical information makes its way into WP medical articles. (That’s a direct by-product of the “anyone can edit” philosophy that is a foundational pillar of WP.) So for discussion sake, I’ll say there is a high probability that WP medical articles may contain poor or inaccurate medical content at some point. But, the more important question in my mind, what is the likelihood that such poor medical content in Wikipedia has been or is likely to be directly responsible for personal behavior that is harmful (the hurt as you call it). My guess, based on the lack of even one tangible example, is that the likelihood or probability is actually very, very low. You will get no argument from me that the medical industry has in the past generated medical information that either was knowingly false or misleading or knowingly might cause some “hurt” if it was acted upon. The MMR vaccine controversy you linked to is a good example of that. As far as I can tell from reading the article, the cause of the “hurt” wasn’t that the poor or false information was in Wikipedia, but because it was being promulgated by elements of the medical industry itself. The fact that at some point that bad information may have been in Wikipedia can’t be used to attribute the hurt to Wikipedia without direct evidence demonstrating it did. With WP:MEDRS, the WP community acted in a rational way to mitigate the risk of including poor medical content in WP articles. — Mike Cline 16:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

Sorry for interrupting your post, but no: I need to stop you right here. That I didn't name the names of anti-vaccinationist Wikipedia editors who have blood on their hands, and could be splashed across the front page of the NYT, does not mean they don't exist or that I didn't provide you a concrete example. You are reading the current version of that article; you are disregarding the historical role Wikipedia played in that scandal before we had BLP and MEDRS. And we played a role-- and that is why we today have things like BLP and MEDRS. Responsible, knowledgeable editors had to struggle with that suite of articles before/until we had MEDRS and BLP-- and they didn't always win. Wikipedia, pre-MEDRS, pre-BLP, helped further information that led to children dying, and that is beyond what happened in the medical journals. It was because we had no teeth to enforce policy or guideline. So, what kind of editing do you want our university students to learn ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandy is correct. Mike, about the misinformation coming from within the medical community, let me please point you to a counter-example: Jenny McCarthy#Autism activism. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

My point is more specific. We had identifiable editors putting an anti-vaccionationist POV into huge numbers of articles, in spite of most of us knowing it was bad science, and they could do that because we didn't have a MEDRS guideline, and we couldn't stop them from using inferior sources. If not for MEDRS, we would have never gotten a handle on that. Because of MEDRS, we were eventually able to do better than the rest of the popular media, but Wikipedia was part of the problem for some time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

By way of transition, I want to explore a classic risk-cost scenario to explain what I am trying to get at. In Hydrology, there is what’s known as the 100 year flood line. Overtime, federal government surveyors have estimated for most watersheds, where the waters would reach during a flood that is likely to occur at least once every 100 years. This is an estimate of risk, as we all know that floods cause economic, infrastructure and human damage (hurt). It is an estimate (probability) based on historical record. The 100 year timeframe may seem long, but because the average life cycle of typical infrastructure is well over 100 years, the timeframe works well for this estimate. The 100 year flood however could happen anytime. Now if the federal government wanted to completely mitigate this risk and had a goal of no “hurt” during a 100 year flood, they would simply ban all human activity and infrastructure within the 100 year flood zone. They don’t because the “Cost” to do so isn’t commensurate with the actual risk. However, some of the risk is mitigated through higher insurance, infrastructure restrictions, limitations on federal funding of infrastructure (you can’t get a federally funded mortgage for a home in a 100 year flood zone), etc. But for most risks in human enterprise, there’s always some mitigation going on. Human activity in a 100 year flood zone costs more than the same human activity outside the zone.

Every enterprise, including Wikipedia, has their 100 year flood zones. In other words, they have risks associated with the enterprise that must be mitigated in some way. There is always something that could go wrong and cause “hurt”. But before jumping to costly solutions (mitigation always has costs in complex systems), we need to answer both these questions: What could go wrong AND how likely is this to happen? Mitigation costs need to be commensurate with the real risk otherwise, tremendous amounts of energy and resources can get expended without any commensurate return on that investment.

By way of example, we could say that because someone might act on a piece of poor medical information in WP and cause “hurt” (the probability is not zero) we need to eliminate that risk all together regardless of cost. If that was the case, a couple of simple (in concept) solutions come to mind. 1) We could eliminate all medical topics from WP. The “might happen” would now not be possible. One of the costs associated with this solution would be the absence of a certain class of knowledge in the encyclopedia. 2) The community could create a special class of expert medical editor, certified in a way that would ensure all edits to medical articles could never cause harm. They (the Owners of medical articles) would be 100% responsible for the goodness of the content. A cost associated with this approach would be the extensive community bureaucracy necessary to create and monitor such a special group of editors and the precedent established of article ownership that might creep into all areas of the encyclopedia. I am not recommending or endorsing these solutions in anyway, but if they were proposed, all I would be asking would be: Is the cost to the encyclopedia and the community that sustains it justified, given the risk the solution is trying to mitigate?

I am all for finding ways to ensure students (and any editors for that matter) who edit WP, regardless of motivation, do so in concert with our norms, guidelines and policies. I was in freshman classes at MSU yesterday doing just that. Clearly medical articles require more than usual vigilance. But let’s formulate solutions that build on existing community norms and are commensurate with the actual risk the solution is trying to mitigate instead of emotional, “the sky is falling” motivations. Again, thanks for a comprehensive answer. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

OK, and now that I've read the remainder of your post on cost/benefit analysis, I think you've presented an analogy that may help further this discussion. In terms of cost, how difficult is it for professors to understand and instruct their students to look up a PMID at PubMed, include it in their citation, and consider whether it is a secondary source? The cost is negligible; the benefits are huge, for all concerned. Less work for us, better skills learned by the students, more likelihood their text will be accepted. For only a few minutes' work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:54, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

