Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

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

The Education Working Group's proposal that was submitted to WMF, revised based on the RfC and related discussions, is now up. It looks like the next step, about 2 weeks from now, will be to submit it to the Affiliations Committee. You can post feedback and suggestions on the proposal talk page.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting about this. Any idea when another RfC might be done? Biosthmors (talk) 20:35, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

The working group doesn't have any plans to do a further RfC -- its remit is essentially over now. Do you have a particular question in mind? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

How long will comments be gathered? Will there be any attempt to get community input other than posting at this noticeboard? Biosthmors (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

What does "its remit is essentially over now" mean? Does that mean that the Wikipedia:Education Working Group/Proposal is a "dead" proposal? Biosthmors (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

No, it means that the working group was created by the WMF in order to create the proposal. It's done that, and delivered the proposal, so it's completed its task. The proposal is now in the hands of the WMF, not the working group. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Why not just start an RfC asking the community what it thinks of the proposal at Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group/Proposal? Biosthmors (talk) 04:52, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The goal was for the first RfC to gather input on the plans; the proposal doesn't differ greatly from the outline given at the RfC, which linked to the working group pages. As it turned out, the first RfC discussed a broader range of issues, and there wasn't a great deal of direct discussion of the details of the proposed organization. Some things have been added -- for example, there's now a specification of how the board will be elected, which was missing at the time of the RfC. Overall I don't think enough is new for it to be worth an RfC, but that's just my opinion. As far as community input is concerned, I think the WMF is always interested in input on this topic -- Jami Mathewson and Annie Lin are the people I would start with. If they decide to create the new organization then it will definitely be interested in ongoing community input. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

To add to what Mike said, it seems quite likely that we'll move forward along the lines of the proposal, with the next step being to go to the Affiliations Committee. If anyone has concerns about the specifics of the current proposal, now is a great time bring them up. In addition to Annie and Jami (and myself), I expect that Mike and the other proposed initial board members are also keenly interested in specific concerns and ideas for the (potential) new education program organization.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I think an RfC (or something to get feedback) should start on the proposal. There's clearly not enough attention being paid to the proposal on the talk page. Biosthmors (talk) 05:35, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Biosthmors: this is all rather odd. We had an RFC, which was to all intents and purposes ignored (admittedly it was messy, but it produced no kind of mandate either). And there's obviously no real desire to consult with Wikipedians about the program. My sense is that the WMF and the working group feel that they had their fingers burnt once too often, and wanted to plough ahead with the schedule they had set themselves.

But on the other hand, so be it. Essentially, the EP doesn't need to have much if anything to do with Wikipedia and its governance model. There's nothing to stop independent bodies such as this from arising and using Wikipedia for their own purposes. We can't insist that they do things the Wikipedia way. If there's some kind of positive outcome at least some of the time, then fair enough. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 16:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Preliminary lists of 2013 Quarter 1 courses

Here at in-progress lists of classes it looks like will be participating in the US and Canada Education Programs for the coming term. I expect both will grow a fair bit.

• United States courses
• Canada courses

--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 18:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for posting! Biosthmors (talk) 20:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

"Evaluating Wikipedia Article Quality" brochure

The brochure "Evaluating Wikipedia Article Quality" is mentioned under Wikipedia:Training/For_educators/Companion_materials but does not seem to be listed under the Resources tab mentioned.

I found it here

Cleeder (talk) 15:27, 5 January 2013 (UTC)Cleeder

I've just added it to the Resources page in the "Writing articles" section. Thanks for posting about it!--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Direct link is here. Sage, there's a typo on page 5. This sentence: "For instance, a biography that skips an entire period of that its subject's life suggests it may be missing important facts" should lose the "that" in the middle, and perhaps would be better as "For instance, a biography that skips an entire period of its subject's life may be missing important facts" or "For instance, if a biography skips an entire period of its subject's life, that suggests it may be missing important facts". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:34, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Ack! I'll check with LiAnna whether there are plans to revise that one soon, and if not, I'll fix the typo and update it.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 14:22, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Education program interactions with the community

DGG suggested to me recently that it might be helpful to clarify some points that keep coming up, related to what the community can expect from education program participants. He and I worked on a draft and I sent it to the working group participants to get their take on it, since that's a group of editors and educators who have been involved with the EP for a while. Here's what emerged, slightly edited from the original draft.

