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Online Ambassador application: shubhamelle

Shubhamelle1994

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Shubhamelle1994 (talk · contribs)

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

   YOUR ANSWER

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).

   YOUR ANSWER

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.

   YOUR ANSWER

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?

   YOUR ANSWER

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

   java text finder put reference below article

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

   YOUR ANSWER

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

    YOUR ANSWER

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

    YOUR ANSWER (OPTIONAL)

Shubhamelle1994 (talk) 10:15, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

 Not done No questions were answered. — xaosflux ^Talk 19:49, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Online Ambassador application: Pigsonthewing

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Pigsonthewing

Pigsonthewing (talk · contribs)

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

   I think it would be a useful adjunct to my work as a Wikimedian in Residence. I already teach some university classes to edit Wikipedia.

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

   A long list - please see my en.WP user page.

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

   Please see User:Pigsonthewing/dyk

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

   As a Wikimedian in Residence, I have trained over 70 new users already this year.

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

   Reducing the aggression with which we respond to "imperfect" edits.

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

   None that are relevant

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?

   Daily.

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

   By training them properly; and reviewing their work

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

   1) remove the coyvio ASAP 2) speak with the student individually

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

    Miuse of others' intellectual property

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

    I regularly organise editathons. The next is Wikipedia:GLAM/Thinktank/Event_1

Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:02, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

• Support: Andy is a long term Wikimedian and an accredited Wikimedia UK trainer. I have learnt a lot from him when supporting him at Editathons etc. He is also an experienced Wikimedian in Residence. Fabian Tompsett (WMUK) (talk) 15:58, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse- longtime experienced Wikipedian. --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 22:58, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse: I have collaborated well with Andy and he is very experienced with teaching others about wikipedia. Would do very well in this position. Montanabw^(talk) 20:13, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
• Endorse per Fabian above and Andy's already long experience. Andy is already active as a Wikimedia trainer, Wikimedian in residence. I have no reason to believe he wouldn't handle this app't just as well.(Littleolive oil (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2015 (UTC))
• Userrights granted to Pigsonthewing The criteria for getting the userrights are minimal competency with Wikipedia and endorsement from others. There is no system in place for balancing the implications of a block log, for example, so I am unable to judge pros and cons.

For people who feel strongly about this consider supporting a reform of the granting of these userrights. Some reforms that I might like to see are opening the education extension more so that others can use it, while also encouraging people who do off-wiki outreach to get off-wiki affiliation with any Wikimedia community group. Pigsonthewing is doing in-person outreach in the United Kingdom which cannot be monitored on-wiki. Since he speaks in person on behalf of the Wikimedia community, perhaps the Wikimedia chapter there (or any chapter anywhere in the world, really) might share in credit and responsibility for what he does in the name of the global community.

Responding to controversy is a bit beyond what the community at this board can manage.

An alternative proposal could be that anyone with unresolved objections not get the userright here, but further problems are that any administrator (and not just this board) can grant the userrights and right now it is just a legacy courtesy that userrights are requested here. I appreciate this user asking here so that there is a record of the request and community comments. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:23, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Other feedback

A tour of ArbCom archives and current cases indicates probems in interacting with other users, and in communication style. I cannot endorse this application. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:23, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

Concern about the very long Block Log, including recent blocks. — xaosflux ^Talk 01:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• I've had quite a lot of interactions with User:Pigsonthewing over a very long time. They have made many valuable contributions to wikipedia, particularly in terms of WP:GLAM and WP:Authority Control; none of the contributions I'm aware of have been in the field of decorum. Having said that there's been a drop-off in blockage for edit-warring in the past couple of years. In short, I'm not sure that they're the person for front-line support and role-modelling. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:28, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Almost all of the drama surrounding Andy is related to infoboxes and templates, which is backside technical stuff, and frankly much of that drama is because anyone who disagrees with him immediately goes from zero to sixty themselves to attack him once they are aware of said issues. He is actually very good at dealing with new editors and instructing people out in the real world. He is already a Wikipedian in residence and has many people who can vouch for his abilities. Personally, I have had nothing but positive interactions with Andy, even when I have disagreed with him; he responds with respect when addressed with respect; I also think he shows remarkable restraint these days in the face of the baiting and trolling he endures, and it is worth noting that his infobox restrictions were recently loosened a bit. Montanabw^(talk) 20:30, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