@Sandy, what you describing is essentially "best practice" as is the core of MEDRS. There is wide acceptance in enterprise that adoption of best practices is one of the most cost-effective methods of mitigating risk. Unfortunately, for best practice to be effective in any enterprise, they must be curated, readily accessible to those who must employ them, and finally easily adaptable to the particular risk being mitigated. Additionally, enterprises adopting a best practice rarely do so effectively unless those who must implement them understand and see the benefit of doing so. Simon Sinek's WHY if you will. We, the Wikipedia community, have the diverse expertise to formulate best practices from our perspective as it relates to the Education Program. What we lack is the ability to curate and disseminate those best practices to those who would most benefit--instructors in higher education. This is the role I trust the WEF will assume in the US and Canada. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:00, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Your analogy doesn't work. I understand your concerns not to waste effort or resist change because of a 100-year event. But "causing harm" isn't a 100-year event and it isn't even a binary does-it / doesn't it sort of thing. We provide information. People act on that information. They may make lifestyle changes or seek treatments or refuse treatments based on it. The information here influences people in all sorts of subtle ways. People come here to learn about medical conditions. If we fail to help them understand this, based on the most recent evidence-based sources, we may mislead them or confuse them. It matters hugely more that we help someone understand their breast cancer or their dad's Alzheimer's than whether we correctly describe the plot summary of some novel or explain why some historical character made some decision. Wikipedia, whether we like it or not, is a hugely important source of medical information for patients and !!! for doctors too. It is quite difficult to underestimate the importance, in fact. Far from worrying if someone every hundred years might have made a negative life-changing decision from reading Wikipedia, it is more likely that people are constantly making life-changing decisions from reading Wikipedia articles. We can struggle to nudge Wikipedia so it remains better than the Daily Mail, or we could give up and let the crackpots take over. Or let people we actually know are ignorant edit without sufficient supervision, sometimes on article topics so outside of their class scope that the prof couldn't even assess the work even if they did edit here. So, this isn't some risk analysis issue. There isn't a small probability that WP articles contain bad medical advice that causes harm. They do contain bad and outdated medical information. They do confuse our readers. So far, all the student efforts have focused on adding more unwatched and unmaintainable text to our articles. Text that at times is barely readable never mind accurate and clear. In order to keep Wikipedia a reasonable educational tool, we need editors who watchlist articles and maintain them. Who fight against the POV pushers. This program isn't growing our editor base at all. It is just making it more likely that we will have unhelpful medical articles. I'm sure we can get academia helping create great medical content, but the way it is being done right now isn't a good approach. Colin°^Talk 17:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, medical information on Wikipedia is important and should be as accurate as possible, but we cannot be held responsible for people acting on it. That is first and foremost. But even if you deny that premise, it is definitely not the only part of the encyclopedia that significantly affects people's lives. MEDRS does not have a monopoly on this problem. In fact, it is far more organized than many other parts of the encyclopedia and deals with the addition of poor information in a serious way. Pages such as Rape and Sexual harassment are visited by people wondering if they are victims or trying to find help (reading around on reddit scarily confirms this), but articles such as these don't have the protection of MEDRS. They have the protection of individual editors. In the education program, we have been making every effort to pair professors with Wikipedians so that they have someone to guide them, but there are many gaps between Wikipedia's culture and academic culture that have to be explained and overcome, such as the lack of hierarchy. More than anything, we need to find good assignments and use those as models. I understand the problems you are experiencing, but to fix them, we need to show how the assignments can be done better. Many, many more professors are interested in doing Wikipedia assignments that ever before (I get emails almost every day). It would help those of us who are trying to give advice to professors if we could point to successful projects. So, what is the most successful MEDRS project you've seen? What made it successful? Is it something different than made Jbmurray's assignment or my assignment successful? Wadewitz (talk) 18:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Again, I think that this is a fascinating and important discussion. One thing that struck me was Colin's reference to "keep[ing] Wikipedia a reasonable educational tool." I think that the implication here is that Wikipedia is best seen as an educational tool in terms of the advice or information it transmits to its readers. So it's a "reasonable" educational tool if the information it contains is reliable, or mostly so; if the quality of that information drops, so does its educational value drop, too.

But one of the things that most interests me about using Wikipedia in education, and I think that the WEF is trying to get at this (albeit with the very clumsy jargon of "information fluency"), is teaching students how to read Wikipedia. Because, after all, as Wadewitz says, "we cannot be held responsible for people acting on" the poor information that (as we all know) litters the encyclopedia. But perhaps we can, in our classes, try to teach people to read it better.

There are no doubt various ways to teach people how Wikipedia works. But honestly, the best way without doubt is by getting them to edit. They learn an enormous amount about how knowledge is assembled and distributed, and are given better tools to engage more critically not just with Wikipedia but with so many of the information sources that surround them.

I could say more on this, but I have to go. Yet I do think it's worth noting important differences in the ways people here are conceiving of Wikipedia's possible relationship to and use in education. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, due to the board revdel, I'm not sure where to start catching up, so ...

Yes, that's bad news about rape and sexual harassment, but other stuff exists. Wadewitz, you may have jumped in mid-thread. At the end of this thread, I highlighted the only case I know of of a decent article to result from a medical class. And that is in several years. As I pointed out there, it took a disproportionate amount of time from two established editors, we could have written more content ourselves in the same time, and we get no net benefit because these students don't return. I'm glad that doesn't bother you or Jb, who want to use my time as an instructor, but it does prevent me from building content, because my particular area of editing focus is hit over and over by students attracted to the bizarre, like klazomania-- the article I had to clean up and write several terms ago, after students took on a topic that means nothing to no one but is part of the Tourette syndrome suite of articles.

Back to your point on rape, sexual assault, etc and the earlier queries about actual harm: even something as apparently inoffensive as "up to 50% of individuals with ADHD may have substance abuse disorders" can be terribly damaging to the parent of a recently-diagnosed child if they come across that information and don't know anything about how solid the sample is, what sort of ascertainment bias in samples led to that statement, whether treatment affects outcome, whether there is solid medical consensus on the relationship between substance abuse and ADHD, etc. OK, nobody's going to die, but we have a responsibility nonetheless to try to get it right. I'm sorry if you don't understand, but even when people may or may not die, medical articles affect real people. We are not here to teach students who generate no meaningful content, do not return, and take inordinate amounts of our time. And, let's suppose we are: all we ask is that they use secondary sources, look 'em up on PubMed, give us a PMID so we can verify without having to do hours of work before we discover that the several dozen sandboxes dropped in yesterday by the Georgia course will virtually all have to be merged, AFD'd, or extensively cleaned up.

Further, and worse, I came to this board with a test case, so we could all determine what we are going to do about Potter and his bad articles, and guess what? The problem will be left to a few medical editors to clean up, because all that crap dumped in yesterday is still sitting there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Model Class?

I thought I'd look at the class done by Wadewitz last year to see what positive things made it work. The class is Wikipedia:United States Education Program/Courses/Adolescent Literature Spring 2012 (Adrianne Wadewitz). At first glance, the class follows a common pattern. The students get accounts, make some test edits, use sandboxes, edit their article over the space of about two weeks, and then disappear. Forever. Do they interact with Wikipedian's outside of the class group (instructor, online ambassador, campus ambassador, fellow classmates)? No, they don't. Did the Wikipedia's uninvolved volunteer community help these students with their work? No, it didn't. Did any of the students get thanked for their additions by uninvolved Wikipedian's. Yes a few. But these thank-you's went mostly unacknowledged. The user-contributions bear all the hallmarks of student editors and none of volunteer editors.

So what made this class work? Could it be that the instructor is probably one of the most talented Wikipedian's we've ever had? That if you were going to have a class editing young-adult literature articles on Wikipedia, there is nobody in the world more qualified and better able to lead it? Could it also be that three of the four class ambassadors were also highly experienced Wikipedians who edited for years before this class and are still very active today? This class was self-supporting and had great experienced leadership. It wasn't a drain on the volunteer base. It left behind good, well sourced content. The assignment wasn't beyond the abilities of the students (as is frequently the case with medical/bioscience undergraduates). The articles were clearly in need of expansion and so the new material met a clear need. Too many classes have utterly inexperienced and uninvolved instructors and assistants. They come to WP expecting an army of Wikipedians will drop everything and become unpaid classroom assistants, unpaid police detecting plagiarism and unpaid janitors cleaning up afterwards.

I would be interested to know if any of these students became Wikipedians. They didn't use their student accounts beyond the assignment, but possibly created others. It would be encouraging to hear, because if Wadewitz can't inspire her students to edit here, there is no hope for Wikipedia. Colin°^Talk 13:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Did any of User:Jbmurray's students continue editing? Even one who turns into a Wikipedian would be a success. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 13:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I've asked this question many times over the years, and as far as I know, that answer is "no". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:24, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we have to recognize that the goal of Wikipedia assignments is not to create new users - and that is ok. The assignments, if done well, are a win-win. The students learn an enormous amount about research, sourcing, writing, and the construction of knowledge. Wikipedia gets content that they would not otherwise have had, much of it good (obviously not all). Wadewitz (talk) 18:30, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, or not very significantly. Again like Wadewitz, I am not too worried about that. In part because I don't see my role as a recruitment sergeant for the encyclopaedia. Though students may be keen to be involved in other such assignments: someone came up to me just the other day, who had been in a previous class where I'd used Wikipedia, and said she'd wished we were doing the same in the current class I'm teaching. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Georgia Tech's IntroNeuro course discussion