I would like to see the new US/Canada EP organization, if the WMF creates it, adopt some language like this; and I think it would be helpful if the global EP made a similar statement of intent. I've used "EP" as shorthand for the new organization, whatever its name turns out to be.

The EP will encourage all US and Canadian courses writing articles for WP to work through the EP, but it cannot undertake that all courses will do so, because of the WP principle that anyone can edit WP.

The EP will not request any special treatment for the Wikipedia editing done by students, faculty or ambassadors. For example, there have been cases where students have requested that articles not be deleted, or that DYK or GA reviews should be accelerated in order to meet course deadlines, or that student edits be left untouched until reviewed by an instructor or until the end of a class. The community cannot be expected to support these requests; the EP will explain to instructors that their students will be treated the same way all new editors are treated, and the EP will help them plan instructional design that does not require special treatment.

The EP will explain to faculty and ambassadors that it is their responsibility to teach the basic norms of Wikipedia and to include assignments that promote submissions that have the potential for being acceptable articles. In particular, the EP will emphasize the instructors' responsibility to emphasize Wikipedia's citation policies, to check postings for possible copyright violations or plagiarism, and to penalize students who do not comply. The community will review the work and assist EP editors as it does for all editors, but can expect that people trained by the EP will understand the fundamental standards that all submissions are expected to meet.

The EP's procedures will be devised so that all concerned know the responsibility for editing and supervision, so that class work will be identifiable as coming from the students in the class, and so that class contributions to articles or discussions are attributed to the proper individuals according to WP policy.

Any comments or improvements to the wording? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:45, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

The only problem with this is that it is not in fact about the Education Program's interactions with the community. It has much more to say about the program's relation with faculty, students, and ambassadors--who, strangely I think, are here not taken to be part of the program itself--and about the relation between student editors (again not part of the program) and Wikipedia. How the EP itself is to interact with the community remains strangely undefined. If anything, it looks like a series of pre-emptive buck-passings. But again, as I have just said, perhaps this doesn't matter. As a body entirely separate from Wikipedia or (it seems) the WMF, then it can do what it wants. So be it. --16:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I like all the central ideas here. I'm wary of the wording on the "will not request any special treatment" paragraph. For example, in my opinion, it's totally reasonable to request an accelerated GA review (assuming someone who knows what they are doing has taken a look, and it's a good enough article for a GA review to be worthwhile in the first place). This isn't really special treatment, as anyone could make the same request; the community shouldn't be pressured to prioritize those kinds of requests from EP students. But students are going to be able to respond to reviews if they happen quickly, and reviewers will often want to take that into account. That's what happened with the behavioral ecology class last term, where WikiProject Birds editors and others noticed a surge of GA nominations and tried to give them timely reviews. (I also requested quick GA reviews on this noticeboard, although I don't know that my request resulted in any reviews.) It turned out pretty well, with (by my count) six GAs so far, and students generally responding to the feedback and improving the articles for reviews that were done quickly (even if they they stopped editing before getting all the way to GA quality). So, making requests based on the timeline of a course is totally reasonable, I think. Of course, there shouldn't be any expectation that such requests will automatically be honored. But there's nothing wrong with asking.