• I like to work with Andy (User:Pigsonthewing) who taught me a lot. Old archives seem less relevant than a recent arbcom review which removed unreasonable restrictions. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I've found him helpful when I've needed infobox assistance. I urge whoever evaluates this to consider the original poster's record, the sheer number of conflicts at ANI she has been involved in is something staggering. But don't believe me, look up her life & see. Grudge holding is not becoming.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:45, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Online Ambassador application: Mdann52

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Mdann52

Mdann52 (talk · contribs)

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

   I've been involved with helping users through various channels for a while - this seems like another opportunity to expand on that.

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

   My involvements with Wikimedia mainly involve helping out on the OTRS team, helping users on IRC, as well as general admin duties. While I am not much of a content creator, I tend to focus more on cleaning up existing articles to help comply with our policies and guidelines

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

   I've done several of these, however I can not name many offhand. I have one GAN, Oblivion (roller coaster), although I have been more involved in the reviewing side of the DYK and GAN processes than the nominating side

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

   Yes - both on-wiki, on IRC and via OTRS

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

   Provide more support to get them over the basics (ie. not just providing help, but developing tools, like VE, to help them), as well as offering ongoing support, and not being too harsh - at times, I think new editors are treated way too harshly by a number of members of the project

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

   Not really. While I have appeared before ANI for a misunderstanding of policy before, which has since been clarified, I've been involved in no major disputes recently, and have a clean block log

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?

   On a daily basis, as work and education allow

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

   This is one area I have experience in . There are a number of tools I use to check for copyright violations, and I would do random reviews of contributions if there appeared to be issues there.

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

   In the first case, I would try and explain to them they shouldn't use the work unless it complies with our policies, and make sure they rewrite it in their own words. If they continue doing it, then unfortunately, we may have to review whether their involvement is ideal for both Wikipedia's and their own benefits.

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

    Where another person's work is copied, identically or in spirit, without authorisation or exemption in law.

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

    I've thought about doing this for a while, I've only just got round to applying :)

Mdann52 (talk) 13:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Endorsements

(Two endorsements are needed for online ambassador approval.)

Endorse of course! --L235 (t / c / ping in reply) 16:17, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Endorse - (edit conflict) Experienced editor, clearly familiar with Wikipedia policies and procedures, who already spends a good amount of time helping new users and reviewing content. Seems to be capable and applying for the right reasons. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Mdann52: an important comment about your answer to #9, though: talking to the student is good, but especially for something as serious as a WP:COPYVIO you'd want to go straight to the instructor, too. For any non-minor issue, really. Copyright might not have been sufficiently covered in class. He/she also might not understand how copyright applies to Wikipedia (let's hope this is very rare, but e.g. someone might think that because of the nature of a wiki, it's ok if a first draft includes copyright violations if you intend to clean them up as you go). It can help to let them know early on that, per the second part of your answer, it's possible students will be blocked from editing for copyright reasons. An instructor's warning to a student can also carry more weight than ours, as he/she controls the grades after all. [Disclosure: I also post to the ENB as Ryan (Wiki Ed), but my endorsement here is in a volunteer capacity only.] — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:31, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

• @Rhododendrites: of course - however, by talking to the student, you may well get an idea whether this has been covered by the instructor or not (of course, that would be one of the first points!), however I will bear that in mind. Mdann52 (talk) 13:13, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

• Mdann52 I granted the userrights. Post here if you need something more. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:01, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Case study page - UCSF medical courses

poster summarizing outcomes of a medical class series

Through AminMDMA, the medical school at University of California, San Francisco has hosted three instances of the Wikipedia education program. Collectively these classes have gotten a lot of media attention. With Dr. Amin and others I am organizing information about the outcomes of these classes.

