Wikipedia:Education noticeboard/Incidents

(For help, see Wikipedia:Purge)

Purpose of this page			Using this page
Welcome to the Education Program Incidents page. This page is for reporting and discussing specific incidents related to student editing and/or the Education Program on the English Wikipedia that require the intervention of experienced editors and/or administrators. Topics may include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Unresponsive classrooms or those editing with poorly managed or structured courses Classrooms editing without a course page or with an ambiguous page And any other issue that might relate to student assignments Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith.			Before posting a grievance about a user here, please discuss the issue with them on their user talk page. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. Please include diffs to help us find the problem you are reporting. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". Threads are automatically archived after 7 days of inactivity. Where possible and relevant, please include the following information with any report: Article(s), Course, Instructor, Online volunteers, and Student.
See also
Special:Courses (a list of courses using the Education Program extension)		Wikipedia:Student assignments, for information about class editing norms		Wikipedia:Training, to get an introduction to Wikipedia

Click here to start a new discussion thread

---

Archives (Index)

1 1 2 3 4 s/6 5 6 7

Pre-Botzinger complex, Marquette University Neurobiology course article

@Ryan (Wiki Ed) and Ian (Wiki Ed):: There is trouble here. Some editors noticed that two articles Pre-Botzinger Complex and Pre-Botzinger complex existed, the former containing new student work. Two days ago a merger was proposed, and yesterday the merger was "boldly" carried out, thereby wiping out the student work. Obviously this will cause fear, uncertainty, and doubt, not to mention confusion. Looie496 (talk) 14:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for raising this @Looie496:. I saw this yesterday and it should be fine (though I will drop the instructor a note, just in case). While one member of the group moved their sandbox into mainspace, another (correctly) merged the sandbox content into the main article. The bold merge was actually the correct thing to do. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:27, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Looie496, 6487heffroa, 2456ambrosa, BiologyGF, MMBiology, and Natg 19: Thanks for the heads up. I'm also pinging the students working on the article, their professor, and the editor who redirected it.

Here's what it looks like happened:

• Pre-Botzinger complex (lowercase c) existed as a stub first.
• Pre-Botzinger Complex (capital C) was developed in a student's sandbox and moved to the article space on 3/31.
• A student also copied the content into the lowercase c article. The result is two pages which are identical except that the lowercase c article already had a stub with sources which is now the lead. No harm in redirecting.
• @6487heffroa, 2456ambrosa, and BiologyGF: It looks like a major to-do list item for you is to figure out what to do with the content that was already there, including all those references (I don't know how good they are, but there are more references in the lead than in the rest of the article -- and some sections of the article don't cite any sources at all). The lead should just summarize the rest of the article.

@MMBiology: If you look for individual contributions through this point, you can see them at the history for the capital C article.

((edit conflict) I see Ian already explained part of this :) ) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:38, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Segmentation in Human Nervous System

This new article has the appearance of an educational assignment, but no information about what course it goes with. The topic is valid, but the article is just a collection of random facts, worse than useless to a reader. It would probably be as easy to start from scratch as to turn this article into something useful. Looie496 (talk) 14:56, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

@Looie496: Thanks again. Out of curiosity, what about this one signals it being a class assignment? I haven't had time to take a close look at the style of writing, but it looks just like an article created in the sandbox first? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:40, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

It looks like an educational assignment because it looks like an editor trying to write about a topic that they don't understand, and throwing together a bunch of random facts to give a pretense of understanding. A person who had even a basic understanding of nervous system segmentation would write a very different article. Looie496 (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Looking at their talk page, it appears to be their second try at this; their original attempt was deleted. I need to switch accounts to see what was in the deleted article, but I'm guessing it's the same as what's here. Anyway, I think it best to userfy the article, so I moved it to User:Origins3F03100/Segmentation in Human Nervous System and left them a note about it. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:45, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Above my pay scale

Template:Course link

Could someone please sort this? I don't do images, and this is above my pay scale.