(To be clear, we now explicitly discourage putting any sort of GA or DYK nomination as part of the assignment requirements. But this class had already done that, and were doing solid work, so it turned out pretty well. And I agree that requests to leave edits untouched are not acceptable.)--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 15:17, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Requesting expedited review of AfCs is a good idea. I recently reviewed a couple of of AfCs from students that were submitted at the very end of last semester. I accepted one (although it needed additional work) and rejected another. Since the AfC review happened in early January the students didn't receive feedback from the Wikipedia community until after they had received their grades for the class. This is really a problem with the class due dates - if the assignment is due on the last day of class then even an expedited review will take place after the class is ended and the student has limited incentive to fix problems with the article. Ideally, I think an instructor should have the students submit an AfC or an initial version of an article by, say, midterm and then expand the article and respond to any feedback by the end of the semester so that they can gain experience with the collaborative process of Wikipedia. In this scenario expedited AfC review is also important because we would want to make sure that students have as much time as possible to improve their articles in response to feedback. GabrielF (talk) 16:12, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I would strongly advise against sending articles through the present AfC system. I work there a lot, sometimes reviewing articles, but mainly trying to catch the worst mistakes reviewers there make--mistakes in both directions--rejecting adequate articles, and not catching problems as major as copyvio. There are presently no qualification to being an AfC reviewer, and many people start there immediately after their first article gets accepted, or even earlier. I and others have been trying to teach them, but I would say that not just some but most AfC reviewing is incompetent. I think it much more advisable for a class to run its own review process, and perhaps I can think of a wording to that effect. I consider the basic job of both the instructor and the ambassador that of seeing articles get improved sufficiently to be acceptable in mainspace, and that is all that AfC can do even at its best. I consider using AfC for this purpose will be trusting your students to the ignorant, to those who should be learning what to do here, rather than trying to instruct or approve others. I'm going to add a sentence about this.

Gabriel and Sage, I recognize you have very considerable experience at this, and obviously think the AfC process more reliable than I do--perhaps because I tend to concentrate of finding problems there. If you have found it usable, perhaps it is also because you have already done an adequate review yourself before the articles have been submitted.

I would also recommend against making GA review part of a requirement, or, much worse, a grading system. The people doing GA review are by and large considerably more experienced than the ones reviewing at AfC. Although there are no controls over what they do, the result of what they do is a little more visible, and this helps. But still the results will be quite erratic. I think using any WP process for grading inappropriate, unless you set the goal as an article that has been shown acceptable, or ought to have been shown acceptable. This means that if the WP standards are used, the instructors should learn to use them themselves. It's an abdication of professional responsibility for instructors not to set their own standards and do their own grading. DGG ( talk ) 16:44, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree with you about AfC, DGG. In my experience, while some classes do alright with it, I don't think it's something that any assignment should rely on. Here's the one place I can think of in the training where it's mentioned (which people should feel free to edit): Wikipedia:Training/For students/Sandbox edits for new articles. I also agree about grading, and that should be reflected in all the current training and advice literature for the program. My only point above was that I don't think we should prohibit people from asking for timely GA reviews, for individual student articles where it seems likely to be useful.--Sage Ross (WMF) (talk) 16:54, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

DGG, you make some important points that I'll have to think about carefully as I work as an ambassador this semester. For the purposes of this thread though, I agree with Sage that students and instructors shouldn't be restricted from asking for an expedited review. Students face a time pressure that other editors don't have to deal with and if we want to get the best work that we can out of them we should try to make sure that their articles don't spend two or more weeks sitting in a backlog. This is more applicable to GA and AfC which frequently seem heavily backlogged than DYK. I agree with the above that student editors shouldn't get any treatment when it comes to content. GabrielF (talk) 01:21, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I think any advice to classroom users about interacting with the community should include a pointer to Wikipedia:Assignments for student editors. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

This isn't intended as advice, more as a way to make it clear that the EP understands the expectations of the community, and plans to abide by community norms. It's a statement, rather than advice; it's meant as a response to concerns that have been expressed about the EP.