I am collecting information at WP:UCSF, which is becoming my model for organizing outcomes for a class series. I am sharing this here in case anyone else would like to use this as a success story. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:21, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

what a great idea! thanks, Jytdog (talk) 00:45, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry and AminMDMA: This looks great! Question: This seems like something I should already know, but I'm curious about your mechanism for working with article assessment. Do you use the existing assessment or conduct a new one at the start? Do you conduct it yourself, does WP:MED take care of it, do students do it, etc.? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:21, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Ryan (Wiki Ed) All of these things happen. For these classes a new system of ratings were developed by some researcher. None of these assessment models mesh well with the others. Personally, I would like to see a reform of the article assessment process and if Wiki Ed invested in managing a community conversation on the topic then I think that would be worthwhile for the community. I know that in the past the education program has attempted to measure changes before and after student intervention. Perhaps you know that Wikipedia's entire article assessment process was designed as a way to choose which Wikipedia articles are to be burned to CD and distributed by mail - it is outdated and there are a lot of ways in which it could be redesigned to be more effective and to mesh better with other Wikimedia tools. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Bluerasberry: It's certainly something to keep in mind. In talking about how to measure program impact (now and, as you point out, throughout the history of the education program), article assessment is an obvious consideration for "quality" metrics. To me personally, though, article assessment just seems so uneven (in how often its done and standards imposed). The dashboard now shows the article class next to articles students are working on, which is useful to know when e.g. they're taking on a featured/good article, but there's no mechanism in place to re-evaluate (or pre-evaluate) such that we can see how many levels students are raising articles. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 14:18, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Ryan (Wiki Ed) a description of the rating systems used here will be published eventually, but I will review a little here. In this cohort 28 students edited 28 health articles. The quality change was reviewed in all of these ways, and each of these ways is independent of the others:

• Assessment with Wikipedia's rating system
• Students subjectively reviewed each others' work without guidance by giving comments
• Students were interviewed and asked to review themselves subjectively, either individually or in a focus group
• 2 medical professionals and 1 medical student each working alone using a grading scale to assign numerical quality ratings to each article before and after editing
• software assessed each article before and after, counting bytes added, references added, and checking whether references were indexed in PubMed
• Linguistic evaluation software was applied. This software gave higher marks for content which had shorter sentences, used simpler words, and which contained less grammatical complexity like clauses. This software was configured outside of Wikipedia for medical writing.
• Content was manually checked months later to check for stability and persistence. Content which is retained is presumed to have passed Wikimedia community review.
• After the course ended, importance grading was done to measure how many pageviews each article received after the information had been shared. I think there is agreement that this is the single most important metric.

I could say more about any of these. It is difficult to relate any of these rankings to any of the other ones, because quality as measured by any of these systems is mostly unrelated to the quality measured by any other. Blue Rasberry (talk) 17:44, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

• More is at Commons:Category:Wikipedia Education Program at UCSF medical school. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:30, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Is "ENGW3307" a course code?

I have seen this code used in various userspace and draftspace pages, but none of the pages contain a template or even a clear statement that it is part of an educational project. The talk pages of the drafts contain "peer reviews" and discussions that include language that imply the existence of a class project. I was under the impression that education project drafts are supposed to have a specific banner/template linking back to project information pages here in the Education department. Some of these drafts are appearing at AFC, where we need to be aware of the Educational status of the drafts as we handle reviews of such drafts in a different way compared to "regular" AFC submissions. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 08:07, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm guessing Northeastern University / http://www.northeastern.edu/writing/advanced-writing-in-the-disciplines/course-descriptions/ . You're right about user space. Stuartyeates (talk) 08:45, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Template:Course link is their most recent course, however I can find no more recent courses, nor anything else useful in the education project namespace. Mdann52 (talk) 12:42, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

@Dodger67: Thanks for the heads up. Diffs/links would be helpful to try to get the best idea of what's going on, but AfC is indeed a process we advise against students going through. It happened regularly until recently, though, because the default sandbox template includes a link to it. Ragesossbot now replaces that template for enrolled students automatically, but wouldn't have any way to do so if the student isn't enrolled -- and indeed all of the users connected to a search for that course are not enrolled in a course on-wiki.

I'm pretty sure Northeastern is on a semester (rather than quarter) system, so maybe Reagle and AmandaRR123 can shed some light on this?