Skinner's Pigeon uploaded File:Gray matter loss in pediatric schizophrenia.JPG as "own work" from http://www.abnormalchildpsychology.org . That website seems to belong to or be associated with a professor who teaches psychology at Denison University. Article edits by students from Skinner's Pigeon's course (at Denison University) are extensively citing a book by that same professor (without page numbers, by the way).[1] This looks like a multiple COI situation; should Skinner's Pigeon be declaring a COI on his user page, and should the students be citing his work? Or should the students be declaring a COI per citing their prof's own work? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I have concerns with this. Students should be using higher quality references such as review articles. We should be using major medical textbooks rather than a profs abnormal psyc book. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:09, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm confused - why should we use medical textbooks rather than psych textbooks for child development articles? (Note that this is not a comment on the potential COI issue.) Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:22, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

As the image appears to have issues (website doesn't state a licence, therefore is assumed copyrighted), I've nominated it for deletion. Mdann52 (talk) 18:31, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Mdann52, the editor has uploaded other images. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:19, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

@Doc James and SandyGeorgia: Addressing the COI matter in particular (putting aside the image and the extent to which they may be relying on the textbook): Would a satisfactory approach be for the prof to disclose the COI on behalf of himself and the class's participants (listed at the course page) on the talk pages for the articles the students work on? Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in, Ryan. The general problem with using a broad overview textbook is that, because of the time required to bring to print, it is unlikely to include the latest or most detailed on a particular topic. The specific problem that can come to the table in cases like this one is a potential COI where students are promoting their prof's work (I am not saying that is the aim here, just that it is something seen very frequently with student editing, albeit not always readily apparent). It seems that at minimum, both students and prof (and course page?) should have COI disclaimers, and the students might be instructed to avoid using their prof's book, or to suggest it on talk, because ... In every case I've checked, there are good secondary recent journal reviews available, most often even free full text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Ryan (Wiki Ed) SandyGeorgia I think there is no certain best practice here. Definitely I think student pages should link to the course page, but I am not as sure as Sandy that student pages also need to talk about COI. In my opinion, it would be enough for student pages to link to the course page, then the course page talk about the COI. My proposal would be this:

• Post on the course page "Information shared in this course includes content from Book X, written by the instructor of this course"
• Post on the professor's user page "This person is the instructor in (link to course page). Information shared in this course includes content from Book X, written by me."
• Post on every student's page "This person is a participant in (link to course page)."

For the future, if someone started the conversation, I might support a proposal about having Wiki Ed people (or any staff) post important information like this to userpages routinely, because making connections between students and the course should happen as soon as possible. Ideally if the software existed some of the connections could be automatically posted when anyone enrolled in a class as student or professor.

Ian (Wiki Ed) - I have not seen this textbook, but some textbooks rely on the authority of an author, and some are backed by institutional review. As always with health claims, information should come from sources which meet WP:MEDRS. Some psych books meet this, some do not, and it should be apparent at a glance which ones do. Any psych textbook is fine for talking about aspects of psychology which are not health claims. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Bluerasberry - but these are psychology topics. Which is why I am puzzled by the assertion that a medical text is preferable for psychology topics to a psychology text. Even an excellent textbook is rather less good when writing about topics outside the field of expertise of its primary authors and reviewers. Ian (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:55, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Ian (Wiki Ed) Biology is life science, and there are lots of things to say about life science and even health science which are not health claims. Information about biology or even health science which is not making health claims can be shared without MEDRS sources. Similarly, in psychology only a part of the field addresses health issues, and most of psychology describes something else. Whenever making a health claim, MEDRS applies no matter the field - cooking, architecture, politics, sports, fashion, whatever. Whenever talking about anything unrelated to health, like most of psychology, MEDRS sources are not required. Many people do not discriminate at all between the information they consume, and treat health information as casually as they would anything else. On Wikipedia there is a line around health claims. The standards at WikiProject Medicine are not high; they just put a minimal floor saying that below a certain point no one should use worse sourcing. It is the least that anyone can do to try to prioritize health claims from sources related to the field of medicine. It is actually rather uncommon for papers in psychology to make health claims, even though it is common for new users on Wikipedia to invent their own health claims not in the original source and try to argue that the paper cited supports their new claim. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Another problem with this course's edits (see sandboxes as well) is the usual (mis) understanding about wikilinks and encyclopedic writing, and adding unnecessary content in the wrong places. For example, this course is trying to rewrite schizophrenia at pediatric schizophrenia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

See scary sample at User:StephAntone/sandbox.