I am the Professor teaching Introductory Neuroscience at Georgia Tech to biology and biomedical engineering seniors. They have been working all semester on a neuro-related topic of their choice that was not represented on Wikipedia or was a small stub at the beginning of the semester (Fall 2013). They have been through many lead-up assignments and several sessions with our Wikipedia Ambassadors, and have read many sources, so I can tell you with 6 years experience doing this Wikipedia Article assignment, many are well qualified to be Wikipedia editors, and many good new articles will result. With a class this large (98 students) there will be some who are not taking this as seriously as they ought to. I am surprised that Kevin Gorman's email today was the first I have heard of the many concerns you rightly have about what my students are doing. Thanks, Kevin, for pointing me to this discussion. SandyGeorgia, I am sorry this assignment has gotten you so upset. This is not a "bad bad bad program" and I am certainly not a "lousy professor" (I have won the highest teaching awards from both Georgia Tech (2011) and the University System of Georgia (2012)) so please let's keep this discussion civil and productive. Hundreds of my former students' articles were excellent and are now part of the corpus of neuro-related information available on Wikipedia. Some were reverted or merged and that is appropriate. I am not an expert in Wikipedia editing, and for the most part, delegate this responsibility to my Ambassadors (Lor Critz and Willie Baer, Georgia Tech librarians). I am open to suggestions about how to best prepare my students for this assignment, and have gotten and implemented fantastic ones from Biosthmors, an online Ambassador an excellent and experienced Wikipedia editor/writer.

My students have until the end of Nov. 27th to finish their articles, but are encouraged to continue improving them for as long as they wish. With productive and helpful comments from the Wikipedia editing community, and from their class peers, you will see much improvement on their pages in the next week. I have admonished them to stay in their Sandbox until they have resolved tagged issues.

If you have any comments or suggestions you would like me to pass on to the class as a whole, please email me. Here is my Course Page: [Fall 2013 at Georgia Tech] Thanks for all your help and patience, Steve M. Potter, PhD -- Georgia Inst. of Technology (talk) 17:51, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I have no intention of conducting Wikipedia business via email, and suggest that your lack of involvement here is what led to the problems encountered by your students. Your past awards and other work are irrelevant to this discussion; your current term work is dismal, and your course approach has problems. I am preparing to add another update, regarding the agraphia article, which is the only success I've seen so far in the medical realm, and I will be pointing out the pros and cons of your class editing in that article (there were two groups involved).

As to specifics, your students do not understand our medical sourcing guidelines or our general medical guidelines. At all. So they should not be editing Wikipedia medical articles. And it's too late to "admonish" your students to stay in sandbox; more than a dozen sandboxes were dropped in yesterday. Update on agraphia coming this morning. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The biggest problem is the lack of willingness by the students to join wikipedia, and communicate with existing editors. Last year the phonological dyslexia was transformed from being about a subtype of Alexia (acquired dyslexia) to being about developmental dyslexia which is currently covered by the dyslexia article, this can only demonstrate the ignorance of the university and all of its academic staff regarding any basic understanding of dyslexia. So maybe the quality of the university and it staff should be considered prior to allowing any of their students edit medical articles, as incompetent teachers will be informing the student editors. We can only work with student editors if they make contact with us, which is not happening, they work on their own for the most part and ignore our comments. dolfrog (talk) 14:08, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes. It needs to be made very clear that it took the two of us (Dolfrog and me) working quite a bit to keep agraphia on track, and that whatever past accolades have been conferred upon this course, I suggest they didn't involved knowledge medical editors. Dolfrog knew the area and research; I helped with other policy/guideline stuff; the students wrote: without all three, we'd have another failure.

This course and its students do not know the minimum requirements of editing medical articles. It is still troubling that it is being assumed that asking professors to instruct their students to look up a PMID at PubMed and include it in their citations so that the few of us keeping up with medical articles can check sourcing is viewed as extreme. Further, if they took that simple step, they would be less likely then to use those primary sources.

Further, Mike Christie, I am still troubled by the implications of this post. First, many of us did what we thought the WMF/WEF/whatever wanted, and now we find out that university professors can't apparently read plain English? If university professors are unable to digest the very clear information at Wikipedia:Student assignments#Editing medicine and health topics, then I think you have made the case that these professors and their courses do not belong on Wikipedia. If they can't understand that information, then there are cognitive issues and they shouldn't be editing. Louisa May Alcott is not cholera. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandbox issues

I would like to know what role this board intends to play in helping lower the burden on established editors when students unfamiliar with Wikipedia put this much effort into a sandbox whose result does not really belong on Wikipedia. I do not enjoy being the one who has to revert a student, so I end up spending untold days trying to clean up text that will end up marginal at best. We have students writing on topics that are over their heads, and in a format and style they are not familiar with, and they will not stay around to clean up the problems or learn from their mistakes as other editors do.

What is the role of this board, and this program, in helping lower the burden created by this program, and what suggestions do you all have for dealing with sandbox text like this? How about if I leave that sample sandbox in the competent and capable hands of the folks here, let you all figure out how to deal with it, and if unusable text is dropped into the article in a few weeks, I'll just revert. That seems fair enough as a test case for how this board can be more effective and helpful to everyone, including Wikipedia's readers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Generally people come to the noticeboard in one of two ways, either through a program helping students or through discovering on-wiki badness caused by students. Because the resulting two groups are essentially miscible, what 'this board intend' is anyone's guess. I'm not entirely certain that the noticeboard has any actual constructive use other than as a place for editors to vent. Stuartyeates (talk) 01:58, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

We help each other fix content and guide students. We may come up with processes to better manage the education program. We will also share successes and best practices here. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 09:59, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Education program interface

Add to all of this that the ridiculous new education program interface means I can't usually even locate a course or a professor; the stupidest move backwards I've ever seen on Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Regarding the interface, and making it easier to find the course a student editor is in, we're working on improving that currently. We're going to try to add info about what course a student is in that will appear when you view Special:Contributions. (We are also adding the ability for users other than the student editors themselves to add a user as a student and to add articles for students, which will make it easier to keep accurate lists of both students and which articles they are working on, in some cases.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:20, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I used to be able to locate a course and prof, but no longer can in most cases. It's crazy. Will someone active in this program please identify profs and courses when known in the cases I have highlighted and ping them here? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Never mind, I dug 'em up myself (with quite a bit of unnecessary effort). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Usually I navigate to the (redlinked) student user page and click "What links here"; that seems to work OK, although it's not pretty. Choess (talk) 22:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

It didn't work in most of these cases-- they aren't even interacting with their own course pages. I had to go back to old course listings I knew of and troll through them. Crazy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:44, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Agraphia: we have a good one

• Article: Agraphia, version Oct 13, before student edits, and version Nov 19, as of this writing
• Contributions since students began editing, (noting that I am a famously inefficient editor, often taking three or four edits to do what others do in one)
• Class1, unregistered course, Midd Intro Neuro
  • Students: Mdreher528, CWright93
• Class2, Education Program talk:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013) Imran Naim, Professorpotter, Biosthmors, JMathewson (WMF), Cr188
  • Student: Ana Minchew

For all of my complaints about student editing, I need to highlight a good outcome and commend those involved. This was an interesting case because it was revealed mid-term that two different courses were working on the article. Ana Minchew with the Georgia IT course tagged the article page early on (23 September), so kudos to her. On 12 November-- before Ana Minchew had begun to work-- two new editors from another (unregistered) course added text to the article, and when I responded rather grumpily, their professor appeared. The three students are to be commended for using talk pages, and working together: a very good outcome was achieved. The article still has some issues, but not out of line with what we find in many newly developed Wikipedia articles, and it would be wonderful if they were able to finish addressing those issues before term-end, and then stay on as regular Wikipedia editors to help keep that article in good shape.