Also pinging the students. @Kim ENG3307, Lliizz123, Ski1823, and AdrianaN23: @Nacutler, Chamberlaindan09, Murphyant, and Bozal243: Could you help to connect us with your instructor? --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 15:11, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

My apologies! ENGW3307 is Northeastern's Advanced Writing for the Sciences. We are not (yet) a registered course through the WP Education programs, but clearly we should be. Our semester wrapped this week. AmandaRR123 and I have been in communication over the semester and are continuing to work out procedures for the course. Students are asked to contribute to Wikipedia but only after completing a scholarly review of recent literature in their field on a very narrow topic. WritingTeacherC (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes, this is a different course at Northeastern than the previous Online Communities classes (and we are indeed on a semester rather than quarter system.) As WritingTeacherC mentions, we're working out procedures for the course. Students have been encouraged to communicate on-wiki, find applicable WikiProjects, and complete robust scientific literature reviews before contributing, so in my opinion the class does follow the spirit of good wiki-assignment design, but I definitely understand that it's easier for other editors if this happens with clear templating and other tools indicating it's an educational project. AmandaRR123 (talk) 12:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@WritingTeacherC: Hi there. I'm Ryan, interim classroom program manager with the Wiki Education Foundation. Thanks for your quick response. Course pages are important for organizational reasons but also for communication -- so that when your students start to edit, it's easy for other editors to see that they're working on a class project. It's especially important if problems come up, so they can be addressed in the proper context and directed to you if students aren't responding. When Wiki Ed supports a class, we're also signed on to the course page as "online volunteers". That means students can come to us for help and even feedback on their work. You also gain access to tools which allow you to easily track student work, including whether they've completed the online training for students (strongly recommended). Feel free to send an email to me if you want to talk more about this for next time around. My email address is ryan [at] wikiedu [dot] org. You can also leave a message on my talk page. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:55, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@WritingTeacherC: Please tell your students not to submit anything to Articles For Creation (AFC) review before you have graded their work. AFC can sometimes be quite harsh and we would not want to rip holes in students' work before their teacher has graded it - "AFC tore up my homework" would be a horrible way to fail an assignment. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:19, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

@Dodger67: Will do. Grading done! Most students have had very reasonable experiences with AFC. Some have sought and successfully worked with mentors — a very positive development in a course which asks for student self-motivation and direction. This student (Lin.chr), for example, did what the course asked: Draft:Printable_organ. I'll avoid pre-grading submissions to AFC in the future, going through WikiEd instead.

New course announcement: LAE 6389: Practice Teaching Literature (instructor: LLRungegordon)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --LLRungegordon (talk) 17:29, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@LLRungegordon: Hi there. I'm Ryan, interim classroom program manager with the Wiki Education Foundation. Since you used the Assignment Design Wizard, everything looks good at your assignment page so I've gone ahead and added the "course instructor" right to your account and created your course page here: Template:Course link. I've also sent an email with some additional links and information. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to send an email to me or leave a message on my talk page. Thanks. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:21, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Student project

I came across a series of similar edits by multiple new users and asked one of the editors about it and was told ([1]) it was for a class project. I don't know if this is something that members here could or should be involved in, but I just thought I would mention it in case they need some guidance (some of their edits have been quickly reverted). Some of the users I've noticed are Amarjot1, Pjay618, Nancyyym, Kmtnguyen, Kanwardeep Singhy, Mpnguyen3, PujaD, Ppummarachai, Kayvonamindari. Deli nk (talk) 20:43, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@Deli nk: Thanks for the heads up. I left a message for all of those users with some links to information about the Education Foundation, Education Program, and student training. Hopefully the someone gets it to their instructor. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:03, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking a look. If it helps, among the dozen or more new ones I've noticed today, there are several whose usernames end in "ucdavis" (Ayalda.ucdavis, Lai.UCDavis) so the course is probably at University of California, Davis. Deli nk (talk) 20:10, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Hey Deli nk, yeah, the class is at UC Davis and I'm working with the professor. We forgot to tell them not to use organizations in their usernames :( Anyway, the project is to add a "further reading" reference or in-text citation to a stub biology article. I'm going to go through and clean up the formatting for the ones that need it. Hopefully not too disruptive. (Also, the project was due today, so you won't see more of them). Best, -- phoebe / (talk to me) 18:31, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Some of the editors working on bird species articles seem to be unaware of the norms followed on these articles and are welcome to post their plans for and queries on article improvement at WT:BIRD. Shyamal (talk) 09:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Rel 2011 - Religion: Analysis and Interpretation (instructor: Alfgarciamora)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Alfgarciamora (talk) 14:25, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Alfgarciamora: Hi! Everything looks good so I added the "course instructor" right to your account and created your course page here: Template:Course link. I've included this in an email along with some additional information, too. Thanks! --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 19:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Social Psychology (instructor: Cboglarsky)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Cboglarsky (talk) 22:08, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

