Wikipedia:Education noticeboard

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Purpose of this page Using this page This page is for discussion related to student assignments and the Wikipedia Education Program. Please feel free to post, whether you're from a class, a potential class, or if you're a Wikipedia editor. Topics for this board might include: Content issues created by real or potential student assignments Improving student assignment output quality per the RfC Questions about the trainings or any question from instructors or students Discussion of the Wiki Education Foundation or the Wikipedia Education Program. Students who have done great work and need {{The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar}} Of course, we should remain civil towards all participants and assume good faith. There are other pages more appropriate for dealing with certain specific issues: An issue requiring immediate administrator attention → Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents Vandalism by non-participating students from schools → administrator intervention against vandalism. Cut-and-paste moves/history merge → the cut-and-paste move repair holding pen. Students revealing sensitive personal information → requests for oversight. Please DO NOT make such requests here; reports here are visible to everyone. Course announcements from dashboard.wikiedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → /Wiki Ed course submissions Issues related to dashboard.wikedu.org / outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org → meta:Talk:Programs & Events Dashboard For a list of topics that students should avoid editing → Wikipedia:General sanctions#Active sanctions "Start a new discussion thread". Use an informative title: ==Informative title==. If a thread is related to an ongoing discussion, consider placing it under a level-3 heading within that existing discussion. You should generally notify any user who is the subject of a discussion. You may use {{ping}} to do so, or simply link their username when you post your comment. It is not required to contact students when their edits are only being discussed in the context of a class-wide problem. If no comments have been made within 30 days, your post and any responses will be automatically archived. Please sign all contributions, using four tilde characters "~~~~". If discussion is already ongoing elsewhere or if there is a more natural location for a discussion, please continue the discussion there, and put a short note with a link to the relevant location on this page. If you cannot edit this page because it is protected, please place your comments on this page and they will be addressed. Managing threads If you'd like to make sure a thread does not get archived automatically after 30 days, use {{Do not archive until}} at the top of the section. Use {{User:ClueBot III/ArchiveNow}} within a section to have it archived (more or less) immediately. A brief Archives page lists them with the years in which those now inactive discussions took place.
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Update from Wiki Ed, 21 Jan 2015

Hi all, and apologies for the delay in this overdue update. As I promised last month, we've made some changes to the process for onboarding classes this term, and I wanted to provide some clarity around what those changes are, since User:Helaine (Wiki Ed), User:Jami (Wiki Ed), and (now) User:Ryan (Wiki Ed) have been granting user rights to new instructors and reviewing course pages. Per last month's announcement, we are ensuring each class goes through our staff, rather than getting onboarded by volunteers, which enables us to do a thorough review of each course page. The Programs Team at Wiki Ed carefully reviewed the reasons behind problems from last term, and we've come up with a checklist that the program manager is using while bringing each new class on board; you can see this checklist at User:Helaine (Wiki Ed)/Course onboarding checklist. Courses that "pass" each of these checkpoints are onboarded into our system; courses plans that raise red flags or fail one of the check points require that we get on the phone with the instructor and talk through some changes to make the course design better. While these changes don't necessarily solve every problem (not all students actually follow directions, for example), we think this can head off most of the biggest course-wide challenges.

Another thing we're changing is we'll be rolling out a "dashboard" that offers more insight into what student editors are contributing on Wikipedia, in both program-wide and course-level detail (you can see a test version of it at http://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/ — look for an announcement next week with more detailed information about the features). We think this tool (which is linked from every Wiki Ed-supported class's course page on Wikipedia) will provide more transparency and insight into student work for everyone, including the editing community. I look forward to what I hope is a very productive spring 2015 term for Wiki Ed-supported classes on Wikipedia. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for being genuinely responsive to the community. I took a careful look at the onboarding checklist, and I am very favorably impressed. I can suggest a few more things that could be added, as "red flags" if they are absent: the instructor should have a user talk page, and should check it regularly; the students should put Template:Educational assignment on the talk pages of pages they intend to modify, and do it early, and it should link to the class page. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Tryptofish. The course pages created through the Assignment Design Wizard do instruct students to add the template to their pages (Template:Course link). My team is working on getting all the course pages that were created without the wizard to be updated as well. I like your other suggestion as well, although I have to say, I'm curious how you think we should judge whether the instructor will check their talk page regularly! --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 02:01, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL! (Couldn't the NSA do that for you?) Oh well, I guess they need to say that they intend to check it regularly. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:41, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, one step towards that would be for WEF staff to use talk pages themselves. At present, all follow-up (see here for just the most recent example) seems to be via email or phone. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:14, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The "Course onboarding checklist" linked above forbids off-Wiki article writing, so why is off-Wiki contact and discussion ok? The instructors have user accounts and talk pages... so use them. It'll be good as a learning example; that keeping an eye on your talk page and responding to comments and questions posted there is vital to being a part of this community, instead of apart. --Geniac (talk) 00:32, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Clarification?: Off-wiki article writing forbidden? What exactly does that mean? Because that sounds particularly horrifying. HullIntegrity (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"The instructor will have their students start work either in sandboxes or the article namespace—students will not use other off-line spaces like Word." Why does that sound horrifying to you? Sounds like common sense to me, and anybody else who has dealt with students copypasting in their poorly formatted and broken wiki markup into an article on the last day of class from Word or wherever else they were working on it the whole semester. --Geniac (talk) 04:19, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