Having commended Ana for tagging the article page early on, I do need to point out that the Georgia students simply do not understand Wikipedia's medical sourcing guidelines. Just yesterday-- as all of the Georgia students were dropping their sandboxes into articles-- and after much discussion on this article, Ana added two new primary sources.

I should also point out that here we had three students overseen by two well-established medical editors (myself and Dolfrog). The time we spent here was disproportionate, and I cannot say the outcome would have been as good as it was without our involvement. Nonetheless, I do want to commend the three students for helping create quality content. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:27, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandboxes: an unintended (or at least unexpected) consequence

Please take a look at User talk:Tryptofish#Molecular Neuroscience Article Edits. One of the things that seems to be happening in Education Program talk:Georgia Institute of Technology/Introduction to Neuroscience (Fall 2013)/Timeline is that the students are working up their content in sandboxes – good! – and then moving them into mainspace when they feel ready to do so, even if they are incorrect about the appropriateness of the move. It seems to me that that defeats much of the intended purpose of sandbox editing. In this case, at Molecular neuroscience, the student completely replaced the existing page with the sandbox draft: [9] (see the edit summary). As it happens, this was actually a big improvement of a previously pretty-shabby page, in terms of content (although there were lots of basic stylistic flaws that could easily have been corrected before moving into mainspace if anyone had been able to review it before the move, as would likely have happened, for example, at Articles for Creation). But the thought of student projects making a practice of blanking existing content in order to replace it with sandbox creations has the potential for situations that give me the chills. It seems to me that we never really intended sandboxes to be used in quite this way, and we may need to give some thought to recommending some feedback to student editors before moving content from sandboxes to mainspace, for the students' benefit as well as Wikipedia's. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:31, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Application for Campus Ambassador

Hello,

Is there anybody out there who can help me? I started a project entitled E-translating the Wikipedia which is aimed at encouraging second year University students from the Universitat Jaume I to translate wikipedia articles from English into Spanish. It is not a proper course but a project within a course. I was wondering if I qualify to become and Campus Ambassador if so what is it I have to do. I will reply at the required questions:

Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador? To support faculty and students at my institution, Universitat Jaume I, especially regarding the E-translating Wikipedia project. I would also like to encourage other colleagues either to join us or to start other project/course at my institution. Where are you based, and which educational institution(s) do you plan to work with as a Campus Ambassador? Universitat Jaume I, Castellón Spain. What is your academic and/or professional background? Full Professor In three sentences or less, summarize your prior experience with Wikimedia projects. I have created two Wikipedia projects (one in the English Wikipedia and one with the Spanish Wikipedia, that are linked in order to encourage translation studies second Year students to translate in (almost) real conditions). Please see my user page --Mcptrad (talk) 13:51, 17 November 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Humphrey.Southall (talk)

Name

Humphrey Southall (Humphrey.Southall)

Institution

University of Portsmouth, UK.

Course title and description

Applied Human Geography – The course introduces first year undergraduates to the processes of independent research, including exposing their work to a process of open review.

Assignment plan

Each sudent is assigned an existing stub article about a different British village, and is required to expand it up to c.1,0000 words (formally: not more than four sides of A4 paper when printed using Wikipedia default settings). We work only with articles that have not been edited, other than by bots, for at least 12 months. The villages we use are all also Civil Parishes, so we can be sure there are a variety of only sources they can use, notably recent and historical census data.

Number of students

About fifty

Start and end dates

January-May 2014

@OhanaUnited, Neelix, Ktr101, Pharos, and Pongr: @Sleuthwood, Etlib, Daniel Simanek, Biosthmors, and Kayz911: @DStrassmann, Rjensen, Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Garcia-FM 02:26, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Return to the Course pages module.

How many words? How familiar are you with Wikipedia? How do you know these expansions are desired for Wikipedia's purposes? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 17:21, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm re-adding this to the board, since it got archived and I'm guessing that Humphrey.Southall did not know about the question from Biosthmors.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:30, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

My work with this course was presented at the recent EduWiki 2013 meeting in Cardiff UK, has been extensively discussed with Tony Sant, the Wikimedia UK education coordinator, and is one of the case studies being used in a forthcoming Wikimedia UK education publication. We are very careful to work only with stub articles which have not been added to for at least a year. I am reasonably familiar with the procedures for editing articles, but completely baffled by the procedures for acquiring "course instructor" rights. Still not sure what exactly you mean by "desired for Wikipedia's purposes", but hope this will do; and I certainly need those rights to run the course properly, now I know they exist. --Humphrey.Southall (talk) 15:22, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! The procedure for getting the course instructor rights is normally that an instructor adds a request to this page near the end training for educators (as you did), and then someone takes a look at your plans (to try to prevent some of the common missteps in Wikipedia assignment design) and if they seem reasonable, then someone with admin or course coordinator rights add the instructor right to your account. Unfortunately, your request slipped through the cracks. We set up the request system for posting to this noticeboard, because it's pretty active and there are a lot of people watching it. But perhaps because it's been so active with other issues lately (and I think the high volume of edits causes many to tune out), it's not working as intended. Another complication is that the request process is set up to ping the course coordinators who are Regional Ambassadors for the US/Canada programs, but there aren't (yet, at least) any designated course coordinators for handling requests from other countries. I'm going to try to rethink the rights request procedure soon, to make it a little more user friendly, easier to understand, and less prone to failure. (Regarding the "desired for Wikipedia's purposes" bit, I think Biosthmors was referring to the idea he's been promoting that "stub" doesn't mean "needs to be expanded", and you got caught in that cross-fire a bit. By contrast, needing expansion is normally considered the defining attribute of a stub.)

Someone want to give this request another look and grant the instructor right?--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:51, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Sage Ross (WMF), that's not my current position. The problem is in the training materials. As I note above, Wikipedia:Training/For students/Sandbox edits for stubs falsely equates stub with length—and that's false per Quiddity. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Sage. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

• Granted. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Kansas State University ENGL 340

Ceoil Sadads Victoriaearle JMathewson (WMF)

Will someone please deal with the issues occurring with this course; see discussion here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

• And see here. There are important issues raised in this thoughtful discussion. I would have thought that these are precisely the kinds of discussions that WEF Board members would weigh in on. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

"the WEF can't be a labour force to deal with these issues"

Above, it is stated that "the WEF can't be a labour force to deal with these issues". Why is that? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

The WEF will have paid staff, and using their time to directly fix the problems in articles by editing them isn't as good a use of paid time as going out to find and fix the problem classes by meeting with and educating faculty. Partly it's the multiplier effect -- fixing the problem at source is more cost-effective than cleaning up the symptoms without preventing more problems from arising; and partly it's the fact that an institution with a paid staff and a budget can do things that individual volunteers can't do, such as coordinate resources to try to improve professors' understanding of Wikipedia. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:56, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, I agree with these sentiments. But there are two problems: 1) Virtually nobody on the WEF board seems to show any interest in discussing these issues at any level, which I find increasingly shocking. 2) While the WEF shouldn't be dealing with the grunt work directly, it obviously has a responsibility (a "duty of care," as User:DStrassmann put it the other day) to ensure that it is done and/or that it doesn't need to be done. Issues will always arise, even with the best-managed program, and the WEF needs to have a way of responding to them, and of being seen to respond to them and to take them seriously. I honestly don't understand why the WEF board doesn't realize that there's a growing crisis here. Albeit one that could be fixed with a little bit of effort. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:33, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I know you would prefer that the WEF board engaged more here, and I'm sorry we disagree about that. It doesn't mean that there's no discussion or no recognition of these issues.