@Cboglarsky: Hi there. Everything looks good so I've gone ahead and added the "course instructor" right to your account and created your course page here: Template:Course link. I've also sent an email with some additional information, links, and materials about editing psychology topics in particular. If you have any question please don't hesitate to send an email or leave a message on my talk page. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Ed materials in French

I've been talking recently with a professor at a French-speaking university about using Wikipedia in the classroom, and I mentioned that there were a lot of WikiEd training resources that I could forward, but now that I'm looking I can't seem to find any in French.

I notice interwiki links on the sidebar to a few languages (Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese, Dutch...) on a few WikiEd pages, but I can't find any in French via sidebar links or google, and nor is there mention of French on the Canada Wikipedia Education Program page (this university is in Canada although of course there are also francophone institutions elsewhere). Does anyone know if this a thing that exists somewhere obscure, or is there genuinely no material in French? And, if not, are there any links about how one might go about creating/translating such resources that I could pass along? That way at least if this prof is interested enough to create French resources then other people could use them, or perhaps some others might be recruited to help make them. Thanks! --Gretchenmcc (talk) 23:35, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

@Gretchenmcc: Thanks for this message. This is a great question. The Wiki Education Foundation supports classes in the US and Canada on the English Wikipedia, so we don't often have a need for materials in other languages. However, it's true that there are sizable francophone populations and institutions in both countries. But while WikiEdu is limited to US/Canada, the Wikipedia Education Program is global. Here is the page for French resources over at the Wikimedia Outreach Wiki and here is the education program page on the French Wikipedia.

I'm going to ping my colleague Sage (Wiki Ed) who can, I think, say more about translation of our materials and what we might be able to do with the results, as well as AKoval (WMF) and FKoudijs_(WMF) with the Education Program who might be able to provide better information than I can about French language resources. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

For the printed materials, we can get you the InDesign files if someone wants to take a shot at translating them. For the on-wiki trainings, see m:Meta:Training, which has tedious but fairly straightforward instructios for porting the trainings to another wiki. (Wiki Ed's dashboard system will hopefully be ready for internationalization this summer, but that will be a major project for each new language.)--Sage (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:11, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Dear Gretchenmcc,

Thank you so much for your interest in the Wikipedia Education Program. And congratulations on your Inspire Grant. The #lingwiki edit-a-thons look like they're going to be great for your field and our movement! :)

Ryan (Wiki Ed) was right. The Global Education Team at the Wikimedia Foundation supports educators using the Wikimedia projects in academic settings around the world. That means, we'd love to offer your colleague our assistance and connect them with another educator who is already doing Wikipedia education projects in another Canadian college or university. They can email me at akovalwikimedia.org.

It's exciting to hear that there is interest at another French-speaking university in Canada. There actually are quite a few others already. Please see Canada's (updated) Wikipedia Education Program page here. Do encourage your colleague to add their university to that page too! :)

With regard to French language resources, there are quite a few already.

• Guide de la syntaxe Wiki -- a cheat sheet for wikisyntax
• "Imaginez un monde" -- a booklet translated by Wikimédia France
• "Livret Wikipédia en classe" -- a brochure by Wikimédia France
• "Wikipédia dans la classe" -- a wikibook on French Wikibooks
• "Enrichir Wikipédia" -- an ICT course curriculum on French Wikiversity
• Bienvenue sur Wikipedia -- the translation is 93% complete.
• Bienvenue sur Commons -- the translation is 100% complete.
• Évaluer la qualité d'article Wikipédia -- the translation is 96% complete.