"Horrifying" because that is an unenforceable policy without a basic alteration to what Wikipedia is. I can currently move my students "off site" at any time. I currently choose not to. If I am forced to be "on-site" I simply will not do it. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:45, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

On the one hand, it doesn't make sense for an instructor to promote article preparation through MS Word or g-doc etc, since that complicates the technical mark-up. So I understand the Wiki Ed criterion. On the other hand, I certainly wouldn't forbid my students from writing on paper, Word, parchment, Etch-a-sketch, or anything else that will facilitate their writing. Plus, a student's "writing" process would benefit from plenty of off-wiki collaboration, discussion, and feedback. So, maybe this shouldn't sound as if we don't appreciate the benefits of off-wiki work. Thanks, ProfGray (talk) 01:04, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I, for one, as a writing instructor of students with (often severe) deficiencies, do no want others interacting with their work until they feel "safe". Learning to research and write has a lot to do with trust and confidence building. Most of my students' work on their Wikipedia articles is off-site (in shared Google Docs) and it will stay that way. I, for one, do not need the added craziness of random people "walking through my classroom". Wikipedia is part of "my class". Like going to the Museum of the Moving Image (New York City) , I plan the trip with care, organize with the staff, and maintain as much control over the experience as humanly possible. We do not hang out there all the time, every single day. HullIntegrity (talk) 14:26, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I partially disagree with that last point, to the extent that I doubt that there is anything mysterious being withheld from the community when WikiEd contacts instructors. Instructors are real people with real jobs in the real world. If they are already engaged with Wikipedia, then that's a very good thing. But WikiEd is of particularly great help to regular editors if and when they reign in the instructors who are doing things the wrong way. You don't correct those instructors by leaving a note on a page here that they are not looking at. It makes very good sense to make the initial contact via a medium where the instructor will actually get the message. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:40, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I get the intent to help new Wikipedian Instructors, and agree with contacting them where they are, but language like "reign in the instructors" is not likely to get much traction with, well, us. I, for one, am not a very likely to be "reined in" and will politely skirt any attempt to do so. I think "assist where needed and wanted and possible" might be the language you are looking for. However, *roflsnort*, I understand some instructors could use some serious "reigning in", but do not quote me on this (except this is public, of course). HullIntegrity (talk) 01:04, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

And I am feeling inclined to use this discussion, and previous similar ones, as a text in an upcoming course, because it is really interesting how we see instructors and students (I actually mean that, I am not trying to be snarky).HullIntegrity (talk) 01:15, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Only in academia would people get that worked up over my reference to reigning in. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

LOL. Perhaps that is true, but you are dealing with academics here, and being referred to in equestrian terms is kind of annoying. I know you did not mean it that way. :)HullIntegrity (talk) 15:49, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

And contacting the instructors however possible is an excellent idea. Do not assume they are on Wikipedia every single day. HullIntegrity (talk) 15:51, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with jbmurray in that it would be wise to model good onwiki communication practices. There is, of course, a learning curve, but monitoring one's own talk page is kind of the bare minimum in participation here. Encourage them to enable email notifications for their talk page. If there's a concern that instructors may miss an important talk page message from Wiki Ed, then send them a single-sentence email asking them to respond to your query on their talk page. We need them engaged here. Maralia (talk) 06:01, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