There's a distinction I see between the US/Canada EP and the WEF that I'm not sure, from your post, that you agree with. I see the US/Canada EP as a Wikipedia community program; it doesn't belong to the WEF, and the WEF doesn't run it. If the Wikipedia community decides to shut down the EP completely, and ban all student editing, the WEF will have no way to stop it beyond individual WEF members commenting in the relevant discussions. I helped create the WEF because as an individual editor who saw potential in the EP I wanted an external partner who could do things to make the EP run more smoothly -- train instructors, curate resources, and so forth. When you say that the WEF needs to respond to these issues, do you mean that it's because they are the WEF's fault, or responsibility, in some way? Or are you just saying that if the WEF claims that it's here to help, then here's the place that it can help? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike, the disengagement of the WEF from Wikipedia, and from discussions on Wikipedia, is misguided on a whole host of levels. Above all it is, quite simply, stupid and self-destructive. I honestly don't understand it, and think that the excuses that you are forced to make on the WEF's behalf are wearing thinner and thinner with time. And I say this as someone who--as you know--believes strongly in the importance of a proper dialogue between Wikipedia and Education, and in the immense benefits that could ensue from such collaboration, if it were done right. Which is why it pains me to see how badly it is being done at present, especially on the part of the WEF.

As far as the particular point to which you're responding here, I think that the WEF board-members "need" to respond to these issues in the first instance simply as a matter of maintaining minimal credibility in the Wikipedia community. It's a matter of, at the very minimum, seeming to care. There are of course other--and better--reasons why they should be responding, but I'm mentioning here only the bare minimum.

Put this another way: after the failed RFC that launched the move towards an WEF, I'd have thought that the working group's priority would have been to win trust among the Wikipedia community. Indeed, that's precisely what certain working group members (such as User:Pharos) mentioned at the RFC itself. The RFC only just failed after all (with a result of "no clear consensus), so the potential to win that trust was there. But everything that the working group, now WEF Board, has done and continues to do since goes against such a basic notion. Why? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 08:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

That's a very good question, in my opinion. I wonder about this myself. The only logical explanation I can speculate at is this: perhaps they think they have a good funding stream already identified. Why else would they be rushing to pay someone else more than they are paying Jami, when clearly there's dissatisfaction with the way things are going? May the community be damned (or just ignored away), is the vibe I get from the WMF. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 08:55, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike Christie, why do you think it's [a] fact that an institution with a paid staff and a budget can do things that individual volunteers can't do, such as coordinate resources to try to improve professors' understanding of Wikipedia? Did you know that last night I was on a google hangout for WP:MEDUCSF and tonight I'll be meeting with students from Education Program:Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies/Gender and International Affairs (Fall 2013)? I don't understand how your position is factual. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:00, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

If there are enough people like you with the time, budget and energy to do what you're doing, coordinate it, successfully resolve the problems we see, improve the general understanding of Wikipedia in academe, and make the education program a clear win-win for both educational institutions and Wikipedia, then you're right. I don't think that's the case, which is why I think the WEF can help. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe in the "me" model. I believe in the WEF helping, but is it still your position that the WEF can't actually help by making edits to fix the problems themselves? Because that doesn't sound helpful at all. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

And is that an implicit acknowledgement that the lawyer said it was OK for WEF staff to edit Wikipedia to clean up student mistakes? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

No -- haven't asked yet, but we will. I suspect your earlier comment is correct, and there is no constraint, but we'll check. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

How can the WEF develop / improve an education program if they are not directly interacting with Wikipedia content and the students editing it? How can one figure out what and were the issues are if one is not "in the arena"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:12, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Would the WEF ever support classrooms to edit under the radar?

Would the WEF ever support classrooms to edit under the radar? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 10:50, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean "Would the WEF tell a class that it's OK to edit under the radar, and there's no need to register?"? If so, no. If you mean "Would the WEF respond to requests for help from a class that had not registered?" then yes -- in fact those seem likely to be among those most in need of help. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:01, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. And would the WEF ever advise classrooms to make edits that are against consensus? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:05, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I thought we'd had this discussion above, with Kevin Gorman and Rjensen? The WEF is going to be advising students and professors how to be successful on Wikipedia. I think we would all agree that anyone advising someone to edit against consensus doesn't know how to be successful on Wikipedia. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, too long, didn't read. But isn't that what the WMF has effectively done, Mike Christie (encourage edits that go against consensus)? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:26, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation November update

Per the last Wiki Education Foundation (WEF) update, we delayed Jami Mathewson's start date with the WEF in order to have a bit more time to gather permissions to transfer contact information from the Wikimedia Foundation to the WEF. Jami will be starting as a WEF employee tomorrow, Wednesday 20th November. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:07, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Would Jami like to help, tomorrow, to help fix issues generated from the current and ongoing assignments? Maybe if Jami saw what a mess things are, and saw what had to be done to fix them, maybe she would be better equipped to help prevent those issues from developing in the first place. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Here are a couple of links that might help one see Jami's perspective on things: [10][11]. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:34, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

That is the kind of utterly irresponsible claptrap that is causing all the problems (and I note that Jami is an ambassador on many of the problem courses above). Is that the kind of information that is being put out to the press, while I've been clamoring for a press release that tells the truth and helps deal with the problems?

How can we organize to get Jami fired before she's hired. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Note that Jami is signed up as in a online volunteer role for every course, but this is merely a workaround for the fact that a course only shows up in your Special:MyCourses page if you are part of the course, and she tries to monitor the activity in all the classes. (I don't think Jami is serving as an actual Online Ambassador for any classes.) We plan to address that flaw in the software, so that anyone can watch a course and have its activity added to their Special:MyCourses feed.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:32, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Sage Ross and Mike Christie, I hope you both know that I respect you, but if what I read above represents what Jami Mathewson and this new venture is about, the source of many of our problems has just become crystal clear, and something needs to be done about it. And when something needs to be done, I am a bulldog. Jami Mathewson is a menace.

Now, I have to go catch up with my article work, as it appears there is at least one good article to come out of this mess, and I look forward to dealing with that article, those few students, giving credit where credit due, and will come back here to report on what I find. Other than that, Jami Mathewson and the rest of whatever like ilk are putting out false PR about this program are responsible for BAD medical information proliferating throughout the internet thanks to Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I do think that that's just going to be a non-starter from the point of view of the WEF. However, maybe Jami would want to find another job anyhow, maybe we could help, and maybe we could help recruit someone else for the job. (I don't want the job in the present state of the WEF, despite expressing previous interest, due to a lack of good direction coming from the WEF, in my opinion.) But that's silly talk, in my opinion. What we really need to do is develop a community policy/guideline to manage the WEF. They obviously aren't going to manage themselves. A system of checks and balances works best, I suppose. We're supposed to be a check on the WEF. So we need to get something accepted as a guideline and/or policy.

Meanwhile, the WEF wants to hire a paid bureaucrat (boss to Jami) to sustain fundraising levels. And if I had to guess, it would be the person who is on the board but hasn't been to the last three board meetings.

So we need to get to writing, in other words. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Essentially we're being compelled to edit by the WMF in response to their mis-managed bureaucracy. I wonder if I can bill the WMF for my time? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:59, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

But according to the WMF, when it comes to collaborating with the education field "everybody wins". I guess this would be false, would it not? But the WMF isn't supposed to speak the truth, are they? They have tons of cash and jobs so they're happy to say whatever, even if it is false, I guess. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 14:17, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Nabil rais2008

User:Nabil rais2008

Nabil rais2008 (talk · contribs)

1. Why do you want to be a Wikipedia Ambassador?

   I want to become Wikipedia ambassador for multiple purposes, 1. To help out student editors in the Wikipedia Education Program, 2. To assist them in daily queries, 3. To share my knowledge related to Wikipedia, 4. And share my rich experience with students of this program. I am editing Wikipedia articles since April 2008, and i think its a quite long journey till here and so furthermore i want to add / my knowledge to Wikipedia from an another aspect and i find this platform a perfect match.