For a while now, I have wanted to reorganize the Outreach wiki's Bookshelf by language. I think this inquiry is a good reminder of the need. Perhaps this is something that some of the #lingwiki edit-a-thon participants might want to help out with? :)

I hope this helps your colleague. And I hope that we will hear from them soon. All the best, Anna Koval (WMF) (talk) 23:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, @Ryan (Wiki Ed): @Sage (Wiki Ed): and @AKoval (WMF):! I'd been searching for "éducation" but it hadn't occurred to me to try "pédagogique"...would that or its subpages be appropriate links to add to the interwiki sidebars of pages like this current one? At any rate, that's a great list of resources which I will pass along. I had also asked @Benoit Rochon: who I'm going to put in touch with my colleague directly since they're both in Montreal and I don't have his Wikipedia username, but I'll include a link to this post so we don't duplicate material.

For the #lingwiki editathons that I'm planning in Canada, I'll be including links to both French and English resources for using Wikipedia in the classroom so that any interested professors know that there are resources and people that can help, rather than trying to fly solo. (The American editathons will still get links, but probably just the English ones.) I'm not sure if I'll be able to get anyone to reorganize the bookshelf though...I've been strongly encouraging participants to use the VisualEditor since it's less of a barrier to entry, but of course it's not rolled out to a lot of the more meta pages yet, including that one (and alas, WikiProjects). And throwing someone who's new to wikimarkup at a giant table seems unwise. --Gretchenmcc (talk) 03:13, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back, Helaine!

Hello all,

For the past few months I've had the pleasure of filling in as Wiki Ed's classroom program manager while Helaine Blumenthal has been away on maternity leave. I'm pleased to announce that Helaine is back and resuming her role as of the end of this week. I will still be around, however, working with Wiki Ed in another capacity. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 22:46, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Ryan. Glad to be back and looking forward to working with the education program again. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:09, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Campus Ambassador application: Spyder212 (talk · contribs)

Spyder212 (talk · contribs)

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

   Promote use and development of Wikipedia and sister projects, such as Wikiversity, on the university campus.

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

   I am based in Montreal, and I plan on working with McGill University as a Campus Ambassador.

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

   Curious medical student!

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

   I have been editing Wikipedia as well as its sister projects for a little while under IP, and a just recently decided to create an account in order to help more effectively newcomers both online and on campus. In the past two or three days, I have made about 200 edits on the French and English Wikipedias and the English Wikiversity, in addition to thousands of other unanimous contributions. I am planning on developing the English Wikiversity School of Medicine, as well as articles on various subjects on the French and English Wikipedias (I sometimes stress biomedical science articles, yet I often edit random articles on transportation, organizations, space missions, biographies, etc.).

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

   Thanks for considering my candidacy!

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Spyder212 (talk • contribs) 23:51, 9 May 2015‎

Discussion

• I emailed this person to talk about collaboration. Blue Rasberry (talk) 19:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I am very sorry for not getting back to you earlier, Blue Rasberry (talk), as I will not be capable of contributing to Wikipedia as an ambassador due to a new temporary medical occupation in Yukon. --Spyder212 (talk) 04:52, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Principles and Theories of Learning (PSYC 706) Sum 15 (instructor: PsycTeacher)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --PsycTeacher (talk) 16:09, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

@PsycTeacher: Thanks for announcing your Wikipedia assignment. I've looked it over, and your plan looks good. Because you are teaching a psychology course, I will be in touch with more information about some of the special requirements for editing in this area. Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 17:29, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: ENGL 1020D, CRN 3372 (instructor: Dr Aaij)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

• Woohoo! Instructor right here we come! Next target: the front page!