My team's been busy this week with making sure all the problematic course designs get fixed, but I've asked them to think about this suggestion. Look for a response next week. --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the checklist - If the contribution will be an entirely NEW article, suggest driving towards the Draft: namespace as opposed to only a sandbox or article. — xaosflux ^Talk 13:41, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@Xaosflux: What do you see as the benefit of the draft namespace over sandboxes? --LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (talk) 00:43, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Nothing, I see the Draft name space, and use of the articles for creation tool, as a step between sandboxes and mainspace articles if the student will be creating an entire new article. Drafts in progress can proceed where poor articles are more likely to get deleted. If someone is just working on a new section to incorporate in to an article, or arewrite-sandboxes are the best. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:29, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Sparked by this thread, we talked quite a bit about the role talk pages should play in our communications with instructors. As an active Wikipedian I'm sympathetic to the idea of getting people to use talk pages for making things transparent wherever possible.

Putting on my instructor hat for a moment, however, I have reservations about this. It's one thing to have the students and I engage in an assignment in public, to post the details of an assignment online, and to receive feedback or criticism from the community, but it's another to be asked to make all communication with Wiki Ed public -- especially if I were a new professor who might not have a great idea of the content of that communication. There's also the discomfort associated with publicly talking about class management -- how I plan, schedule, and generally conduct the class. Again, it's one thing to receive feedback or criticism about the assignment from the community in public, but my relationship with Wiki Ed is different as I rely on them for support.

Finally I'll wear my Wiki Ed hat (still has its tags and stickers attached). Our priority in communication with professors is for it to be effective. The professors who need us most are the ones with little-to-no experience. First and foremost, we want to make sure they receive our messages and we receive their messages. That's by far the biggest issue here. Even if we guide them to turn notifications on, they might get confused, miss something, accidentally leave a response in the wrong place, forget to save properly, etc. Coming back to privacy, they may also forget that it's public and post sensitive information about their class or their students.

Wiki Ed has been spending a lot of time working out communication strategies to ensure we can avoid problems as well as respond to problems faster. Moving communication with professors to talk pages would work in the wrong direction, with the acknowledged sacrifice of transparency. That said, we are considering strategies to encourage professors to engage more on talk pages as part of their Wikipedia assignments.
Note: This is my own perspective. My colleagues on the Programs team have expressed their support, but this is not an official WikiEdu statement. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:58, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Just to clarify: for me, at least, the issue here isn't transparency. It's that, when things go wrong with educational assignments, the clearest indicator is that students and/or instructors fail to respond on talkpages. And it's that there's almost nothing that pisses off Wikipedians more (and with some reason, I think) than classes that fail to respond or communicate in the ways that all other editors are expected to do so.

I would add that there are plenty of positive reasons for using talkpages, of which transparency is merely one (and not the most interesting). Another, for instance, is that it encourages serendipidity and collaboration when other Wikipedia editors can see what you are up to. But again, the main thing is avoiding the negative implications and ever-present pitfalls that lie in wait for those who decline to learn or use the forms of communication embedded within Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, I'm not particularly swayed by many of the downsides you list. The one that, in practice, does concern me most is the release of private information: students constantly are on the verge of doing this, though I tell them not to. In egregious cases, however, oversight is an option. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 06:13, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

I am unclear about how "when things go wrong with educational assignments" differs significantly (and in policy) from "when things go wrong with Wikipedia editors" in general. Can you clarify? HullIntegrity (talk) 13:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

In essence it doesn't, of course. It's just that problems can be compounded (but benefits, too) when they come en masse, with a group of 20+ editors all doing much the same thing at around the same time (end of the semester). But they should indeed be treated the same: when any other Wikipedia editor messes up somehow, and then doesn't respond on talk pages, they're tossed. Which is yet another reason why students and instructors alike should learn to use the forms of discussion that are used on Wikipedia. Their relationship and their responsibility is with the encyclopedia, not with the Wiki Education Foundation. No other class of editor is actively encouraged to opt out of Wikipedia's communication channels. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 18:51, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Ayelet sapir (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Ayelet Sapir

Institution

Bangor University School of Psychology

Course title and description

Methods in cognition and brain research, for graduate students. The module will provide specific examples in selected areas of cognition and neuroscience, including patient studies, psychophysics, MRI, EEG and TMS. Students will either create or change a Wiki page in a selected topic related to cognition and brain research.