2. In three sentences or less, summarize your involvement with Wikimedia projects.

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

3. Please indicate a few articles to which you have made significant content contributions. (e.g. DYK, GA, FA, major revisions/expansions/copyedits).

   1. List_of_tallest_residential_buildings_in_the_world, 2. Climate_of_Quetta, 3. List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Dubai, 4. Burj_Khalifa, 5. Balochistan_Rural_Support_Programme

4. How have you been involved with welcoming and helping new users on Wikipedia?

   Yeas i have been involved in assisting and suggesting new users in terms of Wikipedia policies and its implementation.

5. What do you see as the most important ways we could welcome newcomers or help new users become active contributors?

   Writing articles and making edits is an art, that everyone must have and so we can motivate new users by unleashing their hidden art of writing articles in Wikipedia

6. Have you had major conflicts with other editors? Blocks or bans? Involvement in arbitration? Feel free to offer context, if necessary.

   Yes i have been involved in a number of conflicts, the major conflicts were in the editing on articles of; Dubai,and Climate of Karachi.

7. How often do you edit Wikipedia and check in on ongoing discussions? Will you be available regularly for at least two hours per week, in your role as a mentor?

   I am quite active rather proactive editor, with currently my edits usually go over 100 per day, so i will be available for at least 2 hours per week as desired.

8. How would you make sure your students were not violating copyright laws?

   Overseeing and implementation of Wikipedia policies pertaining to this education program and policies regarding copyright laws.

9. If one of your students had an issue with copyright violation how would you resolve it?

   I will resolve it in neutral way (without being biased) to make a fair decision, at first i will send an intimation to the student who has violated copyright laws and will tell him about policies and its compliance.

10. In your _own_ words describe what copyright violation is.

    Copyright violation occurs when someone other than the copyright holder copies the “expression” of a work. This means that the idea or information behind the work is not protected, but how the idea is expressed is protected.

11. What else should we know about you that is relevant to being a Wikipedia Ambassador?

    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

What we need before we can accommodate an education program

A week ago I posted the following to Wikimedia-l [12]

The Wikimedia Foundation needs to wake up and deal with the "real tech elephant in the room". Our primary issue is not a lack of FLOW, a lack of a visual editor, or a lack of a rapidly expanding education program. Our biggest issue is copyright infringement. We have had the Indian program, we have had issues with the Education program, and I have today come across a user who has made nearly 20,000 edits to 1,742 article since 2006 which appear to be nearly all copy and pasted from the sources he has used.[13]

This has seriously shaken my faith in Wikipedia. This is especially devastating as there is a tech solution that would have prevented it. The efforts are being worked on by volunteers here [14] and has been since at least March of 2012. We NEED all tech resource at the foundation thrown at this project. Other less important project like FLOW and the visual editor need to be put on hold to develop this tool.

We need tools to help the community deal with the education program and new editors generally before we work really hard on attracting new editors. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 10:17, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe one day, just maybe, the WMF might actually develop something useful for the community and deploy it responsibly. The new notifications system was the exception to the rule, in my opinion. But it had a clear bug, in my opinion, and User:Mdennis (WMF) (last I remember), hasn't responded to my request on her talk page about it. I guess I could trawl through WP:VPT to sort out the WMF mess, but it's kind of hard to motivate me when they don't pay editors to do sensible things. For what it's worth, Jami seems to have "checked out" of this noticeboard. But I'm not sure she has ever really engaged here in the first place. But that's OK. The WMF helped her get a job through the WEF. They're so nice and responsible. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:02, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The WMF do manage to keep the lights on and they do an excellent job of that. I am not sure who "job" it should be to manage the education program. Would be nice to have some programming support to help the community manage it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:16, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I expect Sage is currently working on that. =) On the downside, there is software that could be easily adapted to help boost WikiProject productivity, in my opinion, but the WMF seems disinterested. Perhaps different WMF bureaucracies are fighting themselves while we sit enjoying the lights. How many employees does it take to keep the lights on, exactly? I agree with you though, that a tech solution to spotting plagiarism would be a terrific boon to building an reliable encyclopedia. But they're off and about worried about something only marginally and tangentially related, I suppose. Perhaps they're preparing for a WMF metrics meeting—to present shitty metrics and pat each other on the back for it. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

And it should be our job. We need to draft policy/guideline(s). Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 12:29, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

The WMF does make money potentially available to those who are interested in addressing our problems. Does anyone know a tech person who would be interested in spending a year developing this software and also interested in writing a proposal for $30K in funding to support them to do it? They would have my support.

Additionally the WMF does excellent work convincing cell phone companies to give free access to Wikipedia. You can now get Wikipedia by SMS in Tanzania for those without a feature phone.[15] This last project is why no other platform can compete for my time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:39, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I've worked on that (m:IEG) stuff myself, but it sure is hard to find people to code. The developers are protected from us, because WMF knows best. Or do they? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 13:40, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

30k is pretty grim for a year of work. :| I think the bigger problem is simpler. WMF doesn't need to drop everything and do this. They just need to do it. There's a business shorthand that goes 'something isn't really a priority until it has a budget, a deadline and a person responsible for those two things.' This can't be a GSoC project or an 'open source project.' It needs to be something the WMF builds or contracts out and makes a priority. Protonk (talk) 19:38, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes agree. A couple of full time programmers could make this happen. It should not be that hard. Every new edit of a certain size as it is being made is checked. If it is a copyvio it is flagged. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 07:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Radical essay by Protonk

User:Protonk, an excellent campus ambassador who rarely appears here, has written an essay named "But I digress..." which examines general problems with new users and which also addresses many of the concerns about new users from the education program. The issues which he raises are rarely addressed here. He actually wrote this for the draft namespace proposal, which is the current iteration of the perennial proposal to put new users into a super sandbox. I find Protonk's views sobering in that he is thinking of massive upheaval of current community processes by making Wikipedia much more inviting for lots of new editors.

I wanted to share this here because I think he is talking about the future of the education program from an less-considered perspective which ought to be more considered. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:09, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• I should name all of my essays 'But I digress...' Thanks for the comment. True to form, by the time I finished it, the poll had closed. :) Protonk (talk) 19:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Blue Rasberry for pointing it out, and thanks Protonk for writing it in the first place. I found it quite interesting to read. A lot of it was about technical aspects, where I'm not that well equipped to add anything knowledgeable, but it occurs to me that it might be very helpful to have a series of bots that we could ask classes to run on student contributions (maybe as part of the process of moving content out of sandboxes), that could help fix common things that students tend to get wrong. Some of that could be simple WP:MOS stuff, but I also bet some smart editor could come up with a bot that could be used in medical-related pages, and would check citations for PMIDs and flag those that might fail WP:MEDRS. A broader issue that comes at the beginning of the essay is where Protonk talks about the difference between editors who create whole new pages from scratch, and editors who go around to existing pages and make improvements here and there. I'm thinking about that distinction in terms of what Jbmurray just said here: [16], about how we should want to make students better readers of Wikipedia. And that makes me think that, for class projects, we ought to do more to encourage multiple modest improvements of existing pages, instead of wholesale revisions of pages or creation of new pages, when students often end up giving us stuff that is not really helpful or encyclopedic when they do the latter. Of course, instructors think in terms of something that is obviously measurable, but we ought to think of ways to help instructors work with what we, internally, think of as "gnomish" edits instead. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