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Dr Aaij (talk) 21:49, 14 May 2015 (UTC)

• Helain, Ryan, this class assignment kinda came out of nowhere and I'm trying to set this up as quick as I can. I hope that in the next few days I figure out what the bells and whistles do. I got this wizard going already and started with a copyedit template, but what I really need them to do first is get an account, learn how to do some basic coding (links, diffs), and read the history. Is there a set of standard assignments, maybe with a video, that does that? Thanks, Dr Aaij (talk) 21:55, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
  • @Dr Aaij: Thanks for going through the wizard! I'll go ahead and create your course page and grant you the instructor right. In the meantime, you should direct your students to our online training for students where they'll learn how to do all the things you mention. There will also be a link to this on your course page. I'll also follow up with you about more of Wiki Ed's resources in an email. By the way, was the subject of your course supposed to say "Don't use Wikipedia?" Thanks. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:41, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes it was, Helaine, but in all-caps, with an exclamation point. Oops, this is my secret alternate account, don't tell anyone. Thanks for the help; I'm sort of clutching at straws here. Drmies (talk) 00:07, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia:School and university projects/Philippines artists

Just wanted to raise this above the parapet after the events at Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Kikomori012. It looks as though some guidance for these students might be needed. Yunshui ^雲_水 12:24, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

@Yunshui: Thanks. I see that RHaworth created the SUP page. Maybe he knows more about it? Also pinging AKoval (WMF) who is probably best suited to connect the class to Wikipedians in the Philippines. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 12:54, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Someone please ping me when we get an answer since we are holding the SPI case open. Cheers,
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 20:05, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Berean Hunter: you may certainly close the SPI. The person who started it could be excused for thinking sockpuppetry from the spooky similarity of the edit patterns. I don't know if education is more regimented in the Philippines or it is just one particular lecturer.

I know very little more than is on the project page and it talk page. We certainly do need to try and get them and more particularly their teacher to start discussing with editors outside their cosy group. We are currently having problems with one of them, Bolero24 (talk · contribs) who persistently tries to publish their article instead of complying with the requirements of draft reviewers. — RHaworth (talk · contribs) 20:59, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you.
 — Berean Hunter (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

• A startling number of those articles are currently up for deletion... Stuartyeates (talk) 22:41, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Educational Technology (instructor: Michaelacaulfield)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Michaelacaulfield (talk) 23:48, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

@Michaelacaulfield: Thanks for going through the wizard. Wiki Ed will be launching some new tools for the fall 2015 term, so I am going to hold off creating a course page for you at this point. I wil be following up with some more information. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 16:28, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Positive Psychology (instructor: Matthew.murdoch)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Matthew.murdoch (talk) 19:52, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

@Matthew.murdoch: Thanks for using the assignment design wizard. Since your students will be working on psychology topics, I will be following up with you about the special requirements for these types of articles. We usually discourage classes over 35 from working on these topics, but since your students will only be working on 10 articles (in groups of 5), I think this will be all right. I appreciate how you point out that interactions on Wikipedia will be a part of their grade. Thanks and look out for an email from me. Helaine (Wiki Ed) (talk) 20:25, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Ed Monthly Report for April

Hi all -- you can find Wiki Ed's April Monthly Report as a PDF, on-wiki, or at our blog. Thanks!

Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 23:12, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Very interesting report. I just started teaching a "Spring" (actually our first summer term) course, and I can assure you it has helped for me to see the students' status on completing the training on the dashboard. Plus, the steps you have designed using the wizard are easy to use and working well so far. LLRungegordon (talk) 23:27, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Great to hear, LLRungegordon! Thanks for the feedback. Eryk (Wiki Ed) (talk) 18:05, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Has anyone tried an exercise where students remove, rather than add content?

I was talking with a fellow educator, and he told me (in email), having read my Signpost Op-ed about spam on Wikipedia: "Deleting garbage commercial articles from Wikipedia is the first idea I've come across for a realistic large-class project to get students actively editing on Wikipedia. It fits many criteria:

1. . It is a clear, rules-based activity
2. . It doesn't require confidence in expert knowledge
3. . It won't result in lots of new garbage being posted
4. . It is empowering
5. . It could be made into a competition between groups: delete the most bad pages without deleting a single good page (deleting a single good page puts you back to zero points)"

So, I wonder if anyone has tried it before. If not, what would be suggested guidelines here? I am thinking of something that would get students started by analyzing/commenting AfDs, then moving on to nominating some themselves. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 03:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Piotrus The editors in the promotional space are almost always among the most tediously argumentative editors on Wikipedia, and they try the least to learn the rules. They overwhelm AfC, AfD, and processes like you are describing for deleting content in articles.