Number of students

About 30 students

Start and end dates

27 January 2015 until 5 May 2015

@Helaine (Wiki Ed), Ryan (Wiki Ed), and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Ayelet sapir (talk) 22:47, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

• Template:Support I see no reason not to grant them the rights. Kevin Rutherford (talk) 22:53, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
  • @AKoval (WMF): Can you help determine the best person for this instructor to talk with? Thanks! Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:47, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
    • @Ayelet sapir: You should connect with Toni Sant (WMUK); he is the Education Organiser for Wikimedia UK. Best of luck with your course! Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 17:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Online Ambassador application: Prat bose

Prat bose

Prat bose (talk · contribs)

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

   In today's world Wiki is the primary source of information for mankind. There is a saying that the history is written by the winners and we hardly get to know about the vanquished. There are numerous events, entities which don't grab as much eyeballs in the media - both digital and print. Wiki is a game changer. It gives a hope to all to showcase and share with the world what they think is important. It promotes right to equality. The reach of internet is widespread and wiki articles are read by people in the developed and the developing world alike. I am a voracious reader of wiki and have contributed to articles over the years and would like to motivate and inspire others to help carry forward this movement.

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).

   Created and contributed to the pages of Moheener Ghoraguli, Sudipto Chatterjee. In the process of creating a page on Ajitesh Bandopadhyay. Made minor contributions to some other pages.

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

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

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

   YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

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

   There were some cases where objections were raised, but I have had discussions with them and resolved them. There are not always enough information on the internet when you are writing about regional things. All the discussions are archived. I have also educated myself on how to write and convey things without any breaches.

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?

   Off late the frequency has been less, but I do observe the discussions and the articles.Yes I shall be available.

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

   I shall share with them my experiences, educate them and initially monitor their work. I am certain when people understand their responsibilities well they usually maintain things properly.

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

   First task would be to take off the disputed artifact and then would look at the legal aspect and also consult the wiki legal cell to get more information help to check if the objection is genuine. At the same time would I would ensure that the students is sensitized enough towards the responsibility and goes through a cooling off time, after which he/she will have to send their article for mandatory review before upload till the time they are ready.

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

    Breach of contract and uploading information/photographs without proper relevant permission from the rightful owner.

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

    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

prat (talk) 06:35, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

• Comment. Probably not enough experience with Wikipedia, despite the account having been around for years. The statement about needing to "consult the wiki legal cell" to determine whether content is a copyvio is a red flag for me. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:54, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

Request for course instructor right: ProfTAH (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Timothy Henningsen

Institution

College of DuPage

Course title and description

ENGLI 1102: English Composition 2 | “Research, Writing, & Wikipedia” This class will teach the basics of academic writing and research -- while also promoting digital literacy -- through a rigorous inquiry of the world’s sixth most visited website. According to its own entry, Wikipedia is “a free-access, free content Internet encyclopedia, supported and hosted by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Anyone who can access the site can edit almost any of its articles…[it] constitutes the Internet’s largest and most popular general reference work.” This class will require 2 major writing assignments: (1) a ~10 page academic research paper due at the end of the semester, and (2) a Wikipedia article written and edited by you. In order to successfully accomplish both, we will have to explore a variety of conventions related to writing. We will familiarize ourselves with the policies and procedures set forth by Wikipedia’s community of contributors. We will evaluate print and digital texts by conducting research in the library and online. We will hone your skills in academic writing, research, and discourse. We will practice summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, analyzing, and synthesizing the views of other writers; in doing so, you will learn how to use those views to leverage an original argument of your own. Ultimately, you will begin to apprehend the fundamental role of rhetoric (i.e., persuasion) within the world of academic discourse, while also learning about bias, credibility, objectivity, and community writing in the digital world. In sum, through classroom discussions, writing assignments, and your own online inquiries, this class promises to make you a better writer, reader, and thinker.

Number of students

22

Start and end dates

01/14/2015-05/15/2015

@Helaine (Wiki Ed), Ryan (Wiki Ed), and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --ProfTAH (talk) 14:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Course instructor and volunteer user rights granted to User:Elitre (WMF)

I have granted course instructor and volunteer user rights to User:Elitre (WMF). She will be taking screenshots for product documentation. This process may take some time, however, I will remove these rights once that work is complete. Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 01:02, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Request for course instructor right: Lejulelejule (talk) (course page draft)

Name

Institution

Course title and description

Number of students

Start and end dates

@Helaine (Wiki Ed), Ryan (Wiki Ed), and Pharos: @Jami (Wiki Ed), Bluerasberry, and Kevin Gorman: --Lejulelejule (talk) 07:42, 29 January 2015 (UTC)