There are many, many assignments already like this, such as assignments to "add five sentences" or "add a citation" (I have personally advised on dozens of these). In fact, most professors choose these smaller assignments when they realize just how much work writing a Wikipedia article is. Most of these assignments are not even logged on Wikipedia as such and so the users are not even tagged as students. Wadewitz (talk) 06:57, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Notice the "add" word. Is Wikipedia all about adding more text? The "add a citation" example sounds a bit dubious and backwards. The "add a new article" is popular because of the reward reasons Protonk but also because it is so easy to mark. But it isn't scalable. We have been especially hit by psychology classes. Just how many topics in 1st year "Introduction to Psychology" classes can be added? These students quickly realise their coursework is already on Wikipedia. So they pick something obscure that they haven't actually learned about. Or there were never interested in psychology much and would rather pick neuroscience topics -- good luck to the psychology prof for supervising that work. -- Colin°^Talk 12:53, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I should point out that edits such as the ones Wadewitz mentions above could still be valuable for students in WEP courses. But I just don't think they're the right 'ground state' for new amatuer editors. For WEP our goal is not to make new long term editors but to help students be critical readers of a commonly used resource and help them make something they'll be proud of. Refactoring may be a very important step in that. Protonk (talk) 13:12, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Huh?

What's going on with the edit history on this board right now? Is an edit on here being oversighted? Everything seems to be greyed out. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I've encountered that sort of thing before. When something has to be revdel'd way back, they have to strike 'em all then restore. Or something like that. Wouldn't worry about it, although it seems to indicate that Prof. Potter might have revealed a name, or something. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:25, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

It looks to me like the non-suppressed edits throughout that period are all still visible. I suggest taking a combined diff, starting before the gray part and ending after, in order to see the changes. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:32, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, when I've seen that happen before, the content is still there, but they had to revdel all the diffs to get back to a problem, and then reinstate them all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I pinged User:Beeblebrox because now I see the problem-- I can't read what happened during my nap, because I can't pull up a cumulative diff. That's what I get for sleeping on the job. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

• I replied on my talk page, but the short version is yes, that was me, no I can't tell you anything else. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:17, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Here is the cumulative diff: [17]. I highly recommend it, because it includes a lot of my own comments. I'm pretty sure it includes everything that happened in the interim, minus what Beeblebrox quite properly took out (I saw it briefly before the removal, and my lips are sealed). --Tryptofish (talk) 23:57, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Psychosurgery et al

All the hallmarks of student editing, copyvio, but I cannot locate a course. Anybody know? Once again. We need a template for querying whether an editor is part of course. I do not have time to continue to engage, tutor, mentor, fix edits of, every student who hits my watchlist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Me too, about not having the time. I know I've said this before, but no one should ever feel bad about reverting when reverting is appropriate. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:34, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

yes, but, where there is one student, there are often two dozen. It would be nice to be able to find the prof/course (before they keep wasting their time and mine). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

I've had success in the past by just asking a one line question, I'm not sure we need an actual template. Tangentially, I'm starting to feel pretty okay with the idea of preventing classes from working in MEDRS areas unless they are working in close collaboration with an ambassador or other editor who has a solid understanding of our medical and non-medical content policies. Kevin Gorman (talk) 01:20, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

See the section right under this one, where the poster mentions a template. (That editor has moved on to other articles, indicating a general competency issue rather than a student competency issue.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:45, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

So, ANYBODY WANT TO POINT TO THAT STUDENT TEMPLATE YET ????? Because Spondylolisthesis just got hit by massive WP:MEAT, and this illustrious board can't even point to a template for querying student editors. Oh, never mind, we need to develop our own at WP:MED, that will tell them why they have to be mass reverted, point them to the poorly written WP:ASSIGN that they can't understand, and tell them about MEDRS. IN all of our free time while we are enjoying our HOBBY of contributing to Wikipedia.

Is it really too much to ask someone to put a template at the top of this page so we have a means of first talking to redlinked accounts who are clearly students, without having to dream it up ourselves dozens of times a day. SandyGeorgia (Talk)

Template:Welcome student was pointed out below, and it goes in the direction you are talking about, but it maybe could be revised to make it more emphatic. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:50, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Trypto. As if we had time to even begin to review the 98 messes that were dropped on us this week from Georgia (in spite of me advising well in advance there were problems there, and yet nothing was done), they keep a coming and a template helps. This board and this program is not going to help us. I got a long email today that showed me that all of our typing and all of our effort was for nothing and the message is simply not getting through on any level. We need to develop our own template at WT:MED that does a bit of what that template does but also points them to our supposedly useless [{WP:ASSIGN]], and explains why we have to remove text that does not meet MEDRS. I put up a test case days (week?) ago about the problems coming with Georgia, and for someone to suggest that we can even begin to review and tag 98 articles (as we would "any new editor" or article) misses everything. New editors start slow and can be educated-- sometimes the ratio for educating them is 5 to 1. Here they are running hundreds of them to one of us, and well, of course we can't even engage, welcome, tag, do anything ... we cannot keep up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

{{subst:Welcome medical student}} SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Probable undocumented student assignment on Thailand-related articles

These last few days several new Thailand-related articles have been created by new editors. (Found these at User:AlexNewArtBot/ThailandSearchResult.) It looks like a (pretty basic) school assignment, but it's lacking a course page. I haven't seen any problems regarding copyright/plagiarism, but some articles were redundant and have had to be redirected. I've given the editors the standard student-welcome message. Not sure if there is yet a need for more direct communication; there haven't really been any serious issues. --Paul_012 (talk) 09:22, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

OH, lovely. I have been asking repeatedly here on this board, about a template that can be used in these cases, and have been told there isn't one and we don't need one. User:Paul 012, the competent staffers have pointed me to no such template, and I need it daily. Could you please specify where it can be found? If any of the staffers can be rousted from their coffee breaks and champagne, could they please place the template someplace noticeable at the top of this board? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Sage has mentioned before that he and Andrew Green are working toward making the extension work like a Wikipedia page should. That means when they enroll on the page, it will show up in their contribs, which will make it far easier to identify them. Unfortunately, Andrew just came on as a developer within the last 2 months, and we needed a developer to make this happen. I can guarantee you, as the person who probably most cares about identifying student usernames, that the education extension and "enroll" feature has made students drastically more visible than when it was simply a "please ask your students to add their username to your course page" or "please send me their usernames so I can add them to your course page." There's still always going to be the issue of students who don't enroll or even classes we don't know about to ask them to do so. Now that I wrote that out, I should make sure to clarify :): is that the template you're looking for, or do you want one that greets students? That would be a template we could fairly easily create. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

(There's already {{welcome student}}, but if you think we should change it/try to improve it, then we can work on that). Sage just told me the current plan is to add a little box on Special:Contribs at the top that shows up if you are part of a course, saying which course and who the leaders are. He thinks this will be available within a few weeks, which is faster than it would be to make the enroll show up on their contribs. I'm really glad they found this nice workaround, since it should be a lot easier to spot. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

WP:WEF accuracy

Is the page WP:WEF accurate in its listing of current board members? I notice, from the minutes, and according to my memory, that it appears AlienInn (talk · contribs) has not been to the last three meetings. Are they still on the board? Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 11:44, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they're still on the board. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:58, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Why is this allowed?

Cannabidiol effect on epilepsy.