A separate point: I said above (and have said elsewhere) "if the WMF creates it", referring to the proposed new US/Canada education program. That wasn't an accurate way to put it; it won't actually be the WMF that creates it -- if the WMF decides to approve the proposal, the proposal would then go to the Wikimedia Affiliations Committee, which would decide whether it could be approved as a thematic organization. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Well, I certainly wouldn't want the EP to plan not to abide by community norms! --Tryptofish (talk) 01:27, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Any idea on when the WMF would decide whether or not to refer it to the committee? Biosthmors (talk) 05:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

On expedited reviews: I don't think everyone waiting for their volunteer work to be reviewed for GA, for example, would appreciate students getting ahead of them in line. The opinions of those who are waiting for a GA review should be prioritized, when considering this question, in my opinion. I know that if I were to have a student get priority over me for a GA review, I wouldn't like it. Biosthmors (talk) 18:01, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm confused

In regards to Wikipedia:Education Working Group/Proposal:

• When will comments be considered from editors and when will a decision to refer to the Affiliations Committee on the proposal be made?
• Or has a decision already been made on the proposal?
• How should requested changes to the proposal be proposed?
• How will editors know if those changes in Working Group thinking have been adopted?
• Will any feedback from WMF be posted on Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group/Proposal?

Thanks. Biosthmors (talk) 18:26, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

As of today, the WMF team is considering some slight modifications to the proposal based on their consultations at WMF. Additionally, the initial board of directors is beginning the necessary planning to transition the existing EP to the new independent EP once it (if it) is approved by the Affiliations Committee. Apart from that, all members of the new board are monitoring on-wiki discussions regarding the EP and the proposal. If you have any specific suggestions re the proposal, please outline them on the talk page of the proposal. Thanks. --Mike Cline (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Will the WMF consider incorporating comments left at Wikipedia talk:Education Working Group/Proposal by editors into an updated version of the proposal, or is the document finalized in the mind of the WMF? Until when will the WMF consider editor comments for alterations to the proposal? Biosthmors (talk) 20:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

As I said above, the WMF is considering some slight modifications to the proposal that are for the most part, technical or legal issues. The modified proposal will be reviewed and posted by the Working Group when it is recieved from the WMF. Once that is done, the initial board of directors will submit a resolution to the Affilations Committee for approval to incorporate as a thematic organization. This requires some upfront legal work which is underway. The board will also be working on all the other tasks necessary to transition the existing program and start operating the new independent EP. This process will be as open and transparent as practical with the Wikipedia Community and our Academic partners. Again, if you have any suggestions re the proposal, please post them to the talk page. However, it is somewhat difficult to advise specifically how any input will be dealt with. Up to this point, we in the Working Group (and the initial board) and the WMF are continuing to follow the processes we established in May 2011 to handle this transition. --Mike Cline (talk) 21:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I intended for those two questions to be directed to the WMF. I'll email them for a reply here. Thanks for your reply. Biosthmors (talk) 21:23, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Hey, Biosthmors. Actually, the proposal was to WMF not from us. As I believe Mike is referring to above, we have reviewed the current proposal and made some suggestions for clarifications that some Working Group members will be working on, basically as advisors who have seen the work the group has done and want to make sure it's clear to outsiders. As for the comments left on the proposal, that's really going to have to be the Initial Board of the new org who responds to those suggestions. In other words, this proposal is for the thematic organization and will be adapted for the Affiliations Committee, but the Working Group wanted to post the proposal to keep any other community members in the loop. I believe their plan is to come up with, in the next few weeks, a channel for feedback from any interested Wikipedia editors. Most likely, this will be in the form of either becoming a member and/or a useful portal for being transparent and getting helpful feedback. I'm sorry if I'm not answering your questions. Let me know if you need me to clarify. It's crazy busy trying to make sure profs/Ambassadors are ready for the new semester, but I didn't want to leave you hanging here. JMathewson (WMF) (talk) 21:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Education Program space

My edits to Education Program:Saint Louis University/Signal Transduction (SP13) don't show up on my watchlist. Will they soon? Biosthmors (talk) 19:18, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Derosadual (talk)

Chris Cooper

Western Carolina University

PA 673

Public Policy Analysis. A core course in the MPA program at Western Carolina University. As one component of this course, students will write or substantially improve Wikipedia entries on public policy.

Writing, or substantially improving Wikipedia entries related to public policy

25

Jan 15th to May 10th