My first thought is that I do not at all like the idea of sending friendly students into what I consider to be the lowest priority content on Wikipedia where they are likely to encounter people who are literally paid to be jerks to them.

I want more student engagement, and I want changes to how Wikipedia manages promotional content, but sending students to recognize this content in my opinion legitimizes promotional content when actually it deserves almost no volunteer attention. It is also among the most likely projects to put the students in a position to have to argue with people who have anti-wiki intentions.

There are so many ways that I would support your proposals but in this case I do not understand. Say something more about what good you think can come of this because you must be seeing something that I do not. Perhaps your proposal could work in a limited range, like for only the most prominent government agencies or nonprofit organizations. I almost certainly do not want students in the general business, product, and business biography queue. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not exactly sure why yet, but having students (new editors in general) deleting whole articles sounds vaguely terrifying. I will think more about where that gut reaction is coming from once the panic subsides, but I think Blue has sort of hit the issue. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 13:03, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Panic reduced. Several logistical issues I see: 1) the students need to have "blue" accounts (not a big deal) as to not draw too much attention, 2) they need the minimum edits on their account prior to not draw undue attention, 3) if you are talking about whole articles being removed they should go through the AfD process which can be a bit brutal, actually very brutal (and skipping said process is even more brutal and a waste of time), and . . . yeah that scares me. Why not have them tag "citations needed" and such? However, it IS an interesting idea. It is just the AfD crowd are usually very senior editors and very aggressive. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 13:11, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

A colleague Doctorxgc suggested that you could skip AfD by having them use the Talk page to argue for deletion. The other issue is that all those AfD's will go "on the list" and the editors and admins who work AfD will suddenly have a LOT more work all in one fell swoop. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 13:22, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

The core problem is that most courses do not merely teach Wikipedia editing, they teach a subject matter. In my subjects (religion), it is not simple to do AfDs, both due to editor interactions and the complexity of policy & precedent.

Here are three alternatives. (1) Students could evaluate and tag articles in their subject area, as User:HullIntegrity suggested, e.g., tag for neutrality, essay style, notability, or lack of citations. This would help them learn the guidelines and the criteria. More advanced students could rate articles. (2) Students could delete poor content in articles that have old tags. (3) Students could find suitable sources, for article that need them, or improve the writing of weak articles; however, this is probably much harder than most WP assignments. Thanks, ProfGray (talk) 11:55, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

All the suggestions by ProfGray are excellent. I am going to consider all of those activities for future classes, particularly my research class which starts with Wikipedia from Day 1. Additionally most project pages have their list of "things that need to get done" as well as a list of which articles are rated at what level or are marked as problematic, so with a matching theme an instructor would have a "gateway" to start with. HullIntegrity^\ talk / 12:46, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Dashboard data representation -- and WEF evaluation of courses

When I sorted the global dashboard by characters added, Cyberlaw was at the top by a (relatively) incredible amount. However, when I looked at the chars added for specific students, a couple of students stood out with 100,000s. From what I could tell, these were not students at the university (UC-B). They are editors who happened to enroll. That's fine, but the dashboard seemed to include all their edits, unrelated to the course. Is this what happened? (Sorry if I've misunderstood.) If so, can it be adjusted?

Does WEF evaluate the courses each semester? I'd be especially curious to know how the best courses succeeded -- what specific steps were taken by the instructor that motivated or assisted, etc., students? I had a private phone call with one of the top teachers (at UMass) but I'm wondering if WEF does or could do this systematically -- and then improve its template and guidelines?

Thanks. ProfGray (talk) 12:12, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

New course announcement: Physics Edit-a-thon, APS DAMOP 2015 (instructor: Jtsimons89)

I'm pleased to announce a new course I've created with the Assignment Design Wizard, and I am requesting course instructor rights to get started. If you'd like to see more details about my course, check out my course draft linked in the section heading above.

@Helaine (Wiki Ed) and Ryan (Wiki Ed): --Jtsimons89 (talk) 15:40, 21 May 2015 (UTC)