Have a read of it. No you haven't stumbled onto the Daily Mail website. This is still Wikipedia. The huge "Charlotte Figi" section in the middle is entirely unsourced. Perhaps to hide the fact that is is essentially taken from the CNN documentary. This article was listed on the course page while still a draft. So the prof knew it had been chosen by the student. Now perhaps Cannabidiol will be the next ketogenic diet but this is a single case. And one documented by the popular press, not the medical profession. Why was the Cochrane Epilepsy Group's review "Cannabinoids for epilepsy" PMID 22696383 not mentioned? Perhaps because it completely contradicts the point of the article? Even the low-quality-evidence of "Report of a parent survey of cannabidiol-enriched cannabis use in pediatric treatment-resistant epilepsy" PMID 24237632 would have been better than CNN. Most of the sources cited are primary research papers on rats and mice.

Why was this subject not discussed with the prof, an outline of the topic/article produced, and the sources listed. All before anything was written. It would become clear that there is very little one can write about on Wikipedia on the subject of "Cannabinoids for epilepsy" -- stub at most. It properly just warrants a sentence in some other article, along the lines of the Cochrane conclusion.

I'm sorry, but any class (instructor, assistants) who let this go from draft to mainspace should be stopped now. I don't care if the prof claims to have 6 years of experience. There is quite clearly absolutely no effective supervision or control in place with this class. So, WEF, what are you doing about his? Both specifically this class, and in general to stop it in future? -- Colin°^Talk 13:31, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't had time to review all of them, but with the exception of agraphia (after a large effort by dolfrog and myself), everything that I have seen from that course needs to be reverted. If this board doesn't do something, ANI is next. We do not have time to deal with all of this-- and several dozen articles were dropped in this week, not to mention what is still to come from other courses. It looks like Jami et al are not going to be dealing with this, or not able to deal with this, and it may be time to bring in more effective dispute resolution. Full article listing, for ANI resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: As Mike mentioned, I'm on Pacific and have spent my morning catching up on this. I have spoken with the professor in the past, though less so going into this semester (As far as I'm aware, his class didn't produce any big problems last term). User:Biosthmors has been the medical contact on this class—since Wiki Project Med has been around, we've tried to pair a medical ambassador with those classes to make sure the MEDRS and other subject-specific concerns are met. Biosthmors, I'm not sure if you had the chance to work closely with Dr. Potter this term, since you aren't in Atlanta right now? Anyway, I'm happy to reach out to him right away; I don't have the medical expertise that you guys do, so it would be helpful to have clear points of what to convey to him. Do we want to delete all of their articles/revert any edits to existing articles? If that's the plan of action, I will definitely relay the message. Jami (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to do what I can with this class. That's why you see WP:MEDRS on Education_Program:Georgia_Institute_of_Technology/Introduction_to_Neuroscience_(Fall_2013), but I don't think the students are being graded upon making sure the edits follow MEDRS. Also, I don't think the students understand the policy WP:PRIMARY. Biosthmors (talk) pls notify me (i.e. {{U}}) while signing a reply, thx 19:18, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Task force on medical articles

I suggest the WEF set up a task force that deals with classroom editing projects on medical topics. It can ask WikiProject Medicine to nominate some of the members in addition to experienced educators nominated by WEF. The task force should be asked to propose recommendations to WEF by a deadline. Rjensen (talk) 14:09, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

WEF needs to do something about this problem immediately, or the next step is escalation to ANI. WT:MED has more than it can handle from this one Georgia course, and there are others appearing. I will be out today for a family friend's funeral, but I expect to see some response from all those staffers on coffee break soon. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

You realize there's exactly one staffer, right? Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:11, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with SandyGeorgia that currently there should be no classroom editing of medical topics at all. There is insufficient editor time for supervising these, and I believe other Wikipedians might not be sufficiently versed in the details of WP:MEDRS and WP:MEDMOS to promote sustainable editing. There is a non-zero risk of disrupting content on important health topics, and while we have a medical disclaimer this could have measurable consequences. JFW | T@lk 14:28, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

There's a class of fourth year med students currently underway at UCSF that has worked closely with me, Doc James, and Bios. I have no doubt that they will be able to produce quality content. Any regulation of what classes can edit needs to both allow for those classes that *can* produce quality content to continue to edit, and needs to recognize that plenty of classes run under the radar (which is both undesirable and hard to detect.) Something like a {{stickyprod-failsMEDRS}} seems like it might be a good way both to address student problems and nonstudent problems. Kevin Gorman (talk) 00:10, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Sandy, I'm at work but should be able to respond occasionally. (Just FYI, the only WEF employee is on Pacific time.) What does the community want the WEF to actually do in this case? I've made suggestions in earlier threads for what could be done, including contacting professors. How can the WEF help? Do you want Jami to reach out to that professor? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:40, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

For starters, he needs to deal with getting his class work off of Wikipedia himself-- we dont' have time for all the afds, merge requests, citation checking, etc. He needs to prod, revert, remove, whatever ... agraphia is the only quality work I am aware of. then you all need to start dealing with all of the other courses that are hitting med content. thanks mike, sorry, late for a funeral, but we have had enough. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I would like WEF to help make it policy that running a class on WP like this one isn't acceptable any more. It absolutely scares me that Wadewitz says she gets called daily from profs wanting to run classes on WP. Well I don't see those profs editing on WP. Stop promoting classes on WP run by profs who don't edit, don't have the first clue, and don't want to get involved working with their students to produce great articles. Stop running classes where the students are editing far beyond their understanding and capabilities. Really, a reboot is required where we slowly grow Wikipedian professors and classroom assistants who then inspire their pupils to write great content. Classes that are self-supporting and led by those completely clued up who can help their students with policy and guidelines and can revert the plagiarism and harmful nonsense. Where wikipedian education people can help each other out Because the model where classes rely completely on the volunteer base to detect/fix/improve is busted. It doesn't scale and never was there really. The above article is Daily Mail crap reporting dumped on Wikipedia for us to sort out. Not acceptable at all. Why would anything accept standards this low? -- Colin°^Talk 15:54, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@All - I am putting on my admin hat here for a minute. There are lots of dynamics going on here--substantive content issues (they are real), Wikipedia process issues (they are real), the education program (it has a role in WP), and a lot of emotion (unfortunately a big distraction, but it is real). When I awoke this morning and saw this discussion unfolding, the first thing that came to mind was WP:Ownership of articles. OWNERSHIP is Wikipedia Policy. Lets not find ourselves making statements or proposing actions that go counter to that policy. If you haven't read it lately, please do so. --Mike Cline (talk) 15:03, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Good enough. AN will be next, then. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Went and re-read it. Was particularly struck by the fact that it's so disorganized it puts article stewardship at the bottom. Nonetheless, I think that most of the concerns being expressed are stewardship-related concerns (remember, we've already had problems keeping longtime topic-area stewards when the topic area is flooded with poor quality student editing), rather than WP:OWN concerns. Risker (talk) 15:21, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Mike Cline, I've had enough of your accusations of bad faith and blank refusal to accept the complaints we are making have any grounding in reality. Could you perhaps find some other way of occupying your time? -- Colin°^Talk 15:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

@Colin, your confidence in my ability to influence this discussion in any meaningful way is inspiring. You are masterfully playing on my reactance tendencies with your clever use of reverse psychology. I trust my contributions will continue to help move us forward. Thanks for the astute vote of confidence. --Mike Cline (talk) 16:15, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I think just about everyone needs to calm down about this, and recognize that we all want what is best for Wikipedia, but I want to say specifically to Mike that Risker is correct: the concerns here are about stewardship and not ownership. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:39, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

Maybe, Mike Cline, emotions are running high because NO ONE WILL ANSWER BASIC QUESTIONS !!! <redacted> Never mind. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm strongly in favor of a better template for medical pages, and I'm certainly trying to help make ASSIGN more effective. But in the interests of lower editorial blood pressure, I'd like to point to Molecular neuroscience as a page that really has been improved, a lot, by a student in the GA Tech class. And see: [18] and [19]. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 22 November 2013 (UTC)