And their use of decades-old sources, sample at User:Mollieevans23/sandbox. (Anorexia nervosa has been hit hard this term, and from what looks like about three different courses.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:11, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

• comment - I work at WP:COIN a lot. going back to the original post at the top, i think that students citing an instructor's textbook is very troubling and there should be something about this in instructor guidelines. here are the issues:

• per WP:SELFCITE (part of the section on Writing about yourself and your work in the WP:COI guideline), editors are generally advised not to cite their own work. See also the last bullet in WP:EXPERT
• COI issues at schools around professors assigning students to buy and use their own books/works is a well known topic (see here, for example from the AUP); having students edit WP using the textbook adds an additional level of COI, per the bullet above
• to the extent that students depend on their edits for their grade (which happens a lot as we have discussed before), they already have a COI. adding the risks around offending or brown-nosing your teacher by citing his or her work, just adds yet more COI pressure on top of that.

so... in my view, there should be strong advice to instructors to not allow their students to cite the instructor's work. Just take that whole bundle of issues out of the picture. that is my perspective. Jytdog (talk) 14:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

@Eryk (Wiki Ed): Can you think of somewhere in one or more of the materials for instructors where it might make sense to bring up some quick best practices regarding classroom-specific COI issues in general? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:56, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Anorexia nervosa

It looks as if potentially three different classes are editing AN. Could someone please have a look at Sisipherr and Talk:Anorexia nervosa? It is taking a lot of work to keep up with it all ... perhaps someone on staff can get these courses to register and read/understand MEDRS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Just reposting my reply to the emails I received: My small medical research and ethics class attempted to read the MEDRS guide and figure out how to add citations to Wikipedia, but there were clearly some issues. We do some work on Wikiversity, but will not be doing further work on Wikipedia. I didn't register a formal class page because a handful of students were doing a very brief exercise on one day. I admit that we had trouble understanding parts of the citation guide, but I was very distressed by the extreme hostility directed toward my students when they made mistakes. My students say that they received confrontational, shaming, and mean-spirited messages from editors when they attempted to act in good faith, and I'm that worried none of these students will work up the nerve to try again. I'm sorry for the trouble we caused. In the future, we will avoid participating in Wikipedia. Sisipherr (talk) 18:22, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Sisipherr, those are curious statements, since as far as I can tell, there are no messages directed at your students (that is, those presumed to be your students) on their talk pages, and this is the only message I am aware of. Could you please provide any diffs to back these interpretations of "hostility"? You might also observe that, had you registered a course, they might have had a different experience. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:30, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

For example, this one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:39, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

One of the research groups that contacted me this morning was very upset about some messages or emails they received (I need to speak with them further to clarify where they received these). I am also trying my very best to work in good faith and navigate what is to me a very confusing interface in which it can be quite difficult to find assistance. I'm very sorry that I angered you and created more work. I'm very willing to take the blame for their bad experience. I had not encountered the call to "register a course" before, despite having looked through the Project Education page recommended to me Sisipherr (talk) 18:50, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Sisipherr: First, I don't know why you assume you have "angered me" or that any blame taking is needed (this is how it goes in here :) Second, this characterization of "hostility" exemplies one of the reasons I don't use email for these kinds of situations (all of my correspondence is visible to all, so misinterpretations can be avoided). Third, I seriously understand the confusing policies, guidelines, etc in here ... and hope you realize that if you had approached an article talk page (as in the example above), the experience could have been very different for your students. When six or eight accounts hit an article all at once, with no introduction, it can be hard to tell if that is student editing, sockpuppetry, meatpuppetry, or off-Wiki recruiting! Had your class introduced itself, someone could have explained MEDRS ... and that ultimately is why I posted here. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:56, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

I do want to clarify that I asked them to discuss any citations they were unsure of on the talk page first, but it looks like a few people skipped around that. I just sent an email to the research team reminding them to do so if they attempt any live-article edits in the future. For additional future reference, can you/anyone let me know how to register a course? I think I'm misunderstanding what that means. Sisipherr (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

Sisipherr Someone who "works here" should come along shortly to help you with that part ... I don't understand that part myself, since the software isn't the usual for Wikipedia (and that is also why I posted here requesting help ... Wiki Ed has paid staff). By the way, they should also provide you some handouts or info on sourcing, but Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-06-30/Dispatches may also help! There are scores and scores of free full text secondary reviews available on PubMed ... pls ask your students to use PMIDs :) I'm glad you're sticking with it ... and please post any questions to my talk page if needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 9 April 2015 (UTC)

@Sisipherr: Hi, I'm Ryan, classroom program manager with the Wiki Education Foundation. For the time being I'm just going to address the question of what it means to have a course page and what kind of support is available. I've left a message with that information on your user talk page. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 03:44, 10 April 2015 (UTC)